From Vampire Hunter to Vampire Queen

Biff... Bam... Boom... Vampire Ash

Action is the first and last word for Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock novels.

First heard about Jane Yellowrock in another paranormal mystery series about a lady who uses a plant to channel her magic. Forgot what it was, but it mentioned Jane Yellowrock
several times in a couple books

Whatever. I looked up the Jane Yellowrock book to discover it's a popular, long running series. I decided to compare first and later mass paperback in the series because so many series lose their energy after a few books. Jane Yellowrock, a vampire hunter, stars in fourteen books and is still going strong, if you believe the reviews.

[I'm betting if you start the series, you'll continue reading the series.]

The first book in the series, Skinwalker, starts with Yellowrock's arrival in New Orleans. Her first encounter with her vampire employers doesn't go smoothly. The action just escalates as she hunts for a rogue vampire who is a danger to human and vampire, alike.

Skinwalker provides a great launching pad for the series. Great secondary characters. Plot twists. And, did I mention action with plenty of mayhem?

Dark Queen is the twelfth book in the series. The action is still there, but the character development seems to have disappeared. Oh, the characters still have problems but, to me, they didn't grow like the characters in the first book, especially the secondary ones.

Yellowrock is threatened by more than "death by vampire". She uses her ability to manipulate time while changing the odds of winning a fight in her favor. The cost is a fast-eating cancer that trreatens her life. She lives, obviously because there a subsequent books.

The problem with Dark Queen is all the backstory. Too many scenes just start with lists of who the players are and why they are important to the contest for who will rule the New Orleans seethe and Europe, combined. It slows down the read tremendously.

Still, I'm betting if you start the series, you'll continue reading the series. The reviews say the odds are in my favor of winning.I'd give Skinwalker 5*, Dark Queen only 3.5* because it was so slow in comparison. Read what others say on:

Amazon        Barnes and Noble       Rakuten kobo

 

-0-

My Writing Rut

Have been watching a lot of pig videos lately as a relief from marketing. It's nice to see that some pigs get to roam free again. Watch a video here -- if you want to look at happy, crate free pigs.If you a deep into regenerative farming, you can watch pigs raised in "forests" in a similar way as the pigs The Pig Wars were.

As for marketing, I'm doing better than I did with either There Be Demons or Running from Demons, but the ROI still leaves a lot to be desired. Sales for The Pig Wars isn't doing too badly. [It's ranking 89 in one category at regular price.]

When I advertise, it bounces regularly above 100,000 on the overall Amazon rankings, and above 100 in category rankings. Not bad for a hobby writer. Also, have eleven reviews in two months. You can check out the medieval fantasy novel here.

"The Last Battle to Save Magic", the prequel to The Pig Wars, is progressing. I sent the draft to my editor for its second round of content edits. Now I'm grumbling over the blurb which is confused since Mariah was appointed commander of the reinforcements, while Renna is the POV character. The initial prologue is now a seventy page novella.

Guess, I'll start with something like: Renna didn't mind when her friend, Mariah, was appointed leader of the magic-wielding reinforcements of the Half-Elven eastern defenses. She was going home and would see her father again.

Yeah, you just got a cover reveal.

 

Satan Changed My Mind

Started reading To Date an Immortal by Stephanie Rowe as a light palate cleanser after reading a couple serious books. Was thinking the book a nice solid 4* effort.

An attractive male hero, Derek LaValle, wants to survive a curse that kills the men in his family. He has an ancestral document that says he need to kill the Guardian of some goblet, and his relatives think he's nuts. The Guardian, Justine, is now protecting an espresso machine and is bored with her duties, except she has to perform them because Satan is interested in laying her mother.

When the two meet, all bets are off. Sound familiar? The irresistible force meets the immovable object...except things begin to shift when the two meet each other. The book hits all the elements of an acceptable paranormal romance... except the characters aren't normal.

Humor saves the book. I didn't LOL so much, but I did smile  and chuckle a lot. Rowe has a knack of taking a cliché and turning it on its ear. When Satan appears on the scene, he steals the show, the devilish creature, by raising the level of humor.  But he is in good company. All the main and secondary characters are twisted out of their mundane tropes. More important, Rowe develops the multiple characters in her sub-plots rather than having them stand around to help in convenient moments.

