2015 October Reading List

The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Anne Long – After all the hype about the missing Redmond, I was a little wary whether he would live up to it up to it upon his return. Well, he mostly did. Still, I didn’t care that much about the flashback, I found the reason of their fight silly, and I didn’t need the epilogue. I wish just as much time was spent with their banter as adults as it was with the sex scenes. Sigh. 3/5 stars

Freak of Nature by Julia Crane – One of those “don’t let yourself be fooled by the cover” book. There were so many contradictions and things that didn’t make sense I lost count. And I felt no connection between the main characters. 2/5 stars

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey – I was tempted to say “see above”. Nice title and cover, but way too wordy and slow at the start. It gets more interesting about one third in, but once the action picks up, the book ends and invites you to wait for the next book in the series, blah! Oh, and the secondary characters are way more interesting than the heroes who fell flat. 2/3 stars

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross – Having all the main characters be superheroes weakens the story instead of strengthening it. Some of their quirks were annoying. And yes, too wordy. 2/3 stars

Grey’s Lady by Natasha Blackthorne – Pretty bad. It made little sense and close to zero plot. 2/3 stars

Drive by James S. A. Corey – Interesting detail of the series’ worldbuilding, but not so special as a standalone. 3/5 stars

A Knight of Seven Kingdoms by George R. R. Martin – All three novellas take too long to get going and about 2/3 in turn out to be about something different than it was initially hinted at. 3/5 stars

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin – Beautiful. The lack of ending was annoying though. And who was the third narrator? 4/5 stars

The Vital Abyss by James S. A. Corey – I’m always interested in tech stuff, but this story didn’t work for me. Too much drama while important things are left unexplained and other uninteresting ones go on and on. 3/5 stars

A Short Update (3)

The last writing update was posted in May so it was just about time for another one. What did I do all summer? Well, I'm proud to report I've been pretty productive. Before you ask, no, the second book in The Stolen Wings series isn't finished yet. I worked on it a little, but it wasn't my main focus.

So, what did I do? Let's see... I wrote a dragon story that was picked to be published in Galileo magazine. I also have a sci fi time travel story scheduled to appear in the next issue of Paradox magazine, and The Singularity magazine accepted my fantasy time travel story. I'm doing well on the publishing front this year with 13 submissions, 5 acceptances, and no rejection so far. The Romanian translation of The Nightingale Circus is ready, but I haven't heard back from the publisher yet.

I wrote two more stories for Romanian anthologies scheduled to be released next year. One of them was supposed to be a circus story. When I finished it, however, it didn't fit the theme that well, and since I didn't want to tweak it more, I wrote something else. It was an old idea which I never quite finished shaping as a story before so that's fine. Don't jump up and down, I'm not ready to release the circus story yet. I plan to submit it to a few English magazines first and see how it goes. I'm not holding my breath, though, because while it's a good story and I think it works as a standalone, the editors might not agree with me since it's set in the Broken People universe. If nothing comes out of it, you'll get it in the spring.

The other thing I'm proud of is finishing three installments in the Law and Crucible saga. They include  a prequel, a novella, and a short story and they will all be released together in December. More details will be posted on the blog, starting with next week, so watch this space. I can't wait for you to meet Law and his crew!

Having crossed all these off my to-do list and not planning to write anything new for the rest of the year, it means that, yes, I have two whole months to finish The Stolen Wings book 2. Happy now? You're welcome! I'm not really doing the NaNo-thing, but it will still be sort of a NaNo since I'll be working on the same thing and have a daily writing quota. Heh, if I were doing the NaNo, book 2 would be finished in a month. I don't know if I can be done with it before Christmas, but it's okay if it stretches into January. I don't want to stress myself and I want to fully enjoy the writing process because, you see, this is the part that makes me want to write and publish books. Rewriting, editing, formatting, publishing, and marketing are also part of the job, they're things that need to be done, but they're not the part that makes want to be a writer. So I better enjoy it when I can.

