And now for other stories. Can you fix clocks?
Can someone turn the clock back? This year has gone way too fast, and I’m having trouble keeping up with everything. Surely the days are less than the normal twenty-four hours? I don’t seem to be able to fit everything I used to be able to fit in.
Or maybe I’m getting slower at working in my old age…
Whatever the reason, time is spinning by with frightening speed.
In saying that, I worked out today that it’s:
Six weeks until The Buried comes out
Six weeks until I leave to go on tour
And there is so much to do between now and then! My priority is finishing The Runner so that it can go into an edit while I’m away.
I can’t wait to introduce you to a new detective. His name is Damien Carmichael (don’t worry, your old favourites are still there). Damien is a city cop, arriving in Kalgoorlie without a whole lot of know-how when it comes to country investigations. This can make for a bit of argy-bargy between him and the local Kal detectives.
When I was researching what the relationship would be like between an import Detective and the locals, I was fascinated to find out that two coppers could work alongside each other for a long time - say, ten years - in one squad, and when they change out to a new one, they stop speaking to each other. So as you can imagine, there’s a bit of tension between all of the detectives.
And I’m very excited to tell you, without any spoilers, that Ted makes a comeback too. The wonderful, brisk and prickly Ted from The Prospect.
The other exciting piece of news is that I’m touring again! There’s something like about 22,000 kilometres to drive through Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. And then, there’s another crossing of the Nullarbor. There’s always so much to see out there; wombats and camels, just to name a few.
The tour starts in Broken Hill and finishes in Salisbury, SA, and this is a mostly rural towns tour. Getting on the road and coming to speak to you all makes my heart happy, and I hope you look forward to it too. There are details of this coming soon.
I asked my publicist, Kimberley, to put together a few words as to why preordering is so important. I’ve known for years that this is the case, and I’ve known the reasoning, mostly, but never been particularly succinct at explaining why.
So this is why…
“Pre-orders are so important to an author these days. Now, a lot of bookstores will base their first order with the publisher on those all-important pre-order numbers. This means that they order more copies of the author’s book and support the authors that you love, straight out of the gate, on day one and that support is everything to an author in a market where there are so many books available. For online retailers, it can also mean that the author gets their book on the stores homepage and any attention is good attention!
If you’re already going to buy Fleur’s new book and it’s a total cracker, why not do it early?”
If you’re able to, please do preorder any author’s novel. It makes such a difference to us.
If you’re interested in purchasing The Buried, you can preorder → here ← or click the image below. I’d be so grateful if you would.
If you can’t, get your name down on the waitlist at the library. I’m told there are already long waiting lists to read it when it comes in!
With love,
Fleur
