SBD after these messages from our sponsor
Message 1. Have you entered the contest yet? Easy to do. Easy to get multiple entries, too. ENTER THE CONTEST, and yes, that's shouting. I'm adding a megaphone of bolding, too. Win $30 and more Summer Devon books than you ever dreamed possible.
Message 2. We just got a review for House of Mirrors from Queer Magazine Online. Reviews come so slowly these days, which is fine in an age of endless shelf life. Just funny that in a world where everything has sped up, reviews have slowed down.
It's a good review--as in not just positive (which makes reviews wonderful) but also well-written. I mean how could you not like lines like these?
Message 3. Hey, listen, If you write a review of my books, let me know, and I'll enter you into the contest. It does not have to be a positive review, okay? Leave your review at Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Fictionwise, your blog--anywhere. Of course if you give me a bad review with no reasons for why you thought the book sucked, I will enter your name but I'll be grumbling. Reasons, people. Reasons.
Funny thing, though. I just realized that if you write "I loved this book!" and nothing else, I won't be grumbling. People are so inconsistent.
SBD------ing
Speaking of inconsistent, that's what my reading's been like, although no non-fiction. YA dystopia, murder mysteries, a bunch of ghost stories and some vampire things.
I read the second YA book of the Matched series, Crossed, and I will read the third. The woman has an imagination. I didn't want to put the book down and got mad at people in my family who wished to interact with me.
But.... Two people tell the story, both in first person, and they sound a lot alike. And I found both a trifle annoying. Lots of poetic observations when there are people dropping dead all around them. When a book makes you aware of that arty voice as the big scary action is going down, then that's a kind of author intrusion that draws me out faster than POV switches. Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't been in first person. It's funny because you can't more intrusive like that than Chuck Palahniuk and his style doesn't bother me at all. Maybe because he isn't trying to show what a sensitive soul the narrator is.
I read an anthology of supernatural stories that were fun. Charlaine Harris, Maggie Shayne, Barbara Hambly. Harris's was the one I liked best. It has the simplest plot, and is the most slanted toward romance which is what I'd expect when I see Harlequin on the cover. I got why those two characters ended up together.
Hambly's was my least favorite, which is kind of weird since I think she's a freaking genius. I did enjoy her portrait of New York and, to an extent, the picture of the evil building. I've never read a writer who can make a city into an intriguing personality like that Hambly can. Her portraits of New Orleans in the Benjamin January series is always incredible. Worth the read right there.
I think I don't like the way she borrowed from the Triangle Shirtwaist tragedy without naming it. (Kind of like having a giant ocean liner that everyone declares is called unsinkable crashing into a giant iceberg and calling that ship the Bibanic, only not really) Having a socialist New Yorker family background, I've heard about that fire since I was a wee tot. Anyway, I didn't felt drawn to the romance part of the book. I didn't entirely believe the "I love you" part--although I did like the characters for the most part.
And this SBD is going on too long. Hmm. Must be the advertising at the start. I'll be glad whenNPR finally gets through its fund drive I stop promoting my new book. Which you should read. And be far nicer than I'm being to these books.
Okay one more book: A Cassandra Palmer book that I'm still reading-- wait, okay, she's the character, the story is by Karen Chance.
I'm cheap and only get what the library will give me. They don't have books 1-4 on Kindle. This is book 5 and like all those sorts of series, the heroine's power has been escalating. All sorts of things have happened to her in those earlier books. She's been gathering hangers-ons and powers like kids gathered pokemon cards back in the day.
Those of us late to the show get snippets of it all, and it's slightly annoying to try to figure out who's who and why they hate/love her, and why that person wants her dead, but the story is hardly unreadable like some series books I've tried reading mid-cycle (Feehan=impossible)
I can't read it in one gulp, like I do a lot of books. These fast-paced never-let-up stories exhaust me. But I like the author's voice. I like the fact that not every penis rises when the heroine walks into the room (most do, of course). I'm already tired of the "I'm not pretty" description she gives when she stares in the mirror -- when I suspect that she's probably gorgeous. I'm waiting for some man to tell her she's irresistible. But hey! I like the fact that in a crowded world, I can tell one hanger-on from another and they have actual personalities.
Despite the fact that I'm burning out on first person urban fantasies with often Mary Sue heroines, this character seems funny and interesting and the world is intriguing. I might have to go buy some earlier books.
