So after months or maybe even years, you’ve written a fantastic book. Editing has been done and the finished product is ready for the shelves. With all the millions of books being published, how are you going to make yours stand out and be the one that makes it to the check out?
A simple way of doing this is to add value to your book. Give the reader extra reasons as to why your book is better or offers more than its competitors.
Value can be added in a number of ways:
1) Obtain celebrity endorsements.
A lot of people are media driven and seeing a star’s name connected with your book may be all they need to convince them to buy a copy.
2) Use a foreword written by a well-known expert or celebrity.
Again, having your book connected to a household name may help sales. In the case of non fiction books, having an expert in the field comment on it will help reinforce the message of the book and give confirmation to the reader that you know your subject.
3) Associate your book with a recognised brand name.
If people know the brand name it will make them feel more comfortable with the book.
4) Attach a coupon, CD-ROM or another product.
People love getting more for their money. By offering an extra or a free gift, you will grab their attention and make them feel like they are saving money.
Dead Witness is the story of a woman whose life changes forever when she witnesses a drug lord murder two FBI agents. When the FBI fake her death and leave her family mourning, Valerie goes along with their plan to protect her children. When it's clear their plan is failing and her children are in danger, she discovers an inner strength that enables her to take matters into her own hands. She goes after the killer.
What advice do you have for other writers?
Never stop improving your writing. Read every self-help book you can. Even the bad ones will teach you at least one good thing. Read your work aloud. It's amazing how many errors pop out. Never query an agent or a publisher until you're absolutely certain your manuscript is clean and publish-ready. You can't undo the wrong move. And write what you care about, not what you think the masses want to read. Readers may not understand the creative process, but they know when something's missing.
Do you belong to a writers group? How does it help your writing career?
I'm currently down to two writer's groups. One is with well-established writers; the other is a mixed group of professionals and new writers. The art of exchanging critiques is the most valuable tool available to any writer. People pay big dollars to editors that do the same thing as these experienced critiquers can do. And learning how to give a solid, professional critique helps any writers fine-tune their skills. How better to learn what works or doesn't work than by witnessing it firsthand? I don't think I'd be the writer I am today without the support and help from knowledge of several online writers' groups. The secret is to participate. Give the kind of critique you'd like to receive.
How do you prepare for author events?
Over the past year, I've learned to do little in preparation. I have my bookmarks, my poster and a bowl of goodies in hand before I leave the house. I do deep breathing exercises and remind myself to stay in the moment. I appreciate every potential reader I meet by giving them my undivided attention. I make every effort to enjoy myself. And why not? People are interesting.
When I read 500+ pages at a single setting, I can guarantee the book’s interesting enough to be worth a significant eyestrain headache.I’ve been on a Brit kick since discovering Neal Asher and his Bond-in-space Cormac novels.Banks was the second I sampled, and Alastair Reynolds, my lucky third.Ow!This headache, though…
“The Prefect” starts as a detective story and expands into a space opera thriller with lashings of super technology.Tom Dreyfus is the Prefect, in other words a cop.For the most part, his department’s business is stamping out election fraud.He and his fellow officers of the Panoply police a huge artificial environment called the Glitter Band.
The Glitter Band is full of hundreds of independent self-governing “habitats”, which can do what they like, so long as it’s by majority vote. Plenty of habitats have voted their citizens into self-destruction, but that’s okay by the Panoply, so long as the vote was clean.
Of course the folks we have to look out for the most are those who intend to save us from ourselves.Here in the US, we remember the Great Mistake that masqueraded as the noble effort to Fight Demon Alcohol.Organized crime never had a better deal.
Dreyfus too has a superior officer─Super Prefect Gaffney─determined to save the citizens from themselves.All Gaffney needs to inspire him is a superhuman benevolence to keep everyone in line.When Gaffney meets his goddess-in-the-machine, he’s found his cause.He’s not sure who or what Aurora really is, but he firmly believes those deluded clichés (you know, The End Justifies the Means, I Know What’s Best for You, etc.).Ah, if only he had a sense of humor.
The story begins with young Thalia, a protégé of Dreyfus, out fixing a fairly routine case of electoral fraud with some software patches.Dreyfus himself is diverted into a more serious investigation.The Ultras, outer-space-dwelling cyborgs none of the baseline humans particularly like, revenged a business deal gone sour by nuking one of the habitats and its nine hundred plus human inhabitants.
