Dave Cullen > Recent Status Updates

2 huge milestones for my 3rd book, "Don't Fall in Love":

1. It's typeset now, so it looks like a real book. It is a real book now.
2. I marked up the page proofs and returned--final pass except typos on the next one. SO it's really done. Ye!!

Spring 2027 release. Meeting with my editor this coming week to hopefully nail down the date.

Pix here:
https://www.davecullen.com/single-pos...

I'm just on Chap 2, but struggling with "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis." Doesn't seem to be going anywhere discernable. Interest flagging.

Thoughts from anyone who's read it? (WIthout spoilers!)

Raced through 100 pages of Thunderstruck yesterday, skipping the Crippen story. Discovered I'd skipped past the murder. haha. Kind of think I should go back and read it, but only half-interested.

Waiting to see how the stories converge. If it's just that a wireless pays some role in apprehending him . . . I'll be REALLY irked.

About p. 150, I decided to start skipping the rambling domestic chapters on Crippen. I'm so much happier!

I found his note to readers exceptionally odd, especially the plea to "forgive my passion for digression." Jeez, not this much! Seems he knew as he was writing it that he was breaking a cardinal rule of storytelling, but decided to anyway.

The Note also revealed the other huge/related problem...

A question for anyone who's read Thunderstruck:

At p. 150, I'm ready to abandon the Crippen story, which I find tedious and couldn't care less about. Should I?

I'm very interested in the Marconi story, despite him saddling it with so much extraneous details and asides every step of the way. (Detail relevant to the story are appreciated. Not all the name-dropping and trivia bursts.)

Only on p. 40 of THUNDERSTRUCK, but not feeling either story, AT ALL. We'll see.

I was entranced by both stories of DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY by the first quick chapter on each.

I'm racing through "John of John"--for my pace--and can't get enough. Definitely making me feel like an inferior writer.

Only on p. 28 of "John of John" by Douglas Stuart, but it's astonishingly good.

Love the Scottish list of the audio narrator, but so many words sending me to the hardcover. haha. Even better in print.