Archive for April, 2008
Dear Ms. Stuart,
 Fire and Ice is the fifth and (if I’m not mistaken) final book in your Ice series, which features the agents of a ruthless spy organization known as the Committee. This one is all about the flamboyant Reno, Taka’s younger cousin.
Back in the third book, Ice Blue, Reno, aka Hiromasa Shinoda, a video-game loving Japanese punk with long red hair and teardrops tattooed on his cheeks, met up with Jilly Lovitz, Summer’s brainy half sister, who was then eighteen years old. From the moment those two laid eyes on each other, a powerful attraction was born, but Summer and Taka made Reno promise to stay far away from Jilly.
Fire and Ice opens two years later. Reno is now twenty-seven and an agent of the Committee (though how exactly he is able to do the Committee’s work looking as conspicuous as he does is not explained). In the opening scene, Reno learns that while Taka and Summer have gone into hiding from Russian mercenaries who have been hired to take out all the Committee’s agents, Jilly, unaware that they are no longer in Tokyo, has decided to pay …
First there was the Indiana Censorship Bill that requires any seller of sexually explicit material to register with the Secretary of State. You know, like bookstores that sell romances and such.
Now the Republicans have the opportunity to vote for Tony Zirkle who is in a primary race for a House seat in Northwest Indiana. Apparently, Mr. Zirkle is either none to bright or totally disingenuous. If it’s the former, I don’t think he should be making laws that affect the rest of this country. If it’s the latter, ditto plus ten.
What did Zirkle do? A white supremacist group decides to hold a party commemorating the birthday of Adolf Hitler. Zirkle is one of the speakers. When questioned about this, Zirkle claimed that “”I’ll speak before any group that invites me. . .I’ve spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta.” When asked his thoughts about the group, he said “he didn’t know enough about the group to either favor it or oppose it.”
and
He also told WIMS radio in Michigan City that he didn’t believe the event he attended included people necessarily of the Nazi mindset,
…
 The Cover Cafe 2007 contest is open for voting. There are seven categories and ten finalists per category. Go on over and vote for the best covers in 2007.
Shelf Awareness highlighted a New York Times article about Open Book, “the first real estate home for literary arts in the nation.” Open Book is a large facility of 55,000 square feet. It houses three different business/literary facilities:
- The Loft Literary Center the largest of the three nonprofit groups that formed Open Book, offers writing classes, provides work space and grants for writers and is host of book events in a performance space designed for readings.
- The Minnesota Center for Book Arts provides equipment and space for professional artists and novices alike to work in letterpress printing, hand bookbinding and papermaking. Some of the resulting creations are unique and functional books, but others are more like art and sculpture.
- And finally Milkweed Editions is, by some measures, the largest independent nonprofit literary publisher in the country.
While part of the success of Open Book might be its non profit status and the fact that Minneapolis is the “most literate city” in the Nation, I really love the idea of incorporating the Book Arts facility into the store. Many people love making photography books and I think it would be great if bookstores would incorporate a few computers for rental …
Audio book sales were down by 5.7% in February according to the AAP but up overall by 5.6%. Audible is trying to increase its market by reaching out to kids. According to an AP article, 1/3 of all youth have an ipod or some other mp3 player. The goal is to reach these kids so that they listen to books instead of music.
I can get behind that concept and I also like the idea of audio books turning the reluctant reader into an avid reader. However, one statement made by Audio Publishers Association president Michele Cobb was worrisome:
I hear lots of people talking, saying that when they put their kids to bed, they put them down with an audiobook
While I am a big fan of supplemental book sources such as kidthing, I don’t think that there is any replacement for a parent reading to his or her child. Even when my daughter watches an animated book, she likes for me to sit with her and the evening hours when she is put to bed? I wouldn’t want to be replaced by an Ipod when she still wants me to read …
Dear Mrs Simonson,
 I first read “Lady Elizabeth’s Comet” a few years ago when I was lucky enough to score a copy of it through a used bookstore. Ever since then, I’ve touted its merits to those looking for intelligent heroines, beta heroes and wonderful storytelling. I’m delighted that Uncial Press has brought it out in eform and I can talk it up some more.
Did I say intelligent heroines? Lady Elizabeth Conway is one of my favorites. Her passion is astronomy yet you don’t use it as a prop to get her into silly situations from which the hero must rescue her nor to force her to act up in public in order to Make a Point. It also plays a pivotal role in whom she marries by making her open her eyes to the truth of her convenient betrothal. Ah, I never said she doesn’t make mistakes and I thank you for hers. They make her well rounded and believable with nary a hint of Mary Sue-ness. She commits some blunders, has to suffer for them and grows from the experience.
Tom Conway is a delight. He’s …
Dear Ms. Murphy,
 Your urban fantasy novels have failed to work for me in the past but I like giving authors second chances, especially when they expand into a favorite subgenre. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a political fantasy, and this book reminded me why I enjoy it.
