Wicket reviewed

"Astonishingly good," it says here.

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has downloaded The Wicket in the Rec. It's so far been downloaded over eighty times, which is many more than I had expected. Who are all you people...? Do let me know!

Admittedly, I have been pushing it a bit, putting the link on several internet discussion forums where I post from time to time. One of these was the Gallifrey Base Doctor Who forum, where it was spotted by a chap called Lawrence Burton. I don't know Lawrence at all and had never had any communication with him before he downloaded Wicket to read, but he's a writer himself and has been kind enough not only to read the book, but to post a review of it on his blog. He also did the rather fetching cover mock-up at the top of this blog entry, as he always puts the covers of books he's reviewed on his blog, and of course Wicket didn't have one, so he had to make it!

I was rather taken aback by Lawrence's review, I have to say. Firstly because it's fairly staggering to have any kind of publicly-published review written about one of my novels, but secondly because it's almost embarrassing in its praise. After reading it, I couldn't help but think - "is he sure he means me...?"

I'd almost given up on Wicket, but Lawrence's comments have been enough to steel me to have another go at submitting it to agents and publishers in the New Year. Why not? If someone who doesn't know me from Adam and has absolutely no reason to give me any false praise thinks I can actually write, then perhaps it's not such a lost cause after all?