Editing Gray Area

I'm about half-way finished with my edits for Gray Area, my urban fantasy thriller.  I think half-way is okay since the book is a little over 127,00 words.  I wrote it almost three years ago and then set it aside.  I liked the story, but right after I finished it I had a bad flare-up with my disease and just never got around to doing anything with the book.

But I picked it up again a few weeks ago and started going through it, both to edit the story and re-familiarize myself with the work.  So far I'm pleased.  The book is definitely dark and the writing is somewhat gritty, although in this edit I'm softening some of the sharp edges.  But when I was putting together the story dark and gritty was what seemed to fit.

In the past I've said Gray Area is about a group of people who rescue kidnapped children, but the story is much more complex than that.  I did an enormous amount of research for the book.  I already had some background with the topic, having worked with law enforcement in juvenile diversion and as a crime prevention supervisor in my home town, but I wanted to dig a little deeper.  So the background took a while to create.  I will admit, it did help that I have friends working crimes against children in our local law enforcement.

I wanted the story to have an authentic feel, but with so much information I decided to have the main characters work on several cases to highlight the different types of crime children can face.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I hope my readers will be too.

I mean you have to love the main character Sander Kolman, because he's exactly who you would want on your side if anything happened to your child.  He's tough, smart, and stubborn.  He never quits.  He'll follow the trail no matter where it takes him, doing whatever he has to in order to save the victim.  Some of his "skill sets" are what make the story fit in the urban fantasy category.

It is definitely a departure from Davina's Magical Radio and Fighter's Bane.  By the way, I've got Fighter's Bane with the latest edits out to some readers, and as soon as they get it back to me I'll start getting it ready for publishing.  I'll start with an ebook first, probably through Amazon, and then work on the formatting for CreateSpace.  I'll post more as the process proceeds.