Nicholas Evans, author of the best seller, "The Horse Whisperer", writes about life, about its beauty and tragedy, about its soaring triumphs and its lowest ebbs, about relationships and family. All these themes are poetically entwined with dramatic and stunning landscapes, courageous adventure and moments of heart pounding action.
So it is no surprise then, that I have been eagerly and patiently awaiting Nicholas Evans' new book, "The Brave". There is clearly some confusion over the actual release date of this book and due to an illness the author has been suffering, perhaps the release is not as imminent as some of the shops and online stores indicate. In fact, some of the dates have passed us by. One particular large chain of bookstores has the date down as the year 2019 which perhaps is another indication of the health problems the writer is enduring.
In 2008, Nicholas Evans was on holiday in Scotland with family, but became seriously ill after being poisoned by wild mushrooms. Nicholas and other family members, who had also been poisoned, spent time in hospital, very poorly and needing kidney dialysis treatment. There seems to have been little information available regarding the health of the Evans family since September 08 other than reports that they had initially responded well to treatment and were making recoveries, but a recent blog posting suggests that the damage to Mr Evans kidney from the poison was so bad that the author is now awaiting a kidney transplant.
The author's own website reveals the writer is still ill but encourages fans and well wishers to continue sending him messages, although understandably unable to respond at this time. I visit the site often looking for news updates. I trust this makes me a keen fan rather than an obsessive stalker!
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a safe and speedy recovery back to good health Nicholas, and as a fan of your writing tell you how much I have enjoyed your four novels to date, with perhaps "The Loop" being my personal and particular favourite, so far at least.
I purchased both "The Smoke Jumper" and "The Divide" on release and have since regretted only having "The Loop" and "
The Horse Whisperer" (which went on of course to become a very successful movie directed by and starring
Robert Redford, along with
Kristin Scott Thomas and a young
Scarlett Johansson) in paperback form. So, I recently set about acquiring those first two books in their hardcover "first edition" versions. (At least I hope that's what they are).
Amongst book collectors, the term "first edition" usually refers to the "
first print run of the first edition." Although "first editions" of books are not valuable as such, they remain the Holy Grail for book collectors. If a specific book were to become a sought after rarity it is likely that the first edition would be at the top of the collectors lists.
Amazon proved to be a successful hunting ground, and I purchased both novels from different sellers. When the packages arrived just a few days later, it was exciting to open them up and see what condition they were in, half expecting them to suffocate me in a puff of stale smoke and yellow pages, but to my delight, they both seemed excellent.
Upon closer inspection, the inner title page of "The Horse Whisperer" had a dark blue, ink signature beneath the title. My heart leapt as the signature looked awfully like "
Nicholas Evans"! Then my heart sank as I thought perhaps the seller had scrawled it him/herself in order to make it look more authentic or perhaps it was even the sellers own name looking uncannily like the author's.
My mission (and I have chosen to accept it) is to discover if I have a genuine celebrity autograph written in a first edition copy of a best selling author's novel. (More than fifteen million copies of "The Horse Whisperer" have been sold.) Hopefully the attached photograph will help me in my quest. If by some gazillion to one chance you are reading this article Mr Evans, first of all, "WOW", second of all, "I hope and pray your health is returning", and thirdly, "is that your signature and autograph in
my book of
your novel?"
What if all the power of today's media spotlight and the World Wide Web isn't enough for these words to fall under the gaze of author Nicholas Evans? Do I have a plan B? Well unlike Anneka Rice in eighties Brit TV show, "Treasure Hunt", I don't have a helicopter, or a cameraman called Graham to whisk me away to the next clue. So plan B is the same as humble plan A, and that is to hope, pray and cross fingers that either Nicholas Evans himself or someone that knows him will read this.
Is this a genuine Nicholas Evans signed, copy of "The Horse Whisperer"?
