Harper Lee's Second Novel

You guys, I have an author's page on Amazon.  Amazing.  And my long-held pipe-dream was to write just one novel in my lifetime, a la Harper Lee (yes, folks, I did just put my humble little self in the same sentence with that literary giant--shame on me!).  Yet there are  two books listed on my Amazon page now.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself.

When I add up my sales revenues, there's no pinching going on--believe me.  I am not going to be able to tell my husband that he can retire now because my book income can support us. 

But getting rich has never been the goal, anyway.  Using the gifts God gave me to give Him greater glory is the only important thing here.  If even one reader is inspired to love Him more after reading one of my books--just one reader--then my goal has been accomplished.

When I read To Kill a Mockingbird at the age of about eleven, Harper Lee's history inspired me.  That book was the catalyst that set my dream in motion: one novel, that's what I would write.  Just one.   In 2012, when I was a newly-minted grandmother, that dream was finally realized with Finding Grace; and I thought, "Okay, now I'm done."  I didn't think I had another book in me.  Truly I didn't.  And that was okay by me.  For goodness sake, one book was good enough for Harper Lee--it was certainly good enough for me!  (By the way, thank you, Cheryl Dickow, for thinking otherwise, or I wouldn't have had the joy of bringing Erin's Ring to life.)

But have you heard the exciting news about Harper Lee?  At the age of 88--55 years after her first (and only) book was published--she is publishing her second novel, titled Go Set a Watchman.  It is a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, featuring a grown-up Scout.  In reality, however, this is the novel she wrote first!  But the publisher was very taken with the flashbacks to Scout's childhood in Lee's debut manuscript and convinced her to write another book, from young Scout's perspective.  That book became the wildly successful To Kill a Mockingbird, and it made the reclusive author a millionaire many times over.  (If you want to read more about this incredible story, check out this article, or this one.)

I have lots of copies of Lee's masterpiece in my house.  Two are hardcover special edition copies, with vintage-style artwork on the covers.  (Those are the ones I keep in the living room, for show--they're too precious to thumb through with chocolate-stained fingers; I have several dog-eared paperback copies, complete with coffee stains, on the family room shelves as well.)  And you can bet I'll have some copies of Lee's second published work (which will be available in July of 2015) on my shelf as soon as it's out.  In fact, I've already pre-ordered a hardcover copy from Amazon.

Harper Lee's is a lot more impressive than mine...but you guys, I have an Amazon author's page.  And sometimes I think if it wasn't for Lee and the effect her work had one me, I wouldn't have one at all.