Tag Archives: reading

Does School Kill the Love of Reading?

I had an interesting conversation with a couple coworkers the other day. One woman is about my age, and has a daughter in college, and one in high school. The younger daughter is supposed to read Catcher in the Rye over the summer, and is struggling to get into it, to the point she’s just about decided to just read the Spark notes. My coworker says this is unusual; her daughter is an honors student and usually doesn’t have trouble with assignments, but just doesn’t enjoy reading any more. She wonders if the material they read in school is part of the reason.

Our other coworker is 26, so remembers her own experiences pretty clearly. “So much of it just isn’t relevant,” she concluded. “We had to read a Jane Austen book–I can’t remember which one, not Sense and Sensibility, the one with Mr. Darcy…”

“Pride and Prejudice?” I asked.

“That’s it!” She went on. “I mean, it’s all stuff no one can relate to today. Arranged marriages… and the language.”

Now, I need to point out that this coworker is a highly intelligent woman, with a master’s degree, and one who isn’t afraid of doing hard work. My other coworker and I agreed that the archaic-sounding English also put up a barrier to relating to the story and characters.

So we went on discussing books we had to read in school and didn’t like–Moby Dick, Old Man and the Sea, anything else by Hemingway. One of them didn’t care for Shakespeare, either. (Interestingly enough, my college-student daughter loooooooves Shakespeare, but somehow does not enjoy reading a lot of fiction). Yet both of my coworkers like to read. The one just couldn’t figure out where her daughter, who used to like it when younger, lost that joy. My daughter also used to enjoy more fiction when she was in elementary and middle school, but has moved on more toward nonfiction.

However, one thing that somehow never gets old in my family is bodily functions jokes. Yesterday, my dad emailed me a link to this video. Only the Brits could’ve come up with the fart noise heard across the English channel!

What I read this week: I started Smith’s Monthly #5. I’ve followed Dean Wesley Smith‘s blog for a long time, and especially enjoyed his “Writing in Public” blog series that he started almost a year ago. It was fun reading about a long-time pro’s writing process in putting together his own magazine, and the stories sounded good, so I subscribed. It’s been especially neat to see the end product after reading about his creation of the works. Dean writes in the tradition of the old pulps from the mid-20th century, so this isn’t deep, thought-provoking literature, but they are fun, entertaining stories. I’m about 1/4 of the way through the novel in this one–a science-fiction romance. The hero in it is totally yummy, not creepy-looking like the guy on the cover! (And has only two arms. :))

Sorry, no puppy picture today. I didn’t take any new ones this week. Puppy pics will be back, though!

ROW80 Update: I finished the scene I wanted to finish last week, and started sketching out this week’s scene. That went okay, until a character tossed a plot bunny (aka, new scene) at me. So I will be working on that this week, with the goal, once again, to complete a scene, whichever one it may be. My accountability buddy returned home from vacation, but did not lash me with a wet noddle because she didn’t get her scene done, either (vacation + kids = I could’ve predicted that). So back to work for both of us this week.

What do you think–does reading too many books we don’t enjoy in school kill the joy of reading? Which books did you have to read in school that you didn’t like–or what are some you did? Is the video something your family would laugh at? If you’re a writer, do you follow Dean Wesley Smith’s blog? (If not, you should! Great info there, both on the writing and publishing business). Please share–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

What is the best book you read all last year?

I haven’t seen any new releases from my writer friends this week–yes, that’s unusual! So I thought I’d talk about another favorite of mine – actually two.

Many years, I’d be hard-pressed to answer the question, “What’s the best book you’ve read all year?” Sometimes, there are too many good ones to make a choice. Other years, nothing has stood out. 2012 was one of those where I read tons of good stuff, but one book–actually, two– stood out: Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood by Holly Lisle, and its sequel, Warpaint.

HTCB-Ebook-387x600 How can I sum up what made these books so great? All I can think of is, they were just more… everything. In one of her blogs, writing workshops, or maybe her email newsletter, Holly stated that one of her goals with this series was to create scarier vampires. And boy did she! Yes, these are vampire books, but not your typical horror fare. Oh yes, they’re that too, but they’re also science fiction – in fact, that’s the primary genre they’re shelved under. But they’re also mystery, thriller, suspense, and there’s even a little romance in Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood, the first of what’s planned to be a ten-book series, I believe.

