Monthly Archives: August 2013

Review of Siege and Storm

28 Wednesday Aug 2013

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As promised in this post from Monday,  from now on I’m going to try to put up reviews of all the books I read on this blog, not just on Amazon and Goodreads. I started with my 5-star review of Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo. I immediately read the sequel, Siege and Storm, so here’s my review of that one. Warning –  If you haven’t read the first book and you’re as neurotic about spoilers as I am, you might not want to read any further.

SIEGE AND STORM

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Blurb:

Darkness never dies.

Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land. She finds starting new is not easy while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. She can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her–or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm

My Review:

4 Stars

I finished Shadow and Bone, the first book in the trilogy, at about 10
PM. Instead of stopping reading and getting ready for bed, I immediately downloaded this sequel and launched straight into reading it, not stopping until it was 3.30 am and I physically couldn’t keep my eyes open. The next morning, I blasted through the rest of it. This hopefully gives an idea of how much I’ve been enjoying the series, and I can’t wait for Book Three to come out next year.

That said, while I gave Book One a definite 5 star rating, I’ve dropped this one to a 4. Most of what made the first book great – the interesting setting, the developed magic, the twists and turns, the fab characters – were still all present and correct but it just didn’t grab and thrill and obsess me to quite the same extent.

I think part of the problem is the one that’s a constant danger for the middle books of epic trilogies: the novelty and the uniqueness and the sense of the main character finding themselves that you get with a good first book has worn off, but until the third book, there can’t be any real resolution. A good chunk of the middle section of the book felt like filler – entertaining, well-written filler, but not something that really advanced the plot.

For me though, the major factor in the drop in star rating was the distinct lack of Darkling action. He was by far my favourite character in the first book and instantly entered the ranks of my favourite characters of all time. It was striking how much my attention waned when he wasn’t around in this book, and perked up in the few instances he reappeared. In fact, it made me feel rather shallow – I thought I’d loved the series for its unusual setting and interesting system of magic, but it turns out that a huge part of it was good old-fashioned crushing over the hot evil guy!

Speaking of evil guys,  it was also concerning than whenever he did appear, he was pretty unequivocally evil. I much preferred him aa a darkly sinister love interest than a full blown supervillian, and while there’s a part of me that would still like to see him and Alina end up together, I think he crossed several lines that will make this extremely difficult. It’s good that the author took some risks and moved the plot on, but I preferred the dynamic of the previous book where he was in charge of all the Grisha and been courted by him was an honour. And above all I missed them having any romantic scenes. There were a few tiny hints, but of their few scenes together, most were unutterably grim.

This is a little more rambling and emotional than most of my reviews and I think that’s a sign of how much the book got to me, so can only be regarded as a good thing. You should definitely read this book if you enjoyed the first one, just brace yourself for a bit of a different feel.

 

 

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Review of Shadow and Bone

26 Monday Aug 2013

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It’s just struck me that there’s been a pretty serious omission with my blog so far – a total lack of book reviews. That’s particularly surprising given that I read a lot and faithfully review every book I read on Amazon and Goodreads. In fact, I’m very nearly an Amazon Top 1000 Reviewer (I was 1087th last time I looked!)

I’ve therefore decided that it’s time to start adding my reviews to the blog – and this is a particularly timely decision given that I’ve just read a pretty strong contender for my book of the year: Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone.

There’s a weird feeling I get when I’ve really, really loved a book. The sort of feeling where every song you listen to and every bit of news you here reminds you of the story. The sort of feeling where you don’t want to read anything else for a while because you know it will only be a disappointment by comparison. The sort of feeling where you scour the internet for anything to do with the book and you desperately try to recommend it to all your friends and drop references to it in conversation.  Yes, that’s been my weekend.

There have been a lot of books I’ve enjoyed over the last year or two, but it’s been a long time since I’ve really felt like that. The last time was probably when I first read Game of Thrones, about four years ago now, but on the whole, it’s more something I associate with being a teenager, when my hormones were on a knife edge and I was easy prey for identifying with every heroine and falling in love with every hero.