Only nothing is as it seems on the surface.Thalia’s simple job turns into the means of destroying the Glitter Band, and the made-for-it-villains, the Ultras, turn out to be victims too. Pretty soon the detective investigation escalates into a war.The past Dreyfus shut away crawls back to bite him, and two monsters of a time no one wants to remember rear their ugly heads.One of them is Super Prefect Gaffney’s goddess-in-the-machine, and the other, the mad machine that killed Dreyfus’ wife…
For the most part this was a great book.Where it failed was in the detective thread.Tom Dreyfus, old and smart and experienced, is too dumb and slow to catch on to clues that hit the reader over the head (i.e., the existence of a traitor in their midst).He fails to catch on until Gaffney has him trussed up like the dunce he is.Similarly, his boss Jane fails to see the light until the smack of the bar’s making stars in her eyes and it’s too late.But wince over the occasional logical lapses (a few in the techno babble too, as reviewer on Amazon rightly points out) and keep going.
That’s not hard.There’s enough thriller in this story to carry you to the climax.Just have a bottle of aspirin and some cold drinks on hand to alleviate the eyestrain of five hundred pages at one sitting.Enjoy!
Children’s Book Week is a celebration of reading for pleasure for children of primary school age.
Children’s Book Week 2009 will take place from 5-11 October; the theme will be Words and Pictures. Find out more about Children's Book Week. About Children's Book Week
What is Children's Book Week?
Children’s Book Week is a celebration of reading for pleasure for children of primary school age. Schools, libraries and bookshops all over the UK hold events and activities aimed at encouraging children to view reading as a source of pleasure, explore libraries and bookshops and even start writing themselves.
Why celebrate Children’s Book Week?
The aim of Children’s Book Week is to celebrate reading for pleasure. Designating a special day or week for book-related activities can help children to see reading as pleasurable and fun, stimulating them to discover new books, extend their reading choices, discuss and share books, explore libraries and bookshops, and do their own creative writing.
Last year, children in schools and libraries across the country took part in a wide range of activities for Children’s Book Week. Here’s a small selection of some of the events that took place:
> Writer and illustrator visits in schools
> Reading-themed games
> Library and bookshop visits
> Writing and performing plays based on favourite stories
> Poetry writing
> Designing book covers
> Reading challenges such as “try a book new to you”
> Poetry reading assemblies
> Making a film version of a favourite book
Here's what schools had to say about Children’s Book Week 2008:
“A great pack with lots of good ideas.” Key stage 2 teacher, school librarian and literacy coordinator.
“We celebrate Book Week at our nursery every year. There are always brilliant ideas in the packs.” May Khazen, Headteacher, Dawmouse Montessori Nursery
“The pack is really useful and informative” Lorna Sinclair, Acting Principal Teacher, Uphall Primary School.
Have always wanted to. Used to follow my father on his medical rounds in the community and write down people's stories. Now when the voices in my head talk, I listen to them and write it down
Tell us a bit about your latest book?
Upcoming book is romantic suspense, but it is starting to read more like HenLit. Its a rumble-tumble story of mixed identity, twin cousins, genealogy and valuable missing documents from the National Archives
Where can people find out more about you and your writing?
Writing is the easy part. Having the patience to do it right, to be weilling to ruthlessly edit where necessary, learning the technical stuff like point-of-view, staying in tense, not head-bobbing, showing not telling---those are the hard things. Then selling your book. Then all the marketing. It is a never ending circle. But don't stop writing
Do you belong to a writers group? How does it help your writing career
Absolutely, and yes it helps. I have been a Harriette Austin Writer for 15 years, we meet weekly (at a local University); I'm also a Southern Scribe, also meets weekly; and I am with The Dabbling Muses, which is an on-line critique group through The Muse. Writing groups and critique groups help me because they provide focus, consistency and a little urgency to my writing. When you know you 8 people are expecting you to read... you start writing. Having immediate review helps you stay focussed on the characters and the plot. Believe me, my critique group will tell me when I have strayed from the course. And they tell me if my characters sound a bit flat or predictable, or if the dialogue is clunky.
I've been writing since the fourth grade and finished my first book (an OUTSIDERS clone) when I was 13. I did some creative writing coursework in college. After a long hiatus, I picked up the pen with the serious intent to sell about five years ago. It took me three years to make my first sale.
·What genre do you write?
I write a lot of speculative fiction—fantasy and science fiction and horror.I also tackle the thriller genre and would like to write a mystery. I write essays and reviews on blogs and at Electric Spec.I've also done some technical writing, help text for web apps, things like that. Writing is writing is writing. It's all fun to me.
