I’ve cleared the decks and it’s full steam ahead on edits for my second novel, a Hana Walker mystery, which has been dry docked in first draft form for over a year. OK, enough of the nautical imagery. I had meant to churn out the Hana Walker novels at a rate of knots (sorry, couldn’t help myself) as every self-publisher knows that production is the secret to success. Half Life came out in 2012 and since then the Hana fans (yes, there are a few) haven’t heard a peep from her. This is entirely my fault.
In my defence, I’ve had more pressing deadlines. In the past three years I’ve published eight of nine planned textbooks for Japanese children studying English, The Short Goodbye essay collection in memory of my niece who died of cystic fibrosis in 2013, and, two weeks ago, Children of the Tsunami to document survivors of the 2011 Japanese disaster. An excerpt of Children of the Tsunami is here, and you can read a review of it here, by the way.
I didn’t mean to allow three years to pass between novels, but I have grown as a writer in the additional time and that can only benefit Hana and her readers. When the novel will be ready, I can’t say, but it will be the next book I publish.
Subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll be the first to learn when Hana Walker is back on the streets, and I’ll send you my latest short story, I am not a foreigner, to keep you going until then.
Patrick Sherriff 