This book met my standard of pushing myself to read "one more chapter". Yeah, I had to change my mind and give it 5*s. Truth be told, I am a coffee addict.

Learn more about the book and read other reviews at

Amazon      Barnes & Noble

 

--0--

 

My Writing Rut

This blog is courtesy of BookBub which nagged me to review a book I bought through

them. I've another blog waiting to share with the people who signed up for may newsletter on my website...if I ever figure out how to do it. Which is dependent on if I ever find the energy. One of the negatives of being a cranky old lady.

On the other hand, I've bee getting lots done...for me, anyway. The Pig Wars has been published a month now. I've made some sales. Not enough to recoup what I spent promoting it, but enough to have a much more successful launch than my other two book. [The free short stories and novellas don't count.]

The reviews are gratifying. On Amazon I have six ratings to date with 60% of them 5*. Also have reviews on GoodReads which aren't quite as good as they rate at 4.16 or 7. [I'm not going to go back and look.] Who knows what future reviews will be like. I find reader interpretations interesting.

All in all, the new book is doing quite nicely for a pipsqueak writer. I can't wait for the book to get off of Kindle Unlimited or Kindle Select or ???? I'm getting a new cover which I like much better when I expand the vendors and publish the paperback.

But, my writing is progressing best of all. I'm almost finished with the first edits of "The Battle to Save Magic", the prequel to The Pig Wars. Why the book first? My editor wanted a prequel to explain the backstory, and it ended fifty pages long. It's now a little over sixty. It's been suggested I add another forty words to turn it into a "book". Yeah, I'll admit it. I kind of do things backward.

When I moved, I discovered the first edits of "Dark Solstice", the book I started writing when I switched to writing fantasy. It first opened with Marian standing on a cliff over the ocean with her hair streaming behind her. Vengeance, the name the resulting book's prequel was given, was first publish by Wolfsinger Press. "Dark Solstice" is set four hundred years in the future of The Pig Wars. Readers of The Pig Wars might like to know that Renna and Mariah are still friends. Just download Vengeance to learn more.

PS: Wolfsinger Press has some entertaining reads.

 

Changes Upset Some Readers

 Are Two Heads Better Than One?

More Important to Mystery Readers: Are Two Childs Better Than One?

Does having two authors create a better book? It's a valid question with Lee Child's brother, Andrew, becoming a Jack Reacher co-author for The Sentinel, the latest paperback Jack Reacher novel. James Patterson thinks they're better as a duo in his review quote on the cover. Some fans don't.

Me? I'm pondering. All too often Lee Child has tended to get over-formulistic in his writing over time, though late in the series,The Midnight Road is a favorite of mine because it was set in my neck of the woods. I know the territory.

Okay. Many prominent writer's do have formulas for writing their books. I'd even go so far to say those with the most books tend to have more habits/formulas on how they present their story lines. One of my peeves is writers who cut and paste repetitious descriptions of people or places in book after book. It limits the growth of their characters. Maybe I'm just democratic enough to say that even tertiary characters should have a chance to grow.

The Killing Floor, the first book in the Jack Reacher saga, hooked me. I don't have all the books, but I do have two large stacks of paperbacks. So, it's no wonder I grabbed The Sentinel when I saw it. Must say, the Team of Child did reward me with an entertaining read.

Yeah. The voice is different from The Midnight Road, the last Reacher novel I read and reread. While this Reacher doesn't feel mushy, he just isn't the same taciturn guy. He explains himself instead of just wading in to take care of the bad guys. This upset a good segment of the reviews. So Reacher's depicted differently. This is a stylistic thing. I liked it. I also liked the way the timelines of the bad guys and good guys were juxtaposed in the book. All in all, I was entertained enough to "read one more chapter" before taking my blurry eyes to bed.

Just what genre Reacher is still puzzles me. He's high in the rankings of military adventures, but Reacher hasn't been in the military for a long time. In fact, his lack of coping with the computerized-age might make this a historical novel, though he tries to learn how a cell phone works. 

