Fanny reminds me not to let the good reviews go to my head.  And there will be reviews that are no so good, there always are. People ask me how I feel about reviews, and that’s easy. I love good ones and generally think bad ones are dumb. I like the trend towards reader reviews, though that you see on Amazon and social media websites. They are wildly uneven and often surprising, but I also think they are useful. No book is perfect, at last no book of mine, and I learn things from all reviews, good and bad.  No question, good ones are more fun.

The reviews for “Rose” have been generally wonderful. Some people are struggling with my return to fiction. They would prefer real stories from the farm. I also have something of a mysterious and, for me, quite strange passage near the end of the novel, which I quite love but some people are surprised by. So a bit of controversy isn’t bad either. One reviewer on Amazon said she was shocked to see in the author’s bio that I was married to Maria and she didn’t think it was fair for me to write a novel without explaining how that happened. I’m mulling that one.

My idea that “Rose” is something of a women’s parable is getting through. And also my notion of exploring the way a dog’s mind really works is proving fascinating to some people as well, and I am happy about that. I worked hard on that.  Critically, the book is already a success for me. Now we’ll see who buys it, which in publishing these days, is much more significant than reviews.