Author News

The year of 2023 has been a fantastic debut year for Cheerful Obedience and its author. Wanting to test my debut novel against others in the genre of Fiction, War and Military, I entered the book in some award contests. Pleased to report that we have won awards! Take a look:

• Global Book Awards for War and Military (Bronze Medal 2023)
• The BookFest First Place Award, Fiction: Historical—Nautical, War and Military (Fall 2023)
• The BookFest Second Place Award, Artistic & Technical: Website—Overall Design (Fall 2023)
• Firebird Book Awards, Book Cover Design Fiction (Third Place, 3^rd Quarter)
• American Writing Awards 2023, Finalist—Best New (Debut) Fiction
• BREW Fiction Book Excellence Award Category Winner: War Fiction of the Year 2023
• Outstanding Creator Awards (Summer/Fall 2023)

1. Award for Best Fiction Book of Clash of Champions 2023 (2^nd Place)
2. Award for Military Fiction (1^st Place)
3. Award for Historical Fiction (2^nd Place)
4. Award for “Best Character:” Honorary Mention—Conor Patrick McKall from Cheerful Obedience

I humbly, and proudly, accept these awards and look forward to even more recognition for Cheerful Obedience in the New Year. Cheers!

Within days of my eBook’s publication, I was quite pleased to see the book’s first review. The review was posted on Kobo. Cheerful Obedience received a 5-Star review from Readers’ Favorite. Here are a few quotes from the review:

• Author Patrick McLaughlin has crafted a superb novel that really takes readers into the psychological, emotional, and physical realities of the Vietnam War from all angles.

• I found the dialogue to be a particularly moving experience in this novel, as the conversations between the men under such immense pressure reveal some very telling undercurrents and allow us to see how much emotional weight each of them has to carry.

• I would certainly recommend Cheerful Obedience to fans of modern military history as well as those seeking strong dramatic works about the loyalty and bonds between bands of brothers.

As a new author, it is uplifting to receive this as the very first review of my debut novel. 

Today, the Cheerful Obedience eBook is out to the world. The print book is in a presale period for eight weeks and can be ordered now. Your credit card will not be charged until the book ships. The softbound print version of the book will be released on 15 Aug 2023. Get the book on Amazon or where you buy your print books. Don’t forget the independent bookshops and let them know about Cheerful Obedience if they haven’t discovered it already.

Why the 8-week presale period for the print book? Having decided to self-publish with BookBaby, a print-on-demand publisher, they have agreements with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others to provide for the presale period to allow for interest in the book to be demonstrated. Based on the level of interest, the retailers stock up on the print books to meet anticipated demand and avoid a dreaded “temporarily out of stock” reply when a book is purchased. So, only one thing to do, preorder my book and be among the first readers worldwide to welcome it to your home library.

When you get around to reading Cheerful Obedience perhaps you will consider posting your thoughts about the book on the usual venues. I am told that reviews are quite helpful. This is my debut fiction novel and I hope that you find it worthy. 

As I traveled the long twisting road towards self-publication I sought guidance from many sources. One piece of universal advice, have a website. Here it is, my debut author website. A website I could not have designed without the talents of the team at Calibrate Studio.

If you are reading this then you have found my website. Thank you. Please look around and, by all means, join my email list so that we can communicate from time to time. Believe me, I am not a social media gadfly so you should not expect that I will be filling your in-box with any regularity. But when I do send an item, it will be worth a read.