Message 2. We just got a review for House of Mirrors from Queer Magazine Online. Reviews come so slowly these days, which is fine in an age of endless shelf life. Just funny that in a world where everything has sped up, reviews have slowed down.
It's a good review--as in not just positive (which makes reviews wonderful) but also well-written. I mean how could you not like lines like these?
This is a wonderful, unusual story with delightfully complex characters, many of whom I grew to admire and love. The carnival world is a perfect setting for this engaging story, challenging us to think about reality versus illusion; it's an eye-opening look into the hardship and camaraderie of life on the road for carnival entertainers. I'd recommend 'House of Mirrors' to anyone who enjoys a well written story, full of angst, hate, deception, honesty, friendship and love.
Message 3. Hey, listen, If you write a review of my books, let me know, and I'll enter you into the contest. It does not have to be a positive review, okay? Leave your review at Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Fictionwise, your blog--anywhere. Of course if you give me a bad review with no reasons for why you thought the book sucked, I will enter your name but I'll be grumbling. Reasons, people. Reasons.
Funny thing, though. I just realized that if you write "I loved this book!" and nothing else, I won't be grumbling. People are so inconsistent.
SBD------ing
Speaking of inconsistent, that's what my reading's been like, although no non-fiction. YA dystopia, murder mysteries, a bunch of ghost stories and some vampire things.
I read the second YA book of the Matched series, Crossed, and I will read the third. The woman has an imagination. I didn't want to put the book down and got mad at people in my family who wished to interact with me.
But.... Two people tell the story, both in first person, and they sound a lot alike. And I found both a trifle annoying. Lots of poetic observations when there are people dropping dead all around them. When a book makes you aware of that arty voice as the big scary action is going down, then that's a kind of author intrusion that draws me out faster than POV switches. Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't been in first person. It's funny because you can't more intrusive like that than Chuck Palahniuk and his style doesn't bother me at all. Maybe because he isn't trying to show what a sensitive soul the narrator is.
I read an anthology of supernatural stories that were fun. Charlaine Harris, Maggie Shayne, Barbara Hambly. Harris's was the one I liked best. It has the simplest plot, and is the most slanted toward romance which is what I'd expect when I see Harlequin on the cover. I got why those two characters ended up together.
Hambly's was my least favorite, which is kind of weird since I think she's a freaking genius. I did enjoy her portrait of New York and, to an extent, the picture of the evil building. I've never read a writer who can make a city into an intriguing personality like that Hambly can. Her portraits of New Orleans in the Benjamin January series is always incredible. Worth the read right there.
I think I don't like the way she borrowed from the Triangle Shirtwaist tragedy without naming it. (Kind of like having a giant ocean liner that everyone declares is called unsinkable crashing into a giant iceberg and calling that ship the Bibanic, only not really) Having a socialist New Yorker family background, I've heard about that fire since I was a wee tot. Anyway, I didn't felt drawn to the romance part of the book. I didn't entirely believe the "I love you" part--although I did like the characters for the most part.
And this SBD is going on too long. Hmm. Must be the advertising at the start. I'll be glad when
Okay one more book: A Cassandra Palmer book that I'm still reading-- wait, okay, she's the character, the story is by Karen Chance.
I'm cheap and only get what the library will give me. They don't have books 1-4 on Kindle. This is book 5 and like all those sorts of series, the heroine's power has been escalating. All sorts of things have happened to her in those earlier books. She's been gathering hangers-ons and powers like kids gathered pokemon cards back in the day.
Those of us late to the show get snippets of it all, and it's slightly annoying to try to figure out who's who and why they hate/love her, and why that person wants her dead, but the story is hardly unreadable like some series books I've tried reading mid-cycle (Feehan=impossible)
I can't read it in one gulp, like I do a lot of books. These fast-paced never-let-up stories exhaust me. But I like the author's voice. I like the fact that not every penis rises when the heroine walks into the room (most do, of course). I'm already tired of the "I'm not pretty" description she gives when she stares in the mirror -- when I suspect that she's probably gorgeous. I'm waiting for some man to tell her she's irresistible. But hey! I like the fact that in a crowded world, I can tell one hanger-on from another and they have actual personalities.
Despite the fact that I'm burning out on first person urban fantasies with often Mary Sue heroines, this character seems funny and interesting and the world is intriguing. I might have to go buy some earlier books.
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