In good company

Way back in January 2013, I wrote a blog post titled "Love from across the pond," about how my Midwestern coming-of-age road novel, Cheeseland, had rather wonderously found a small and loving audience in the UK. At the time, I pondered what it was about my book that resonated with them. I still have no answers but smiled when I came upon a 5-star rating for the book posted Oct. 24 on Goodreads from a reader named Alice, who lives in the UK. I clicked on her Goodreads page and my smile widened when I saw this:

 

Yep, that's my book on her "favorite books" list, next to some of the most popular YA books of all time: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Maze Runner, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Looking for Alaska. That's some pretty good company.

As I noted in that post from January 2013, we live in a fascinating small world, a place where my words – as if placed in a bottle and dropped into the Atlantic – are able to reach out and touch someone who is 4,000 miles away. That's what makes all the blood, the sweat and the tears so worth it.