Just found out ABSENT FRIENDS is listed and available for preorder on Amazon.com. This means Bantam's rep has gotten the preliminary info to Amazon; I don't know if that means the fall catalog is out yet, but if it isn't it will be soon. There are 59,442 items on the list you get if you type "ABSENT FRIENDS" into the search box; mine's #14. Interesting topics in the "search for related items" list. Publication date is shown as Sept. 28, which is exactly what I'd been told. Rank is shown as 1,222,321. Nowhere to go but up!