Recently, I’ve found most supposed romantic heroes to be a bit of a turn off and most villains to be a bit “meh.”  I was almost scared that it would never happen again, that the weird, all-encompassing feeling of truly loving a book was something I’d grown out of – turns out, I’ve just not been reading the right books. Or perhaps more accurately, much like romantic love, it all comes down to chemistry, and finding the right one is very personal and requires a certain degree of luck.

My “official” reviews of  Shadow and Bone is below, and I’ll try to add my review of the sequel tomorrow. But while I would whole-heartedly recommend this to most readers, bear in mind that my review is not necessarily entirely objective, in much the same way that a “review” of my fiancé would say more about my feelings for him than it would his actual qualities. I promise that most of my reviews are a bit calmer and more balanced than this one, as you’ll hopefully see as I start to roll them out over the next couple of weeks.

SHADOW AND BONE

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Blurb:

“The Shadow Fold, a swathe of impenetrable darkness, crawling with monsters that feast on human flesh, is slowly destroying the once-great nation of Ravka.

Alina, a pale, lonely orphan, discovers a unique power that thrusts her into the lavish world of the kingdom’s magical elite—the Grisha. Could she be the key to unravelling the dark fabric of the Shadow Fold and setting Ravka free?

The Darkling, a creature of seductive charm and terrifying power, leader of the Grisha. If Alina is to fulfill her destiny, she must discover how to unlock her gift and face up to her dangerous attraction to him.

But what of Mal, Alina’s childhood best friend? As Alina contemplates her dazzling new future, why can’t she ever quite forget him?

Glorious. Epic. Irresistible. Romance.”

MY REVIEW – 5 Stars

The summary of this book made it sound as though it was about an ordinary girl with a unique power that could change the world, who finds herself torn between a dark mysterious figure and a faithful childhood friend. In short, it sounded like YA cliché central. On one level, that’s a pretty fair description of the plot, but if there’s one thing this book proves, it’s in the hands of the right author, the seemingly most overused plot devices can still seem original and pack a real emotional punch.

I expected to vaguely enjoy this book. In actuality, I utterly loved it. Unputdownable is an overused phrase, but I actually cancelled pre-planned Friday night drinks to stay in and finish it! It’s a long time since I’ve been so mentally engulfed in a novel. It’s difficult to say what made it stand out from the wide variety of broadly similar books that’s I’ve read and merely liked. Sometimes, a story just gels with a reader, and sometimes an author is just a brilliant storyteller, and I think both were true here.

If I tried to be more precise though, I’d say it was the following things that made it special for me:

The first was the setting, which was basically a fantasy version of Tsarist Russia. It’s great to see a fantasy novel use any model other than medieval England as it’s template, but I also thought that the glamour of the Russian court and the harshness of the landscape make for a great backdrop.

Secondly, the fantasy elements were well done: developed enough to give people who like to immerse themselves in another world a bit of a thrill, without being too overwhelmingly detailed for people who are mainly interested in the action and the romance.

The plot was nothing I hadn’t seen before and was in many ways quite straightforward, with only one or two really twisty moments, but it was very well done and left me desperate to find out what happened next and made me constantly veer between emotions. There were some cool concepts, such as a monster-filled strip of land where it’s always dark which cuts the country off from the sea, or the hierarchy and training methods of the Grisha, in effect a race of aristocratic sorcerers.

The real standout aspect, however, was the characters. Alina was an enjoyable heroine and easy to like – a good mix of ordinary but unique, powerful but weak. She did make a habit of doing exactly the wrong thing quite consistently, in an “I’m fleeing my enemies so I’m going to stop in a crowded town for food” sort of way, but I found that quite endearing. I think it’s pretty much what I’d end up doing. That said, there is one scene where she makes an utterly inexplicable decision which made me want to reach into the book and shake her. You’ll know exactly what I mean when you read it. The deer. That’s all I’m saying. Most of the supporting characters were pretty good too, though some of the Grisha and soldiers sometimes blurred into one.

