"The First Secret of Edwin Hoff is a compelling thriller and an imaginative reflection on our times—but it's also a meditation on what it means to be a mentor and to pass along ways of moving in the world. The life lessons here will stir the reader as powerfully as the plot twists."
—Eric Liu, author of Guiding Lights: How to Mentor and Find Life's Purpose
And thank you so much for your interest in The First Secret of Edwin Hoff. Edwin is about to take you on an adventure; I hope you will share it with me. To learn why that matters, please click on the section Edwin: Behind the Book. Here, I'll tell you a little about me, and why I love writing thrillers.
I was born in New Haven, CT in 1968 and graduated from Hopkins Grammar School and Yale College, majoring in History, playing soccer, and making some of the best friends of my life. Growing up, I had many jobs, including: newspaper girl, waitress, lab technician and skate surgeon (the slimy, spiny fish kind), and environmental consultant, in Paris, D.C. and San Francisco. So I did the obvious—went to law school and decided to write books. By 1999, I had finished my first thriller and found an agent, but no publisher. I also was an associate lawyer in Boston, watching so many of our clients create valuable companies from scratch that I was itching to join one. At Café Trieste on Telegraph Hill in SF, with dark rings on the covers of Fast Company, Inc. and Red Herring, and a few shots of cappuccino courage, I made a big change. Soon I learned of Akamai Technologies, Inc. The company had just spun out of MIT, and was racing to catch the crest of the dot-com wave, hiring like mad. It did something important—it invisibly sped up websites that were slow, or crashing, when anything interesting happened on them. Working there, in the headiness of the tech bubble and with one person in particular, inspired this book. Now I write books and, ever bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, consult with technology start-ups. My husband and I live outside Boston with our kids, our 80-lb. dog Dash, and our tomatoes, which Dash likes to lure, trap, and ultimately, make confess.
So why write thrillers? I trace it to two pivotal moments:
The first: Mrs. Feinberg's eighth grade English class. We were reading Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I was slightly behind in my reading when the class discussed a key character's true identity. I won't spoil it for you here; I still feel the profound disappointment of missing the chance to discover that twist with Pip. Ever since, I have loved the thrill of confronting an authentic surprise on the page. Edwin has a few in store for you; I hope you enjoy them.
The second: lunch with a lawyer who had recently published his first novel. I shared how I wanted to write a smart thriller, like John Grisham or Scott Turow, one day. Then he gave me the best advice, however unvarnished, on how to write a book: "Talk is cheap. Apply ass to chair."
So this is what I have done, nearly every day for at least an hour, for the last several years. The First Secret of Edwin Hoff is my first book to be published. The Second Secret is already plotted. Enjoy the website, look around, and let me know what you think. I look forward to receiving your email—and to responding!
Welcome! And thank you for your time and interest in meeting Edwin Hoff, his loyal friends, dubious slackers, capable enemies and, at the very end, his arch nemesis.
—A.B.
© A.B. Bourne. Web site by interbridge.