They are about a kick-ass, independent starship captain, Cadence Drake. And if you think she looks rather comic book-ish with her curvy figure and exotic features, well, there’s a reason for that – she’s genetically engineered to look that way, and she uses it to advantage (and not in the way you’d expect). She has a special talent for locating missing things, and when she’s hired to find a missing starship, how hard could that be? Especially when said starship is one of only 27 made of a new model that would be very conspicuous in any spaceport?

Of course, it turns out not to be so easy, and on the way, Cady and her friend Badger run into all sorts of nasties, as well as unexpected allies. Which is where the more horrific vampires come in. If you want vampires that are sparkly, hot romantic leads then this is not the book for you – they’re definitely the bad guys here.

WARPAINT-FLAT-387x600 But again, there’s more. More worlds to explore, each with unique cultures derived from recognizable, Earth subcultures. (I totally want to live on the planet called Up Yours!). And yes, there’s a bit of humor – just enough! And while these books are classified as space opera, they’re not buried in tech, and what’s there is believable and understandable. We see it through Cady’s eyes and learn more about her in the process. There were some epic space battles, again, just enough to satisfy the expectations of space opera while not boring other readers along for the ride.

And these aren’t mere entertainment either, although they can certainly be read and enjoyed solely on that level. There’s plenty of thought, theme, and ideas that make the reader think, and this is, I think, what makes these books so special. They are not pedantic or a soap box for the author, although for those of us who’ve taken writing workshops from Holly, they’re probably more visible.

So it’s probably all these things combined that made Hunting and Warpaint a couple of those books that you read until the e-reader conks you on the head because you’ve fallen asleep, and then you think about it the whole next day while at work, and can’t wait to get on the treadmill so you can read again (or maybe that last part is just me LOL). According to her blog, Holly plans to release the third installment in the series later this year, and I for one can’t wait.

This is the bar I reach for in writing my own books. I’m getting closer, but I’ve still a long way to go.

Both of these books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, Apple’s iTunes, and on Holly’s site, along with a bunch of other good stuff.

Quick ROW80 update: I’ve pretty much finished the print formatting for Hangar 18: Legacy, which is the form I do my final proofread in. I’m also about 1/3 of the way through on the proofread, so on track so far this week! I have also done 2 workouts, so that is also on track.

What about you – what was the best book you read all last year? (Or books, if you can’t narrow it down to one?) Or maybe you’d like to share one you read years ago, that still sticks with you? If you’re doing ROW80, how is your week going so far? Please share – I’d love to hear from you!

Misfit Monday: Why I Stopped Reading

As an author, every time I put a book down, I try to learn from the experience. By analyzing why didn’t that book work for me, I can hopefully pick up some tips on what not to do in my own books in the future.

It’s also something fun to discuss with readers (again, to learn) and useful to discuss with authors. Not the author who wrote the book in question, although that’s exactly what ended up happening last time I wrote a post like this. No, it’s honestly just for my own learning. I don’t want to call anyone out – last time, the author recognized her book, and she was a top-notch, class act, but the next one might not be. So with that in mind, I’m going to leave out the details, and focus on the problems.

I’d run across this book a few times and it looked like something I might enjoy, so I downloaded the sample. And boy am I glad I just got the sample, because I couldn’t even get through that. Actually, I caught myself starting to skim by page 2.

I can’t dig a book with too much dumping – of background information and baggage, that is

It wasn’t badly written. The author has a firm command of language, and I didn’t notice any problems with grammar, spelling, typos, or bad formatting (and note that some of the worst formatting problems come from the big publishers). S/he also had a good grasp on point-of-view, and evoking sympathy for the characters. But it just wasn’t enough to draw me in. It took a couple chapters for me to figure out why, but once I did, it was face-palmingly obvious: those two chapters were full of backstory dumps, repetition, and cliche situations.

