My new Jack Miller opus, Perils of the Bike Path, has just become available for public consumption as a Kindle eBook. The print version will be available shortly. The following post is also the Author’s Note at the beginning of the book.

You may notice—or perhaps not—that this, the fifth book in the series featuring the (mis)adventures of cosmic bike rider Jack Miller, is a bit shorter than its predecessors. The backstory of this opus should explain why that came to pass.

I will tell you right up front that, earlier this year, I lost my dear bride, Jacqueline, to cancer. She had battled variations of the dreaded disease at least four times previously over the course of our decades together, and she had beaten it each time. We hoped for a five-peat, but it was not to be.

I began writing Perils of the Bike Path during the summer of 2022 and had barely gotten into the second chapter when we received the bad news that a previous cancer had returned. Understandably, the book got put on hold. Surgery ensued, and the prognosis afterward was hopeful. I resumed work on the book toward the latter part of the year.

But no, turned out the surgery did not solve the problem. Once again, the book got put on hold.

Infusions of a new immunotherapy drug began in 2023, and my bride’s positive response to it gave us some renewed hope. As before, I resumed work on the book.

But by the end of the year, and early into 2024, it became clear that the infusions had only delayed the inevitable. Perils of the Bike Path became an afterthought as we awaited the end.

Writing has always been a great catharsis for me. I resumed work on the book two months after Jacqueline passed, with the goal of just wrapping it up. Given the humorous aspects of the Jack Miller books, I wondered how I could manage to be funny while grieving. Let’s just say I did my best. You can be the judge of that.

Perils of the Bike Path. Perils of Life. How ironic.