Set in an alternate fantasy world modeled after historical Europe, The Queen’s Bastard follows the life of Belinda Primrose, the illegitimate daughter of Queen Lorraine of Aulun. Unacknowledged by her mother, Belinda was raised by her father, Robert Drake, to be an assassin and spy who serves Aulum by protecting her mother’s throne. Her latest mission brings her to Gallin, where she must find proof that the rival Queen Sandalia of Lanyarch and Lutetia is plotting to kill Lorraine in order to seize her throne. There, Belinda insinuates herself within the circle of friends belonging to Sandalia’s son, Javier, and soon discovers they have something in common: magic. As they learn to wield this mysterious witchpower together, Belinda, used to living her entire life serving the wishes and schemes of others, discovers she wants power for herself.
The first thing that struck …
Dear Ms. Frost
 I think this is one book where I wish I hadn’t read the first one because while some of the vampire world building was better explained in Halfway to the Grave, the heroine read so differently it was like she had a lobotomy. One Foot in the Grave takes place four years after the end of Halfway to the Grave. The heroine has left her lover, Bones, behind and is working with a secret government operation designed to take out vampires.
In Halfway to the Grave, Cat’s appeal is her vulnerability. She is half human and half vampire and through luck and determination finds out that she can kill vampires. Her greatest asset is her humanity. Her heart beats and thus she can disguise herself amongst vampires and unwittingly lure them to their deaths.
In the first book, Cat’s dialogue was very youthful. She’s traded in her charming “I hope you choke on my blood, you jerk†and “Kill me already, you pathetic suck-neck!†for vulgarity filled insults. It seemed like her character development consisted of coarser language and superior physical skill. Outwardly she has developed, …
This is a memoir in the making, don’t you think? Roger Clemens, star pitcher and first ballot Hall of Famer, puts his legacy in jeopardy by possible being on the juice. Sues for defamation against the accuser. Has all his dirty laundry and then some aired for the world to read. There should definitely be a chapter on Why Defamation Suits Are Dangerous.
Hey folks, Roger here. Just wanted to give you a tip. When you file a suit for defamation, you put your entire reputation on the line which means your opponent can dig up any and all sordid information like the fact that you had a 10 year affair with a country music singer whom you met when she was 15 and you were 28, married and with kids. When you are confronted with such as accusation, make sure that you have plausible deniability because no one buys the story that she went up to my hotel room after we met but we didn’t have sex. And I didn’t really have a good explanation as to why I was funneling cash to her in amounts as high as $25,000.00. …
In the true spirit of viral marketing, I received my first AuthorTalk link in my inbox from a friend. I’m not sure how she found it but I think it was from another person’s blog. And now I am doing my part in spreading the word.
I think the entire point of book trailers was to be an online, grass roots, viral marketing endeavor. Circle of Seven Productions owns the trademark to “book trailer” and is credited with the origination of the concept.
I’ve always wonder about the success of book trailers. The Book Standard used to have the Book TrailerPark for videos but the Book Standard is dead and so is the TrailerPark. That’s a bit how I view book trailers, a sort of promotional dead end. I don’t think that even one trailer has convinced me to buy a book.
There have been several posts about the blogosphere that discuss the book trailer with most people agreeing that the videos do very little for them. Despite the many proclamations of readers and authors who feel unmoved by book trailers, authors still keep making them and putting them …
Dear Mrs. O’Reilly,
 You came close to a trifecta. You really did but it’s with sadness that I’m going to have to grade this book down. Don’t worry, it’s not a D grade because so many things are still right about it that were right about the first two books in the series. But a few things missed and that’s enough.
It’s not that Sean O’Sullivan changes radically from the easy talking, female pleasing man we’ve seen already. The guy knows how to talk, kiss and finesse his way through relationships, racketball games and courts of law. Want something fixed? Sean’s the man who can. And he’ll leave most everyone with a smile on their face after he’s gotten his way.
It’s not that I don’t like Cleo Hollings, one of the Deputy Mayors of NYC who’s got a pair and who isn’t afraid to show that she does. This woman gets off on negotiating union contracts, thrives on the pressure of getting a strike bound city moving again, enjoys Town Hall meetings in which she knows she’s going to get yelled at. And she’s sexually aggressive too.
The dialogue is still wonderful. As I read the book, …
I haven’t done a good job of posting these figures recently, but net book sales for the year are up 6.2% in 2008 and 4.8% in February alone. Given that we are either in a recession or on the cusp, I would think any amount of increase is positive. Adult paperback is seeing the largest increase at 30.8% v. adult mass market increasing only 0.4% and adult hardcovers falling 26.4%. Other figures included:
- Adult paperback climbed 30.8% to $128.8 million.
- Children’s/YA hardcover rose 8.1% to $40.7 million.
