Less Than Four Weeks to Publication

In less than four weeks my second novel, When the Future Comes Too Soon, will be published! And I can tell you that publication is as exciting a prospect the second time round, and in some ways even more challenging!

When the Future Comes Too Soon is set during the Japanese occupation of British Malaya and continues where my debut novel, The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds, left off. Like the first book, this sequel is fictional. No character is real. But since the characters reflect ordinary Malayans, they go through experiences that many in the country would have gone through. This was my intent: to show what happened through the eyes of an Asian family.

You may think that things are easier for an author on her second book. Believe it or not, they aren’t! On a debut novel no one knows what to expect, but I now feel the burden of expectations. I want readers to love this second book as much as they loved the first, and am terrified they may not.

Secondly, because I have publicists on both sides of the Atlantic working to promote When the Future Comes Too Soon, I’m busier than ever. The more publicity that JKS Communications and Midas PR generate, the more work I have to do! In case you’re wondering how this works, here’s the two-sentence elevator summary. The job of book publicists is to promote books, and they do this by speaking to journalists and media editors in order to land people like me – the authors whom they represent – media slots: in newspapers and magazines, on radio shows and TV programmes, and on blogs. Each slot they succeed in getting me requires preparation, in some cases many hours of work (for instance, when I’m invited to contribute articles). I’m not complaining: this is a great problem to have! But the juggling that’s required is not that different to what I had to do in the business world. At present, while promoting this second novel I’m continuing to promote the first novel and to write the third novel at the same time. Between all of that and trying to retain some sanity, there are simply not enough hours in a day!

For me, When the Future Comes Too Soon was an emotionally charged work. Like many Malaysians, when I was growing up I heard a lot about the Japanese occupation. Each time my maternal grandmother visited us, I would pester her to tell me more stories. I somehow had a sense of unfinished business, that what happened during the war has lingered and we in Malaysia have still not fully come to terms with the wounds. I felt this even more intensely while writing When the Future Comes Too Soon. It’s a book that means a huge amount to me, and I really hope you’ll like it.

You’ve already seen the book’s front cover; below I share its back cover, too.

The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds is the first book in The Malayan Series, but if you haven’t read it yet, don’t worry! Although When the Future Comes Too Soon is the second book in the same series, it can be read on its own. This was exactly what the two prominent authors who praised the book did. Maria Duenas and Musharraf Ali Farooqi read this second book without reading the first and had no trouble following the story.

In less than four weeks, you can read When the Future Comes Too Soon! Meanwhile, if you’re a Goodreads subscriber, please add the book to your To Read shelf. Your feedback after reading the book – thoughts and feelings, questions raised – would all be very welcome! Needless to say your review, whether on Amazon or Goodreads or even your blog, if you have one, would be very much appreciated.

Please pre-order from the outlets below:

Amazon USA                        Amazon UK              Book Depository
Barnes & Noble                  Waterstones             Kinokuniya