Gotta Hit this Deadline -- Plus a Blog Makeover

So over the course of the 4+ years of writing my novel I'd say I've made about 10 different deadlines for myself. I've only met three of them. As you can imagine this is pretty frustrating, so I'm determined to make the one I've now set. Until that happens I've gotta leave off the blog for a bit. (all reviews that were scheduled will still happen just a while later) Cause it seems like every time I sit down to work on finishing the last bits of revision for my novel I work on my blog instead. But if I do make this deadline I'm going to do a really fun blog mini-makeover afterwards so stay tuned. Here's hoping I can actually do what I've set out to do.

Peacock Flock Review #22 - Stitch

Stitch 

Author: Samantha Durante

Length: ~ 314 pages

Genre: Romance/Dystopian

Heat level: Clean  

Stars: 4 Stupendous Purple Stars 

Book Summary:

Her heart races, her muscles coil, and every impulse in Alessa’s body screams at her to run… but yet she’s powerless to move.

Still struggling to find her footing after the sudden death of her parents, the last thing college freshman Alessa has the strength to deal with is the inexplicable visceral pull drawing her to a handsome ghostly presence. In between grappling with exams and sorority soirees – and disturbing recurring dreams of being captive in a futuristic prison hell – Alessa is determined to unravel the mystery of the apparition who leaves her breathless. But the terrifying secret she uncovers will find her groping desperately through her nightmares for answers.

Because what Alessa hasn’t figured out yet is that she’s not really a student, the object of her obsession is no ghost, and her sneaking suspicions that something sinister is lurking behind the walls of her university’s idyllic campus are only just scratching the surface…

The opening installment in a twist-laden trilogy, Stitch spans the genres of paranormal romance and dystopian sci-fi to explore the challenges of a society in transition, where morality, vision, and pragmatism collide leaving the average citizen to suffer the results.

Review:

We really liked this novel. We thought the idea of a college girl falling in love with a ghost was great enough but we were even more pulled into the story as twist after twist appeared and the premise shifted drastically. The characters were done really well and it was easy to connect with Alessa -- her narrative voice was wonderful. We also felt immersed in the setting and loved seeing things from Tristan's point of view too. The major twist halfway through that changed this from a ghost-love story to the premise of one of my favourite Jim Carrey movies (we won't tell you which one for obvious reasons :D) was a complete shock and so totally unexpected that it left us reeling, in the best possible way. We couldn't put the book down. The only negative was that we wanted a little more from the ending. It is the first part of a series but we wanted a bigger climax. We wanted the resolution at the end to be harder to arrive at. Still a great read though and we eagerly await the next book!

That's it from the flock! 

 

Peacock Flock Review #21 - Bitnapped

Bitnapped 

Author: J. T. Carroll

Length: ~ 137 pages

Genre: Suspense

Heat level: Clean  

Stars: 2.5 Somewhere Between Stars 

Book Summary:

Kelly graduated from MIT, but it wasn't enough to secure her dream job in this economy. Instead, she labors as an intern at a software company. On the way to work one morning, Kelly interrupts a masked man who is kidnapping her despised boss, Rupert. The kidnapper decides to bring Kelly along for the ride. Kelly and Rupert must escape to prevent the kidnapper from stealing six million dollars. Abandoned hundreds of miles from their office with no money or ID, they have less than twenty-four hours to return to the scene of the crime and stop the theft. Can two computer programmers outsmart criminals and emerge unscathed? The clock is ticking.

Review:

We really wanted to like this book. We liked the premise of geek turned crime stopper and we really enjoyed the narrative voice in the first couple of pages. But everything seemed to peter off after that. Our biggest issue was not connecting with Kelly. There wasn't really any character arc over the story and little to no description of her reactions and feelings. We wanted things to be more sensory and to feel immersed in the setting. The (very slight) romance/flirtation between Rupert and Kelly felt forced. We did really enjoy the 'little Italy' street that was created in New Jersey and thought that was an interesting idea. However, the novel really needed to be fleshed out. Much too short. We also felt the plot was too linear. A problem would be presented and then solved very quickly. There weren't any real setbacks or twists, the first solution presented always worked, or there was some convenient fix. The two main characters were kidnapped on page 1 and had escaped where they were trapped within 15 pages. There were quite a few cliches that brought us out of the story narrative and we felt the reasons behind why Rupert and Kelly took on the bad guys instead of going to the police weren't plausible enough. In essence this was a story that had a good premise and some great potential but unfortunately fell short of the mark. 