- Children’s/YA paperback rose 7.2% to $37.2 million.
- E-books were up 6.7% to $2.6 million.
- Adult mass market rose 0.4% to $59.5 million.
- Adult hardcovers fell 26.4% to $83.5 million.
AAP via ShelfAwareness.
Dear Ms. Cole:
 Somewhere in the middle of Dark Needs at Night’s Edge I felt that this book occupies a very important moment in the Immortals After Dark series. As Jane said previously, this is a series one can pick up at any point and not be completely confused. But for those of us who have been reading it since the beginning, the world-building is complex and multi-layered, not only with different species of immortals but with different families and other kin relationships to keep track of, and various mythologies, alliances, aversions, grudges, and other intersections among the immortals. It is a challenge to keep the reader engaged with the central story as well as giving ample attention to the world building for both novice and initiated readers. Dark Needs at Night’s Edge reminded me of how difficult that challenge can be, because the book’s main strengths and weaknesses relate to this balancing.
Conrad Wroth is a Fallen vampire, turned by his desperate brother against his will into the creature he had made a sacred vow in life to destroy. And now, in his Fallen state, eyes blood red and …
Last month, I read about a new e book program for kids called Kidthing.com. Kidthing is based on Adobe flash and is one part audio book and one part video. It really harnesses the ability of a computer to translate into a learning tool for young children.
During its beta period, users could access Horton Hears a Who for free. The book is scanned in and then animated. A voice reads
the words on the pages, just like a parent would read a book to a child. For me, it’s a great alternative to television. My 4 year old daughter just loves it and between her father and I reading it to her and her listening to the narrator on the computer, she’s managed to memorize nearly the whole book.
The animations are fairly simplistic. In Horton, the animation often is simply Horton blinking his eyes or the clover moving slightly. But even the slightest movement can bring the page alive. The narrator also is skilled and connects well to …
Dear Ms Mueller,
 One thing I know is that I’ll always get something new and different when I begin one of your stories. I realize I mention the unusual settings you utilize in almost every review but I appreciate it so darn much that it just has to be said. And this is one of the most interesting ways of doing TT though one that’s hard to read at times. But thanks for not pulling any punches here. Sorry, no joke intended as spousal abuse is no laughing matter.
Time travel novels can irk me. Will the time traveler wander about babbling “this just can’t be happening?” or will he/she act too modern? Will the person in the correct time freak out or accept things too easily? TT novels have ‘issues’ but you’ve dealt with them in ways that worked for me.
Victoria is puzzled at first when she wakes in the body of Mayati and still thinks she’s in modern times. The two weeks of dreams / images / thoughts she gets after collapsing in fear that her husband will find her are enough to convince her …
Welcome to First Page aka Query Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page (or query) read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. Published authors may do so under their own name or anonymously.
Readers, though, the way that I look at it is this: Would the hook itself interest you in reading the book. If yes, what interests you and if not, what would you change to make it more appealing?
***
I am submitting the first page of my as-yet unfinished novel for critique. The working title is All I Ever Wanted, and it is an inspirational chick-lit romance of a projected 95,000 words.
***
The thing about life is, no one ever tells you when it’s going to change. When you buy your calendar for half-price on January 10th, you never open it to find, two rows under the fluffy bunnies snuggling among the sunflowers, bold red letters declaring, “MAJOR LIFE CHANGE.â€
Because, if I had, I’d have worn better underwear.
…
Dear Ms. Mallory:
 I’ve pledged to myself to try and be more diverse in my reading because I do have the luxury of choosing among a number of books without financial risk. This is my first book from you and while I had several issues, I like the voice and would try you again.
Marietta Winters sought out Gabriel Noble upon recommendation from a family friend. Marietta’s younger brother, Kenny, has been arrested and accused of being the Middlesex Murderer. Marietta is desperate to free her innocent brother and Noble is her last chance.
Noble investigates matters for the princely sum of 10,000 pounds or three favors. Marietta rightly assumes that those favors must be costly. Marietta is so poor that she and her older brother have been reduced to eating bread and water and thus three favors is her only source of payment. Noble makes it seem like the three favors will be sexual in nature and Marietta bristles at this, but will do whatever she can to help her brother.
I think that the intent of this book was to echo the gothics of the 1970s where the reader isn’t …
There’s another AuthorTalk video up. HelenKay Dimon is the victim subject of the newest one.
 When Lois McMaster Bujold agreed to write a first sale letter for the blog, I almost fainted with delight. I started reading Ms. Bujold at the beginning of her Sharing Knife series despite hearing about how fantastic her Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith series. I was intimidated by the size of that backlist even though I found Bujold to be a sensitive and gifted writer.