Quite a bit of information was repeated, sometimes twice, as if the author wasn’t confident enough in the reader and had to give us a nudge, nudge, get it? There were also repeated words and phrases to the point that I once saw the echo phrase three times on one page – and that’s on my Android phone. It was so bad it got a song stuck in my head. It had some other problems too, but the repetition and infodumps were the main reason I stopped reading.

Who knows, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just pickier, being a writer myself, and one who’s been at this thing for years (I’ve been writing seriously since 1999, and messing around with writing since I was a kid). Romance novels are especially prone to backstory dumps – big, long explanations or flashbacks into a character’s past – given that the main conflict in a romance novel is between the female and male lead, and it’s often this kind of emotional baggage that keeps the characters apart for most of the book. And since it’s such a common issue, it’s one that many romance-specific craft workshops and articles touch on. So maybe I’m more sensitive to it because of this.

In the author’s defense, my early efforts had these problems too, so maybe it’s just early work (it may or may not be – OTOH, some people never learn). Either way, eliminating repetition and the other issues are all skills that can be developed.

What do you think? Have you put any books down recently? Have you ever put a book down because it was too cliched, repetitious, or had too much backstory or worldbuilding infodumps that stop the forward action? If you’re a writer, did your early work have these problems?

The Booker Award!

A couple weeks ago, Jansen Schmidt tagged me in a fun and easy meme: the Booker Award.

Fun because it’s about books!

Easy because it’s about books… hmm, we have to pick favorites. And that’s not so easy.

But the “rules” are pretty simple: blog about your five favorite books, link back to the person who nominated you for the “award,” and choose three more people to blog about their favorite books, who will then link back to you.

I can’t pick five favorite books of all time. Jansen couldn’t either, so she blogged about five favorite authors instead. Even that’s hard for me, so I’m going to pick five favorite books I’ve read in the past year, not counting anyone I know. Another limit to make it easier to narrow down! So, in no particular order:

Save My Soul by Zoe Winters. This book showed me how much I love it when romance novels break the rules, and proves that any rule can be broken if it’s done well and for a purpose. One rule in romance is that the hero must never-never-never get busy with any female other than the heroine. Well, the guy in this book is an incubus, and if he doesn’t get it regularly, he’ll go crazy. And kill people, possibly the heroine. Which would break another romance rule – hero and heroine need to be together at the end of the book, which would be pretty tough if one of them’s dead. In Save My Soul, the heroine’s not ready to give it up to a demon, so she goes and finds him a bunch of hookers. Not only does it solve the immediate problem, it’s hilarious, and the prostitutes become endearing secondary characters who provide a good supply of comic relief throughout the book. Because romance is more about the emotions and relationship, Winters pulls this off fantastically. I have her next book and am looking so forward to reading it!

Kismet’s Kiss by Cate Rowan is another fantastic rule-breaking romance in that the hero is a sultan of an Arabian-nights-like kingdom in another world. As such, he already has six wives by the time the heroine comes along. This is another great example of rule-breaking done right, and Rowan pulls it off with aplomb, surprising me with how the heroine finally reconciled the sultan’s culture with her own, one-man-one-woman culture. The other thing that struck me about this book was the mix of fantasy and romance–the kind of book I was dying to read all through high school and college, but no one was publishing. I also loved Rowan’s second novel, The Source of Magic, and have her third on my to-be-read list.

Threshold by Sarah Douglass. This epic fantasy novel blew me away. It’s not marketed as a fantasy romance, but that’s exactly what it is. Except… for more of that rule-breaking stuff. First, the romance really doesn’t get started until halfway through the book (hmm, sound familiar, Time’s Enemy? :D) and before it does, the heroine’s had another boyfriend. But that isn’t the biggest rule broken. No, in this one, the hero is a noble, and the heroine a slave–common enough in some circles of romance, but in this case, he’s downright abusive, both magically and otherwise. Only later does the reader begin to understand why and how, and what drives him. This book has major, serious conflict, and it’s one where we wonder how the main characters will survive (due to external factors), and if they do, how in the world they’ll ever reconcile the tremendous differences between them. That alone made the book a major keeper for me.

