The Keeper's Son

This book by Homer Hickam is the best one I've read so far this year. I finished it a little earlier tonight, and it was a thoroughly satisfying experience. This is an old-fashioned -- in the best sense of the word -- novel with plenty of action, believable characters, and a vividly depicted background. And it's not even the book I was supposed to blurb! I plan to take a short break and read something else, then move on to the manuscript of the second book in this series. (I hardly ever read books by the same author back to back, just a quirk of mine.)

The writing continues to go pretty well, and I got an e-mail from my agent today saying that she had the contracts for this book and was sending them out to me. That's always good to hear. Sometimes I wind up getting the books written before the paperwork makes it through the contract department at the publisher. And I nearly always write the books faster than I get paid for them! One of the drawbacks of this business, I guess.

Soundtrack for this post: SECOND WIND by Herb Alpert (with a track called "Fandango" that's just beautiful)