Soon after I began writing reviews and publishing them on my blog, I asked another author if he would review my book of short stories and post it on his blog. He said that he didn’t write reviews because he didn’t want to be a target for disgruntled authors who might not like what he said about their work. I took his point and decided that if I couldn’t say something good about a book, I would say nothing about it in public. I also want to support good authors, not talk about books that aren’t so good. Who wants to hear about them anyway? So my policy for reviewing is that I will only publish reviews for books that I can give 3 or more stars for. That doesn’t mean that I give 3-5 stars for everything I read; it means that I don’t publish my 1 & 2 star reviews. If the author had requested a review from me, then I send them a few private notes. However, in the same way that fake 5 star reviews have consequences for the whole rating system, so does this policy. Many reviewers, … [Read more...]
What’s it all about?
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you should have noticed that I've just had a young adult novel published. I've had a lot of publicity for it on other sites, but I actually haven't gone into a lot of detail here, so today I've intervewed myself to give you a good idea of what You Can't Shatter Me is all about. Okay, so what's it about? It’s about Carly, a sixteen year old girl who wants to write her own life and cast herself as a superhero, but when she stands up to a bully, the story gets out of her control. Dylan, a karate-trained nerd who supports her stand, turns out to be a secret admirer, and Justin, the bully, makes Carly his next victim. While romance blossoms, Dylan faces attacking words, an unreliable movie director, a concrete habit that requires smashing, and an unruly Neanderthal. Meanwhile, the bully’s increasing harassment forces Carly to deal with flying hooks, unflushable cowpats, and deadly dragons. An old hippie shows her an inner magic that’s supposed … [Read more...]
