The Exposition Dump Truck

On Monday morning, my writing coach sent a message to alert me that Where the Night Winds Wail had received two one-star reviews.

The book was not quite two weeks old.

This is a tender age for a book. It’s barely learned to hold up its own head, and already strangers are calling it names on the internet.

I was not as upset as I might once have been. This is either wisdom or exhaustion. Hard to tell at this point.

More than 500 copies had made their way out into the world by then, and I know my book is good. I also know it isn’t for everyone. My novels tend to attract readers who like complicated emotional weather. Not everyone wants weather. Some people want umbrellas and flat hair.

Still, watching my rating sink into the three-star range that early was a bit bracing.

Reviewer Jake, who has the same name as the protagonist, did say the characters were interesting and the individual scenes were decent, which I will accept with the grace of a woman receiving flowers from someone who has just told her she looks tired.

But then came the part I loved.

He said the book had been visited by the Exposition Dump Truck.

I may never recover from this phrase. I may have it appliqued into a quilt.

I picture it backing slowly into Jake Jackson’s gravel driveway in small-town Ontario, 1998.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Here come the family secrets….

Reviewer Jake stopped reading at 38%, which is absolutely his right. His wife carried on, apparently, and confirmed that the plot only got worse.

There’s something touching about a couple sharing a hobby.

Some people garage sale together. Some watch British crime dramas. Some post matching one-star reviews of a new indie novel.

Marriage is mysterious.

But I will say this: Where the Night Winds Wail is not a tidy story about tidy people making tidy choices. It’s about shame, secrecy, obsession, family damage, and the way people keep making things worse while sincerely believing they’re preventing disaster. Kinda like my life.

So yes, some readers will not enjoy it.

Fair enough.

But if you like emotionally tangled novels about flawed people, buried truths, and love that doesn’t arrive wearing an apron with a basket of muffins and somehow fix a man’s childhood trauma by chapter twelve, this book may be for you.

It may unsettle you. It may absorb you. It may leave a bit of a bruise.

Which, I’m afraid, was the idea.

If you’re new around here, welcome. I hope you’ll come back next week for more of adventures in Sandyland.

Feel free to peruse the archives here; I promise I don’t usually make publishing a topic of my stories. They’re usually about tangling with odd woodland creatures, my ancient old mother who lives in her lazy-girl chair, and the adventures of living as a sister, a mother, and a friend in this mad mad world of ours.

For everyone who’s asked about paperback versions, both Where the Night Winds Wail and Odd Mom Out in its new cover are now available in paperback!

Just as I was about to hit send on this email, my writing coach, Kevin T. Johns got in touch—this time with good news. He and I recently sat down and recorded a podcast about the launch of Where the Night Winds Wail: the hows and whys of writing it—and it just dropped today. You can watch or listen it to it here.

If this piece resonated…

You will find more of these themes in my books:

→ They’re all here.

Thanks for reading. See you next Sunday! Have a wonderful week.