Ah, 2020. What a year it has been. Pandemics, fires, floods... If you're like me, you started out the year with great aspirations - a new decade, hope and optimism a plenty - and now, you're just asking, is it over yet? I keep thinking nothing else crazy can happen, but with three months to go, I'm not holding my breath. The good news is this - there's never been a better time than to escape with a great book.

Which is exactly what I planned to do when I received my first case of author copies of my latest work, 99 Truths, a Frankie Johnson Local Profiler Thriller, just last week. It's always a thrill to receive these books, to see all your hard work finally bound and printed, and ready for the rest of the world to read, and this time was no different.

Or so I thought. Then I opened up the book, and something seemed wrong, very wrong. The title page was there. The copyright page was there. But then there was ... Chapter 43?

Yep. Chapter 43 was the first chapter, not the last. So I closed the book and looked at the cover again. Maybe I had accidentally opened the back instead of the front? I checked it out. No, the front cover was fine. Maybe I opened it upside down? Checked it out again. No, not that either.

Now, fear is pulsing through me. Readers have already ordered the paperback. I proofed advanced reading copies. They were fine. I signed off on the printing. But something was very wrong.

Damn you 2020. Or is it 0202?

That's what was wrong. I discovered the entire book was printed in reverse. And not left to right reverse, but fully in reverse, with chapter 1 beginning on the back page and requiring reading right to left. The book began at page 233 and ended at page 1. The only way to read it was to start and the back and flip the pages left to right.

[Enter Cursing of 2020 here]

Thankfully, my initial panic that all the books were printed this way was alleviated after I checked all the other copies and discovered they were fine. It was just this one. This one screwed up, backwards copy out of a box of 20. Isn't that fitting? One of 20. Let's hope this year is just like my book. A glitch. An anomaly. 2020, or 0202. And now, I have a permanent record of just how crazy the year has been, even in books.

Have a good weekend, readers. And if you need that escape, here's the link to a good book, 99 Truths, (not that I'm biased or anything. Wink :))
Can you find the lie?

http://amzn.to/3bg22q8