Trusting My Readers

I’ve been working on Cat Island, the next of the old seas stories I plan to release in ebook formats. While I’ve generally been pleasantly surprised to read my earlier works, this is the first of the re-issues that have made me want to go through the book with a machete. So that’s what I’m doing.
I found the first forty or fifty pages to be solid exposition, in which I catch the reader up on my main character’s history, his past naval commands, his battles, and his love life. I also talk about...