Reacher supports my idea of mysteries being a form of fantasy. Can you imagine someone existing with only an expired passport, cash, toothbrush, and ATM card? Can you imagine a bank giving him a debit card without an address? More important for reality: Where do you think the IRS is in all this? The military pension fund?

All in all, the Childs put together a suspenseful novel plucked from current events. If future Reacher novels measure up to The Sentinel, the books will stay on the best seller lists because they are fun. You can find out more about The Sentinel at

Amazon      Barnes & Nobel

---o---

My Writing Rut

I went on vacation, escaping from my covid confines into the real world with the help of my kids. It was really nice not to have to haul my walker into and out of the car by myself. Also, I'll give a five star review to Santa Fe. We always learn some surprising new thing as we explore the city, including good Greek food. I won't get into the Chili Wars between New Mexico and Colorado.

Before we left, I printed out a copy of The Pig Wars for another edit. Now I'm back at the grindstone, as slow as ever. But, I'm finding I didn't make too many mistakes transferring the changes suggested by my editor. The way I'm deleting unnecessary phrases, it's going to be a much shorter novel. 84,000 pages, anyone?

Also, got the first edit for the first draft of The Last Battle to Save Magic, the prequel to The Pig Wars back. Got my work cut out for me. Didn't get the fact that the characters were ditzie teens [striplings] across. Editor wondered why they weren't acting like they did in the book.

The story is the prequel, the editor wanted me to add to the story line. [Another form became the first chapter.] The first version metastasized into a 70 page novella by the time I finished the first draft. The story line is about the defining moment in Renna's life when her father dies as a result of the magic she and Mariah [of Vengeance] unleash in a battle against their Suthron attackers.

Usurping Cats

Have been thinking about my late kitties recently. Know so because I've been watching old cat videos and longing for the days when I had two cats on my lap. But I'm also thinking about how smart cats are...or aren't.

Discovered Leighann Dobb's cat/ghost mystery, Ghostly Paws. It seemed a purrfect read for my mood. Dobbs is a prolific writer with good reviews and even awards. I'm missing my cats, and I love ghost stories, right?

What's bothered me about the book was the cats being smarter than humans. Chauvinistic of me? I don't think so, even when considering a paranormal mystery.

Oh, I found the book an acceptable, light-weight entertainment of the conventional kind. The mystery contains all the crucial parts, even was book one in the series. The problem is that the cat made the better detective than the human...even if it didn't talk.

Willa, the protagonist, moves to Mystic Notch where her sister is sheriff to take over her grandmother's book store and house after a car accident ended her journalism career. Willa took over her grandmother's cat. too. Actually, the cat took over Willa in the sense it goaded her into the finding of the clues to the murder

What I missed the most in the book was the lack of tension. Oh, Willa gets yelled at as she's also pushed by the ghost of the fussy librarian to find her murderer. She even pukes on the developing love interest.

Still, I finished the book. But, it didn't hold my interest or keep me up. The gauge: I found I reread two of Tamora Pierce's Tortell quartets while reading Ghostly Paws. It's not unusual for me to read two books in tandem according to my mood, but I felt real reluctance in returning to Willa's problems.

The ghost didn't do much for me, either. Thought she was one dimensional. Granted I think I'd like to think I'd goad someone who could see me to solve my murder, too. But the victim never gets beyond the fussy librarian trope.

Bottom line: Ghostly Paws is a nice beach book or a book to read when you know you'll be interrupted a lot. You can learn more about the book on 

Amazon     Barns & Noble  

----o----

My Writing Rut

You're reading book reviews from me again because I trying to project a more professional writing presence for the book I've almost finished: The Pig Wars. My website and blog have been upgraded. I've also gone and commissioned another cover for The Pig Wars which is

now in copy edits. I really think I'll meet my Fall publishing date. The prequel to the book is also in edits. I may have to decided which I'll publish first.

One funny thing. When I sent my manuscript back to the editor for copy edits, I expected to add a few more pages to my total. Then, I got them back for me to make the changes. They are mostly deletions. The manuscript will still be above 80,000 words. But the editor has been right for the first four chapters. The manuscript is littered with superfluous phrases.