Moving to a lighter side (because believe me, after Threshhold I needed it!) is Cattitude by Edie Ramer. This is one of the funniest books I’ve read in years! It’s about a cat who switches bodies with a woman–think Freaky Friday with claws. Seeing how Bella the cat deals with becoming human is a laugh a minute, especially when she starts feeling emotions brought on by her “inferior” human body. Beneath all the laughs is a really sweet subplot involving the lonely, psychic woman who’s now in a cat’s body–and how this gets her everything she wants in the end as well.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t include the book I waited years to read: Out of the Ashes by Lori Dillon, which I blogged about earlier this year.

Oh, and I’m supposed to “nominate” three people for the award. Jim Winter and Stacy McKitrick have both been blogging about various favorite things recently, but not favorite books. So bring ’em on, you two! And Michele Stegman has had some good bookish posts lately too, so consider yourself nominated as well! Of course, limit it however you like (or not), or if you don’t have the time/inclination to play, no worries!

How about you? What awesome books have you read lately? Have you read any of my recent favorites?

Gotta Read ’em: Cozy Mystery

To follow up on last Monday’s post about my Rottweilers, today’s Gotta Read ’em is Rottweiler Rescue, a mystery for dog lovers by Ellen O’Connell. This book has been out for a couple years, and I can’t remember where I saw it–maybe on a Yahoo group I’m in that the author is also on. But where ever it was, she had me at the title. The book cover didn’t hurt either. 🙂

In Rottweiler Rescue, Dianne Brennan is a computer trainer who volunteers with a dog rescue organization in her community. One day, she’s delivering a dog to his new owner, and finds the man dead–and the presumed killer escaping out the back. Dianne goes to the police, but someone else goes after Dianne. After a number of scares and suspicious mishaps, Dianne can only conclude that the dog trainer’s killer is after her. The police aren’t getting very far, so Dianne starts looking into things on her own. With her own Rottweiler and Robo, the dog she was in the process of rehoming, in tow, she finds and follows up on her own leads. But the closer she gets to finding answers, the more her quarry retaliates as he continues to elude her.

The book takes us into the fascinating world of dog shows and rescue operations, and of course acquaints us with the dogs themselves. My only criticism of the book is that there is sometimes a lot of detail given in getting Dianne from one place to another–street names, neighborhoods, and landmarks–which aren’t really of interest to someone not familiar with the area, and during which nothing really happens. I don’t read a ton of cozy mysteries, so maybe this is common. However, this is just a minor nitpick–I have read books where it was too much and put the book down. That wasn’t an issue here.

But the best part of the book was the dogs.They weren’t just window-dressing to draw in dog lovers, but were an integral part of the plot. Yet they also didn’t steal the show from Dianne, nor were they over-personified. They were wonderfully and accurately characterized, with Rottweilers’ typical, enthusiastic interactions with people they know, and guarded attitude toward strangers. Yes, there were acts of Rottweiler heroism in the book as well. 🙂 Another aspect I liked was Dianne’s growing relationship with Robo, the rescue dog who’s would-be owner was killed. Robo didn’t have a Rottweiler’s typical, ebullient personality, and instead gave little reaction to anything–a dog that had clearly been abused. Seeing Dianne slowly draw him out and the role he played in the book’s conclusion was particularly rewarding.

The mystery plot itself was satisfying, with a baffling puzzle and appropriate twists, turns, and red herrings. There was also a minor romantic subplot involving Dianne and one of the cops, which added to the enjoyment factor.

If you like dogs, and like reading mysteries, I highly recommend Rottweiler Rescue.

What about you? Do you like books featuring animal characters? And if so, do you prefer them portrayed realistically, or in more of a fantasy?

Gotta Read ‘Em – Erotic Romance

A couple months ago, I attended a fun, regional readers and writers’ conference, Lori Foster and Duffy Brown’s Readers and Authors Get Together. They had a great, well-attended book signing, where I met Allyson Young, who sat beside me. Allyson was gracious enough to give me a copy of Wishes, one of her erotic romances.

