It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

And it was eleven years of rejections, revisions & revisiting.

It was cold readers & two critique groups pointing out too much of this (flashbacks); too little of that (tension). Hawking. Rethinking. Rewriting. And it was reminding myself of what I knew to be true: I had a story to tell.

It was also my agent Denise Marcil who agreed with me, loved the book & in all that time never gave up, and Katie Kotchman, a college intern when this all started, and now an agent in her own right.

Have I mentioned technology not yet invented? (They actually put that in your contracts)Well they invented it. And now THE CHICK PALACE is a December 26th launch title for Barnes & Noble's Nook First

THREE DILEMMAS, TWO FRIENDS, ONE DESERTED TREE HOUSE

The best of times, the worst of times, a pinch of wisdom and a pint of foolishness

during a simmering summer on Lake Allamuchy