I finally broke down and bought Cordelia’s Honor after the wonderful guest review by Elizabeth and was converted. When Ned came nosing around for something to read, I gave him the book and he was converted. He’s reading his way through the series (currently at Brothers in Arms) and says that he is really into it. I keep asking him if we can buy the Lego Space series set and shoot a little Miles V video.
Bujold’s latest release is the Sharing Knife: Passage and will be on bookstore shelves on April 22, 2008.
***
Well, my first sale ever was a short story to Twilight Zone Magazine, towards the end of 1984. The news arrived as a typed postcard …
Dear Readers,
Here are two more first volumes, these two from popular series that I found I didn’t like as much as their popularity suggested I should.
 Honey and Clover by Chica Umino. Viz. Retail $9.99. Rated T+ for older teen. 10 volumes (still ongoing in Japan; 1 released here).
Honey and Clover centers around a group of poor eclectic students at an art college that live in the same tiny, rundown apartment building. There’s a large cast of characters but these are the main ones: Morita is a weirdo genius slob who’s been in college for many years, and who leaves for weeks at a time and comes back exhausted and loaded with money. Mayama is a fairly normal architecture student about to graduate, but with hints of a mysterious past. And the last is a very average guy, the hero, Takemoto, who doesn’t have any real aim in life except he’s studying architecture as well.
One day they meet a tiny relative of a professor who enters the school as a Freshman. She’s Hanamoto Hagumi and both Takemoto and …
We hosted a giveaway for 15 copies of Kresley Cole’s delicious upcoming May release, Dark Needs at Night’s Edge. The winners are as follows. Please send me (jane @ dearauthor. com) your snail mail address.
# 92 Little Lamb Lost
# 36 Miss Kitty
# 14 Ana
# 50 Emily
# 107 Josie
# 97 Dani
# 67 Shreela
# 64 limecello
# 79 Liviania
# 111 Ashley
# 15 DS
# 87 Wendy
# 114 Candice
# 116 Nikki
# 103 ChRiStY
We also celebrated Signet/NAL who stood up for the integrity of publishing and the readers. The winners of a $5 gift certificate from Fictionwise are below. Please email me (jane @ dearauthor. com) with the email address where the GC should be sent.
# 41 A. Hashi
# 33 ms aggie
# 10 Jane A
# 23 Meriam
# 31 willaful
Dear Mrs. Butcher,
 A friend of mine recommended this book as one in which there isn’t too much gratuitous violence. Since I loathe play-by-play descriptions of the evil people can do to each other, I paid attention and noted the title. As she said, it isn’t so much a slice by slice commentary of what was done to the heroine as a psychological study of what the heroine goes through afterwards and how the hero handles what he had to do in the name of justice.
I really appreciate the fact that you manage to convey the seriousness of what the heroine endured while not dwelling on the details. There’s enough there to know the physical and mental anguish she was subjected to while in the hands of the terrorist wannabes as she was beaten and watched her friends die. The fact that the hero was undercover and thus couldn’t interfere with what he was forced to watch happen or else risk the lives of countless others was a realistic way to set up the hero/heroine conflict.
That the heroine might have glimpsed the faces of some of her kidnappers and thus be in danger from them …
I had a reader ask if she could get the blog posts in her email box. I searched around and found a plugin that allows subscribed readers to get each blog post as an email.
You can subscribe here.
Dear Ms. Holly,
 A few years ago, I read your historical romance Beyond Innocence. While I didn’t love the book, I thought it was better than average and I especially liked your writing voice, so much so that I quoted from it in my opinion piece on style. Therefore, when Janet (Robin) recommended Catching Midnight to me, I ordered a copy of the book and took it with me on a recent trip.
Catching Midnight is the first book in a historical paranormal series that features upyrs, immortal, blood-drinking shape-shifters. Set in the medieval era, the book opens in 1349, when ten year old Gillian is cast out of her home by her mother because her baby brother is infected with the plague. Gillian can sometimes sense people’s secrets and her perception tells her that her mother prefers her brother to her. Nonetheless, she follows her mother’s advice and runs to hide in the forest, where she expects to die.
After falling asleep in the woods, Gillian awakens to hear voices arguing over her. The voices belong to Auriclus and Nim Wei, two upyr elders who both want to claim Gillian. …
We’ve had a bit of a firestorm here at Dear Author and many new readers (hello new visitors). I thought it might be worthwhile to do a bit of post mortem on the recent brou ha ha.
For new visitors, let me give you a bit of a history. I started Dear Author in April of 2006 with my friend, Jayne. Initially it was the two of us sharing our reviews of books with the open internet world as opposed to the private email list we had belonged to for several years prior (6 maybe?). The Two Ja(y)nes seemed pretty clever to me. I foolishly got caught up in the “Jane-ness” and now everyone who blogs with us has a Jan-like psuedonym. What seemed clever two years ago is a bit silly now, but it’s like an inescapable brand. I should have been more prescient.
