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

 

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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

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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  

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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.

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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.