An update on Best,

and yes, the comma is part of the title. The book is named after the e-mail closing commonly used by academics and others, sometimes passive-aggressively. The book is a romantic comedy about two professors, both mid career with some miles on them, both unlucky in love. As the book starts, they are both assigned to Budget committee at Astor, the small liberal arts college where they work. The catch? They've worked at Astor for a decade, and each has come to dislike the other. Flora thinks of Mark as a try-hard performative feminist goober, while Mark sees Flora as the frontwoman for a snotty, frosty Mean Girls clique on campus.

A mystery falls into their laps, though, pushed on them by a mysterious informant. As they investigate possible wrongdoing, they end up working together, and despite some tension, some distracting bad dates with other people, and unknown forces threatening their careers, they pick apart the web of mystery surrounding Astor, and in the process, start to see the good in each other. Or, at least, they each start not finding the other quite so annoying as before. Most of the time.

Deeply tongue-in-cheek, and fed by a combined five decades of experience working in higher ed, the book is full of the quirky, rewarding, and deplorable aspects of academic life.

My author partner Sarah Estow and I met today at our local cheesecake and coffee shop for what will probably be our final session on the book. We've implemented a ton of feedback on our revised draft from seven early readers, all of whom enjoyed it. We're putting the last bit of polish on the book, and we hope to get it out to our copy editor next week for a final run-through. After that, we'll need to finally figure out our next step in moving toward release. If we pursue traditional publishing, we'll have an unknown wait on our hands as it wanders through the system. If we go the indie publishing route, it could be out as early as mid to late February. So stay tuned! We're really looking forward to sharing it with you.

A story to try

I'm part of several author collectives, and we share each other's work to try to help all of us reach more readers. In many cases, the books we share are are free or discounted. Sometimes, they ask that you sign up for a newsletter like this one. Here's a new book I have to share this month:

Check out The Volcan Knights: Origins by Laurie Bowler. This is a dark fantasy novel about a group of immortal knights recruited across many centuries, facing an unspeakable and seemingly insurmountable evil. This is a monster of a novel, 758 pages, available for only $1.59. Have a look and see if it clicks!

Thank you!

Thanks so much for signing up for my newsletter. I'm really excited to share something new with you this year with Best,. (that comma is pesky, but I'm getting used to it. 😊)

May the Bloodmother watch over you - 

Dave