I give that background because Dear Author is composed of six different individuals, three who contribute regular reviews: myself, Jayne and Jia. Three others who provide semi-regular reviews: Janine, Janet (aka Robin), and Jan. We are adding another thoughtful voice, Jennie, who …
I missed this story completely. Must have been the crazy Amazon thing that made me pass over this. Gawker Media, the owner of several blogs such as the science fiction/fantasy blog io9 and one of my favorite tech blogs: Gizmodo, decided to sell off Idolator to Buzzne; Gridskipper to Curbed, and Wonkette to its current manager.
Nick Denton, owner of Gawker Media, has been lauded (despite being a prize asshole apparently) for actually making money off of internet content when no one else has. The fact that Denton is now selling off one of his flagship sites, Wonkette, has the traditional media in a tizzy. After all, Wonkette gets over a million monthly unique visitors (as a comparison, Dear Author 56,609 unique visitors in March) and if Nick Denton can’t make money off of Wonkette, can any internet news medium?
This hasn’t even occurred to me before as a privacy issue. The Ninth Circuit recently ruled that a US Customs Official has the right to rifle through the contents of your laptop. The issue was brought before the Appellate court in a charge of child pornography.
The traveler’s laptop was searched at a border point by a US Customs official who decided, for some apparent reason, to look at the folders entitled “Kodak Pictures” and “Kodak Memories”. The official found a picture of two nude women and continued to search more and found some evidence of child pornography.
The traveler argued that a search through one’s laptop was unreasaonable under the Fourth Amendement since the laptop was more like a “home” or the “human mind.” The prosecution argued that it was just a normal closed container like luggage, a purse or wallet. The Ninth Circuit agreed with the prosecution.
Ars Technica has looked at this issue in the past as it relates to iPhones or other smartphone devices that can store pictures, passwords, and other sensitive information. Personally, I think it is a place where the law has not competently kept up with …
Dear Ms. Napier:
 This is the second of your books I have read, and it was selected purely by what was available on Fictionwise. Luckily for me, Price of Passion was a winner, an entertaining and smart interpretation of the enduring Harlequin Presents equation of plucky but overset heroine + darkly passionate and misunderstood hero = operatic drama and fiery loving. I loved every overwrought page of it.
Kate Crawford has a secret, a growing concern, and she’s come to Oyster Beach to figure out what to do about it. The vacation property she has rented is right next door to famous author Drake Daniels, who has shared Kate’s bed and commanded her heart for the past two years. But Drake, itinerant and unsettled, both physically and emotionally, does not seem happy to see Kate. When Kate — accidentally on purpose — stops by Drake’s super-secret writing haven, casually inquiring about a spare cup of sugar, she proves an irresistible disruption to Drak, catalyzing an anger and lust-fueled game of cat and mouse, although who acts and cat and who acts as mouse changes over the course of the book.
Most of the …
Dear Ms Barrett,
 A notation on the cover of “This is How It Happened” states it’s “Not a Love Story” and that’s the truth. Even for a Chick Lit book this novel has almost no romance in it. Most of the story is Maddy and her endless need for revenge against the man who done her wrong.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned but Maddy has to take some responsibility for acting like a moron. Sure I can understand that initially she’s dazzled by Carlton, his great looks, his romantic gestures and the envy of other women that he’s dating her. But since you set her up as being so smart I began to wonder at her gullibility. She’s so intelligent yet she keeps making dumb moves over and over. Love must be blind because how else would she continue to trust and believe Carlton as he screws her again and again.
And it’s not just in their private life. She makes dumb business moves like not working out a business contract before living and breathing the company they start. She accepts her reduced role in the company and the …
There is a host of reasons to like Kresley Cole’s works. My top two are they are relentlessly fun and deliciously subversive. The fun is probably readily apparent, but this article is about her subversivity.
Cole takes very traditional tropes and reverses them completely. For example, Cole’s books are female-centric with the female myths playing larger roles. Instead of the brotherhood or the male cadre of warriors, you ave a group of sword wielding, smart mouthed, head chopping Valkryries that like sparkly things, nail polish and video games or devious witches that are so beautiful they have to spell themselves to protect others from their personal glory.
Cole takes it even farther by flipping the hero into the traditional heroine type. As Robin blogged over at Reader’s Gab, so often heroines are solitary creatures with few friends and and not much of a support system; most importantly, the heroine is generally inexperienced.
So while Cole’s heroines are the ones with the constant fellowship and support, Cole’s heroes are isolated for various reasons. Lachlain was captured for hundreds of years [A Hunger Like No Other]. Bowen was emotionally stunted because he had lost …
Edited to add: Caution There’s a major spoiler in paragraph 3.
