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I’m writing from the shadow of my second novel’s publication.
Ozark Dogs hits shelves on April 4th. I’ll be touring around the country, but will start with stops in Russellville, Fayetteville, Bentonville, and Little Rock. If you’re around and would like to hear me ramble, or maybe just get your book signed, come on out.
It’s been quite the journey to get to this point. Second books are tricky. “The Sophomore Slump” is a valid term and for good reason. In some ways, it gets harder to write once you’ve been published. You suddenly have an audience, real people out there who want to read your work.
Luckily, I already had Ozark Dogs completed by the time my publisher came calling for another manuscript. I finished Ozark Dogs back in 2018, the year after I’d written Don’t Know Tough.
Publishing is funny like that. Everything creeps along at a glacial pace, and then, all at once, it clicks into warp speed.
Things are about to speed up for the Cranor family. This year’s book tour will take me to Oxford, Jackson, Memphis, the Virginia Military Institute, Baltimore, New York City, St. Petersburg, and Miami.
As excited as I am, I’m also anxious.
It’s never easy leaving my wife and kids. I always get a serious case of “Dad Guilt” whenever I’m gone for an extended time. I also worry about how the book will do out there in the real world. How will it be received?
Ozark Dogs is a modern take on a Hatfield-McCoy-style blood feud. It’s a louder story than my first novel, more “thriller” than “mystery,” complete with a fictional Arkansas setting that features a nuke tower, a junkyard, and the windy backroads that cut through the hills around my hometown.
Arkansas readers often enjoy finding the factual town names or geographical locations I employ in my books. I include these names, mainly, because they’re too good not to use. I mean, Gum Log, Arkansas, is hard to beat.
Ozark Dogs also features what we call “Easter Eggs” in the publishing business. An Easter Egg is basically just a nod to another book. In this case, that nod is to “Don’t Know Tough.” If you read my first novel and were left wondering what became of Billy and Trent — you’ll find a couple more clues in Ozark Dogs.
Self-promotion isn’t always the easiest thing for authors. I know it’s not for me. I got into publishing to write books, not sell them. But I am thankful to get to do all of this. Thankful to have a loving family who supports me. Thankful to get to tell stories set in Arkansas, stories that matter. And of course, I’m thankful for you, dear reader, without whom none of this is possible.
Hope to see you down the road.
Don't Know Tough
In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
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• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
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