That's it from the flock! 

 

My New Joy

The new family of four!

So some, (who knows maybe many?) of you are wondering why the posts aren't as often as they used to be? Well it's because I have a new little daughter! That's right, on Jan 27, 2013 7:09pm Kaia Renee came into this world. Albeit by emergency c-section which was scary, but I'm okay and Kaia is wonderful. (It wasn't REALLY bad as in rushing to the operating room everyone get out of the way, but as my OB put it, the operation was an urgent emergency situation, as opposed to an emergency emergency. -- Her heart rate strip kept going flat during labour) She came into this world at 8lbs 3oz and the doctors are pretty sure they got my dates wrong as she was born at 36 weeks and 6 days. Ya think? She cried healthily through the rest of my operation and I was out of recovery pretty quickly.

I can't be more thankful that we are both okay and healthy, but oy-vay. If at all possible do NOT have a baby via c-section. I'm still no feeling completely myself, over 3 weeks later. My incision still hurts on and off. And I'm sick of not being able to do the things I'd like to. To top things off I got mastitis 5 days ago..... so ummm yeah I definitely have an excuse to not be blogging as much. :P LOL. The point is though, despite the fact that I've missed a few posts I can't be away from my computer for too long. I love writing too much, and this blog has really become an amazing outlet. A source of therapy I guess you could say. When my mind can no longer revise or edit in the fiction world, I can come here and hash out thoughts, type out ideas and really just write.

So in the coming weeks my posts may come as often as I'd like them to or they may be terribly erratic and barely show up at all. But this new little girl has stolen my heart so much that I'm sure it's more than understandable. I'm now part of a family of four. Me, my husband Tim, my son Everett, and my daughter Kaia. To quote Bella from the Twilight novel Breaking Dawn: "There was no division--my love was not split between them... It was more like my heart had grown, swollen up to twice its size" I love each member of my family just as much and it's simply that my capacity to love has grown. Kaia is a new and wonderful joy in my life. Here's to new motherhood! :D

Cheers!

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Peacock Flock Review #20 - Falling For Your Madness

Falling For Your Madness 

Author: Katharine Grubb

Length: ~ 250 pages

Genre: Romance

Heat level: Clean  

Stars: 3.5 Somewhere Between Stars 

Book Summary:

Eccentric literature professor David approaches Laura for a counter-cultural, rule-filled relationship filled with poetry, flowers and bottom-less cups of tea. He makes it very clear to her that they are just friends. If she wants to be more -- if she wants to be sweethearts -- then she is the only one that can move them forward. Laura is smitten by his humor, his charm, and his English accent (which turns out to be fake). In his company, she has never felt more beautiful or ladylike. David tells Laura that the reason he has these rules is because he is bound by the laws of chivalry, both body and soul. Then Laura finds out the real reason, one that's ancient, filled with legend and magic. Yet Laura has complete control of this madman. Should she release him or tell him she wants more? Is he eccentric or just mad? Falling For Your Madness is not just a romantic comedy, but it also asks the question, who has the most power in a relationship? The lady? Or the gentleman?

Review:

We thought this was a good cozy up book. We enjoyed laughing at the eccentricities of David and the antics and situations that he and Laura would find themselves in. David's almost too stilted way of saying everything but at the same time being extremely unsure of himself was great to read. We enjoyed the romance. We really liked the premise of how over the top chivalrous David was, great contrast to a lot of men who are not like that today. A couple little things bothered us. David's abrupt change at one point in his physical desires seemed odd, most especially that Laura's protests alone wouldn't pull him out of it. It felt strange that it was only when someone else had entered the room that David realized what he was doing. We also wanted to feel more from Laura. We liked her and enjoyed her character, so much so that we wanted to know her better. We wanted to read about more of her reactions and feelings in her internal monologue. We heard and saw a lot of her feelings and reactions through dialogue and scenes, which was wonderful, but we also wanted to see how David's appearance in her life affected her day to day. But we weren't given much information on what her life was like before him. All in all a great cozy little romance that we enjoyed. It could've used a larger dash of suspense/intrigue but we enjoyed it just the same. We would've loved an epilogue giving us just a hint of their married life and future children. :D

That's it from the flock! 

