What do Dan Brown, David Mitchell, and William Falkner have in common? Apparently, The Matriarch Matrix!
Amazon reviews have compared this book to works from these three esteemed authors. I am very flattered and thank all reviewers profusely for their time and efforts in leaving their thoughts.
The second edition launched at the turn of the New Year 2019. This re-edit reflects the critical comments and suggestions from all reviewers, both positive and critical. I had trimmed the length nearly 20% from eliminating sections that contributed to uneven pacing.
With great sorrow, I eliminated a very eloquent chapter with Zara’s back history. I wrote this to explain the very rational and logical religious and cultural traditions of her character. I had put this in the first edition to answer back the ill-informed “islamophobic” comments I heard during the ISIS invasion years. As I have written, cultural and religious tolerance is a major theme in this book and in my family’s lives. I will republish this chapter as part of a prequel book.
Some had commented upon sexuality in the book within the first thirty reviews. Ironically, I had fifteen women as alpha and beta readers and they did not mention the same issues. As well, my editors are women. No issue from them. But I listen to these readers and the second edition had been radically re-tooled on these issues. However, I needed to speak out about the history of sexual violence against women in most all armed conflicted throughout history. I wrote Zara’s personal history as allegorical. The issues she faced have all been documented in books, articles, and biographies describing the transgressions against Kurdish and Yazidi women in the past decade and the centuries before.
Read more about the slavery of the Yazidi women.
“I’ll never forget,” 40-year-old Bissa says softly, as she recounts being “bought and sold” by six different jihadists.
“We did everything they wanted to do with us. We couldn’t say no,” says the Iraqi woman from the Yazidi religious minority, after fleeing her IS captors.
Read blog post: Zara’s character as a reflection of Kurdish oppression.
The new title says “The Matriarch Matrix: Mystery of the Matriarchs Book I”. Yes, there is the sequel in the works as well as an outline of the prequel. The prologue and the first two chapters of the sequel are included in edition two of The Matriarch Matrix.
After three alpha readers, some of the smartest most accomplished women I know commented on the first draft of “The Matriarch Messiah: Mystery of the Matriarchs Book II”, I sent the second draft for an editorial assessment and to three female beta readers who had read the first book. Heaven as the first two beta readers love the draft. Better than the first book. The editorial assessment praised it as well. Then the hell of the third beta review. Panned. One’s and two’s rating the different elements of the draft.
That was at the end of October 2018 – three months ago. I did what veteran authors say you shouldn’t. I stopped the third draft edit. In part, because I need to do other work to pay the bills of paying editors, book designer and formatters, and the costs of advertising. But mostly I feel prey to writer’s slump. That last beta review stopped me in my tracks.
This past month, the second edition of The Matriarch Matrix has been flying. It has sold in five weeks almost half of what it did in its first year on the market. The reviews have been fair and encouraging. I thank these new reviewers for their insights and thoughts, which has given me the inspirations to make the final push to get The Matriarch Messiah to the finish line.
Spoiler Alert: The sequel is even more surprising that the first book.