Introducing Guest Author Don Butler

Have you ever been in a critique group and, if so, what was most/least useful to you?

Brenda here.

It's my great pleasure to introduce guest blogger Don Butler, who will tell you about his writing and will touch on this week's question. Don is past executive editor of the Ottawa Citizen and an award-winning journalist. He has penned two excellent novels: A Life of Bliss and Norman's Conquest. Take it away, Don!

Thanks Brenda. I'm a walking, breathing advertisement for the notion that it's never too late to pursue your dreams. My first novel, A Life of Bliss, appeared in 2021 – weeks before my 71st birthday. My teenage ambition to be a novelist was derailed by a few decades while I worked as a journalist at the Ottawa Citizen.

When Bliss, a humorous travel mystery, appeared, I was ecstatic. The Citizen and other Postmedia papers ran a positive review, a CBC radio show featured an excerpt, and most readers loved it. But could I do it again or was I a one-hit wonder? The answer came this May, when Ottawa Press and Publishing released my second novel, Norman’s Conquest.

It includes the same quirky journalist characters as in my first book. One of them –Norman Pugsley, the curmudgeonly managing editor of the Ottawa Daily Advocate –takes a buyout after suffering a near-fatal heart attack. He imagines a placid retirement but instead is dragged into his former newspaper’s investigation of a cold-case murder, a crime that decades earlier had nearly wrecked his career.

This was my first stab at writing a murder mystery, so I recruited no fewer than eight beta readers – novelists, editors and writers – to critique my manuscript. Their frank feedback was invaluable and prompted many revisions. For instance, I made alterations after a few too many of my beta readers told me they figured out the guilty party too easily. It paid off. In a recent column in Postmedia newspapers, book reviewer Pat St. Germain called Norman’s Conquest “a solid whodunit with a few neat twists.”

About those neat twists. Mine is a murder mystery, yes, but it includes a lot of humour.It’s more Richard Osman than Ian Rankin. There’s an improbable, slow-simmering romance between Norman Pugsley and his former boss, a woman he could barely tolerate when he worked for her. There’s adventure travel, too, to B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest, Algonquin Park and the Northwest Territories, where Pugsley washes dishes on a canoe trip with former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Trust me – this all hangs together. Norman’s Conquest isn’t your typical murder mystery. I guess I’m not a typical novelist, either. I’m a late bloomer, having a blast, living the dream. And dreaming of a trilogy … perhaps.

Email: donbutlerauthor@gmail.com

Social media:

Facebook.com/DonButler2021

X.com/ButlerDon

Instagram – @butlerdon2022

Where to buy:

Ottawapressandpublishing.com

amazon.ca and amazon.com

Ottawa Chapters/Indigo/Coles stores

Independent bookstores in Ottawa