Book review: James Potter and the Morrigan Web, by G. Norman Lippert

James Potter and The Morrigan Web by G. Norman Lippert

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"Bloody brilliant," as Ron would say.

Lippert captured Rowling's magic in his setting and characters from the first book. However, he's even managed to develop her famous, progressively darker story arc across the series. This book is a page-turner, with a complex plot that builds to a larger conclusion. Unfortunately, we may never get to see the rest of the series. I really wish Rowling, her publishers, and Warner Brothers could work out an arrangement where Lippert could be compensated for his work. Meanwhile, I'll continue to buy him coffee.



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Book review: Village Books by Craig McLay

Village Books by Craig McLay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have an entirely impractical dream of owning a small, independent bookstore. That's why Village Books intrigued me. It soon convinced me that I'd better hang on to my day job. McLay does a fine job of populating his story with colorful characters, each of which has at least one notable eccentricity. The narrative voice is witty and ruthlessly skewers everything from the quintessential evil corporate conglomerate to midlist authors at book signings. (No, I have never done a book signing, because I suspect it would turn out exactly as McLay describes.)

The romance is fairly predictable and somewhat trite, but I didn't read this book for the romance. I chuckled through most of it, and that was good enough for me. A few of the secondary characters seemed to blend into one another after a while, and some could even have been eliminated without affecting the story. But that's a minor quibble. Overall, a light and enjoyable read.


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Fight censorship--read a banned book!

This week has seen a major kerfluffle in the publishing industry, lead by online bookstore Kobo and (in the UK) WH Smith.

It all started when Kobo, in an extreme overreaction to some "objectionable" titles among its self-published books, decided to take down all self-published titles from its catalog. WH Smith shortly followed suit.

The line between objectionable content and censorship is often blurry, but what incensed many authors is that self-published books were specifically targeted. This means, for example, that you can no longer purchase Bombay Bhel on Kobo, but Fifty Shades of Grey and erotica of various stripes are still widely available because they're sold by one of the big traditional publishers.

So, please help fight censorship and purchase a banned book: Buy Bombay Bhel on Amazon today :)

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.



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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!

Indie authors, united

With the current explosion of self-published books, it's never too early to start thinking about promoting a book. Just like anything else for sale, there are many ways to go about doing this. I've started putting together a marketing plan for mine.

While doing some research (aka Googling), I found an interesting blog post by M G Edwards about Wikipedia and its treatment of indie authors. Edwards also happened to mention some good sites for indie authors, two of which I'm familiar with from other sources.

They are:

• The Independent Author Network (I'm familiar with this one but haven't signed up yet)
• World Literary Cafe (signed up a while back but haven't been very active)
• Independent Author Index (no experience with this one)

Which indie author groups do you like, and why?

Resolutions

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I'm getting back to my (pre-NaNo) WIP, Bombay Bhel. I have a long checklist of the usual types of things most indie authors have to do these days before a book launch. My goal was to launch in january 2013, but that may be a bit optimistic at this stage.

Still, one of my tasks is to update my blogroll, and pay more attention to blogging in general. If you're an indie author with a blog (and who isn't?)--especially someone who writes YA science fiction or fantasy--and you'd like to be added, please let me know.

Onward!