I don’t read a lot of contemporary romance, erotic or otherwise, and have to be in the right mood for it. When I do dig into one, I expect characters to face real issues and have emotional baggage, and Wishes did not disappoint!

Wishes is the story of Kennedy, a young office manager who has just moved to San Antonio to join her best girl friends who live there. When her friends celebrate with a night on the town, Kennedy’s thrown for a loop when she finds it’s not just for drinks and dancing: they take her to a BDSM sex club. When she witnesses some of the “performances” at the club and bursts out laughing, she attracts the attention of Graham, one of the owners.

Graham is not amused at Kennedy’s outburst, and when he confronts her, decides he wants to get to know her better – and teach her a few lessons while he’s at it. Kennedy’s immediately attracted to Graham, but can’t oblige his need for control – at least, not at first. But Graham whittles away at her objections, and in the process, discovers a few things he never knew about himself. Kennedy too, confronts her past, that she’d thought she’d made peace with, and there is the best part of the book: the emotions and conflict, not just between the characters, but within themselves. Kennedy has a good reason to be uncomfortable with the idea of being dominated, just as Graham’s background gives the reader a good insight into why it’s so important for him to be in control. Just as both are beginning to give in to each other and love, a rude awakening appears at the club, in the form of an old flame of Graham’s – complete with his toddler son.

Wishes is without question erotic, but it doesn’t shortchange the romance. If you like a steamy, explicit romance that’s all about the emotions and the development of the relationship between hero and heroine, pick up Wishes. You’ll be glad you did!

Do you read erotic romance? Got any good ones to recommend? Or if not, what else have you read lately that’s good? I read all kinds of stuff, so bring ’em on!

A New Vacation Phobia

I’d never really thought about it before, but as I was packing for my recent trip to France, it occurred to me that I have a phobia that’s very real, and mostly manifests during vacation: the fear of running out of reading material. Never mind the plane trip – whenever I feel nervous about that, I remind myself that plane accidents make the news because they are so rare, and that I do something statistically more dangerous every day when I get into my car and drive to work.

No, my fear is running out of books to read. The longer the plane ride, the worse it is. Traveling internationally, to a country whose primary language is not English is another concern – we might be able to find a bookstore, full of stuff I can’t read (or in the case of French, can’t read well enough to just enjoy the story).

Of course, you’d think it would be easily handled by simply taking lots of books. I used to do just that. I didn’t bother packing my clothes until a day before departure – if not that morning. No worries there. But my books, I started collecting several days before, if not a week. I’d pick books from a variety of genres, and a variety of subgenres of romance, because hey! – who knew what I’d be in the mood for when I finished the current book?

If the vacation was a long one (a week), the books would get their own bag, or at least would fill my carryon bag, along with the change of clothes I always packed in case my luggage got lost. So when ebooks became popular, it was a godsend.

Problem solved, right? Finish a book, just hit Amazon, Smashwords, or the local library’s website and download another.

Except that you can’t go online from an airplane. OK, yes, we actually can, but bucking those rules is not something I want to try.

So I still spend a good bit of time before vacation loading up my smartphone with ebooks. Again, I need a good selection of genres so I can read what I’m in the mood for – and so I have backup in case I get hold of a book I don’t like. Then it’s necessary to open each book to ensure that it’s downloaded to the device so that once I’m up in the air, I don’t need to worry that I’ll click on a book that looks really good, only to find that it hasn’t been stored on my device.

But ebooks aren’t a universal solution either. You can’t even turn on the smartphones and ereaders until the plane is a good ways up in the air. Depending on how long the wait to take off is, that could be the better part of an hour. Okay, yes, there’s the Skymall mag, but that’s only good for 20 minutes or so for me. I need books. So I still wind up packing a print book or two. Oh, and with my smartphone, battery is another concern. An 8- or 9-hour flight is more than my phone’s battery lasts, especially if I take some time off reading to play games. So I also have to be sure to pack an extra, extended-life battery, and double-check that it’s fully charged before I leave.

