Monday 1 September 2014

A few words about 'The White Rajah'

I realise that I haven’t said a lot about The White Rajah lately.

I’m in an odd position with this book. It was the first novel I had published, back in 2010. It was put out by a tiny press in the USA and was, by the standards of independently published books, reasonably successful. But the publisher wasn’t in a position to get it widely seen and I was delighted when Accent Press said that they would publish it over here. I made some revisions, which I think improved a few of the scenes in the book, but it is essentially the same novel as the one published four years ago. This has left me feeling that there’s not a lot left to say about it and so it has languished in the book charts without much attention from anyone, including me.

That’s a pity, because (though it has many of the failings of a first novel) it’s quite a good book. Here is the start of a review that appeared on a blog that I would never have read if it were not for the wonders of Google:
It's ages since I've started reading a book and then been 100% annoyed at the world that it won't let me just sit there and finish it all in one go, but The White Rajah by Tom Williams has totally been that book! 

Wow!

There are authors who claim that they never read their reviews. 99% of them are lying. When I feel that it’s hardly worthwhile sitting down and writing another few thousand words to add to the Work In Progress (another Burke novel, as you ask), it’s reviews like that that make me settle down and get on with it. And, at a grimy economic level, it’s reviews like that that make people buy the books (especially if they’re posted on Amazon).

If you’ve read one of my books and enjoyed it, could you please go onto Amazon and say so? It will make me feel it was worthwhile and it will encourage other people to try a book that you have enjoyed. The White Rajah is not the world’s greatest novel, but a lot of people have really enjoyed it. (“Absolutely brilliant. A fast paced, perfectly edited, superbly written novel that kept me enthralled from the first word … - Smashwords.) It deserves an audience and you can help to find it one.

Thanks.

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