Crime Times

Marilyn Stasio's review of The Poacher's Son in the New York Times is now online. Read it here. Or wait till Sunday and buy the print copy.

I also had the honor today of being included on the May 2010 Indie Next List by Indiebound, the organization of independent bookstores. The Poacher's Son appears as a May '10 Indie Notable with a review by Bill Cusumano of Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor. I had the pleasure of meeting Bill on my presell tour visit to Michigan, and I'm happy as hell he called my novel a "suspenseful, outstanding debut."

Yes, This Is Real

Until I actually received a copy of the printed novel, I think I was always going to wonder whether publishing The Poacher's Son was some sort of multi-year hallucination. I can now safely accept that this is really happening. (That's the audiobook beside the novel, incidentally.) I still expect May 11 to be one of the most surreal days of my life.

My Book/iBooks

For my birthday my wife gave me an iPad, and I've spent the past two weeks trying to decide if I like it. Some things it does phenomenally (Web surfing, email, and watching videos, especially), but the IPad is limited by the current iPhone OS, which prohibits running several apps at a time. Apple has announced that it will be releasing new iPhone software this summer, however (with a version for the iPad in the fall), so I'm hopeful it will soon become the awesome device it can and should be.

Most of the negative reviews I've seen for the iPad have focused around the eyestrain that comes from reading a backlit screen. Personally, I've had no trouble with this; I enjoy being able to read a book on my iPad in a dark room. It's like having an installed book light.

I've used a Kindle and enjoyed it for the most part (the size and light weight are superior to the iPad), and I've been planning to buy both the Kindle version and the Apple iBooks version of The Poacher's Son when the book drops on May 11. The Kindle version has been available for preorder for a while, but I just noticed this evening that The Poacher's Son is now also available in the iBooks store. You can even download the first few chapters as a sample.

I'm curious to compare the experience of reading my novel in print with the experience of reading it digitally. One question I have about eBooks is what will become of the authorial autograph and inscription. I can't very well sign your Kindle—or I doubt you'd want me to in any case. 

A Shining Review

David Marshall James has an insightful review of The Poacher's Son (if I do say so myself) on Shine by Yahoo:

The novel benefits from the built-in thrill of the chase, from the mystery of whether or not Jack Bowditch is an innocent man. The author turns the northern Maine topography-- with the omnipresent threat of logging/paper industries-- into a major character here.

As I was writing the book I did my best to make the Maine woods as vivid as I could (although I'm never sure what critics mean when they describe setting as a character). I've been pleased that readers have responded to the role nature plays in the novel.

BookBrowse: "Loaded with Unexpected Twists"

Megan Shaffer, writing for BookBrowse, the awesome online book review site, has kind words for my novel:

The Poacher's Son is stocked with excitement and trepidation. Peering over the shoulder of Mike Bowditch as he combs through the eerie silence of the North Woods is pure nail-biting fun. Paul Doiron expertly takes hundreds of miles of largely uninhabited terrain and pares them down to a veritable base camp providing readers with easy access to both the thrill of the story and the breathtaking beauty of Maine's northern exposure. Loaded with unexpected twists, The Poacher's Son takes you to the edge and leaves you begging for more.

My life seems loaded with (pleasantly) unexpected twists these days, too.