A starred review in Library Journal! That makes three stars out of the four pre-pub reviews, with Kirkus (as ever) the grouchy -- but quotable! -- holdout. I'm thrilled, as is my publisher. My numbers have jumped on Amazon, but this pre-pub situation is a very volatile time for the Amazon algorithm, so you can't read too much into that. Once the book's actually on sale next week it'll be a little more reliable, though it's worth remembering that that list is completely relative and has nothing to do with absolute numbers sold.

A word about on-sale dates: ABSENT FRIENDS is not supposed to be available until Sept. 28th. This is to protect all bookstores, both chains and independents, from someone else's putting it on sale early and cleaning up. It's an accommodation to the distribution system, which involves jobbers, distributors and, in the case of the chains, intermediate warehouses, and delivers books to the stores over a more-or-less month-long period from the time they first leave the printing plant. Stores to which the books come first, or stores with a more efficient shelf-stocking crew, could have an advantage over the others if they were permitted to sell a book whenever they get it in. Bookstores therefore put pressure on publishers to declare "on-sale" dates for certain titles so the playing field is leveled. This date applies to the on-line booksellers, too; they can take orders as early as they want but they can't ship until the on-sale date. The good news for me is, they don't do this for all books, just ones for which they expect demand to be high. So, once again reading the chicken entrails, I think the fact that I have an on-sale date must be a good thing.