Some Thoughts on Authors Commenting on Book Reviews

Posted by on Oct 17, 2012 in Writing Life | 10 comments

I saw the most interesting thing while I was perusing book reviews yesterday. Not my own book reviews, obviously, because I don’t have any books out yet, but someone else’s. And it wasn’t even a book review that I found interesting, but a comment to a book review. I’m not even sure how I ended up in the comments to a book review other than I was shocked and curious that there were so many comments below a particular review. Anyway… The review was a 4-star review of a book that shall remain unnamed. The reviewer explained how she was skeptical of the book because...

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Dystopian – Ultimate in Crossover Potential. And some books I’ve been reading, including Divergent by @VeronicaRoth

Posted by on Jul 13, 2012 in What I've Been Reading, Young Adult (for adults, too! :)) | 8 comments

If an adult who doesn’t read much YA literature asked me where to start as far as YA, I’d have to recommend a few of my recent dystopian reads. For some reason, dystopian seems to reach a large audience of many ages and both genders. I’ve read quite a few dystopian novels recently. I mentioned Unwind by Neal Shusterman in this post. Unwind is one of my favorite made-me-think-big-time dystopian novels. And I list a few more further down in today’s post. The thing about dystopian novels I find interesting is that they seem to cross or plow through age barriers. For...

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Platform building: Is it impossible for novelists?

Posted by on Jun 4, 2012 in Writing Life | 14 comments

I received my copy of Michael Hyatt’s Platform Get Noticed in a Noisy World on Friday. And while I have not read the whole book YET, I have watched some of the videos that I received after buying it last week, and glanced through some of the chapters. I am excited about this book. It is filled with encouragement and advice and step-by-step instructions for writers, new and established, to build a platform—a foundation for getting a person’s most passionate message out. And not just writers, other business people as well. However, I’m concerned about something. This is...

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What I’ve been reading… Submerged by Dani Pettrey, Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Posted by on Jun 1, 2012 in What I've Been Reading, Young Adult (for adults, too! :)) | 6 comments

Let’s talk books today. What have you been reading? I’d love to know in the comments. As you’ll see in today’s post, my tastes are varied. I thought I’d mention a couple of books I’ve enjoyed lately (one adult, one young-adult crossing over to adult). These books couldn’t be more different from each other, but I loved them both for completely different reasons. I’m also trying something that I’ve not tried before. I copied and pasted the html from my Goodreads reviews directly into my blog. It brought the pictures, links and text right...

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Wildflowers from Winter, Katie Ganshert, and a giveaway!

Posted by on Apr 18, 2012 in What I've Been Reading | 38 comments

Katie Ganshert springs from the starting gate with her debut novel, Wildflowers from Winter. The writing is lyrical and warm. Her characters are full of very real problems. And due to my own recent journey through grief and returning to my own hometown, I could relate to the main character so much. And the other characters, for that matter. (And I think you will, too!!) I could relate to the best friend; I could relate to the many different faith journeys the various characters were on; I could even relate to the quirky mom, sort of. And on top of all that, there’s a dreamy hero to...

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