·Tell us a bit about your latest book?
There are several, actually. I just finished and sold my first erotic romance novella, written under a pseudonym with a partner. I took it on as a challenge and it was one of my easiest draft-to-market pieces, though I've since learned competition is tough!It'll be out next year with Whiskey Creek Press, with a sequel to follow later in the year.
I'm currently seeking representation for a dark urban fantasy novel. It's had great response so far, lots of requests. It's called SENTINEL and features twin brothers who have to make amends with their estranged father in order to fight a demon that has taken possession of their mother. It's a multi-pov book with a complex plot that hopefully appeals to sophisticated YA readers and adults.
I'm also finishing my latest novel, THE SILVER SCAR, a futuristic thriller set in BoulderCounty. When a Wiccan priest and a Christian soldier inadvertently set off the Apocalypse, they have to battle an Episcopal Bishop rabid for crusade, slave traders, militant survivalists, eco-terrorists, mind-altering drugs, and, of course, the Four Horsemen.
·You also edit the magazine Electric Spec. How does being an editor help your writing career?
Editing for Electric Spec has been one of the greatest things I've ever done. I've been on board 3 ½ years, and I learn something from it every time I read my slush.It's taught me to be a critical reader, to learn what short story competition is like (stiff!), and it's given me the opportunity to work with fabulous writers, from multi-published award winners to first sales. My fellow editors, David Hughes and Lesley L. Smith are fabulous teammates and writers. They've taught me most of what I know. We've recently earned a listing in Locus, which was very exciting in terms of readership and more submissions.
I think before I had many sales, editing gave me some credibility. I've had the opportunity to speak publicly at conferences and conventions and also help writers with things like our First Page Game on http://electricspec.blogspot.com.Writing is such a lonely, bewildering job, especially at first.I'm a trained teacher, so I love to give back to our industry that way.
·You have been nominated for a BBA for your blog called Sex Scenes at Starbucks. Please tell us more about the BBAs and your site.
Honestly, my nomination was the first I've heard of the BBA, but it's something I'm now following closely. I've know several bloggers who've been nominated and the site provides great links to follow to learn more about books and the industry.
Sex Scenes at Starbucks is my personal blog and also serves as my rather lame professional website. I tackle writing issues and sometimes just ramble about my life. I'm always honored and bemused that people find the site interesting. I've written the blog for five years this September, and I've had hundreds of thousands of hits (my counter reads around 100k, but it's only a couple of years old).
For years I was anonymous.Now that my picture and name is out there (I joke that Locus magazine outed me a year ago at WorldCon) I've realized that I'm in the public eye on the Internet. I get emails and readers from around the world. People recognize my tag online and know me in person. So the blog is a little crazy, but great for two things:so many great friends and just pure writing.I'm a big believer in the Million Words Writing Theory (similar to the Ten Thousand Hours Theory) and I feel whatever success I've achieved is due in part to the writing I've done on Sex Scenes and the wonderful folks out in the blogosphere.
·Any advice or tips for new writers?
I think the biggest mistake I made as a new writer was to think that because I learned to read and write in school I could write stories. That was a mental block I had to get past and I didn't start learning until I perceived I had failed. Writing is a very involved, intricate art form. The other thing I'm adamant about is the importance of studying the short story. It teaches people to write in bite-sized pieces and gets them to market sooner. Not everyone feels this way, but I'm very biased toward the short form. People love to say it's dying, but don't believe them. My slush is packed every week and editors at other magazines tell me the same thing. New magazine and anthology opportunities open up all the time. I believe mastering the short story is almost essential to learn to write well, and it helps earn those coveted novel contracts. Of course there are exceptions, but many fine speculative fiction writers--Kelly Link, Nicola Griffith, Neil Gaiman, John Scalzi, Paulo Bagigalupi, Carrie Vaughn, Stephen King--started their careers in the short form.
·Anything else you'd like to add?
Thanks for hosting me here! It's been fun. And be sure to come visit Sex Scenes to see the interview I did with Jo!
The mission of Authors Abroad is to inspire and motivate children to want to read and write. Our team is made up of some of the UK’s leading authors, poets, and educators. They all possess the ability to enhance and support the quality of education provided in schools around the world.
When was the company started and why?