Dear Mrs. Beverley,
 When you posted to one of my earlier reviews that your next book would be back in the world of the Mallorens and feature a rake with a ‘nun on the run,’ I started salivating. Me wuvs the Mallorens and Georgian historicals so I was bugging Jane to make sure we got a copy. Then silly me got it in my head that it was due out in June so I sorted it after a few other books I wanted to finish. Well, yesterday afternoon I saw it listed at Fictionwise. I said a bad word. I reshuffled my book stacks and read half of it in one evening. Today I finished it off and here I am, lost again in the world of the English aristocracy where “all things are possible.”
I enjoyed reading your “how I wrote this story” entry after I finished the actual story. How you figured out exactly who this cursing nun is whom Robin overhears in a French inn, how they get together, how it turns into a road romance …
Congratulations. You are getting an early peek at Caroline Linden’s lovely June historical, A Rake’s Guide to Seduction. Please send us your snail mail address within the next 48 hours. Thanks!
- 8 – ames
- 15 – NHS
- 19 – Wonald
- 25 – Liviania
- 31 – Willa
- 44 – azetc lady
- 49 – growlycub
- 57 – CrystalGB
- 61 – Dani
- 63 – Laela
Dear Ms. Melton:
 You are a new to me author and I had heard good things about you so I was happy to try you out. While this book didn’t work for me, I am still interested in reading other books by you, either future or past works. The main reason that I struggled with this book is that there were so many characters and those characters had all suffered terribly tragedies and one book wasn’t enough to adequately address everything that was brought up.
Ostensibly the main story line is about senior Chief Soloman McGuire and teacher Jordan Bliss. Jordan Bliss was working on the adoption of a young Venezuelan boy when the town she was in was targeted by guerillas. Bliss was saved by McGuire and his team of SEALs sent in specifically to extract her and British civilians. McGuire forces Bliss to leave her nearly adopted son behind because his orders do not include any children. Bliss fights him like a mad woman and eventually she is subdued and sedated. Jordan won’t be deterred and once back in the states, she plots to return to the …
Late Friday, AP reporter, Hillel Italie reported that Signet/NAL has severed its relationship with Cassie Edwards. Since we made a bit deal, here on the blog, about how appalling Signet/NAL’s initial response was, I thought it would be fair to give over our Sunday to say how awesome I think its final response is.
For newcomers, here are the details.
January 7, 2008: While a friend (Kate) of blogger Candy at Smart Bitches Trashy Books read Shadow Bear by Cassie Edwards, said friend noticed “didactic passages in the book. They were written in a distinctly different voice, and out of idle curiosity, she decided to Google certain phrases and sentences.” The googling revealed that Edwards used paragraphs of works from other authors in her fiction without attribution including Paul Tolme who wrote an article about ferrets in Defenders Wildlife magazine. In all, readers would review 22 books and help compile a PDF document of examples of copying 98 pages long. (as an aside, I think Paul Tolme is one of Edwards’ favorite resources).
January 9, 2008: Signet doesn’t respond very well to a query I made suggesting that whatever Edwards did was both legal …
Dear Mrs Duvall,
 I’ve got to say this is one of the more unusual suspense novels I’ve read lately. There’s not an ex-Navy Seal, sheriff, or former black-ops member of any kind in sight. No mafia hit men, billionaire’s daughter in danger or any of the other standard operating procedures for romance suspense novels in the entire book. Yes, it can be done and thank you for doing it.
You start the action on page one and with a few exceptions for a couple of hours sleep here and there, it doesn’t stop until “The End.” While the hero Sam Reed and heroine Kelly Bancroft begin the novel at odds with each other [well, how else is the heroine supposed to feel when the hero tries to kidnap her or the hero feel when the heroine won't allow him to rescue her?] they quickly realize that by working together, they can 1) rescue Kelly’s estranged brother Jake from the hands of the nightmare cult he joined after their ghastly father kicked Jake out of their home a year ago, 2) try and save the other cult members from the planned mass suicide …
Welcome to Query Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a query to be read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. Published authors may do so under their own name or anonymously.
Readers, though, the way that I look at it is this: Would the hook itself interest you in reading the book. If yes, what interests you and if not, what would you change to make it more appealing?
***
Dear J,
Hello. My name is ___________. I’m looking for an agent to represent my book, Pierce the Darkness. It’s a 116, 000 word hard-core, paranormal romance that would be the first in a series of books.
It was the lowest level of hell. It needed to be burned. By his hands. The Lycan fortress looked almost exactly the way it did when he first stepped foot on the flagitious soil almost three hundred and fifty years ago. The jagged gray rocks twisting and interlocking to trap the evil within, the endless forest of evergreen trees looking like dragon’s breath had scorched them, and the reeking smell of Lycans polluting the murky air with their foulness. It was the black-hearted serenity only …
Sarah just sent me the link to the news release that Signet and Cassie Edwards are no longer in business together.
