Excerpts from Publisher's Weekly

If you've been following my blog, you know we've been expecting a writeup in Publisher's Weekly (PW), regarding my upcoming novel, The Deepest Waters. A few weeks ago, they contacted me for a phone interview and said they'd be reviewing the book, as well. For those who don't about PW, it is to publishing what the Wall Street Journal is to finance. It's been running continuously for 138 years and read by almost everyone in the publishing industry.

Well they ran both the interview and review today. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

"I'm a writer who became a pastor; back in 11th grade I got bit by the bug," says Walsh, who dedicated his first book, The Unfinished Gift, to Mrs. Connie Longnecker, his high school English teacher. So after a 25-year pastorate at a church in Florida, Walsh is returning to a love of writing he developed when Mrs. Longnecker took him aside and inspired him.

As a pastor, he wrote 6,000–8,000 words a week for his sermons, so he had plenty of practice before 2010, when he stepped down as a full-time pastor and became a full-time writer. "My blood pressure is doing much better as a writer. Writing has been really a relaxing thing for me, very calming," Walsh says.

The Unfinished Gift (2009) and The Homecoming (2010) were both set during WWII, but The Deepest Waters is set in the 19th century. "The first two are more like Hallmark movies, but The Deepest Waters is more like Masterpiece Theater," Walsh says. [Note from me here...didn't mean they deserve to be on Hallmark and Masterpiece Theater; he'd asked me how this book differed from the first two].

With The Deepest Waters, Walsh establishes himself as the writer he started out to be before taking a 25-year detour into ministry: a writer of character-driven historical fiction, crafted by a man who's been telling stories to a live audience for a quarter of a century.

Here's an excerpt from the PW review of The Deepest Waters:

"Walsh, a pastor turned full-time writer, surprises with a swashbuckling tale of a sunken pre–Civil War era steamship and its cargo of gold--and a newlywed couple who must make a harrowing decision. When a steamship heads directly into a hurricane on the Atlantic coast, John and Laura Foster must choose to stay together or be separated when women and children are evacuated to another ship. What makes the story more than romantic fluff is its basis in a true event, the sinking of the SS Central America and its payload of gold, and a dramatic subplot of Micah, a slave who longs to be free along with his family...With this novel Walsh establishes himself as a Christian historical fiction writer who crafts credible character-driven stories." -- Publishers Weekly

I can't wait for the book's release, now just one month away.