Above all though, what I really loved was the Darkling, the leader of the Grisha, and the strength of his scenes with Alina. I’ve always had a soft spot for those characters that tread a fine line between dark love interest and antagonist, but since leaving my teens behind I’ve rarely developed a proper little book crush on one. The Darkling was the finest example I’ve seen in years and a new entry on my all time favourites list, making me intensely nervous and utterly seduced in every scene he appeared in. He’s the sort of character who makes a scene sexier by showing up and saying a few words than most characters manage in the most explicit sex scenes.

I’m launching straight into book two, at great risk to my social life over the next few days. If you remotely like this sort of book, I suggest you launch just as enthusiastically into book one.

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This post is rapidly getting overlong, so I’ll leave the review of Book Two until tomorrow. One last comment though. As well as reading these two books back to back and then proceeding to seriously geek out over them, my weekend has also been a frenzy of trying to finish Ivory Towers. I can never decide whether reading a great book helps or hinders my own writing. On the one hand, it can provide great inspiration and remind you of why you wanted to write in the first place. On the other, it can be hard to drag yourself out of someone else’s world and back into the one you’ve created. The good news is that I think I broke my all time record for most writing in one weekend (apart from possibly one weekend during NaNoWriMo), but I’m not sure whether that’s in spite of or because of falling in love with these books. 

Day 4 of the Awesome Indies Grand Opening Party – and my story of why I went Indie

24 Saturday Aug 2013

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If you’ve seen my blog or my Twitter at all this week, you’ve probably gathered by now that me and Oxford Blood are taking part in the Awesome Indie Authors Grand Opening Party. I explained a bit more about the site and the launch earlier in the week, but in essence, AIA is a site that aims to objectively assess self-published novels and then list the ones that meet their standards, in an attempt to take the risk out of buying indie.

Anyway, day four of the Awesome Indies Grand Opening party is meet the author day. Pop over and find out the difference between indie and self-publishing, watch a fun video and read the author’s stories.

 

Click here or on the banner above. Also, the 99c sale is still on, so if you haven’t been already, pop over there now.

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Once again, I wrote far too much for my entry and ended up having to submit a cut down version. But for those who are interested, the whole thing is below. hold tight, this one’s a little soul-bearing…

WHY DID I GO DOWN THE INDIE PUBLISHING ROUTE?

Ever since my teens, I’d wanted to write a vampire novel, but the first time I really found myself with enough time was in the months between finishing university and starting work. This was frustrating timing. A year or two previously, it had seemed that any piece of rubbish with the word “vampire” in the title would have been snapped up by publishers eager to capitalise on the success of Twilight. By the time Oxford Blood was finished, however, the pendulum had swung the other way. Several agents told me that they liked my novel and thought that it brought something new to the theme but that the market was utterly saturated by the vampire genre. The one agent who was willing to take me on was told much the same thing by the publishers that she approached. It was suggested that I should write a dystopian novel instead, but I had no interest in jumping on a new bandwagon – I’d written a vampire novel in spite of rather than because of the genre’s popularity.

Once we parted ways, I just didn’t have the strength to look for another agent, and suspected that unless I was very lucky, the answer from anyone new would be much the same. On the hottest day of the year in 2012, I went for a picnic with some friends, read a story in the paper about someone whose previously self-published vampire book had just been traditionally  published by the same company who a few weeks earlier had told me that vampire books were over – but clearly once a novel had had a million downloads, they were willing to take a ‘chance’ on it. I was beyond frustrated. I had a book that everyone was saying was perfectly good and likely to be enjoyed by vampire fans, but I couldn’t get it in front of any of the people who’d be likely to have fun reading it.