“Signet has conducted an extensive review of all its Cassie Edwards novels and due to irreconcilable editorial differences, Ms. Edwards and Signet have mutually agreed to part ways,” the publisher said in a statement Friday.
“Cassie Edwards novels will no longer be published with Signet Books. All rights to Ms. Edwards’ previously published Signet books have reverted to the author.
Kudos to the Smart Bitches for uncovering the extensive plagiarism and kudos to Signet and the parent company, Penguin, for doing the right thing. We now await Kensington and Dorchester.
I tried to re-open the Dear Author forum, but am having technical difficulties. Instead, I’ll sticky this post for a week. I got the forum working but I had to start anew. I’ve had some inquiries about what people can do to in response to Amazon’s treatment of Reba Belle. The following is just a timeline followed by a list of contacts.
Dear Ms. Napier:
 I’ve slowly been converted to being an HP fan. Being an HP fan means that you are in for a lot of drama and a lot of bruising kisses. The real measure of success for me, in an HP, is how strong the heroine is. Because the men are fairly interchangeable: strong, brooding, goodlooking, and successful. Many jump to conclusions at the slightest drop of a garter. If a heroine can stand up to the hero, I generally find the HP to be satisfying. If not, the HP formula fails.
Emily Quest, an antique ceramics restorer, crashes a party in order to engage in a felonious act. In order to get away with her mission, she tarts herself up and acts quite bold which is contrary to her real nature. While at the party, a stern and brooding man confronts her, she acts out in an effort to not get caught doing something she is not supposed to be doing and ultimately gets away.
Fast forward, Emily is burned out of her home and is offered refuge in a patron of hers. Peter is an …
 Julie Leto is constantly honing her craft to be a better writer, so much so that her group blog is called the Plot Monkeys. She’s had her writing ups and downs but Leto is a survivor, as any girl raised with three brothers would learn to be. She’s on the high point now with a new paranormal series starting with Phantom Pleasures that is in stores now and shares another high with her story below.
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I started writing romance novels on account of White Zinfandel. Yes, it’s true. It was November of 1987 and I was out with a friend to celebrate her birthday. This particular friend is the one who’d introduced me to romance novels in our freshman year of high school, though she’d been swiping historical romances from under her older sister’s bed for years. We took to hiding them inside our Catholic school textbooks so we could devour Johanna Lindsay and Cynthia Wright and the like instead of actually, you know, learning algebra.
But in ‘87, we were in graduate school and getting tipsy …
Most of the blogosphere has been mouth agape in reaction to the Deborah Anne MacGillivray harassment of an Amazon reader over a 3 star review that the reader left for a book of MacGillivray’s. In my link backs, though, I saw a post called “Authors Who Bite Back” from Tess Gerritsen’s blog that left my mouth agape. This is a three star review. Three stars! It’s like an average grade. From a reader who loved the first book.
My first reaction to this story was: “What? I can get the bad reviews taken off my Amazon pages? How do I do that?†Because I didn’t know an author could do that. I thought you just had to live with them and suffer heartburn every time you scroll past them.
My second reaction was: “There but for the grace of better self-control go I.â€
Because, let’s be honest here. Really. Is there an author alive who hasn’t wanted to hunt down the identities of those who’ve written bad Amazon reviews of our books? Is there an author alive who hasn’t harbored fantasies of revenge, even if it only involves sticking a
…
Dear Ms Burkhart,
 I was intrigued by the first story in your Keldari world, “Survive My Fire.” Intrigued enough that when you sent us a copy of the second installment, I immediately made plans to read it. It took me a while to get to it but I found it as interesting as the first. I’d like to thank you for creating the Guide to Keldari culture as I think this will assist readers new to this world you’ve created.
There’s nothing gentle, sweet or kind about this story or the people in it. The world you’ve created is harsh and filled with hard people who are willing to do what is required to survive. Everyone is an enemy unless something worse threatens them. Life is based on a ruthlessness that allows no place for the weak. When this is circumvented, chaos results as the hero Zahak discovers. I thought the religion of the Keldaris somewhat resembled that of the Vikings. Life is short and hard, filled with violence and in the end, most of us are going to die in the final showdown with the gods (or …
Dear Ms. Osterlund,
 When I received this book from Jane, I was excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book solely about a princess and I admit I had a soft spot for them when I was younger. And not only did Aurelia feature a crown princess, it also had the spymaster’s son who loves her and an assassination plot. So many elements I love in one book. How could it possibly go wrong?
Aurelia is heir to the throne of a kingdom currently ruled by a king who’s driving it to bankruptcy in order to please his second wife, Aurelia’s stepmother. Needless to say, while the common people love Aurelia, they have little respect for her father. But it appears someone doesn’t share the citizens’ affection for the crown princess. Unbeknownst to Aurelia, someone has been trying to kill her. They’ve succeeded in foiling the assassination attempts so far but how long can that last? So the king asks his spymaster to come out of retirement to find the assassin and the person who hired him. Unfortunately, his former spymaster refuses. Instead the spymaster’s son, Robert, comes to the capital.