Company Director, Trevor Wilson, has been coordinating school visits, Festivals, theatre shows and overseas tours over the past five years for some of the most highly respected children’s authors, poets and illustrators in the UK. The reason for establishing Authors Abroad was to provide a much more direct link to schools and libraries by offering top quality educators. We do not simply rely on people to contact us. We go out of our way to contact schools, libraries and Festivals and work very closely with each particular organisation to meet their unique needs. When working with International Schools, we plan all of the flights, accommodation, and shipment of books, which takes a great deal of the strain off the shoulders of local librarians or Englsih Coordinators. Over the past five years Authors Abroad has worked in Brazil, Bangkok, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, S Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Cyprus, Spain, Switzerland and Russia, with visits planned for Kenya and Hong Kong in the near future. In addition to our overseas work, we also plan and coordinate approximately 1000 school visits every year in the UK from Infant to Secondary schools.
What services do you offer?
In addition to Authors Abroad, we run a publishing arm of our company, called Caboodle Books. We offer an outstanding self-publishing service and work very closely with all of our published authors and poets. Not only do we offer the most competitively priced service in the UK, but we also provide an instant market for the sale of books in schools through our network of contacts. Most authors and poets that we work with benefit from our unique opportunity to work in partnership with Caboodle Books and Authors Abroad - Caboodle Books offers to share in the publication costs as well as take an active share in the sale of the books. Doing this demonstrates our commitment to marketing books effectively and returning a direct profit for the author rather than the normal royalty payments. After a very short time in the self-publishing market, we are fast approaching the publication of our 20th book. More and more authors and poets are contacting us about our publishing service, as the main stream publishers are becoming more reluctant to publish new works.
Please contact us for further information on publishing with us.
Authors Abroad provides:
• Professional people who are highly regarded and experienced • Presentations/workshops to suit all age groups • Inspiring interactive presentations for large groups • Stimulating workshops for smaller groups • In-service training for staff/parents • Extended residency work • Personalised book signing
Key Booking Features
• We plan all school visits working closely with each school. • We tailor each visit to meet individual schools' needs. • We take care of all flights, accommodation and shipping of books. • We take the strain out of planning an author/poet visit.
• We offer the following:
• All the people we work with can offer half day or full day school visits and occasionally weeklong residencies in a school. • All age groups are catered for from infants to upper secondary. • Group sizes are not a problem – all of our team are experienced, and enjoy, working with large groups from 100 to 500. • Costs vary from author to author – please contact us to discuss fees. • Most special requirements can be met if we are informed well in advance. • We normally provide letters to go out to parents and lots of background information on each presenter prior to a visit. • All authors/poets bring books with them on the day and are happy to personalise copies for the children. • We are happy to provide contact details of previous schools visited – word of mouth is our best form of recommendation!
Are your services available to international authors or only certain countries?
We work with authors from all over the world but obviously it is far more convenient to work with UK based authors
What genres do you represent?
We currently represent children’s authors, from primary to upper secondary.
We are now being approached by an increasing number of adult authors of both fiction and non-fiction books. We hope to develop this area in the near future.
Where can people find out more about your company?
The place to find the most up-to-date information on us is through our website, at:
We are also on Facebook and Twitter, both under the name “Authors Abroad.”
Anything else you'd like to add?
Our company is growing by leaps and bounds, and we’re always looking for new and exciting people to work with. If you have any books that you’d like to publish with us, please contact us. We’d love to hear from you!
We also offer great ways to help schools build up their library collection for free by recommending our authors to other schools. Please contact us for further information if you’d like to participate!
Everyone wants to belong to a good workshop.And it is useless for writers to sigh and grouch about the deficiencies of their workshops.Writers are always on the lookout for a really supportive one for three most evident reasons.
First. Writing is a solitary occupation and all writers need feedback.Feedback is a writer’s life blood. Feedback can make the difference between a manuscript being good or mediocre.
Learning to write successfully uses the same skills as learning to balance and like bike riding can only be learned by constant practise.Having to produce work for workshops helps give the incentive to keep writing and keep revising.Some writing workshops are very beginner friendly, with instant exercises to rouse creativity and a healthy curiosity in semantics and the ancestry of words.
Second.No-one outside a workshop is really interested in what or how you write.Other writers are the only ones who are genuinely interested.Most friends and families think it is some sort of weird masochistic thing you closet yourself away to do because you are some sort of deviant.Only your workshop is supportive enough to share the ups and downs of acceptances and rejections.
Third.A writer, like a prophet, is without honour in his own territory.To be treated with respect under your own roof, you need to frame that first cheque, commendation, or prize certificate. Writing is a very tough profession and without the protection of a healthy self esteem which can be nurtured in a good workshop, writers sink without trace, or in extreme cases commit suicide.
