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This morning I received a call from Antipodes bookshop in Sorrento, who asked if I would be interested in speaking to several book groups in the Mornington area, just outside Melbourne. I was delighted to be asked and she said that the groups had not had a visiting author for many years and she said it would be wonderful if I could. This is a whole new world for me; being a writer and suddenly speaking about my work, signing books and attending book groups. It’s an exciting time.
I also phoned Gerard at the Sorrento News agency to thank him for displaying my book at the front counter of his store. The in-house promotion will help the sales significantly and it is great to see how local stores are willing to get behind their local authors.
I will visit the local book shops in the Southern areas of Melbourne over the coming weeks to sign copies of the book and to work with them with other book clubs who may be interested in my story about my role as an “undercover agent for the DEA “ in Mexico, working as the banker for the drug cartels. It is quite a remarkable story and sometimes it’s hard to believe that it happened to me, but I am glad that people I am speaking to are really interested in hearing the story.
This evening I will fly to Sydney to commence my radio and magazine interviews starting with Adam Spencer at the ABC Sydney Breakfast show. Also I will visit a number of bookshops, such as Kinokuniya and Dymocks to sign books. More about that later in the week…
I finally feel happy to talk about the journey that I have written about in my new book Undercover: A Novel of a Life. Writing the book has certainly helped me come to terms with what happened in the last number of years. At last I can talk about my experiences without being overwhelmed with emotion, I am finally relaxed. Over the last four years I have felt pain, I haven’t slept well, and I have been trying to hide the secret of my life from my family and friends. I just couldn’t talk about it.
Today, for the first time I feel relief, like a dark cloud has been lifted from me. It is such a relief to let go of some of the stress and not be in a state where I constantly feel like I have to be looking over my shoulder. I feel better now that I have had the opportunity to discuss my life as it is written in the book.
My family and close friends have just learned about my life as an “undercover agent” for the DEA in Mexico, they are having a difficult time coping with this knowledge. I am hopeful that they too will feel relief, in time, by reading and hearing my story.
Last Tuesday I had my second interview on the radio with Triple M Melbourne with Eddie McGuire and his team and I felt a little uncomfortable talking about my book, but today I was relaxed during my interview. I really appreciated the chat with Adam Spencer from ABC Sydney (airing this Wednesday on ABC 702 Breakfast Show), his manner and his approach to the book made me realise that there are people out there who want to hear my story and travel the journey with me.
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