My new, and soon to be in production, historical naval romance is slowly getting toward the publisher's edit stage. A Baltic Affair is set between 1809 and 1816 in the Baltic and North Sea as Britain struggles to beat the Napoleonic 'Continental System.' Captain Petroc Gray, a Cornishman, finds himself in command of a small ship rigged sloop and embroiled in diplomacy, espionage and love for a young lady whose father is involved in trade as well as representing the King of Saxony. The Freiherr von Dieffenbach is well connected, shrewd and loyal to his country and king. His daughter is unusual, shares her father's sense of humour and has a love of adventure. She and Captain Gray find, however, that politics, events and a small matter of a war, bedevil their courtship ...
As any author will tell you, these final months of pre-production are a nail biting time, waiting to see what the editor and publisher want changed, modified or just plain rewritten. As far as the latter is concerned, that can be quite a tricky task. Every word you wrote is precious to you. It's no fun having to take out a huge chunk of text and rewrite it. It also invariably means a few more changes are needed elsewhere to keep everything consistent.
Thankfully, so far, my editor seems to be content with, pardon the pun, my content as is. So we move slowly forward toward that all important moment for an author when the book finally appears in print and hopefully on bookshelves.
This was, perhaps, not the best time in the world to embark on upgrading my computer Operating System either, but I did need to do so. Now I'm discovering that it works quite well for me, I've a whole range of layout templates I can use to get a feel for how some of my technical books can and should be laid out. That gives me a bit more control of some aspects of that little exercise, but learning the black arts of doing it well and attractively is - like everything else worthwhile - time consuming.
In the meantime I have had a fabulous response from the designer of the cover for A Baltic Affair. The designer, Kura Carpenter, has captured the spirit of the book beautifully in her artwork. I have no hesitation in commending her to other authors and to publishers.
The taster above will be fully revealed in due course - hopefully soon with an update and perhaps a release date for the finished product.