Night Owl Reviews – I was utterly thrilled when THE SEVENFOLD SPELL received a 5 Star Top Pick from the Night Owl Romance section [...]]]>

Some early reviews of THE SEVENFOLD SPELL came in and so far, I am feeling very lucky. Here’s what we have so far–the good, the bad and the meh.

Night Owl Reviews – I was utterly thrilled when THE SEVENFOLD SPELL received a 5 Star Top Pick from the Night Owl Romance section of this mega-site.

… an amazing, imaginative tale that enraptures the reader and tells the intriguing story of what happens to all the other people in a fairy tale.

Read the entire review here.

One More Page – This reviewer gave THE SEVENFOLD SPELL 2 stars at Goodreads. Ugh! Here’s why:

However, the first part of the book felt long for me. Terribly long, mostly because of all the sex. I wasn’t expecting that, really, but I was surprised to read that Talia would resort to that to cure her of her loneliness. Mind you, she didn’t really become a whore so she could earn money — she did it out of loneliness.

I actually wasn’t unhappy with this review, and my husband–who is reading all my reviews first–said I should read it. If you want to read it as well, here is the link.

Kay’s Bookshelf – This reviewer, like me, does not give ratings. You have to actually read the review to see what she thought. It was a positive review, but she did have one complaint:

I am not entirely sure how believable the setting is. Don’t get me wrong, the medieval rural life is okay enough done, but the thing that puzzled me a bit is the fact that royal heads seemed to be walking among ordinary people a bit more often than I thought they would be.

This is not the only reviewer who had the impression THE SEVENFOLD SPELL took place in a rural setting. Which means, of course, for them, that it did take place in a rural setting, and I can’t argue with them, even though I wrote it. However, my intention was to place the setting in a neighborhood of a medieval city, with parts of it taking place on a farm outside the city. Therefore, this is a review that I learned from. I know now to make my setting more clear.

Here’s a link to the rest of her review.

Do I have to focus entirely on the negative? I want to keep it real, but I also don’t what to give the impression that everyone is trashing my book. So here are some positive quotes. You can go look for the negative.

Book Goggles – This reviewer seemed to totally get what I was trying to do with my story:

Nevitt gives us her own interpretation of this well loved fairytale, choosing to focus on a plain young spinner-in-training rather than on the princess Aurora. Our heroine of the tale is Talia, a hopelessly plain girl with a face full of warts who has no prospective suitors… save for one boy.

She had some critiques as well, which I also learned from. Here’s the complete review.

Pearls Cast Before a MCPIG – I’m not sure I understand the title of this blog, but this reviewer posted the first review of THE SEVENFOLD SPELL and gave it 3 stars at Goodreads. It’s not really long enough for me to quote from, but here is the complete review.

It’s My Genre, Baby – This was a wonderful review for me to read. The reviewer–who apparently reviews elsewhere as well–tagged it as “Top Marks”.

What I forget, of course, are all the people who line the lanes to cheer the happy couple on. Not every face in the crowd is a joyful one. Tanith Lee used to do some lovely off center fairy tales. So did Robin McKinley. Being able to take a familiar story and breath new life into it without undermining the original is a rare talent. Tia Nevitt appears to have it in abundance.

Am I thrilled to be in among these names? Yes, I am. Here is the complete review.

Susanna Ives, a fellow Carina Press author, also gave it a very nice review over at my Sevenfold Spell Goodreads page.

Did I make you want to pre-order it? If so, I have some handy links for you!

• Carina Press – For the PDF (fully printable) and ePub versions
• Amazon Kindle – You can download the Kindle application to almost any device, which you can install right from the Buy page. They make it easy.

Was it nerve-wracking to read these early reviews? Very. I was by no means confident. But a lot of sites–like mine–wait until the release week to post reviews, so you can expect at least one more post like this one. I hope.

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When Tia invited [...]]]>

Susanna Fraser is the author of the delightful The Sergeant’s Lady, which is her first novel. Her hilarious website is here, which has gotten her attention from all over the place. She also has a much more traditional blog, and she is quite active on Facebook.

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When Tia invited me to be a guest at Debuts & Reviews, she suggested I talk about my journey to “The Call” and what I learned along the way.  I’m happy to do so, even though that journey took some scenic routes I never expected when I first started writing.

I wrote my first draft of the manuscript that became The Sergeant’s Lady back in 2005, and I loved writing it.  It was my second manuscript, so I had the confidence of knowing I could finish a book to spur me forward.  The research fascinated me, especially building a backstory for Will to cover every step of his army career before he met Anna.  And most of all I loved Will and Anna as characters, and I knew I had something special in them and their story.

I was still new enough to writing to think that would be enough, and that selling The Sergeant’s Lady would be easy despite the unusual setting and hero.  Surely I wasn’t the only one craving something different, and surely at least one editor out there would feel the same way.

