Hi, Everyone -- I'm really pleased that my book will be released next Tuesday, both as an e-book and in hard copy. It's been a long time coming and I'm kinda excited.

I’m sorry to pester everyone again so soon, but the young woman who advises me on social media reminds me that I need to actually tell people I have a book to sell. I mentioned it in my last post, but buried the message at the end of the blog.

So, “Sri Lanka” comes out next Tuesday, April 28th. I’m pretty excited about it. The e-book version will be available as of Tuesday, and online orders – from Powells, Amazon, Barnes&Noble and others – will start being delivered the same day. The hard copy won’t be in bookstores until things open up.

In fact, I received a box of the books just this morning. Not sure how I can get them to people at this point, but at least they exist!

If you’re curious, you can read the first chapter on my website, stephenholgate.com. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the story is inspired by my posting to “Sri Lanka” during its civil war. It deals with a young, ambitious diplomat who plunges way over his head in both romance and intrigue, until his career and even his life are at stake.

Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

A chance meeting at a dinner party in Paris turns the life of

Philip Reid, an aging and cynical American diplomat, upside

down, sending him back more than twenty years to when he

had been a younger and better man. In those days, for a brief

moment, Bandula, scion of the island’s most powerful family,

had been Philip’s closest friend. Now, he finds his one-

time companion bitter and humbled. In a tale marked

by terrorist bombings, political assassination, romance, and

intrigue, we follow the tragedies that lead Bandula to a life

in exile and Philip to the attainment of dreams that lose their

meaning even in the moment of their fulfillment. In their