A friend of mine had faced the opposite problem but the same outcome. She’d written a YA magic realism novel, and where my genre was considered too overdone to be worthy of publication, hers was considered to be too obscure and niche (though infuriatingly,  no-one was suggesting that either of our novels was lacking in quality). She’d tried self-publishing and recommended that I gave it a go too. I got home that night, and still slightly drunk on Pimms and struggling not to cry, began to research how to do it. I suddenly had a conviction that this was the right thing to do. The big publishers’ concern was whether the book could sell enough copies to make them a tidy profit. I just wanted to see my story in print and have the thrill of knowing that some people I’d never met were reading it.

My book had already been heavily edited to meet my former agent’s requirements, but with the help of a variety of online editors and beta-readers, I refined it further. Though not quite enough – the second edition was much more thoroughly edited, and in retrospect, I wish I’d invested even more time, money and effort in getting the first edition perfect first time around. There are a few embarrassing reviews from the first few months of publication that basically say “great story, too many typos.”

I also commissioned a professional, customised cover. I’d always dreamed of having a beautiful cover to go with my story, and it was when I received the proofs of this that I realised that I wasn’t really missing out by going down the indie route. I honestly don’t believe that even the biggest publisher could have designed me a more beautiful or a more perfect cover.

You're welcome to disagree, but come on - this is pretty nice

You’re welcome to disagree, but come on – this is pretty nice

I remember when I got my first review from a stranger. It was amazing to know that someone I’d never met had read my book and enjoyed it and was sharing her opinion about the best characters and her favourite scenes. Since then, I’ve had lots more reviews, participated in interviews and been featured on blogs. It’s terrifying to think that if I’d held out for a traditional publisher, my manuscript would probably still have been languishing on my computer instead of being exposed to all sorts of people.

 

 

Awesome Indies Grand Opening Party Day 2: Who is the piano playing dog? Flash fiction fun

22 Thursday Aug 2013

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You may have seen my brief post yesterday about the Awesome Indie Authors launch party. If not, you can find it here:

I put the post up just before bed, having exhausted myself with the lethal combination of a 6K run, a hot bath, a big meal and a glass of wine, and as a result I didn’t really take the time to explain about AIA or the launch party. If you’re familiar with all of that, scroll down for a link to some fun flash fiction, and the longer version of my entry.

Basically, the idea behind AIA is that independently published novels have a bad reputation with a lot of people. And it’s hardly surprising – there are huge numbers of indie books out there, and some are them are utterly awful. Some, however, are just as good as their traditionally published rivals. Awesome Indies tries to track down and promote these self-published works.  I was delighted to come across Awesome Indies a couple of months ago, and even more delighted to have Oxford Blood and Screaming Spires listed on the site. 

This week, the website is having its official launch. As I mentioned yesterday, many of the books (Oxford Blood included) are reduced to 99c (around 77p if you’re English like me) so it’s a great opportunity to pick up some quality books at a cheap price.

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As well as the offer though,  the site has got various fun things going on. Today, the authors were invited to watch a great video of a piano playing dog and then write a very short story about what he was up to. You can see the video and check out the entries here

Much as I love working on The Cavaliers, it was great fun to stretch my imagination and write something else for a change. My original story was about three times too long and I had to cut it down for the official blog, but I’ve copied the full version below.

WHY IS THE DOG PLAYING THE PIANO?

There had been a time when everyone had said that Thomas was the greatest piano player the world had ever known. He’d responded in the same way when the compliments came from professors of music at the finest universities as when they came from awe-struck pretty girls at his recitals: a modest smile, a shake of his head. Inside though, he’d thought they were all entirely correct, maybe even not going far enough.

Ever since he’d been tall enough to reach the keys, he’d improved on the natural gifts he’d inherited from his parents with hours of practise and a ruthless perfectionism. As he’d grown older and the performance requests  had come flooding in, he’d agonised over choosing the perfect songs for each occasion and rehearsed until his performance was flawless.

