April 15, 2019

These are a few of my favorite covers

JaneLetters of Opinion8 Comments

During the New Release post of January 29, 2019, readers were arrested by the ANTON cover. Darlynne admitted that it was out of character for her to purchase a book solely on the cover. I *think* it’s because there is so much power in that body as it’s posed and–completely ... more >

Guest ReviewerLetters of OpinionBillionaire Hero / Dukes / security32 Comments

In spite of its 140-character limitations, Twitter can lead to some interesting conversations. I had one recently that included author Camille Hadley-Jones and Dear Author’s own Janine Ballard, who encouraged me to express my thoughts about it in longer form. That conversation? That one of the goals of romance novels ... more >

January 13, 2016

Love and freedom in the Jane Yellowrock series

JanetLetters of OpinionCherokee / colonization / Faith Hunter / genre critique / Jane Yellowrock / Urban-Fantasy19 Comments

Recent conversation with a good friend about Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series led to this question: What do you think Jane values above everything else? My answer: independence. My friend’s: freedom. Not precisely the same, but certainly related, and the obvious connections elicited a brief but thought-provoking exchange about how Jane is consistently resisting ... more >

November 22, 2015

Price, Value, eBooks, and Kindle Unlimited

JaneLetters of Opinionbook prices21 Comments

   There have been many discussions on social media of late regarding the price of books. Some authors are very frustrated by Kindle Unlimited and what they perceive as the devaluation of digital books. I find these arguments a little amusing as that was the exact argument that traditional publishers ... more >

November 15, 2015

What’s the Word . . . . . . . . Processor?

IAM JSONLetters of Opinionsoftware / writing tools21 Comments

Don’t judge me, but it turns out I am a Word Processor Freak (WPF). I did a quick survey of my various devices and this is what I have, in alphabetical order: Atlantis Word Processor (PC) Bean (Mac) Daedalus (iOS only) Libre Office (any OS) Open Office (any OS) Pages ... more >

October 25, 2015

Backup, Dear Friend!

IAM JSONLetters of OpinionBackups10 Comments

In my line of work, which is databases, the ability to recover from a disaster is a key part of the job description. Things go wrong. Hardware fails, application code has bugs. Users or other applications can write terrible queries that update, insert, or delete the wrong records. The list ... more >