T.R. Pearson's Blog

I don't know why I do most everything in threes, but here's my third and final western, which could also well be the last novel I'll publish.

I've been at this many years now and have done an awful lot of typing, and I can't say I've ever felt more finished with writing than I do at the moment. I could get recharged in a few months and change my mind, but that seems like a bad bet.

So thanks to you all for having stuck with me on this bumpy ride. I had a good time and hope you did as well.

Bone Eye will be released on September 12th in the usual formats at the usual low, low prices.

Cheers.

Here's a curious turn. Polar, a Ray Tatum novel, will be one of the books featured on the May 18th installment of BBC Two's Between the Covers. It's a show devoted entirely to books with four celebrity guests each week. Together the guests chew over one recently published title, and then each of them gets time to talk about a book or author they're especially fond of.

I'm lucky enough to be one of Peter Davison's favorites. He's a fine and familiar actor for sure -- Doctor Who, All Creatures Great and Small, and I just happened to see him recently in an episode of Grantchester. While I don't have the pleasure of knowing the man, I'm grateful for his good opinion and will be interested to hear what he made of Ray Tatum across the pond and how in the world he'll size me up for his fellow guests.


I'm told this show is available on roku and so probably on one or two other streaming services as well. I'm pleased to know Ray's traveling even if I'm still stuck at home.

Joy to the Just is now available in both ebook and paperback. The plot in brief: a soft man goes in for hard vengeance in 1870s Oklahoma.

Ebook:

https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Just-TR-Pe...

Paperback:

https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Just-TR-Pe...


Happy reading!

I never expected to write a western, let alone two, but I found that Devil Up didn't entirely exorcise the urge. So here's one more. It features an undertaker, a Pacific Islander, assorted outlaws, and a cow.

The novel is available for preorder and will be published in January.

https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Just-TR-Pe...

Devil Up is now available as both an ebook and a paperback (hardback as well, thanks to an Amazon beta), and I am here to tell you it's the best novel I have written in some time. So if you want to know what I believe is me hitting my mark, this is it.


Available from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TB491MG/...

For me, writing novels is an erratic undertaking. I'll think I know what I want to do but will be unable to do it, or maybe only glancingly able, which leaves me with something wide of what I'd hoped for. Occasionally, though, every once in a great while, I'll open the spigot, and the thing I imagined comes out. The right voice and tone, the right characters, the right story. Everything in good order.

It's a rare occurrence. I've had the experience maybe three times in total. I can usually rewrite well enough to sort of spackle over problems, but I'd rather not need to. I'd rather have succeeded the first time through. I'd rather just tidy up.

That's exactly what I'm doing with this new novel. I was leery to try a western. I can't really say why. I've certainly been thinking about this one for a while, which is maybe why I was so ready to write it when the time came.

Whatever the reason, it works in ways I'd hoped it would, and I'm proud of it. I'm eager to get it out in the world, but a bit more tidying first. Mid-February probably. Here's the copy:

In the spring of 1879, a sixteen-year-old boy from the Virginia uplands finds himself alone on the Great Plains with a Colt Navy revolver and the family mule. What was meant to be a frontier adventure with two of his friends has turned into a solitary ordeal as he makes his way across a sparsely settled and largely lawless piece of the world. He’s bound for California and narrates his journey in harrowing and hilarious detail, making Devil Up the story of a farm boy from back east who becomes -- through pluck and heart and more than a little gunplay -- a man.

I've been working on this one in fits and starts for a while now, but I've finally managed to wrestle it to the ground. I'm finishing up the editing but don't expect to have the manuscript in publishable shape for a few weeks yet.

I'm very happy with this novel because it's funny, a little ambitious, and cantankerous too, which sounds like somebody I know. I hope to be rolling the book out by mid November.

CS tells the story of several sets of partners -- business associates, spouses, hooligans and henchmen -- colliding to make for a lively, pear-shaped mess (in case you were wondering about the title).

Here's the preorder link for the ebook. There will be a paperback as well: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LBL7JMH/...

and the listing copy:

The mysterious contents of a discarded lunchbox lead to a collision of ten unlikely souls in this story of frayed partnerships, derailed ambitions, and casual bad faith. A bittersweet and all too human comedy from the author of A Short History of a Small Place, Cry Me A River, and Sleepaway.

The electronic version of Low Lords will be free to download from Amazon this coming Thursday and Friday (that's April 2nd and 3rd).

I like this novel a lot, even though it's hardly the sort of thing I'd ordinarily write and probably not the sort of thing you'd ordinarily read. So here's your chance to give it a shot for free. I'm guessing you may have some time to fill. I seem to. https://www.amazon.com/Low-Lords-T-R-...

. . . fail to practice social distancing. A lot.

Off For the Sweet Hereafter will be free for your isolated taking all day Thursday and Friday, the 26th and 27th.

Written in the 80's -- you should be warned -- so it's windy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BV797OG

That seems to fit the bill, so you can have a copy of Eaglesworth on me -- local history as told by a gaggle of half-lit barflies.

I like this novel a lot. I'd give it a 10 out of 10 if I were an immodest tool. The ebook will be free all day tomorrow -- Monday March 23rd.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...