“You Got to Please Yourself…dat, da, da, da…”

I just now looked over at the original cover of If Wishes Were Horses, and lyrics to Garden Party by Ricky Nelson popped into my head. It is true, you can’t please everyone, but you do, first and foremost in any art, have to please yourself.

If Wishes Were Horses was published in 1998 by Avon Books in mass market paperback. The low-quality paper is now yellowed. The book was more or less tossed thoughtlessly into the huge sea of pulp mid-list fiction. It was the final book I did for Avon, and...