Dec 30 2011
Dear Ms. Milan: Thank you for sending me “Unraveled” for review. I have enjoyed (but been somewhat critical) of your past works but your novella, “Unlocked,” was one of my best reads of 2011. Smite’s book was hotly anticipated. Part of the problem I had with “Unraveled” was the result of my own expectations and(…)
Dec 13 2011
I’m combining the posts for the news and the deals in one. The deals are at the end. First up is the news that Dan Lubart has been hired by HarperCollins as SVP of Sales Analytics according to Publishers Marketplace. I find this fascinating because Lubart’s firm, Iobyte, has been analyzing price data and list(…)
Oct 4 2011
It’s October. I know, I can barely believe it either. The following are our recommended reads in October. Here is a catalog of October releases. The November and December catalogs are fairly up to date although the December one doesn’t have the category releases yet. YA Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, recommended by(…)
Sep 26 2011
Dear Ms. Milan: Toward the end of the review it is going to sound like I didn’t like this book but that would be the wrong impression. I did like this book. I liked it but in a lot of ways I found Mark, like his older brother Ash, to be almost saintly in his(…)
Jul 2 2011
On Wednesday evenings, the New York Times Bestseller list is emailed to editors and agents. On this past Wednesday, RWA was abuzz because Courtney Milan’s self published novella “Unlocked” made it to number 6 on the NYT ebook list and number 19 on the combined print and ebook list and 36 on the USA Today(…)
May 31 2011
Publishing is undergoing a real seismic change. Agents are publishing, authors are banding together to form publishing houses, publishing houses are buying deals direct from the author (and thereby cutting out the agent), Amazon is changing the formulation from the Big 6 to the Big 7 and paying hefty sums to sign marquee authors, and(…)
May 30 2011
Dear Ms. Milan: I’ve been chomping at the bit to talk about this book with other readers. I’ve felt, in the past, that your works were smart and thoughtful but sometimes lacking in emotional engagement. I particularly struggled to connect with Ned Carhart in Trial by Desire. But Unlocked packs an emotional punch from the(…)
Feb 2 2011
Dear Ms. Milan: I have heard such good things about your early Victorian-set novels that I kept meaning to read one. When the controversy over the Publisher's Weekly review erupted, I knew I would have to read Unveiled. While more confused than ever about that infamous review, I have been thinking a lot about the(…)
Dec 14 2010
I was planning on taking a hiatus from writing opinion pieces on Tuesdays until the first of the year. I was getting tired of writing them and I figured you all might be tired of reading them. An interesting issue arose yesterday, however, that I wanted to throw out for discussion amongst the readership. Here’s(…)
Oct 6 2010
Here is our October recommends for the month. The Iron Duke is the big recommended book here at Dear Author. Robin, Janine (review), Shuzluva (review) and I all think it is a B+/A book. Others you might want to check out include (reviews will be forthcoming): Recommended by Jayne: Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna(…)
Sep 29 2010
If I were to describe this plot, I would say that it is a plot of estranged spouses. Ned has gone from boy to man, as is most often the result of journeys. And Lady Kathleen has suffered the rumor of her husband’s swift removal for the past three years. But this book is so much more than the reconciliation of estranged spouses. It is more than the two protagonist’s getting to know each other as they fall in love, despite the forced marriage. No, this is a book about what makes a hero.
Dec 31 2009
Dear Ms. Milan, I had been hearing positive buzz from several quarters for this, your debut romance, so I approached it with perhaps higher-than-usual hopes. Maybe because of those high hopes, the read started out a little rocky for me. The heroine and hero encounter each other in the first scene, and I found myself(…)
Dec 18 2009
Jason Pinter wonders whether being online and so accessible removes the mystique of an author and thereby reduces one’s ability to sell books. **** More authors are getting into the casual gaming platform. Orchid Games released Heartwild Solitaire Classic and recruited a few authors to write short stories that players are allowed to read after(…)
Oct 19 2009
I started a Why I Read/Why I Write series earlier in the year but couldn’t sustain enough submissions to keep posting them. Courtney Milan sent this to me earlier in the year and I promised to post it near her release date. **** Insert the depressing numbers of your choice into this paragraph: Of the(…)
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