So how did all of this work out for my trip to France? Well, I read two ebooks and one print book the whole time (I am not a speed-reader, and I did spend some time playing games). My extended-life battery had just gotten low when we landed in Paris, so it served me well. And the books themselves?

I still have over a dozen on my phone, unread. 🙂

What about you? How many books do you pack, if going on a week-long vacation? Do you worry about running out of reading material?

How to Load up at the Buffet without Gaining a Pound(jenpowell.com)

How to Load up at the Buffet without Gaining a Pound

On sale for $.99 through June 22, 2012

At the Booklovers’ Buffet, that’s how! (I didn’t say food, did I?) You can load up on books without taking a hit to the waistline–or your wallet. OK, maybe that’s cheating, but I’ve had a crazy-busy week what with two freelance web design jobs that both came in last week. Sometimes, there really isn’t enough time to get done what we’d like. Not to mention time to read! But I’ll be going on vacation soon, so you’d better believe I’ll be hitting the buffet. Because it’s over 150 books, each for only $.99! (Or priced based on current exchange rates, for those outside the U.S.)

Most of the books on the Buffet are full-length novels – one of which is my own Time’s Enemy. So if you’ve been thinking about grabbing a copy, now’s a great time, because I don’t foresee pricing it this low again.

The sale goes through the 22nd, and features fiction from a variety of genres, although most of the books feature at least some romance. Most of the books on the buffet are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords, although a few are Amazon-only.

If you enjoy reading, do you take advantage of sales like this? Or is the plethora of free books enough for you? If you buy (or borrow) ebooks, where’s your favorite place to get them?

Dear Barnes and Noble…

For the past couple of days, it seems everyone involved with epublishing has been talking about Microsoft, and their purchase of $300 worth of stock in B&N’s new Nook spin-off company. It will undoubtedly provide Nook with some much-needed leverage to compete against Amazon and Apple, and hopefully provide them with some real competition.

But what does it mean for us readers? All we can do is speculate, but right now, my guess is…

Not. Much.

And it mostly comes down to one area which for me & B&N, has been a big, fat, FAIL: customer service.

First, let’s be clear on one thing – I’m talking online, not the stores. The people I’ve dealt with in the stores have been great – super-supportive of us Nook authors, listening to us, trying to find ways to encourage customers to buy our books in the stores. But I do most of my shopping online, and that’s where the breakdown occurred.

You see, last fall, someone tried to buy a bunch of stuff at HHGregg with my Discover card number. Discover Card knew it wasn’t me, denied the charge, and called me. I confirmed that it wasn’t me, and the Discover Card rep said I’d get a new card in the mail in a few days. (Barnes & Noble.com, are you listening? You can learn something from the folks at Discover Card.)

So, no problems there.

Until I went to buy some ebooks and my default credit card – yup, Discover – was denied, because I’d forgotten to update it.

Amazon sent me a polite email informing me that the charge had been denied, and suggesting that I update my payment method, and re-place the order. Which I did.

When I tried to order from Barnes & Noble, they emailed me too – informing me that my credit card was denied, my account was locked and I’d have to call customer service to get it unlocked.

WTF???

OK, I get that they don’t want to take a bad credit card, no problem there. But really? LOCK my account??? And they expect me to CALL to get it unlocked, just so I can switch out my credit card and SPEND MONEY??? Just do a quick search on that one to see what B&N’s customer service is like – stories of hour+ hold times abound.

I admit I didn’t even try to call. Did I mention I’m not fond of talking on the phone? And if I wanted to, you know, talk to someone, I might have just, oh I don’t know, gone to a STORE? And the big question: Why bother calling at all when a couple clicks will take me to AMAZON?

So that’s my story. How about one of my friends’? She started out with a Nook reader, and loved it – for about three months. Then it stopped holding a charge. Could she take it back to the store? NO! Granted, this was probably because she’d bought it at Best Buy, not B&N, but still… so she shipped it back. And waited for a replacement. And waited. And waited. Finally, her new, refurbished Nook came a month later.

Which she again loved. Until it, too, stopped holding a battery charge.

