Small Island: What A Novel Idea

Well, I’ve gone and finally gotten my novel published. It’s called Small Island, and it’s and old-timey noirish tale of intrigue, violence and sex set on contemporary Maui.

I actually wrote the novel back in 2008-09, immediately after I resigned from MauiTime but when I was still living on island. I wrote it, edited it, showed it to some people, edited it more, queried some agents, licked my wounds, edited it more, showed it to more agents, became frustrated (my favorite criticism was that the story wasn’t enough like Magnum, PI) and put it away.

Then not long after I returned to Maui and to the MauiTime editor’s office (mid-June, 2011), I received a press release from Event Horizon Press, a small book publisher located in Palm Springs, California, asking for action/adventure manuscripts that could become ebooks. I remembered mine and sent it off.

Joseph Cowles, the publisher, and Barbora Cowles, the owner, both read it and apparently loved it. Within days I was signing agreements and scrambling to find a high-res image of myself and filling out detailed questionnaires. A Kindle version of the novel is now available for sale at Amazon and you can get a Nook version at Barnes and Noble. Both versions sell for $3.99.

A trade paperback version is in the works, and should be available for sale in late October or early November.

The novel was a lot of fun to write, but if you intend to read it, please keep in mind that it is kinda, well, trashy. There is sex and violence and foul language in it. Maui is a beautiful place, but I felt the old noir theme of such beauty being a facade, masking ugliness and evil, to be apt for this place. Also, though the novel is written in the first person, it is NOT in any way autobiographical.

Well, that’s that. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do happen to read it, I would love to know what you thought of it.

Thanks!