In theory, this …
Dear Ms. Bauer:
 I’ve had this in my TBR pile since Keishon’s review last year. I’ve dusted it off (metaphorically since it is an ebook) for Keishon’s monthly TBR challenge. While I agree with some of Keishon’s points (particularly on the extensive world building), I found the romance to be forced in many places.
Dr. Megan Carter is working on a drug that she hopes will help save children with brain tumors. Unbeknowst to Megan, it is foreseen that she may be the instigator of a cataclysmic shift in the futures of gods and humans. Gideon Sinclair, immortal soldier, gets to her first and spirits her away.
Sinclair’s superiors are part of the Eternity Council, a mythic League of Nations, that work together to enforce balance between good and evil. Even the so-called evil gods recognize that without balance their own existence can be put in jeopardy. Of course, the truly evil will always want more power, and thus, there is Gideon and his compatriots who are dispatched to dispense justice.
The external conflict is much stronger than the internal one but smartly …
According to Publishers’ Marketplace, Judge Robert Patterson, Jr., is urging RDR and Rowling to settle.
Patterson said, “The fair-use people are on one side, and a large company is on the other side…The parties ought to see if there’s not a way to work this out, because there are strong issues in this case and it could come out one way or the other. The fair-use doctrine is not clear.” He added, “Maybe it’s too late. Maybe we’ve gone too far down the road. But a settlement is better than a lawsuit.”
In other words, Patterson isn’t looking forward to writing an opinion on this topic.
Want to win an Advanced Readers Copy of this June 2008 book? We are giving away 10 of them. Read the review and then leave a comment if you are interested. Rules are winners are picked at random and you must promise to post something, somewhere about the book prior to June 2008. It can be good, bad or indifferent.
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Dear Ms. Linden,
 We’ve done lots of reviews of the previous books in this series. I had wondered if the younger sister of those heroes would find her true love. I’m happy to see that not only has she found him, but she’s found him again.
I’m coming, more and more, to enjoy a sweet, more gentle character study Regency. Don’t cloud the issue with spies or former spies or endless speculation about dancing at Almacks. Just give me two people who are trying to work out that age old question of “Do you love me?” If you’re going to set it in a certain era, make the details believable and specific for that time frame — or why bother to set it then — …
Dear Ms. Samuels,
 This book has a great beginning with a different plot. In a book world overpopulated with vampires and werewolves, it was something totally new to me. You give us interesting characters – a flawed heroine, a Japanese hero and Tom, who’s a ghost. It starts wonderfully and then, unfortunately, goes totally overboard by the end.
Hannah is standing at the graveside of a doctor she’d worked with when something weird happens. A wind blows up and scatters his ashes, which she breathes in, right as lightening strikes. The next thing she knows, she’s in her own ER, being treated for her injuries and seeing things. A ghost specifically. Tom’s ghost. Once she realizes she’s not going off the deep end, they both start to work out what’s happened and what it means.
Tom’s best friend, Professor Takeshi Shimodo, thinks Hannah is nuts when she shows up at Tom’s house where Takeshi is staying while he clears up Tom’s legal business. It takes a while to convince him, but finally he believes what she, and Tom, are telling him. Hannah is in touch with Tom, who wants …
Dear Ms. Weaver:
 It has been a long time (or so it seems) since your last release and I have anxiously awaited it. The result may be a case of missed expectations. This book had a fun premise but was weak in the execution.
Best friends, Iris and Russ are snuggled up together on Halloween watching movies when an Emergency Broadcast Alert goes out, the satellite service dies and then the power goes. Soon after the phones are dead. If you were the last two people on earth, wouldn’t you repopulate?
The problem with this is a) there is no mention of the internet and b) there is no mention of cell phones. Not even to say that the laptop battery is dead and so is the cell phone. Was this 1984 instead of 2004?
Ivy, despite being friends with Russ for decades and knowing how attractive he is to the opposite sex, has never had one thought of Russ as a sexual creature. Or so we are led to believe. Ivy is an unreliable narrator, even in her internal monologues which creates enormous …
As you can tell by the title, my impatience with publishers is rising. Their loose association with integrity becomes more evident every day. Last week, it was discovered that Lonely Planet, a travel guide publisher, was putting out books by an author who a) plagiarized and b) didn’t even travel to the places he wrote about and c) took money and freebies from businesses included in the guides.
Lonely Planet apparently has no intention of pulling the guides off the market because it “stands by the accuracy of its travel guides” and has “thus far found no inaccuracies.” Well, how about the copying? Or the fact that the entire Columbia section isn’t based on his own travel experience but what some intern he was banging told him in during coitus? The author says his initial admissions of wrongdoing were taken out of context and not true.
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