Barry Eisler Launches #12 - With All of Them Taking Place at Kepler's

Barry Eisler has just come out with his 12th novel (to go along with 4 novellas).  And he has launched every one of them at Kepler's.  Pretty cool, don't ya think?  So, this past Tuesday night, the 25th, I went to Kepler's to hear Barry (sans notes) talk about book 1 of a new series. It's called Livia Lone.  It's about a Seattle Police Department detective who is NOT your typical detective.  I'm about 80 pages in.  And I can tell you that this is a very unique story.  I'm already looking forward to book 2 (late 2017)!

Here's what I learned:

1.  Barry's books are character-driven, not plot-driven.  In fact, Barry was actually crying a lot while writing the book.
2.  It took Barry 8-9 months to write Livia Lone.  He was so caught up with the storyline that he put his next John Rain book on hold!  Can you even imagine that?  Fortunately, the 9th John Rain will be coming out in May.
3.  Livia Lone is about human trafficking, AKA slavery.  Barry said that there are still 10s of millions of people that are victims of human trafficking.  We can all hope that books like Barry's will bring more of an awareness to this heinous practice.
4.  Barry's wife, Laura Rennert, is not only a literary agent.  She is Barry's literary agent.
5.  Barry told a funny story about one of his novellas.  A very early review criticized the book because there is a lesbian sex scene in a hotel. Barry wrote back:  "Thank you for selling 1000 more copies."

I will be doing a review of Livia Lone in the next 1-2 weeks.