The old line about the joys of boating holds that an owner’s two happiest days are when he buys a boat and when he sells it. An author feels the same way about a book, although you have to up the number of happy days to three: the day the author sits down to write a book and realizes that it’s probably going to work, the day the finished work is actually out there for sale, and in between, the day that the actual writing and editing part is finally, actually (really!) done. Thank goodness, that day finally arrived for me on Saturday.

Or at least it did for emotional purposes. True, the draft is now in the hands of a line editor, so in a few weeks I’ll still have to decide what changes to keep and what to accept. But in contrast to the several months I’ve now spent slaving through four start to finish editing passes, that will be almost recreational.

What’s it all about? The backdrop is a U.S. presidential election, the hero is Frank Adversego (also the protaganist in my first book), and the bad guys are out to hack the election. As before, the underlying technical details are both accurate as well as easily understood by someone who knows nothing about computers.

Also as before, the framework is a fast-moving thriller, the characters are intended to seem convincingly real, and there’s a good dose of satirical humor mixed in along keep things fun. And if you read my first book, you’ll find some enjoyable recursive elements in the second (the book begins with Frank writing – make that trying to write – a book about his adventures in book one).

As you may or may not be aware if you don’t live in the U.S., the primary season for the 2016 presidential election kicked off last week, so my goal is to get the finished book up on Amazon in June in order for it to be as topical as possible, and a good beach read besides.

So there you have it. If you enjoyed The Alexandria Project, then I’m sure you’ll find The Lafayette Deception as well. And if you never got around to reading my first book, well, ahem, what’s holding you back? The 57 four and five star reviews you can read at Amazon can’t all be wrong.