At this point, it doesn't look like I'll have time for another story in The Devil You Know series, but if I get bored or stuck, I might surprise you. The thing is, the total word count by the end of the year will be high enough to cover three novels, and that's good enough for me. So, of course, the goal next year will be to have three novels published. The plan is to release book 2 in The Stolen Wings series, book 3 in Broken People series, and a new sci fi novel that is 90% plotted already, but we'll talk more about this in 2016! :)

The Impaler's Revenge Reviews Wanted

Do you remember The Impaler Legacy series? It was released two years ago, and while I was busy promoting my two other series, Broken People and The Stolen Wings, I feel like I've been neglecting it lately.

The thing is, The Impaler Legacy is a tough sell. Yes, it's a book about vampires, but it's not erotica, YA, or paranormal romance. It's a political thriller with vampires. So the traditional vampire lovers are disappointed when they discover all the hot, steamy, sex scenes are missing (well, there is one, but it's not graphic and it doesn't involve a vampire, ha!), and the readers who despise vampires won't touch it even if they might enjoy it once they gave it a chance.

I've been running many giveaways on LibraryThing and BookLikes, but the review count seems to be stuck. My goal was to get The Impaler's Revenge, the first novella in The Impaler Legacy series, to 50 reviews on Amazon. There are 34 reviews right now, so close but not quite there yet.

If you're interested in reading such a book/series or know someone who it, contact me and I'll send you a free copy of The Impaler's Revenge. If after you're done reading, you want to read the rest of the series as well, send me the link to your Amazon review and I'll send you the omnibus edition, which includes the complete series, regardless of your rating or the content of your review.

You can read a sample here. And ask for those review copies! I'm curious how long this will take. :)

Edited to add: This offer is for ebooks, not print copies. Sorry!

Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 10

Cover to Cover Book Blog (Excerpt)
MCSimonWrites (Guest Post)

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Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 9

Nikka Michaels

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Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 8

Devika Fernando Romance Novelist
LazandLachi.com (Excerpt)
JeanzBookReadNReview (Excerpt)

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Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 7

United Indie Book Blog (Excerpt)

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Indie Friday: Ours is the Storm

Guest post by D. Thourson Palmer

Ours Is the Storm is about Revik Lasivar, a very powerful young man trying to save his kingdom, and Ahi’rea of the plainsfolk, trying to destroy it. It’s about Ahi’rea’s quest to preserve her way of life and Revik’s task to end it. It’s about both of them facing their pasts, their parents, and their own people, as well as the enemies hounding them, and seeing all those things for what they are. It’s about deceit and redemption and identity. It’s about confronting the question who am I? and reaching beyond our names and cultures, our pasts and our dreams, for the answer.

I began writing Ours Is the Storm while I was teaching English in Japan. I was outside myself in many ways during that time, just as I was outside of the culture. Even though I was welcomed, I often felt alone, isolated by distance, language, even my name. Both Revik and Ahi’rea came from that experience. Moreover, due to the modality of the school year and vacations there, I had quite a lot of time during which I was required to be at the four high schools that I served, but had little to do. I started writing, not entirely certain where I would end up.

The journey to the end of a novel was a lot longer than I was prepared for. I wrote throughout my time in Japan and continued when I returned to the USA for graduate school. I started a PhD program and then quit, finding that I was as suited to the pursuit as a ferret is to neurosurgery. Around that time my wife and I got an awesome old dog and made the best of things while I was between jobs. We returned to the state of Ohio, where I grew up. The dog, Mephit, was big and protective and terrified of storms. When she heard thunder, she’d wake me up and I’d work on writing and editing. I finished Ours Is the Storm at last, and Mephit died soon after, between writing and publishing. As a much finer author than I wrote many times: so it goes. She was a friend, and the book’s dedication is to her.

I’ve always been a fantasy reader--Lord of the Rings, Discworld, American Gods, The Name of the Wind--and I also have a big love for many of the classics, like Crime and Punishment and 1984 and Frankenstein. If I want anything from my work, it’s that it could exist at the intersection of those genres and influences--classic feeling with a modern style. Ours Is the Storm is about identity but it’s also an adventure, an action story, and a mystery. There are plenty of plot twists and subverted tropes, some obvious and some less so, and they’re enough to throw even experienced fantasy readers off the trail and keep them interested. At the end, that’s what I want and what I hope for most from Ours Is the Storm--that it’s new and exciting to readers, and, maybe, that it might make them think about their own identity as well.

