Reading Out of My Comfort Zone

         Here are my reviews of three books that I've read over the past year.  These books were all sent to me for the purpose of reviewing them and I gave them my honest assessment.  Review and book titles are links that will take you to my original reviews and provide you with more information about the books


Yippee ki yay ki yo ho-ho-ho! Cowboy Christmas

Darn Good Cowboy Christmas (Spikes & Spurs)

by Carolyn Brown

It's a well written bit of fluff with a neatly woven story and well drawn characters. This could easily be a Hallmark Christmas television special if the sex scenes were removed. It's sentimentally romantic, but after all it's a romance novel. And that's my biggest problem with it I guess. I'm not really a romance fan. But if this is the genre I'm going to read, then this book is how I'd like to have it packaged. A DARN GOOD COWBOY CHRISTMAS is a pleasant enough diversion for holiday reading. I would highly recommend this to any readers of the romance genre.





A Salacious Love Triangle

The Salacious Marny Ottwiler

by Bridget Straub

When I read out of my genre it can be an uncomfortable experience. This book is not in a genre that I typically read and therefore I can't say I was overjoyed by it. But I didn't hate it either. And I did read it right to the end, which I think is a big plus.

This is not my kind of story and I neither could relate to the characters nor did I particularly like them. But that's just me. I can see where this book would have an audience that would eat it up like a box of Godiva chocolates washed down with a goblet of Grand Marnier.

What I liked best about this book is the humor. Bridget Straub has a clever witty style that is topical and fun. I like the author's writing style. I love the short (and I mean very short) chapters that allow the reader to tear through the book. It's a quick read with a fast pace.

I won't recommend "Marny" for those who can't tolerate the genre, but those who enjoy romantic comedy or books about the world of the celebrity might want to give it a try. You might be in a better position to evaluate the book from your reading experience. I'd like to hear what you think of "Marny Ottwiler".



Is This a Peculiar Review?

The Peculiar

by Stefan Bachmann

If THE PECULIAR is an indication of things to come for young author Stefan Bachmann, he's got a tremendous career ahead of him. This young man can really write and this book is among the most well-written books I've read this year.

That being said, I have mixed feelings about this book. This is the first fantasy novel I recall having read. It's also probably the first steam-punk novel I've read. Yes, it's a melding of the two genres and it's expertly done.

The world of THE PECULIAR is vividly created. I loved that aspect. Gritty detail and convincing geographic placement of the settings made it easy to visualize what I was reading.

The characters were well-crafted and interesting, but here's where I had my problem. The real people were okay, but the fairies, goblins, gnomes, and other fantasy creatures were a bit too much for me to suspend my disbelief for. This nagged at me throughout my reading of the book. As I continued to read, I gradually became more adapted to the concept of the imaginary types, but I didn't like them.

The story is gripping, but very dark. I might question this reading for the 9 to 14 year old crowd and beyond those ages readers may have some of the same problems that I did.

I took little of value with me as I left this novel other than the appreciation for the fine writing craftsmanship. The book is not bad, but it is not my favorite. For those who love the fantasy genre, I would highly highly recommend that they give this one a try. Steam-punk aficionados will probably likewise have a tremendous appreciation for the book. As for me, I look forward to seeing what Bachmann comes up with next. He is an author to keep an eye on.

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My Questions for You:

        1.  Have I done this fairly?

        2.  Considering that less stars will bring the book down a notch in ratings, is it fair that I would rate books like this because I'm not a fan of the genre?

         3.  Should a person who does not like a genre review a book so long as they have stated such and also reviewed the book according to its merits?

          

Related articles

• Profanity: Where Do You Draw the Line? (A Guest Post from Author Bridget Straub)
• #IWSG: Liking Out of the Mainstream
• Genre Bashing! RANT AHEAD!

Profanity: Where Do You Draw the Line? (A Guest Post from Author Bridget Straub)

swearing in cartoon Suomi: Kiroileva sarjakuvahahmo Nederlands: Schelden en vloeken in strips  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

        In this installment of Tossing It Out I welcome the return of  Bridget Straub who blogs at  bridgetstraub: Author, Artist, Mom.  .  Some of you may recall Bridget's Hijack! post "Life Is a Maze".  Bridget's third novel in a year's time is now out.  In this post she discusses a dilemma you may have faced in your own writing.  The topic of profanity in writing is one that I've been planning to address and will probably do so in the future.  In her most recent release, The Salacious Marny Ottwiler, Bridget had to deal with this issue and now tells her reasoning concerning using profanity in ones writing.

Where Do You Draw the Line?

Is it just me, or do people swear now more than ever? It feels as though, particularly in the past several years, the sensor button has been turned off and pretty much anything goes. I have to admit I am as guilty as anyone. I don’t allow my kids to swear and yet I catch myself doing it more often than I should.