To make a long story short, she ended up going through this twice more. When she was on her fourth Nook, she finally said screw it and bought a Kindle 3, which she’s been enjoying without problems for over a year.

So do I think that the Microsoft infusion will cure these ills? I’d love it if they did, because really, competitions is good for everyone (well, at least for the consumers). If B&N stepped up their game, it would keep Amazon better as well, and the readers would continue to have choices, something I’m definitely in favor of. Of course, I’d be even more in favor of a universal ebook format (like that’s going to happen anytime soon). But failing that, choices are good. But my skepticism meter’s pegged out. I’ve used Windows computers since 1997. Customer service? If I have problems with Windows, I go look it up on a web forum. So hopefully if nothing else, the Microsoft partnership will spawn a bunch of those, where we can get self-serve support.

Because I really like that Nook Touch with Glow Light (with expandable memory!). But until the support situation improves, I’ll keep reading Kindle books on my Android phone. 😀

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you! Do you think Microsoft’s buy-in to the Nook will make things better for the customer? Do you have any other crystal ball revelations? Please share!

The Book I Waited Years to Read

A couple weeks ago, a book was published on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords that I’d waited for for years. No, not the latest installment in George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series. It wasn’t by a big name author – in fact, until a few months ago, I didn’t even know the author’s name!

Every winter, I judge in the Golden Heart®, the Romance Writers of America’s annual contest for unpublished romance. In this contest, the first three chapters and a synopsis are judged – up to 55 pages total. There’s no commenting – each entry gets a single, numeric score ranging from 1 to 9, with 9 being the highest. Little direction is given beyond that we’re supposed to be choosing “the best in unpublished romance fiction,” and that each entry should be judged on its own merits, not against the others in our packet of 5 – 7 entries.

I’ve been a member of RWA since 2000, and probably have judged the Golden Heart for ten years. Based on the 1-9 scale, I’d consider a 5 to be “average” unpublished romance fiction, a 1 to be unreadable, and a 9 to be can’t-stop-thinking-about-it, want to read the rest NOW. The lowest score I’ve ever given was a 2.5. I’ve given several in the 8’s, but only one 9 in my ten years of judging. That entry was a paranormal romance called Ashes in the Wind.

The story was about a young noblewoman in the Roman empire who found herself inexplicably drawn to a gladiator slave and begged her father to spare the man’s life. For the next two chapters, she bargained her jewelry and other valuables for a few stolen moments with her gladiator here and there, unaware she and her love interest were under the care of a pair of guardian angels who’d been tasked with getting them together. But the bumbling angels didn’t count on one thing: Mount Vesuvius, and their charges die a horrible death in each other’s arms while trying to escape.

And that was where the entry ended. I was choked up (something that doesn’t happen to me easily!), and even though I had the synopsis and knew how the story ended, I thought about this book for days afterward. I judged it in 2005 or 2006, I think. I was astonished when it didn’t make the finals (what were the other judges thinking???). Some entrants put their names on their entries, but most don’t, and RWA doesn’t release names of judges or entrants, nor will they forward emails. I hoped this book would be published, and that I’d hear about it, because that was the only way I’d get to read the rest. Even years later, I remembered it, especially each year when I received my GH packet and wondered if I’d get anything that good.

After I decided to take the independent route with my books, I joined a Yahoo Group for indie romance authors. New people joined every day, and often answered the invitation to introduce themselves. A few months after I joined, an author named Lori Dillon joined and described her book, a reincarnation romance set in Pompeii. It was that book! I couldn’t believe it, and I emailed her. We have something else in common in that we’re both graphic artists-turned-web designers. She also read my book Time’s Enemy and gave it a wonderful review.

The book was released as Out of the Ashes earlier this month, and I bought it right away. It didn’t disappoint! You can read my review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Goodreads. The book is also available on Smashwords. If you enjoy an emotionally-rich romance with a paranormal element that’s not the same-ol, same-ol, Out of the Ashes is a must-read!

Have you ever picked up a book that for whatever reason, you didn’t finish – only to find it again years later? Did it meet your expectations?

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