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Ours is the Storm by D. Thourson Palmer

 
Available on: Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iTunes 

Official website: www.dthoursonpalmer.com

Follow the Author on Twitter: @DThoursonPalmer

Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 6

A British Bookworm's Blog (Excerpt)

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Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 5

EyesOnBooks' Next Favorite Reads (Review)

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The Weight of a Wing is Free on October 7-11

Yes, I know I said there would be no more free days for The Weight of a Wing, and still the book is be free to download on Amazon on October 7 - October 11.

How did this happen? Well, I blame it on being busy, distracted, and mostly fed up with Kindle Unlimited. June and July were great as far as KU borrows went, but then the borrows dropped to a quarter in August and became close to none in September. This makes no sense because: 1) the book was published in April so it wasn't new; 2) no negative reviews appeared; 3) I did the usual promotion on Facebook and Twitter without making any changes to my marketing strategy. Me thinks this game is rigged.

Anyway, back to the free days. I was fully intending to use the Kindle Countdown Deals feature this time around, but I didn't do my homework in time. It turns out you can't have a price change during the past 30 days before using Kindle Countdown Deals, and you can't use it if your book is priced at $0.99. You see my dilemma. Since the KDP Select term was coming to an end, I decided to change the price and used all the free days at once instead. Hopefully, it will have a positive effect on the KU borrows as well because it can't get much worse at this point.

So if you enjoy reading about wingless, vengeful fairies, chatty, handsome magic users, innocent humans, mysterious wizards, and manipulative bastards, dig in! And please help spread the word and leave a review when you can.

Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 4

Drops of Ink (Excerpt, Interview, Guest Post)

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Instincte umane Giveaway

I've done tons of giveaways on LibraryThing and BookLikes so far, but only for English ebooks. So it was just about time I did a giveaway for a Romanian book.

You can enter on Goodreads, and if you're lucky, you'll win a signed paperback copy of "Instincte umane", a post-apocalyptic novella published by Millennium Books in 2013.

The giveaway ends on October 31, and it's open only to Romanian residents.

By the way, it's my last extra copy of "Instincte umane" so you'll be really lucky to have it.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Instincte umane

by Ioana Visan

Giveaway ends October 31, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 3

Alina Popescu, Writer (Excerpt)

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Indie Friday: Time Has Past - In pursuit of the Ripper

Guest post by Graeme Taylor

I think, like a lot of people, I always thought that I would love to write a novel. It eventually happened, although I did wait until I was in my fifties to make it happen. I don't know where I got the idea from to write a Fictional Story based on Historic events, it just seemed to pop into my head. It took a little bit of research but that wasn't a problem as you might expect the World Wide Web is full of information about the Ripper.

I suppose the inspiration to write my novel came from the publication of my poetry book, after years of writing the odd poem here and there and losing some in the process, I decided to self-publish. It was a great feeling seeing my poetry book on the Amazon Website. The feeling grew when the novel appeared about 20 months later  

My book is a fascinating premise: what if you could go back in time and discover just who Jack the Ripper really was? And what if you got embroiled in this spate of gruesome murders and got a whole lot more than you’d bargained for. Time has Past (good pun I think ) cleverly combines the known facts and timelines about the Ripper with an evocative and atmospheric tale that explores the darker side of human nature.

There have been many books written about Jack the Ripper both Fictional and ones based on Fact. This book takes on the story with an unusual twist. It involves a man who stumbles onto a Portal, a gateway to the past, how does he react to such a situation, and how involved will he let himself get. Would that involvement change History and distort the timeline?            

Peter Haines had such a dilemma, he was a retired Army Sergeant; his life was uneventful until the day he fell into a world he could never have imagined. A world that became an obsession. He found himself in a grim Era of English History, a sordid past shrouded in murder and terrible atrocities, it was a world he could not dismiss. The year was 1888 in London’s Victorian Past. It was the time and place where the Ripper carried out his horrendous deeds. It led Peter into a series of circumstances beyond his control, circumstances impossible to imagine, it turned into a Nightmare. 

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Time Has Past - In pursuit of the Ripper by Graeme Taylor

 
Available on: Amazon

Official website: http://www.graytoon.co.uk/

Broken Hearts Blog Tour Day 2

GothicMoms (Villain Interview)

Limelight (Guest Post)

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