Well, “should” is an odd choice of word. Should we ever swear? Probably not, but I find even my church attending Christian friends swear, and to be honest it always makes me laugh. As someone who went through Catholic school, this is so daring and wrong that it almost delights me. Not appropriate, I know.

Here is where I draw the line (and sometimes it is literally in a line): it is when I am around young children or anyone older than me. In both of those situations it feels disrespectful. Those of us in the middle, however, have been raised on cable television, nudity in movies and that whole sexual revolution. This is not to say I would swear with a relative stranger or walk up to someone and ask how the bleep they are. That would be crass.

This has come up in my writing as well. I don’t ever want to scare away readers, and at the same time, I pride myself on creating characters that are real and relatable. I would never throw in profanity just for the sake of being edgy. At the same time, there are some situations where a person and/or character would not respond with a “Golly gee”, and right or wrong, certain words have much more force. When I write, I rarely know what is going to happen next, let alone what is liable to come out of a character’s mouth. It is one of the things I enjoy most about writing. Even now, I am totally winging this post. Still, at the finish of a novel I read through the manuscript and worry that an entire body of work will be judged by a few words. It’s a conundrum.

Bridget Straub is the author of three novels: “Searching for My Wand”, “On a Hot August Afternoon” and “The Salacious Marny Ottwiler”. All are available on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Bridget-Straub/e/B006KEG0KE

                How do you think is the best way to deal with profanity in writing when it  seems appropriate to your characters?    Does an author's use of profanity in a work bother you?     What do you think is the best way to avoid profanity in writing or do you think doing so lessens the integrity of the credibility of the writing?

Life Is A Maze: Words from Amazing Guest Hijacker Bridget Straub

           My guest hijacker in this post is Bridget Straub who can usually be found  at her blog bridgetstraub: Author, Artist, Mom.   Bridget's latest book, On A Hot August Afternoon, is a scintillating story of life, love, and rock and roll--just the thing for some summertime reading.  Paired with the author's first novel, Searching for My Wand, one could make this a "Bridget Straub summer of reading".    To start things off, here's a bit of authorly musing from Bridget.




Life is a maze

        I have been stressing over this guest post, as well as others I need to hurry up and complete. With the release of my second novel, “On a Hot August Afternoon”, I feel the pressure of the “make it or break it” mentality. When I released my first novel, “Searching for My Wand”, I thought I had everything in place. I had a Facebook page, I was on Twitter and I put a trailer up on YouTube. The reviews began to roll in and they were all 5 star! What more could I hope for, right?

       Sales! I could hope for sales, and I’m going to be honest with you, I have not become an overnight success. I had visions of hundreds of sales a day. I knew it wouldn’t be instant, but like a snowball rolling down a mountainside, I imagined that it would build. Instead there was a flutter, and then it fizzled out completely.

       I did more research and discovered this is far more the norm than any real success. I also read that until you have a larger library to build on, first books rarely find an audience. Although disappointing, this information was also promising, because if there is one thing I have it’s a vast supply of work to draw from. In the span of one highly productive year, I completed three or four novels and a musical, so there is no shortage of material. “Searching” was released in December of last year, and now I have “On a Hot August Afternoon” out in both paperback and eBook form.

       Theoretically, I should now be able to move on to choosing which novel I wish to edit next, except for the marketing of the first two books that needs to be done. One of the reasons I went with Kindle Select for the eBook version of this book (the first was published through BookBaby) was because of their KDP program, where you can put your book up for free for a day or two, as a way of boosting sales. Unfortunately, I have since been told repeatedly by a variety of authors that this tactic no longer works. That like anything that gets used too much, it has lost its appeal. Now the word on the street is that short of a large marketing campaign fueled by a lot of money, the only thing that sells books is word of mouth. As you can guess, this puts a lot of pressure on these guest posts that are one of the few things I can do to get my name out and begin to push that snowball down the mountain.

       As I’m writing this I am listening to Pandora and they are playing a song by Lenka in which there is the lyric, “I’m just a little bit caught in the middle, life is a maze…” That sums up my feeling about this whole process beautifully. I’m just trying to figure it out and to enjoy the show as I go along.

bridgetstraub.com

Thank you, Bridget, for opening up like this and for being a part of my Hijack This Blog! summer program. You've got a lot of us cheering for your success.

I'm sure Bridget's not alone in her situation. Let's hear from some of you who have been published. Has your experience been similar? Did your first books meet the expectations that you had for them? Any words of encouragement or advice for Bridget and other burgeoning writers?

And how about you who have not yet been published: Does this sound discouraging to you? What kind of plan do you have in place for when you finally do achieve your publishing goals?

Related articles

• Hijack This Blog! Update

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• On A Hot August Afternoon

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