 

Review Update: Don't Waste My Time or Yours

Thankfully nowhere near this though

After all the illnesses and blog hiatuses and chunks of time eaten up by my pregnancy, I finally tackled catching up on my book review requests. It has taken me a huge amount of time to catch up. Wow. 100+ emails. I really need to stay on top of this stuff more. Thankfully I am now back at the forefront of my inbox and things are running somewhat smoothly again. Although I am still in the process of narrowing down the list to decide what to review.

My biggest irritant that chaffs despite the relief I currently feel at being caught up? That I still get so many review requests that are a)horribly composed or b)asking me to review something I don't review or c)done well, but complete ignore a paragraph (or two) from my Review Policy.

Email review requests that don't fit my Review Policy are both a waste of my time for having to read/slog through it and yours for writing it. I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall, saying the same stuff over and over again. So even though much of what was wrong with the 25+ emails I deleted was already addressed here: 5 Tips for Getting Your Book Reviewed. With this post I'll try to cover the other stuff that was irritating, annoying, or a huge turn off.

So the authors that ignore entire paragraphs in my Review Policy. Really? And you do this while sending me a request that would entail me to spend 10+ hours reading and writing a review for your book? This is why I find it so easy to delete those emails. At the same time it is hard though. Some of those authors might be great authors, and maybe I actually would've loved their book. But when I get an average of 10 review requests a week and I'm only reviewing one novel each week, I have to cut down the list somehow. And those who pay attention are the ones who get my attention.

Learn how to properly format an e-book. And don't use super weird fonts. So annoying when you can't read the words, or the page is almost all white with writing just in the middle third of the page. When you're so distracted by the fonts and formatting you can't focus on the content, which is not good if an author wants a good review. If you don't know how to format an e-book properly, get help. There's lots of people who know how to do it well.

Very obviously hand drawn novel covers that aren't done very well? Huge turn off, even if the premise of the book is really good. A cover like that reeks of "I just uploaded this yesterday, no editor, no copy editor." Spend that extra bit of money and hire an artist to design a cover for you.

Plus I really don't like those authors who have read the Review Policy and know that their book doesn't fit my criteria but they send me a request anyway. These emails have a big huge 'BUT' in the middle. "I know you don't review bitter-sweet endings but...". "I know you say the novel has to have some romance but...". Why oh why do authors do this? I've outlined my Review Policy to state and define who I am as a reader. If your book doesn't fall into what I've stated then I'm not your target audience. And why in the world would you want me to read your novel if I'm not your target audience? In all likelihood this would result in a low rating. Reading and ratings are very subjective. Doesn't matter if your book has the most amazing premise, prose, or ending, if it's got some of those things I say I don't want to read then that will affect how I feel about the book and whether or not I like it. Don't send me a request hoping your book will be an exception. I'll have so many other books in my inbox that fit into what I do like that your book will go into my 'trash' slush pile.

While going through so many emails I also realized I had to state a specific word count. I thought the word 'novel' was pretty self-explanatory but apparently not, as I got a request for a review of a 23 page story. Personally I think a novel needs to be around 80K words to really develop the story and the characters but I decided to drop the cut off to just below that at 65K. Maybe I'll regret that, maybe I won't. But at least the requests will actually all be for novels now (hopefully). :P

So tired of the hard sell. For those of you who don't know what this is, I'll give you the condensed version (I'm doing a longer post about it, next week on my Lasera blog). The hard sell is essentially telling or generalizing how a reader will take/like your story. It's making wide sweeping comments or using absolutes. Eg: "This novel will enthrall you and take you on ride unlike any other." "You'll laugh, you'll cry, and this book will go straight into your heart." "You've never read anything like this before, it's completely unique." To address each of the above comments. Yeah I'm sorry you as an author have no idea what will enthrall me personally. You as an author don't know when or if I will laugh and/or cry at your prose. Maybe something you meant to be serious I think is hysterical. And you as an author have no idea what I've read before and I'm sure you haven't read every single book in existence so you can't know that your novel is completely unique. --- Avoid the hard sell like the plague. The only time it is appropriate? If you're quoting a review by someone else, or if it is part of your back cover copy (although again this should typically and hopefully be written by someone else about your book, not written by you).