As time passed, however, he’d slowly begun to realise something : most people could tell the difference between a bad player and a good one, but not between the good and the great. He could sacrifice some of his rehearsal time for an evening with one of his adoring fans and the cheers would be just as loud at the next show.

By the time he was invited to play at Baron Jackson’s 50th birthday party, he’d grown utterly complacent. He’d heard strange stories about the Baron, but he didn’t concern himself with rumours, and Jackson seemed like a pleasant enough man. He was certainly visibly delighted to have Thomas on the bill.

Thomas had been invited to spend the weekend at the Baron’s estate to settle in and familiarise himself with the castle’s antique piano and the acoustics of the great hall. Instead, he’d spent the weekend familiarising himself with the castle’s vintage wine collection and the sounds of the Baron’s more attractive guests. The night of the performance, he had been over-drunk and under-rehearsed, but it hadn’t worried him in the slightest. Neither the expectant, noble crowd nor the imposing grandeur of the hall could dint his confidence. He’d sat down and he’d played well. Not brilliantly, but undoubtedly well. The hall erupted in applause. Every person in the room was delighted. Or at least, everyone but the Baron.  Jackson sat there in stony silence, then dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

Feeling suddenly nervous, Thomas had returned to his palatial room. Clearly, the Baron had a more discerning ear than he’d credited him with. When the Baron knocked in the early hours, Thomas had been  expecting a dressing down, perhaps even to be dismissed from the castle without pay. What he hadn’t expected was for the Baron to take place a hand on his shoulder in a fatherly manner. His words had been permanently engraved on Thomas’ mind ever since.

“You have natural talents and you are squandering them because you don’t have to try hard to play tolerably well. But I didn’t hire you to play tolerably well; I hired you because I heard you were the best. I’m afraid I’m going to make it rather harder for you to play, force you to re-learn the virtues of patience, practise and dedication.”

For a moment, Thomas had thought he was going to cut off one of his hands or break some fingers. Once again, he thought of the strange stories he’d heard about the Baron. Instead, Jackson had touched his forehead to Thomas’ and everything had gone dark.

He’d awoken to find himself like this. Stumpy paws, unwieldly claws and an inability to sit properly or to stand on two legs. But his human mind was intact, as was his innate understanding of music.

The Baron had stroked his fur in an amused manner. “You’ll be treated perfectly well, I promise. Your own quarters, plentiful human food and a free run of the castle and its grounds. All I ask in return is that you practise. I dare say you’ll find it rather harder than you’ve been used to, but with your natural talents and your perfect ear, I have no doubt that with enough dedication to your craft, you’ll be playing better than most men before too long. I expect you to perform last night’s repertoire at my next birthday and I expect you to meet my standards. If you do, I’ll give you your body back. If you fail, we’ll keep trying until you get it right.”

That was three months ago, and in the weeks since, he’d practised harder than he ever had in his life, harder even than  as a child under his virtuoso father’s watchful eye. He was getting better each day. Everyone said he played astonishingly well for a small dog. But he was horribly conscious that it would be a long time before they said he played well for a man, still longer before anyone would claim he was the best piano player the world had ever known.

The Awesome Indies Grand Opening Party; 26 top reads at just 99 cents each, plus 5 days of partying!

21 Wednesday Aug 2013

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You’re invited to the Awesome Indies Grand Opening Party—a sale of 26 top reads at just 99 cents each, plus 5 days of fun. See the new website, meet the authors, join them for games, giveaways and giggles and be in the draw to win the latest generation Kindle.

The Awesome Indies have found a way to take the risk out of buying indie. If it’s Awesome Indies Approved (AIA), a qualified publishing industry professional has determined that it’s as good as anything produced by the mainstream. Readers need no longer wonder if that book is really worth downloading. If a book is listed on the Awesome Indies, then it’s worth your time.

Click on the banner, or this link, to visit the Awesome Indies to browse the huge 99c sale (including my own Oxford Blood)and learn what you have to do to be in the draw for a Kindle Paperwhite.

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