This returns us to the most important reason for running a good workshop.Other writers are the insiders and outsiders who can see where you are in the balancing act between exploring and extending your own writing style or writing to the pleasing accompaniment of a cash register.
There is nothing wrong with writing to the pleasing accompaniment of a cash register, and may you cry all the way to the bank about your contemptuous and unfavourablereviews.There is also nothing wrong with exploring and extending your own writing style - it is your sacred duty as a human being to fully extend your extremely unique talents.
Good workshops help writers to understand balance.If you are too focussed and self centred on extending yourself, you fall into the trap of extending and nourishing your ego instead of your talent.If your writing is deaf to everything except the pleasing clink of the cash register, you fall into the trap of literary prostitution, equally fatal to talent.
All writers carry on about the deficiencies of their own workshops, without realising it is the very deficiencies of their particular circle that make it so successful.
A writing workshop is often composed of that most unhelpful of all entities, an undisciplined mob of individuals. The only thing writers have in common is that they all acknowledge that writing is a form of communication and everyone of them is determined to communicate.
Writers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and cultures.Whether their background knowledge is of writing scholarly, technical, novel, short story or romance novels, a workshop needs every single one of their viewpoints.Their disparate feedback, interruptions, lavish praise, adverse criticism, contradictory and/or helpful/unhelpful advice, and blank misinterpretation build together to form the complete whole of that multi-eyed monster that everyone is writing for -the eventual target, aim and market of your work.
Writers who attend the same workshops end up being incestuously close.You learn more about each other than your closest family members and end up bonded into a close supportive group who know each other’s writings like their own. This makes it even harder to detach and give good constructive criticism.
It is destructive and time wasting to criticise ideology, viewpoint, attitude or context.Writing is about communication and how anything is being communicated is the relevant issue. Keep your distaste for bad English, cliches, tautologies, banalities, and muddled syntax to yourself and criticise constructively.
It is not relevant and wasting group time to:
Be reminded of a personal experience and falling into personal reminiscence of how it has affected you.
To praise a piece of writing without analysing why you see it as good.
To condemn a piece of writing without analysing why you see it as bad.
To sidetrack off to ride a favourite hobby horse.
To get maximum use out of a workshop it should be run professionally.This means you read your contribution in turn and listen carefully to the feedback around your circle, making sure that when it is your turn that your feedback is constructive, relevant, and concise. To be constructive and helpful it is the writing you have to comment on, not the writer or the context or the ideology.
Accept and acknowledge that ‘writers various are gregarious’.This is the up side of writing workshops.All writers love talking - we are the direct descendants of the original oral story tellers after all.Nobody should be rapped over the knuckles because writers are compulsive talkers and do so, at the top of their voices and over every one else’s, if they can get away with it.Once again, no matter how satisfying this is, it does not make for a professional and helpful writing workshop and wastes group time.
So restrain your impulse to be inspired by some piece of writing to talk about yourself and your experiences.
Write about it instead and read it to your captive audience at your next writers’ next meeting.
Tell us a about your latest book. Hell Swamp takes place in along Black River in eastern North Carolina and is the third book in the Logan Hunter Mystery series. Logan gets to the river and finds a woman gutted and hanged from her own chandelier. Deer hunters are the prime suspects. The seed which started this book came from my son, whose 13-year-old neighbor killed a trophy deer and has his picture in the local newspaper. Soon after, he received a letter with the picture and these words scrawled across it: "Murderer! You should be shot!" That's all it took to get my juices flowing.
Who is your publisher? I queried L&L Dreamspell and 15 days later they offered me a contract. I was shocked and delighted.
Have you taken any writing courses? About five years ago, I did an online search "how to write a novel". To my amazement, up popped Rob Parnell's "How to write a novel in thirty days". Even though I was skeptical, I downloaded the ebook, and in thirty days I had the bones to Genesis Beach, my first mystery. I have since downloaded several other tools from Rob. He does an incredible job of taking a novice step-by-step through the process. He and I stay in touch even though he lives in Australia.
What genre do you write and why? Mystery/suspense is the only genre I've written so far and it's because that's what I prefer to read. However, once I finish Gator Creek, the fourth Logan Hunter Mystery, I plan to turn my attention to a more humorous mystery and see how that plays out. I'm also gathering research for an historical mystery about an ancestor of mine.
