It just dawned on me why I've been out of sorts the past few months.

By all reasonable metrics, I should be doing cartwheels over the success of the first book. After all, to date we've sold over 500,000 copies worldwide in only the first 8 markets and there are well over 30 countries still to launch. Italy, in particular has been phenomenal -- the bestselling Italian debut novel of 2009 -- with a quarter of a million copies in hardback and 5 straight months on the top-ten list! Yes, the performance in the US has lagged other markets for a variety of reasons (the subject of another post, perhaps), but no first-time author in his right mind should be feeling queasy with these results -- right?

Wrong. I realized I've been suffering from the dreaded second book syndrome, the anxiety that one's second book will be a dud, fall flat on its face and everyone will conclude that the guy was a one-shot wonder.

How is this possible, you might ask, since my second book, Book of Souls, is long done and has been well-received by my editors.

Well, the answer is that Book of Souls was a sequel, a continuation of Library/Secret, so it never felt like a second book. The full weight of the syndrome hit with my third book, which will be called The Tenth Chamber in the UK and lord knows what elsewhere.

This one is a stand-alone thriller about a prehistoric painted cave in France -- new characters, new writing challenges, new everything. This summer, when I submitted it to my amazing agent, Simon Lipskar, he liked it but had some significant issues re structure and pay-off. Second book syndrome -- home to roost! But we put our heads together and came up with the fix and when it was re-written, a big fat page-one rewrite, it really seemed to work.

Well, today, I've heard from our UK editors at Random house, that they LOVE the book! I mean really LOVE it. They're the nicest folks in the world but they are not shy about telling an author they have problems with a manuscript.

So, the weight is greatly lifted. At the end of the day it will be up to readers to decide whether I've truly escaped the second book syndrome unscathed, but I'm feeling much better, thank you, and properly invigorated to plunge into my work-in-progress which is called, appropriately enough, Near Death.