Idols, American and Otherwise

I need to say thanks for some truly terrific endorsements of the books. The first one you might have seen already (he said, not boasting at all) was in Entertainment Weekly. Actress, singer and “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks said she was reading THE PRESIDENT’S VAMPIRE this summer. So I got that going for me, which is all right.

 I also got an amazing review of BLOOD OATH from Lavie Tidhar, the author of Osama and the Bookman series:

“The words ‘bug fuck crazy’, one sometimes feels, get bandied about too often by careless reviewers, yet I feel no hesitation in applying them to Christopher Farnsworth’s remarkably screwy series of thrillers featuring Cade, the titular President’s Vampire.”

The word “genius” is used as well, and as flattering as that is, I have to say that what I love most about the review is how much it resonates with my own ideas for Cade (which are, admittedly, bug-fuck crazy). I’ve said it before, but I wanted to put into a book everything that I loved and wanted to read. Tidhar also noted exactly the same weak points that still make me wince about my writing and my characters, which was, in a weird way, an even bigger compliment. I’m glad he saw past its flaws. Though I’m not sure I can live up to such high praise, I am really grateful.

I’m also especially grateful because Tidhar got several other people to pick up the books — like the legendary Beau Smith, he’s a hell of a salesman — and one of them was Nick Harkaway. I’ve written before about my admiration for Harkaway’s novels The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker, so I was giddy as a schoolgirl to see he was reading my stuff.

 All of this is a long, self-promoting way of saying I have great readers, and a I’m very lucky guy. Thanks.