News

It’s ROCK PAPER TIGER launch day, and I forgot to post. D’OH!

And now that it’s here, I got nuthin’. I’m just incredibly gratified by the response the book is getting.

Some of the stuff that’s going on…

The book has been getting some great reviews, which I’ve been linking to on my Facebook page (it’s a “fan” page, so you don’t have to have a FB account to view it).

My awesome agent, Nathan Bransford, has the official ROCK PAPER TIGER Chase/Action Writing Contest Extravaganza! up on his blog. You have until Thursday at 4 PM PST to enter your best 500 word chase/action writing sample. The prizes, as usual, are fabulous, so get on over there and check it out!

(and watch his blog for a guest appearance by yours truly)

Finally, I have my very first book signing at the wonderful Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles (Westwood). Details available here!

Oh, and for upcoming events, check the calendar over there to your right — updated regularly!

Thanks to everyone who has supported me along the way. It’s been quite a ride!

Check out the Publisher’s Weekly starred review. A sample:

“The China scenes are fast paced and strikingly atmospheric, and Ellie’s backstory—her and Trey’s return from combat is tough, sad, and endearing—is given in doses that perfectly complement the central action.”

There’s also an interview with me in the same issue. You can read that here.

Pardon the double-duty post, but I had to put this in “News” as well as the blog…

I just received the most awesome blurb from author Nicole Mones. This was especially exciting for me because I loved her book, “Lost in Translation,” which when it came out, I thought was one of the very few books by a Western writer that presented contemporary China in a way that I believed (“The Last Chinese Chef” is on the top of my To Read list).

I have to put up the blurb here, because it’s too awesome not to share:

“Finally a Western writer has taken China’s domestically bestselling genre of wild, louche-life youth and re-imagined it as a highly original expat thriller. It’s a wild ride—but don’t turn the pages too fast. Brackmann’s evocation of China, funny, frustrating, frightening, sometimes tender, and always real, is worth savoring.”
– -Nicole Mones, Lost in Translation & The Last Chinese Chef

I can’t tell you how truly gratifying it is to have authors whose work I have enjoyed and whose books are on my bookshelves respond to mine with such generosity and understanding.

Jeff Abbott, T. Jefferson Parker, Eliot Pattison, Qiu Xiaolong, and now Nicole Mones, thank you so very much.

This is not the post with which I wanted to return to blogging, but so far this young year seems to be marked by loss.

Laura Hruska, publisher and editor-in-chief of Soho Press, passed away this weekend. She was a cofounder of the press, profoundly shaping its strong and idiosyncratic vision.

I never got to meet Laura. I was hoping to do so this summer. What I know about her is that she helped create a publishing company with real vision and guts and integrity. That she took chances. She took a chance on me and my book, and I will always be profoundly grateful for that.

Another thing I know about her: not long before her death, she did an interview with the Houston Chronicle about Stuart Neville’s wonderful GHOSTS OF BELFAST, in which she managed to not only promote the subject of the interview but get in plugs for a whole range of upcoming Soho titles, including mine.

Now that’s a publisher.

She will be missed.

Here are some links to articles about her…

Idiosyncratic Mind

Stuart Neville’s blog

Shelf Awareness

Houston Chronicle article

Soho’s Spring 2010 catalog is out! And guess who’s on the front page?

Have a look! (this will take you to a PDF file)

So, yeah, I’ve been checking Amazon occasionally (daily) to see when my book shows up for pre-order without really expecting it to be there. I figured it would appear around the same time as the Soho catalog for Spring/Summer 2010. Tonight, as I was chatting with two friends in two separate chat windows, I idly surfed on over to Amazon for my routine search (because two chats is not nearly enough multi-tasking for my attention-deficit-addled brain) and, whoah…

There it was…

There are all sorts of moments that stand out in this journey to publication, some of which are pure joy and validation (getting an agent, getting the sale, seeing my cover), and others that are joyous mixed with…”Oh. Weird. That’s my book.”

Oh. Weird. That’s my book.

“Rock Paper Tiger” is a splendid debut novel by a gifted new writer. Her Chinese setting is exotic and chilling, and the characters live and breathe. The story is smart and fast as a sports car. Keep an eye on Brackmann. — T. Jefferson Parker (THE RENEGADES, IRON RIVER)

Read more here!