I’m sharing this post from my friend George Cramer’s excellent blog. Go check him out here!

The Waiting…

Who knew Tom Petty would have been a prophet when he wrote The Waiting? Because waiting is the hardest part.

If you’ve been in the traditional publishing trenches for more than a minute, you know that the industry moves at a pace that makes a snail look like Usain Bolt. It’s slow—glacially slow. There are points in the lifecycle of a novel where you can’t move forward until something happens that’s out of your control.

And that’s exactly where I find myself with Illusion of Truth, the third book in the Detective Emily Hunter series. The book is done, revised, copyedited, and typeset; each with a series of revisions and edits. Ready for release in January.
So why am I feeling so anxious? And why would the waiting be the hardest part?
Because now the hard part begins. People actually read the novel you’ve dumped blood, sweat, and tears into for months. Blurbs and reviews. Two necessary evils in the traditional publishing game. Trade reviews from the Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, and leading independent reviewers help position a title for booksellers—encouraging them to take a risk on stocking your book on their store shelves.

One of the most stressful things in the business, for me anyway, is asking other authors to blurb your book. That quote or blurb gives readers a connection to the book. If they like an author who gushes about your book, maybe they’ll give it a chance. But they are so hard to ask for. Authors are busy, over-committed people who are going through their own creative hoops. I never take it for granted if an author agrees to read and blurb an upcoming book. And where I can, I try to return that positive energy back out into the universe, by blurbing others.

When you’re waiting to hear from authors you know and admire, your writer brain assembles a story about how nobody will like this one, how you’ve let your readers down, and do you even remember how to tell a story?

Then, just before you’re certain the grammar police are coming to take away your keyboard, the reviews came in and they’re better than you hoped for. Illusion of Truth earned a starred review from Kirkus, one of the toughest reviewers out there.

“Everything you read police stories for is here, and much, much more.” STARRED Review –Kirkus Reviews

Here’s the link to read the whole enchilada: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-letoile/illusion-of-truth/

And then the blurbs arrived from my busy author friends, and I’m incredibly grateful to each and every one of them:

Illusion of Truth is a real deal police-eye view of the mean streets. Bosch and Ballard make room for Emily Hunter. She’s brash, bold, but with a soul and a heart for justice.
—Reed Farrel Coleman, New York Times bestselling author

An absolutely relentless thriller… in ILLUSION OF TRUTH, we find Detective Emily Hunter at her very best: Smart, sharp, and willing to do whatever it takes to solve the case of a renegade bomber. With a frightening, ripped-from-the-headlines story of attacks on her fellow police, and a cast of characters with emotional depth, perseverance, and spouting the best cop talk, L’Etoile has penned another hit in this top-notch series.”—J.T. Ellison, NYT bestselling author of LAST SEEN.

“A high-voltage, high-stakes police procedural, ILLUSION OF TRUTH is crisp and fast-paced, as cinematic as a Michael Mann thriller. On full display here is the unique storytelling sensibility that’s made James L’Etoile’s books beloved among mystery readers: a badass, rock-solid investigation plot with precinct veracity, hostage negotiation expertise, and deep empathy. The world is unfair, yes, and it might feel broken sometimes, but, as Emily Hunter reminds us: ‘We’re all broken in one way or another. It’s how we put the pieces together that counts.’”

–Margot Douaihy, bestselling author of Scorched Grace, Blessed Water, and Divine Ruin 

Was the waiting hard? Oh yeah. Was it worth it? As Tom Petty says, ‘Don’t it feel like something from a dream?’

Preorders mean a world of difference in a publisher deciding whether to continue a series. If you’d care to check out Illusion of Truth, it’s available for preorder at your favorite booksellers, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org. Thanks in advance!