How do you overcome writer's block? A block is a nasty thing! Some folks raise eyebrows when they hear how I work myself out of one. When writer's block struck during Genesis Beach, I paced, cussed, and totally frustrated. One morning I just decided to start another novel. Since Logan Hunter was a familiar character, I used her in the second book and changed the setting and all the other characters. Just North of Luck was born along with a series. The same event occurred with JNOL and Hell Swamp became the third novel in the series. I didn't really start out to write a series, but here I am! I up the ante with each mystery, challenging both Logan and myself. The fourth book, Gator Creek, is proving to be the most challenging project yet.
What is the aim of the Bewildering Stories website?
Bewildering Stories offers a home to all genres in fiction and non-fiction. We publish poetry and essays, and we love art submissions too.
Our first issue appeared in mid-2002, and publication has continued regularly every week since then. Our special issues include quarterly and annual retrospectives of our Editors’ Choices. Nothing goes out of date at Bewildering Stories: it’s all on line, all the time.
Our mission is primarily to help up-and-coming writers improve their craft. We also give each author their own bio/bibliography page, which is a nice feature that authors can refer their readers to.
Jerry Wright is the publisher of Bewildering Stories. Don Webb is the Managing Editor and Webmaster. Danielle Parker is its regular book reviewer and occasional contributor.
What features are available on site?
The regular issues consist of a fiction section, which can include serialized novels and novellas as well as short stories and flash fiction. Non-fiction may include poetry, essays, and memoirs. The Departments section usually includes introductions welcoming new contributors, a book review or excerpt, and a weekly Challenge. It may also have an editorial or The Critic’s Corner, for readers’ comments, as well as contributions to the ArtGallery.
We have many permanent departments. To mention a few: a forum; The Writer’s Craft, with helpful tips; an Authors, Titles and Genres index to all issues; and Special Features.
How are books picked for review?
Of course, works sent to us by the author or their publishers are considered. But other than that, it’s mostly what the reviewer likes to read that gets reviewed. We don’t get paid for this, you know. It’s nearsighted love.
Can authors submit their books to be reviewed?
Don Webb: Yes. Paper copies have priority, but Bewildering Stories reviews works published in other formats, as well.
We distinguish strictly between reviews and advertising. Veteran contributors to Bewildering Stories are invited to publish excerpts — usually from novels in print — as a form of free advertising; it’s a token of good will and a favor to our authors.
On the other hand, we expect third-party reviews to reflect honestly the reviewer’s personal opinion. We frown upon blatant sugar-coating and think readers will respect the reviewer and Bewildering Stories all the more for it.
Danielle: I really do find it hard to read electronic copies since I presently am off the grid and use a laptop. If authors send me a book to review on their own dime, I generally give them a chance to read the review and respond to it before it’s published. If the author strenuously objects to the review, I won’t publish it. But rarely do I change the content; and be aware: I tend to say something good and something critical about each book I review. I call it as I read it.
Jerry Wright is a little more easy-going as a reviewer than I am, but his reviews are very informative. Don Webb’s reviews are relatively rare, but when he writes one, watch out: he may shred a work he considers a major disappointment or, if he considers the work important, he may write a full-fledged review article.
My advice to any would-be author who wishes to submit: choose a favorite author and read our past reviews of that author’s works at Bewildering Stories. Then decide if you want us to review your book. And accept the fact no professional review will be unmixed praise, though (as an author myself) I know exactly how it can feel.
What genres are considered?
Danielle: Bewildering Stories publishes all genres. That said, as a reviewer, I review what I like to read. In general, I am open to all speculative fiction (horror, fantasy, and science fiction), mysteries of all kinds, non-fiction works, and general literary or classic works.
I am far less fond of romance and rarely read any, except when I’m depressed or glum, which is probably when you don’t want to send me your book about the Handsome Stud I’ll Never Meet in Real Life. But even there I make exceptions: I love, for example, Gabaldon’s Outlander series, and I read urban fantasy and paranormal romance if the clichés are not too thick for me.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Check us out at http://www.bewilderingstories.com !
COMING Dec 1st - Submissions Being Accepted ====================== Robin Falls Magazine - an online magazine catering to members of Facebook Group Red River Writers. Soon you can boast that you have an article or short stories published at Robin Falls Magazine. Display your books and artwork for sale with direct links to buy. Get your book review announced. Write articles for kids or all genre.
This is a great opportunity to show off your talents and build your writing curriculum.
A Kiss in Time is the first book that I've read written by Ms. Flinn. Once my busy reading schedule lets up, I'm planning to read Beastly since I enjoyed Kiss.