Despite all the irritants though some absolutely astounding and amazing sounding requests came through and I can't wait to get reading! :D

Cheers!

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When A Pregnancy/Sickness Kicks Your Trash

So my blog has again fallen into a dark abyss of 0 posts for way too long. But hopefully I can it pull it back up again. It was a bit of a wake up call today when I noticed that the listing for this blog on a book reviewer 'yellow page' type site now says my blog is "no longer updating". Eeep! Well we're gonna have to change that. I've been having some better days healthwise in the last little bit, hopefully it'll keep going so that I can get ahead in my posts and have some leeway if I don't feel up to the task. 

Now there are a lot of people out there who have to deal with health problems all the time. Some have chronic pain and some have side illness while trying to get better. (I've seen and heard about people dealing with the harshness of chemo.) I can't even begin to fathom at the pain and horror some people go through every day. All I know is what has affected me and my life and my ability to function. I'd hoped and thought everything was going well enough for me to begin posting again at the end of October. 

Then in November things took a turn. Nov 8 I had a major headache, I took it easy over the next few days and had to leave work early twice. Over the next 3 weeks, the headache went from major to unbearable. I had to stop work. I was laid out on the couch all day, every day. Tylenol did nothing. It got to the point where I couldn't read or watch tv, my head hurt so bad. A couple days in a row all my son and I had to eat was yogurt and bread with butter until my husband got home and made us some dinner. That's when we went to my doctor and then from there to emergency.  

Everyone kept asking if I got migraines before. I had to keep correcting them. Migraine, singular. Because it had never gone away, it just kept getting worse. After seeing a neurologist and being admitted to the hospital because even morphine was hardly touching the pain, it was a hard few days for me, my husband and my son. After an MRI they told me that they still wanted to check it against a previous MRI from 3 years ago, but that it was a migraine that could go on for weeks and there was no way to know when it would stop, I had to go home. I was both happy that it wasn't something serious but also frustrated because with it being a migraine there's pretty much nothing I can do, as migraine medication isn't okay during pregnancy. 

So I've been resting up and taking it easy for the last while. I seem to have better days when I try not to do too much and not be up and about a huge amount. Thankfully I have some amazing friends and family and a wonderful support system that not only helped with dinners but also with my son. It is utterly humbling and makes you so grateful to be the recipient of so much help, concern and prayers.

There were times when I really didn't want to be pregnant as it simple made everything worse, and yet I'm looking forward to meeting the new little life that will be here soon. As hard as this last month has been, things are slowly getting better and it helps that I'm at home now and can rest when I need to.

I know that there are many others out there like me, dealing with the lack of health you need to go on. As much as things like pregnancy or illness can kick your butt, hopefully you have a good support system. I would be lost without mine. Know that others feel for you. I'm hoping I can just keep on keeping on. 

Cheers!

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**For all of those who submitted review requests, I'm in the process of sorting through all of them now. (The health problems threw me really behind) Thanks for the understanding and the patience.

Peacock Flock Review #19 - Matched

Matched 

Author: Ally Condie

Length: ~ 369 pages

Genre: Dystopian

Heat level: Clean  

Stars: 4 Stupendous Purple Stars 

Book Summary:

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

Review:

We thought this was an interesting world. It reminded us a lot of The Giver or District 13 in the Hunger Games. This was both good and bad. A world like that is sometimes nice to read about, but we didn't see too many things about this totalitarian society that set it apart from the worlds created and that we've read about in the above books. We did really like Cassia though. We liked the concept of the Hundred Poems, and Hundred Songs etc. There's a point where Cassia thinks about how the Society gave them just enough glimpses of life that the people stay satisfied, this really rang true. We also really liked the pill idea. The novel got a little slow at times, so this wasn't a sit and finish in one sitting type of book but it was still good and we're just about to go pick up number two in the series from the library. :D A good read with some good characters, in a world that we'd really like to see shaken up. 

*Something else that made us happy? Book 3 for this series comes out in November so we don't have to wait an absurdly long time to find out what happens. Yay! 

That's it from the flock!