Katherine Bolger Hyde is one of my heroes. When I just started to get serious about my writing, she was a helper and a mentor. Twice we attended a writing retreat at the Oregon Coast together, and both times her criticism of my work was invaluable.
Katherine was lucky enough to win what many writers consider the publishing jackpot. Not only did she have one of the best agents in the business, but she got a contract with Minotaur, an imprint of one of the Big Five publishers. She wrote two books in a whimsical and wonderful cozy mystery series, Crime with the Classics, and it looked like there would be nothing but sunny skies ahead.
But the traditional publishing world is in upheaval right now. What happened to Katherine happens to many these days: her editor was fired, and her series, despite good sales, was simply not renewed. Luckily she found a new publisher for the rest of the series. But when it came time to publish a YA novel inspired by the word of C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle, she decided to go indie.
And I’m so thrilled that she agreed to publish with our own Waystone Press! You can now purchase her new book, The Dome-Singer of Falenda, on all retailers and soon in bookstores.
After many false starts, Katherine and I finally managed to sit down and chat together. Even so, technical glitches prevented her webcam from coming online. So you hear her dulcet tones, but all you see is my smug mug. For which I apologize!
We talked about the value of writers groups and conferences, about the “gentrification” of literature in our time, and why some readers were so put off when she dared to subvert some expectations of the cozy mystery genre.
Watch the video below:
You can listen to an audio-only version below:
And now, I’m proud to present The Dome-Singer of Falenda:
People say Danny’s voice is heaven on Earth. But now he’s in a strange land, and his voice will have to save a world.
Danny thinks he has it hard enough on Earth: his mother disappeared when he was six, a gang of bullies torments him, and his alcoholic father is threatening to take him out of his beloved choir school. Then he finds himself in Falenda, where the people communicate telepathically and life is one continual, glorious song. But the harmonious life of the Falendans is threatened by an evil being who is enslaving the Citizens within a great crystal Dome.
Danny has never seen himself as a hero. But now, along with Meli, a Falendan girl his own age, he must save Falenda from destruction—and rescue his mother in the process—by climbing the dread Tower of Grozlukh and singing down the Dome.
A Wrinkle in Time meets C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy in a young adult fantasy for all ages. Click here to buy The Dome-Singer of Falenda to enter a world of adventure and inspiration today!
Want to sample my own fiction? I have a lighthearted tale for you to start with. Enter your email below and I’ll send you a comic fantasy short featuring an epic standoff between a possibly predatory mermaid, a bunch of crazy Cossacks, and a sheltered seminarian.