I have a semi-mystery of my own hanging out on my desktop: The Ghostly Killing Fields or some such title, featuring Dumdie Swartz of The Ghost in the Closet and The Ghostcrow. I'm hoping it'll be close to 100 pages. I sporadically add to the current chapter. The draft needs major work, but I'm trying to get an ending on the piece before I revise.

Only I have another Half-Elven novel with first edits not transferred/rewritten that I found when I moved chewing on me...Dark Solstice, featuring Mariah discovering she has a granddaughter some 400 years after The Pig Wars.

Decisions. Decisions.

----o----

My Reading Pile

Finally broke down and bought the hardcover of Patricia Brigg's Wild Sign, part of her werewolf universe as in her Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega series. I won't be reviewing it. But I've been sneaking peeks as I copy edit The Pig Wars. If you haven't tuned into Brigg's worlds, you should go haunt some used book stores...or new ones too.

Dragons, Tigers, and Elves, Oh My!

Dragons can be annoying.

So if you don't like those preternaturals,

How about vampires, trolls, shifters, and half-breeds galore?

 

Lessons from My Reading

This year I've been working my way through Lindsay Buroker's laugh-out-loud dragon
series, featuring Val, a middle-aged, half-elf loose cannon assassin and Zav, a powerful, pompous dragon lord who wears interesting shoes, like yellow crocs.

Oh, the fantasy elements are there in abundance, as is action, magic, and shifting around multi-dimensional worlds. Humans, goblins, dragons, fairies, elves, vampires, shifters, trolls, half-breeds of all kinds, both friend and foe, abound. The wondrous part is that Buroker manages to make even the clichés her own. [Example: Buroker uses caramel chocolates to distract a pissy fae queen.]

Mostly, I enjoy the wicked first person point of view Buroker uses to make the most of a wise-cracking middle-aged protagonist. Her take on our modern world--Seattle in particular--often makes me pause even when I'm not laughing.

Buroker is also strong on drawing secondary characters. I enjoyed the fact that her human characters are almost as diverse as the preternaturals. All are well drawn and distinct. Her boss, Colonel Willard, is even more snappy than Val plus the more intimidating woman. [Val has an insecure streak as wide as a fun house mirror.]  Basically, Buroker makes Val's band of friends a crucial part of the stories.

Oh, I forgot the tiger companion. He's the i-beam that makes the series with his dry, snarky advice to Val.

Bottom line on the nine books in this series: They're action-oriented urban fantasy. By definition that means that the books are basically light and move fast without much introspection from the characters. Yet they have endless charm...and laughs. More important, well-done humor is rare and a great treat.

All I can do is look on with envy. I'll never write as funny...or as fast. There's still one more book for me to read in this series which I think is complete. Buroker does have other series...though I haven't read them.

You can find the Death by Dragons books on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble 

You can find her other many novels on iBooks and kobo.

 

~~~0~~~

 

My Writing Rut

My book The Pig Wars, a Half-Elven novel set after the Rebellion created a safe-haven for them in the Far Isles, is coming along nicely, complete with a romantic ending. [I
don't know where that came from, but it's there.] Renna isn't quite as snarly as she is in Vengeance, set 400 years later.-- I'd think I'd be cantankerous, too, if my hair was white and I needed a walking stick when my childhood friend still looked like a sexy young woman.

My editor is going through the third content edits...slightly delayed by the death of her dog. After I transfer her suggestions/comments, come the copy edits and formatting. I really think the book will be published in Fall, 2021...in spite of how slow I am.

Perhaps, my eye troubles haven't be able to keep a good book down. At least, my editor thinks it's good. Said I should try a traditional publisher. My ego would like me to try. But I'm a realist. At my age, I'd probably be dead before the agent/publisher-finding-process ran its course. Yeah, it'd probably take five years and umpteen "not for us" rejections before I even found an agent...if I found an agent.

Heads up. This is my first blog in awhile, and I don't seem to be working it too well. I can't find the links or buttons I want.