Peter Brichter Lives Again

The same local small publisher who brought out a new edition of my first novel, Murder at the War, now wants to bring out the other Peter Brichter novels: The Unforgiving Minutes, Ashes to Ashes, Original Sin, and Show Stopper. I wrote these under my maiden name: Mary Monica Pulver. My web mistress has hauled the electronic manuscripts out and is converting them to a format my computer can read. I am reading them over, making corrections and small changes, before sending them off to FTL Publications. I have already finished The Unforgiving Minutes and am currently working on Ashes to Ashes.

Impressions? First, I am amazed at the length of these novels. The longest, The Unforgiving Minutes, is more than 98 thousand words! (My Betsy Devonshire novels run in the neighborhood of 55 thousand words.)

Second, the plots are complex. Lots of characters and several threads to keep track of. Of course, back then I had a longer deadline to work within. But also, I was just a more complicated plotter.

And not as good a writer.

But not a bad one, either. It’s interesting to see how my writing has changed – and how it hasn’t. I like these stories and it’s been a pleasure to dig into them again. I’ve always liked editing my writing and here I can edit without having first the hard work of writing the manuscript.

Meanwhile, I haven’t heard from my editor about Threadbare. I’m not going to do anything with it until I hear from her. That means I can totally focus on getting the four remaining Peter Brichter novels ready to return to the light of day.