Actually? As it turns out, yes:
“I loved this book from start to finish. It’s strange, weird and down to earth, all at the same time; chock full of fascinating characters, dark dreams and fantasy elements that deliver a real sense of wonder. What’s not to love?”
That was in my inbox last night — a forwarded message, via my editor. I mean, I really didn’t think…
Let me back up and tell you a story.
I read my first Charles de Lint book, The Onion Girl, in 2003.
First off, it’s really kind of amazing that I went as long as I did without reading his stuff — as a writer, the man is incredibly prolific, and pretty much everything he’s ever done falls squarely in what anyone would recognize as one of my reading sweet spots. I think it’s fair to say (De will correct me if not) that he is really one of the seminal authors in the genre of urban fantasy or mythic fiction or whatever people are calling it this week, especially when it comes to stuff in the magical realist vein, which is pretty much where I live when I’m writing.
And yet, somehow, I hadn’t encountered his work up to that point. I have no explanation other than the fact that county libraries in South Dakota were pretty thin in the Sci-fi and Fantasy section.
Then, just after I wrapped up the first draft of Hidden Things, one of my First Readers (Stacy Tabb, aka Sekimori, Queen of the Internet) said to me “You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of Charles de Lint, in a good way.”
“Who?” I replied, because Wikipedia wasn’t really a thing, yet.
“OH MY GOD YOU HAVEN’T READ DE LINT? GET THE ONION GIRL NOW!”
So, because I trust my first readers (or they wouldn’t be my first readers), I did exactly that.
And, having read The Onion Girl, I set the book on my shelves and said “I have to be very careful about when I read this guy.”
The reason was simple: in my mind de Lint was a guy who, in a lot of pretty meaningful ways, was doing what I, at that point, was learning to do. Taken in small doses, that can be a great way to orient yourself as you develop as a writer, but overdo it and you can hobble your ability to figure out your own particular voice.
And I’m sorry if that sounded stupid and pretentious and arty. As Miriam Black would say, it is what it is. Writers worry about shit like that, sometimes.
So fast forward to about a month ago, and I’m exchanging emails with my editor and agent about the Hidden Things ARC. We each have a short list of “Absolutely Must” people whom we’d really like to read the story and yes: on the business side of things, it is for all intents and purposes done in the hope that these people you admire will want to say something nice about the book, but personally? I mean, I’ll be honest: for me, all of those names were just as much “MAN I would love for them to read this thing.”
Anyway, I list my names, and my agent lists her names, and my editor lists her names.
And one of them is Charles de Lint.
As in, she actually wrote the words “I’m going to send an ARC to Charles de Lint and see if he’ll write about it.” and no one laughed.
Well, I laughed. Right at the screen. Sure, let’s just send it over to the guy nominated for about twenty World Fantasy awards, I thought, I’m sure the chief book critic for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction has loads of free time available, between his own writing and music and whatnot.
But secretly, in my heart of hearts (read: when talking about it with Kate), I hoped.
“I loved this book from start to finish. It’s strange, weird and down to earth, all at the same time; chock full of fascinating characters, dark dreams and fantasy elements that deliver a real sense of wonder. What’s not to love?”
As far as “first book blurbs” go, it’s… not a bad place to start.
I’m still a tiny bit stunned. And happy.
It’s going to be a pretty interesting summer.