All Authors Blog Blitz: Guest post by Meredith Bond

As part of All Authors Blog Blitz, organized by the Self-Published and Indie Authors group on Goodreads, I'm very pleased to host a guest blogger, Meredith Bond. She discusses her latest book, An Exotic Heir.

Thanks so much to Ken for allowing me to be a guest on his blog today. I thought it might be appropriate to write about something which he’s been dealing with the past few weeks – moving.

As, I’m sure, Ken could tell you, it is not easy to move. He’s mentioned packing and cleaning, well, try blending into that moving to another country! It would be a nightmare in my opinion, and yet some people do it, and do it with disturbing regularity. I’ve even spoken with some of them and they all warn me not to do it!

It is, however, something my characters in An Exotic Heir do. In fact, they do it a couple of times. The trick is that while my heroine, Cassandra, does move from London to Calcutta, she isn’t moving an entire home or family. She is, in fact, joining her parents who had moved there many years before (leaving her at boarding school and in the care of a close relation). Things don’t work out so well for Cassandra after she leaves school, though, and when her social reputation is possibly seriously damaged, she does the only thing she can think of – she runs to her parents in Calcutta.

The catch to this, of course, is that An Exotic Heir is set during the Regency (early 1800s when King George III was declared insane and unfit to rule so his son became the Prince Regent of England and ruled in his place). At that time moving to India could have been even more of an adventure than it is today, except instead of adapting to this strange, exotic country, the English simply brought England with them and recreated it in India! So much for moving!

You would think that my heroine would appreciate everything being so similar to home, having just come from England. But no, she hates it. She wants to explore and learn all about this strange new country she’s moved to. Despite being scoffed at by the English around her for wanting to do such a odd thing, Cassandra persists with the aid of an extremely handsome Anglo-Indian named Julian Ritchie. I wish I could say that Julian agreed to show Cassandra around Calcutta out of the kindness of his heart, but that’s just not the case.

Julian is out for revenge. He’s been treated like dirt by the English because of his mixed heritage and is determined to hurt the one who hurt him the most – Cassandra’s mother, the most bigoted person among the English living in Calcutta. But revenge somehow never works out the way you planned.

Julian ends up moving to England after Cassandra moves back to London – a huge transition for him since he has to figure out everything from how the banking system works to trying to enter society and not get shunned as he had been in Calcutta. On top of that he’s got romance problems (yup, Cassandra).

So, Ken, you’re moving from the mid-west to Delaware? That’s easy compared to what Cassandra and Julian have to deal with! Best of luck with it!

And if you’d like to read about Cassandra and Julian’s trials, you can find An Exotic Heir at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple ibooks and Smashwords.

Interview on Indie Author Land

Indie Author Land, a site dedicated to "[contributing], in whatever way we can, to the creation of good fiction" did an interview with me today. You can read it on their site and (maybe) find out something about me or the book that you didn't know before :)

Book review: Keeping Lastly, by B Mamatha

Keeping Lastly by B. Mamatha

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Keeping Lastly is one of those rare works that takes a book beyond mere entertainment and turns it into an art form. The intertwined stories of Sen and her mother, Lastly, provide the framework on which Mamatha builds a captivating story with haunting, poetic, and richly detailed prose. The island on which Sen lives is the source for a fascinating cast of secondary characters, each drawn with careful attention to detail.

Read this book if you enjoy literary fiction in any form, and if you want a completely immersive experience. I look forward to reading Mamatha's next book.



View all my reviews

In transition

The search for a new house has taken the long and winding road, but we're finally able to see the signpost. If all goes well, we should be settled in Delaware by the end of June.

Meanwhile, Bombay Bhel is now available for the Nook and Kobo (to the joy, I'm hoping, of many Canadians). Still waiting on the iBookstore...

Of cabbages--and kings

From Wikimedia Commons: A scene from "The Walrus and the Carpenter", by Lewis Carroll, drawn by Sir John Tenniel in 1871.

I'm breaking my self-imposed vow of silence for a brief moment. The last couple of months have been insane, but resolution is near. We accepted an offer on our house in Wisconsin and are in the process of finalizing arrangements to purchase one in a small town in Delaware. If all goes well, in a couple of weeks I'll be driving across the country with the dog, to join the rest of the family already in Delaware.

Meanwhile, my book will be coming off Kindle Select tomorrow. This means that it's no longer exclusive to Amazon. When I get a chance in between packing, cleaning, and other preparations for moving, I'll make the e-book version available through other channels, including Kobo, iBooks, and Nook.

Once I get settled in Delaware, I hope to increase my involvement online (and do more writing!). I'll also need to build up the other side of my writing career--the one that pays the bills. Stay tuned.

Updates

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy. After the book release comes the "real" work: marketing and promoting it. However, I haven't had much time to devote to that task of late. The last promotional effort, a Goodreads giveaway of a signed paperback copy, will end on February 28. After that, I'll be able to tell if people just like entering giveaways or if they actually want to buy the book :)

Among other things, our household is gearing up for a move across the country. We've been working on minor house projects and also de-cluttering (the less stuff we have, the less there is to move). Meanwhile, I've been trying to build the business side of my writing career once again.

I still plan on finishing a short story that will serve as a "teaser" for the book, but it's dropped fairly low on my list of priorities. More to come in a couple of weeks.

On writing reviews

I'd be the first person to admit I'm terrible at writing book reviews. I had to do very few, if any, book reports as a kid. It didn't stop me from reading everything I could get my hands on.

I do try to post my reactions to books on Goodreads, but that's not the same thing as a formal review. My "reviews" are short comments on why I liked the book, often based more on emotional responses than critical theory. A formal, structured review can be very helpful to an author, especially an independent author who has no recourse to traditional review outlets like newspapers and magazines.

Dactyl Review has excellent guidelines on what constitutes an acceptable review. I'm going to try and discipline myself to learn them.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to review my book--formally or otherwise--I'd be most appreciative!