Lucky Novel #13!

Drum roll, please!

I introduce you to my 13th novel’s completed cover including its final title. TO KILL A CONDOR is finished…except for the contents, that is.

I’ve sent my polished draft to my editor, Laura Kelly, and she’ll give me the kind of guidance on overall plot, characters, organization, and themes, so I can properly revise the story. Hard to know how long that will take me, but the next step is to pass the revised text back to her for a final, close editing.

I used to be able to manage this whole process in a year, but now I’m in a two-year pattern. Part of the reason is my research forced me to dig deep and ask a lot of questions of experts. In this novel, the plight of California Condors was one topic.

These magnificent raptors happen to choose Pinnacles National Park (near my home in California) as one of their favorite roosts. Instead of preying on live animals, they chow down on dead varmints, serving as garbage collectors vital to our ecosystem. The trouble is too many hunters are still using lead ammunition for hunting. They shoot fowl and larger animals and the remnants of their corpses, eaten by condors, poisons them.

Research on condors led me down many rabbit holes, some political; some legal; others to the science of bird eating habits and why condors are particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning. 

As always, we writers like to get as many elements of truth in our novels, even if the story is made up. The more we learn about our topics, the more confidently we can tell our stories. When we dig into research we also find experts we can talk to and lingo we can use with the subject matter. The ‘conversion’ takes time; bear with me.

When will you be able to buy TO KILL A CONDOR? I’m shooting for August or September of 2025. Stand by, readers!