Review of The Dohlen Inheritance

A splendid review of The Dohlen Inheritance was published in a German newspaper, the Cuxhavener Nachrichten, based in the town of Cuxhaven, a port on the Elbe Estuary in North Germany.

You can read it on this link: www.scribd.com/doc/26305491

This is a whole page of the paper, the review itself is headed Geschichten aus "Schwanenbruch".
I will try to sum up the piece for those of you who do not read German. I have cut it down quite substantially. It is important to stress that the book is based on a real family, but it is definitely not a biography, it is fiction.
Ernst Julius Gehben emigrated from North Germany to the United States as a boy of 16, in 1860, with just the clothes on his back. He landed in Manhattan, near Wall Street, and made his fortune there. He returned to Germany and built a splendid villa in his native village of Altenbruch, near Cuxhaven. The house is now Cuxhaven's Council House, and a show-piece of Art Nouveau architecture, visited by around 1500 visitors a year. I have added a picture of the house.
The family in the novel is called Dohlen, the three children are Gabriele, Emil and Dorinda. The novel starts in 1913 with the death of the mother, followed three years later by that of the father. The trilogy depicts the lives of the three children.
The orphans, American citizens, found themselves at the mercy of German relatives not renowned for their kindness, and an American guardian they were unable to contact because the Great War was in full swing. Viewed as enemies of Germany, their lives were difficult. When they finally managed to get to the United States they did not find their life there particularly inspiring. The story moves from the United States back to their native village, then to Berlin and Vienna as well as back to the United States. This first book of the trilogy finishes in 1932, when the youngest child, Dorinda, comes of age.
A number of hardly-known local legends are interspersed with the main narrative, translated from Hake Betken siene Duven, by Eberhard Michael Iba. It is extraordinary how these tales reflect the actions and thoughts of the protagonists.
The 'inheritance' in the title refers to three inheritances, each one emphasized in one book of the trilogy. There is the father's enormous wealth, the mother's physical legacy and last, but certainly not least, the spirit which drove the father to seek his fortune and to make it.
The review goes on to explain that the novel is easy to read, that each chapter orients the reader to place and date, and that though there are 531 pages it is easy to read. The reviewer goes on to say that it is engrossing, thrilling and often funny.
A German reading group based in Cuxhaven is reading the book.
The second book in the trilogy, Hobgoblin Gold, is scheduled for Spring 2010 publication.

The Dohlen Inheritance, hardback ISBN 9780906374030 and softback ISBN9780906374061, is available from Waterstone's and Amazon.

This is a wonderful review. It is extraordinary that a group of German speakers are able to tackle a book of this length in English. Very impressive, in my view.

If anyone is inspired to read the book I'd be really glad to have feedback. And, if you feel like it, a review on Amazon, or anywhere else you might like to send it, would be much appreciated.

ebooks

It was good to see so many friends at the launch of The Dohlen Inheritance; I did appreciate people coming to it, and hope everyone who was there enjoyed the party atmosphere. West Quay Waterstone's were terrific and very supportive.
Independent publishing is all very well, but it's difficult for a writer to get his or her work into bookshops. Of course there's Amazon, but that still leaves the writer trying to steer prospective readers to the book. So is there a more accessible market place? Could ebooks be the answer?
Well, I'm a great fan of ebooks; I buy a fair amount of non-fiction as ebooks and read these right on screen. This is, perhaps, not the same thing as reading a novel that way - it's hard to curl up with a laptop!
What I particularly like about ebooks is that they are instantly downloadable and, since there are no printing costs, they're not only greener, they're potentially cheaper than the printed counterparts.
I'm sure everyone has heard of ebook readers by now; there are a number of models out there brought out by well-known names. You've probably seen the Sony Reader, stocked by John Lewis and Waterstone's, and Amazon's Kindle. I googled ebook readers and see there are others: the Hanlin V3 and the Bookeen Cybook, and several more in the pipe line. The problem with all of them is that they only read specified files; there is one - the Irex Iliad - which says it can read any file. However, it costs at least twice as much as its competitors. And then there are the Palm and Pocket PC platforms.
What I think this shows is that ebook readers have a future. I know many people say they aren't comfortable using one of these devices; they like the feel of a book.
I'm old enough to remember people saying the same about paperbacks when they first came out!
And old enough to remember people frowning at typed letters rather than handwritten ones. And who'd have thought that the typewriter would be replaced by the computer in virtually every office and even in the home?
Once these readers come down in price and combine several functions I think the young will read that way; they already use their phones to read texts and are very skilled at that.
The enormous advantage of ebooks is that a large number of titles can be put on an ebook reader; how wonderful to have so many books available in a portable form. Not only that; you can save your place automatically, you can do a search for characters or scenes you want to reread, you can make notes... Another advantage is that once you've read the book you can keep it on a portable drive, should you want to read it again. No hunting around on bookshelves, no storing in rooms already bursting with books.
It all sounds very exciting.
Of course there are disadvantages: battery charging, reading time, holding a device rather than a book. It's a question of getting used to it all.
But I'm sure it's the future; I don't think we're quite there yet, a number of issues still have to be resolved, but when I can get the time to do it I will publish my books as ebooks as well as POD.

First blog

Having heard all about blogging for - it seems - years I've never actually done it. Then along came Penny Legg and Writing Buddies. We had two really good meetings at Borders and Penny encouraged everyone there to start a blog of their own if they hadn't already done so.
I think a get-together for writers to share marketing and other news is an excellent idea, and the venue, at Borders, is perfect. It will be good to hear all about local writer-related events. For example people who were at the two meetings were told that Julia Painter had won a short story competition, and that the first book in my family saga trilogy, The Dohlen Inheritance, will be launched at Waterstone's West Quay on June 18th, 6 - 8 pm.
I started writing this trilogy about twelve years ago. It was taken up with enthusiasm by the late Giles Gordon, a top agent at Curtis Brown. However, only HarperCollins showed an interest, and they never actually got round to making an offer.
Since then an independent publisher, Paperbooks, also offered to publish, then mysteriously withdrew their offer. They have now merged with Legend Press.
I have decided to bring The Dohlen Inheritance out with The Thorn Press, an independent publishing imprint my late husband set up in 1980 to publish my Heritage of Knitting series. These short books, which Batsford, though already publishing me, had turned down because they thought they were too specialized, became instant best-sellers. They outsold the Batsford books by many thousands. Now out of print they go for large sums of money on eBay and in specialist book stores, whereas the Batsford books sell for a derisory 99p.
I am, of course, hoping the same will happen with The Dohlen Inheritance! Just kidding; selling novels is very different from selling non-fiction books. However, the book will be available, which is a step in the right direction.
It is now relatively simple to self-publish; various newspapers, including The Guardian and The New York Times, have pointed out that this may become a preferred way to publish for so-called mid-list authors, that is writers whose books do not sell in very large numbers.
An interesting item I read in a newspaper the other day maintained that more books were self-published in the US last year than published by mainstream publishers. If true this seems to me a fascinating development.