April 1, 2012

Dear Readers,

First of all, many thanks to those people who have written to me, or posted questions on Amazon about if and when there would be new books available. The Summer Snow remains the last book in the series, because I think it is a logical end point. (I've explained this at a little more length in the FAQ section.) But since I got so fond of the characters while writing about them, I've written a series of stories that continue saying "what happened next" more or less up until the present. Since a lot of people seem to be fond of these characters too, I've decided to make these stories available as an anthology, titled What Happened When the War Was Over. I'm experimenting with doing the e-book route, and the stories are only available electronically. You can purchase them in a variety of e-book formats (including PDF, and rich-text, if you just want to read them on a regular computer) at Smashwords.com. (They're also available directly at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers, for those of you who have Kindles, Nooks, or other dedicated e-book devices.)

What Happened When the War Was Over is an experiment both with new technology and with self-publishing. I've been disappointed by the lack of publisher interest in my Flemish historical novel (which is completed, for those of you who have asked), and if this anthology of Tejada stories does well I may make it an e-book as well. On the other hand, I do have a full time job, and can't really devote myself to copy-editing and promoting a novel, and I do still have some feeling that traditional publishers perform a valuable function as "gatekeepers" (even if the gate is closed to me for a while). If they are right that there really is no interest in historical novels about sixteenth century Flanders, I'm not sure that I want to go to the trouble. I will see what the feedback is on this website and on Smashwords.

I've also updated the "links" section of the website, to reflect the sad loss of Murder Ink, as well as a few new research sites, and updated the translations page. (I wasn't able to get pictures of the stunning Turkish editions except for the latest one of The Summer Snow. Special thanks to Elif Uras Akhan, my Turkish translator, for her kind note about the books. Also, if anyone in Poland is reading this, thanks to my Polish publishers for putting absolutely stunning covers on the books. I especially like the second one, which shows what I think is the Roman bridge in Salamanca, and is actually relevant to the action of the story – unlike almost every other edition.) Thanks for your patience with a long neglected website, and for your encouragement.

Salud camaradas.  Happy reading.

Rebecca Pawel