The book is a play on 'Sleeping Beauty' giving it a twist by bringing the beauty, and her kingdom, into an unknown modern world. Talia falls to the spell of the witch and 300 years later, Jack stumbles into her sleep and kisses her awake. Then we get to read about what happens afterwards.
I enjoyed the idea of bringing the entire kingdom forward in time. As plot goes, the classic 'Beauty' doesn't follow logic very well. Regardless of the time period in which the story is told, no one really seems to notice that a kingdom suddenly appears and the story generally stops as soon as the kiss is performed. So we never know what happens to the kingdom after discovering it has woken up in an unknown time.
Kiss brings the ending of the story in focus and tells the tale well. What happens when the girl wakes up? Well, they're thrown into chaos. Their land doesn't exist anymore. Over the past 300 years of our history, we've made significant advances and countries have risen and fallen. Reading this book, it highlights those changes quite a bit. I felt sorry for these people who have no place anymore in the world of power and country. Ms. Flinn questioned what they would do and I felt that, in a magical universe, her answer was more than sound and logical.
The book alternates between the points of view of the two main characters, Jack and Talia, so we get to be inside both heads while the story unfolds. I usually dislike this type of format when reading, but it works in Kiss and I felt no unnatural flow issues while I read. It was nice to watch both characters develop throughout the tale, growing into their opinions and their friendship.
Talia starts off as one might expect: spoiled. However, I did feel kind of sorry for her on more than one occasion. The poor thing never had a chance to be a well-rounded individual until she made the "bad" decision to follow her spoiled inclinations. When she is introduced into our modern world, she proves that there was nothing inherently flawed in her personality and that she could learn and grow like anyone else. I loved seeing a character that I could loathe and pity grow into someone I admired.
Jack is also spoiled in his own way. He starts out very self-absorbed and he feels as though everyone dumps on him all the time. Finding and waking Talia shoves him into a protector's srole, even though he doesn't want it, and it proved that he is capable of change and growth. He shows that he can care about others and, with Talia's help, he becomes closer to his family and to what he wants out of life.
For me, the one flaw in the book was the witch. I felt like her story was predictable and she didn't turn out to be a real villain, either. She was just a disgruntled employee. It almost nullifies the entire journey of the two main characters for me when, at the end, all is forgiven and the "witch" is invited back into the arms of the court which rejected her. I don't feel like I can relate to her. Why would you want to be around people who despised you for so long and accused you of something so heinous? Even if she did forgive them, it didn't make much sense to me for her to join them again. It would have been better if she'd forgiven them and then disappeared to live in peace from then on. It makes the plot seem more Disney than it should be.
In spite of my issues with the "villain" of the story, the overall flow and pacing is good and the end wraps (most) things up nicely. The logic behind what to do with this suddenly-there kingdom is present and it sets up the rest of their lives.
The writing, while cheesy in some places, is fairly tight. The dialogue between the characters is believable and natural. The story flows easily from one situation to the next and the plot is done well.
While there's not much deeper meaning written in, it's nice to find an entertaining story that is hopeful and highlights the growth of its characters. I'm looking foward to reading more from Ms. Flinn.
Writing is a passion. No writing can be done without some kind of passion. Writing is not a hum drum job that one does everyday because it earns a paycheck. It is something that is done because one wants to do it. It is something that burns in the soul. Passion for writing is not shared by everyone, but it is shared by those of us who have a desire to turn our words into a work of art...a work of art that affects people, touches the lives of people, motivates people, changes people's perspective, gives people entertainment, gives people hope, or educates people in some manner. Regardless of the types of books one writes, we write them to affect the lives of others. That is passion.
A great idea is born in our minds. It sparks something inside of us. It gives us - the writers - the motivation to sit down and write. But what happens when we sit down at the computer, and find our fingertips on the keyboard, our eyes staring at a blank screen, and nothing happens? The idea is there, but the words are not flowing.
That answer is simple. We are missing the "other" passion. Yes, writing is a passion, but we as authors need to be passionate about what we are writing about. We must believe in our work and feel it in our hearts. We need our work to inspire us, before it can inspire others.
That is exactly what drove me as an author to write the WITHOUT A HOME series of books about animal adoptions. My two passions in life are animals and writing. When I put those two passions together, and sat down to write, the words just flowed...from mind to keyboard. There was no over analyzing, no over thinking, there was only the inspiration in my heart and soul, that flowed onto every page.
All of the reviews of the books thus far, have proved to me that this is the only way to write. In order to touch the lives of others, your writing must first touch your own life.
