Nephew Appreciation

Something cool happened the other day when my brother-in-law and his family received a copy of Perilous. My young nephews were so excited because their very own aunt had written the book. Immediately they sat down with notebook papers and started writing their own books, each one deciding they want to be novelists.

If that's not cool enough, my 10-year-old nephew (the oldest in the group) went on to read the book in a day. And he loved it.

I continue to be amazed at the range of readers who find Perilous appealing. Women my mom's age, guys I knew in Brazil, and kids that I thought would be too young for the subject matter (boys, even!). Fascinating.

I've also come to the conclusion that the average reader will love my book, but the critic will not. It's been criticized as 'unbelievable' and too 'coincidental.' Yes, it is. It's a YA fiction book that employs elements of--well, fiction. If you liked Life is Beautiful and could overlook the unbelievable aspects of that historical fiction, you'll be able to overlook them in my book.

Fantastic movie, by the way.  It's not that these things COULDN'T happen. It's just that they probably WOULDN'T. But we all want to believe they could.