Legend of the Lost Jewels

The latest installment of Hazel Frump's adventures is hitting bookstores now!!!!!!!
I thought bringing out my first book was scary, but the release of The Legend of the Lost Jewels has me petrified. What if it's too dark, too creepy?

Or worse - what if it's boring?

I imagine every writer hopes that their second book will demonstrate some sort of growth, or improvement - tighter pacing, a more fluid style, a stronger command of language. But what if you had to write that second book very, very quickly - and at the same time, you were re-writing that first book for a U.S. publisher, taking out characters, adding and deleting scenes? Could you write a stronger, more compelling sequel? Or would you struggle just to keep all the plots straight?

The first time around, many reviewers compared Hazel to Nancy Drew. On the surface, this is a bit perplexing. Hazel is not a young adult with her own car. She's 12 years old - she doesn't drive, doesn't have a boyfriend, and the last thing she's yearning to be is an amateur detective. Hazel just wants to be safe, with her family, and left alone to shoot hoops - a classic reluctant hero. Hazel is Cary Grant running through a cornfield. In the first book, The Mystery of the Martello Tower, Hazel spends a great deal of time trying to figure out what's going on, as people and paintings disappear and menacing criminals follow her everywhere. Like any reluctant hero, she tries at first to run away from trouble. But trouble, of course, follows her. Eventually, she realizes her only chance lies in trying to out-play or out-wit the bad guys.

I think evoking Nancy Drew is a polite way for reviews to signal that the Hazel Frump Adventures are genre books - not high-end literary fiction. I'm not offended by that - hey, they're not high-end books! But I wish reviewers would just come out and say that. Because - not to take anything away from Nancy or her Hardy counterparts - the books are nothing alike.

In children's fiction, the characters in a series are usually trapped in amber. The appeal lies in the way that the same characters face the same - or remarkably similar challenges - over and over again. But the Mystery of the Martello Tower didn't sell all that well, so by the time I began work on The Legend of the Lost Jewels, I was already concerned that this might be the last adventure for Hazel and Ned and the cousins. So I set out to write more of a sequel, one that would let me peek behind the curtain that fell at the ending of Martello. A sequel that would explore not only the lives of the main characters, but also what happened to some of the bit players after the happily ever after.

I really hope that Legend succeeds. Once again, Hazel must solve two mysteries. A modern-day treasure hunt that goes awry provides much of the danger and adventure. But in a creepy twist, Hazel and Ned also uncover clues that something dark and terrible happened in their family's castle more than a hundred years ago, leaving a legacy that has shaped the lives of many of the characters we met in Martello.

Man I hope it works.

I guess we'll see.