The genre I write is non=fiction. I enjoy researching various topics to find out more about a subject even if I have some experience with the topic. It always seems to amaze me even though I know about a topic I always seem to find out more that surprises me in many instances.
Tell us a bit about your latest book.
My current book is titled Integrity Do You Have It 2nd editon. It defines integrity and discusses the characteristics. It creates a common set of criteria to measure others and us. These criteria are then applied to various segments of society such as the news, education and politics. It brings the subject of integrity down to the individual level through a chapter on personal integrity.
Who are you published with?
Infinity Publishing. They have been great and I am happy I chose them to publish my book. They have done everything thing I have asked them to do with a quick response.
What are your upcoming projects.
I am currently working on creating a complete list of public libraries by state to be a part of my web site. I currently have at least one page per state but many are not complete. I am in the process of creating the pages needed for each state to have a complete list on my web site.
I am also working on providing links to family friendly author web sites through my author web site pages on my site. Authors are listed under the beginning letter of their last name. I have recently added over 60 at this time. The list is being drawn from my friends from various networking sites and will probably be an ongoing project as I learn about others.
I am currently working on my next book on auditing and involves both public and governmental requirements on auditing. I hope to have an electronic version available for sale through my web site by the end of September 2009 if not before.
Where can people find out more about you and your writing?
I have a web site www.myqualitywriting.com. There is information about me and links to my articles. People can also search in the search engines under my name and find out what I am doing and have been involved with including many networking sites. There are links to several other interviews I have had.
Book Review: ‘The Case of the Missing Servant”, by Tarquin Hall
Simon & Schuster, 2009
ISBN 978-1-4165-8368-4
310 pages
Reviewed by Danielle L. Parker
http://www.bewilderingstories.com/
Tarquin Hall’s first novel, The Case of the Missing Servant, has been a gentle surprise. Charm, that’s the word I would use for it, the kind that sneaks up on you when you’re not expecting it.
Mr. Hall’s book is set in India─Delhi and Rajasthan, to be exact. One of the myriad charms of this book is the thoroughly convincing local color.Oh, I don’t mean local color of the travelogue variety.What we get from Hall’s book is local color from the inside out.We look out at Hall’s colorful India from the eyes of his characters.
And what a gloriously Indian lot they are.Irritating, prejudiced, parochial, vain-glorious, self-satisfied─but still sneaking up on the reader with that insiduous charm, from their fractured English, their old-fashioned Indian virtues and vices, the colorful food and jambalaya of castes, religions, and time-honored superstitions.
The story begins with a detective, of course.Mr. Vishwas Puri, “Chubby” to his family, is the plump proprietor of The Most Private Investigators, Ltd.Mr. Puri is not a humble man.He’s as self-congratulatory as Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and as expansively mustached.
Most of his business is the adulterous and matrimonial grist of everyday detective work, but with an Indian spin─parents checking out potential in-laws prior to arranging a marriage, and so forth. In these endeavors, our Indian Poirot is helped by a cast of colorful characters, not least his widowed and thoroughly capable Mummy. Of course Puri doesn’t want his mother’s help, but as he learns, it’s not easy to keep a strong-willed Mummy from her own meddling.
Mr. Puri is contacted by a desperate lawyer from Rajasthan.(If Mr. Hall’s description of the horrifying Indian justice system is to be believed, and he writes convincingly, don’t commit any crimes on your next visit to the Taj! Once again, we see the author’s sympathetic but unsentimental view of modern day India)
The desperate lawyer, Ajay Kasliwal, is a crusader against corruption.But like Mr. Spitzer, this crusading lawyer has yielded to personal corruption and sampled “take-out” instead of “home cooking” just a little too frequently.Soon the lawyer is hauled off to a stark Indian jail cell, accused of an affair with a low-caste household servant found dead in a ditch. It’s up to Mr. Puri and his legion of employees to ferret out the truth.
It’s to the author’s credit he paints all his characters in the round.We see their uniquely Indian faults and virtues.We don’t experience intense thrills or chills, complicated twists and turns, or white-knuckled tension in this book.But for an armchair excursion to an exotic locale, seen from the inside out, for characters we develop an exasperated affection for, it’s perfect.
So check out Mr. Vish “Chubby” Puri’s inaugural case for yourself.Just be sure to eat heartily first! The food “Chubby” spends so much time with sounds far too tasty. And from where I live, good Indian cooking is probably as far away as the Taj. Oh woe!