I tried.  I really did.  I found an agent in 2006, and she submitted the manuscript extensively to print publishers.  I got a lot of compliments on my writing, a lot of comments, positive and negative, on how different the story was…and nothing but refusals on the manuscript.

Once The Sergeant’s Lady finished making the rounds, I concluded that maybe I wasn’t meant to be a romance writer after all.  I set the manuscript I’d written in 2006 aside.  (You’ll get to see it in 2011 if you’re interested; it’s called A Marriage of Inconvenience, and it’s a Sergeant’s Lady prequel with Anna’s brother James as the hero.)  My agent and I parted ways amicably, and I spent 2007-09 working on an alternative history manuscript.

That was my biggest mistake on the journey to publication, by the way.  Not switching genres–I love fantasy and romance equally, and I hope to be published in both someday.  But sticking with a book through three years and four major drafts was a wrongheaded.  I was so convinced that the alternative history was the best idea I’d ever have in my life, and also that I had to sell that story to prove I wasn’t a failure and was meant to be a writer after all.  Selling the next story wasn’t good enough, and nor was going back to my romances and trying to sell them, even though I could see that the historical market was shifting and there might be a home for stories that had been too different to sell just a few years before.  I’m only a year removed from that mentality, but I can’t explain it.  I had crazy ideas then.  I’m better now.

It’s too late for me to get those years back, and I don’t regret everything about them.  I learned a lot trying to write that book, among other things that I enjoy writing the character type the TV Tropes Wiki calls the Four-Star Badass (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FourStarBadass).  That book’s alternative-universe Wellington may never see the light of day, but there will be others like him.  Oh my, yes, there will be others like him, and if I do my job right, you’ll think they’re sexy.

But still.  Don’t make my mistake.  Know when to cut your losses.  One serious, start-over-from-scratch rewrite is the most you want to do for any single story.  If it’s still not right, start something else.  That story will still be there if you decide to go back to it later.  And it’s not the only good idea you’ll ever have.  Trust me.  I’m full of ideas now that I’m no longer so stubbornly sure I’ve already found The Only One.

Anyway.  Fast-forward to early 2010.  By then I was trying to sell my alternative history, but getting rejection letters with head-spinning speed.  Discouraged and not even sure what to write next, since the plan had been to SELL the alternative history and get right to work on its sequel, I pulled out The Sergeant’s Lady and re-read it.

And I realized that it was good. It’d been long enough since I’d written it that it was almost like reading someone else’s book–and I couldn’t put it down.  So I decided to give it one more chance.

I didn’t want to submit it to any editors who’d already read it, but there were a few houses my agent hadn’t submitted to back in 2006–including the ones that didn’t exist yet, like Carina.  Back then I never would’ve considered an e-publisher.  I’d heard too many stories of authors getting burned by fly-by-night publishers, and besides, the market only seemed viable for erotic stories.

But four years is forever in technological terms, and by 2009 I had a Kindle myself, plus a good sense of which companies were viable and which seemed dodgy.  Carina, with Harlequin’s backing, struck me as the best choice of all, so I submitted to them first.

Six months later, here I am.  Published in the genre I thought would never want me, with the book I’d given up on.  This industry will take you on a strange journey if you’ll let it.

~*~

Susanna will be hanging around if you have any comments or questions. I know I have a few, which I’ll post in the comments to get things started.

The Sergeant’s Lady by Susanna Fraser Carina Press

ebook

Highborn Anna Arrington has been “following the drum,” obeying the wishes of her cold, controlling cavalry officer husband. When he dies, all she wants is to leave life with Wellington’s army [...]]]>

I have some historicals and a fantasy for you this week.

Historicals

The Sergeant’s Lady
by Susanna Fraser
Carina Press

ebook

Highborn Anna Arrington has been “following the drum,” obeying the wishes of her cold, controlling cavalry officer husband. When he dies, all she wants is to leave life with Wellington’s army in Spain behind her and go home to her family’s castle in Scotland.

Sergeant Will Atkins ran away from home to join the army in a fit of boyish enthusiasm. He is a natural born soldier, popular with officers and men alike, uncommonly brave and chivalrous, and educated and well-read despite his common birth.

As Anna journeys home with a convoy of wounded soldiers, she forms an unlikely friendship with Will. When the convoy is ambushed and their fellow soldiers captured, they become fugitives—together. The attraction between them is strong—but even if they can escape the threat of death at the hands of the French, is love strong enough to bridge the gap between a viscount’s daughter and an innkeeper’s son?

I read this as part of my current historical fiction kick. Review coming in the next day or so.

~*~

The Wet Nurse’s Tale
by Erica Eisdorfer
Berkley Trade

Trade Paperback

Susan Rose is not your average Victorian heroine. She’s promiscuous, lovable, plump, and scheming. Luckily for Susan, her big heart is covered by an equally big bosom, and her bosom is her fortune—for Susan becomes a professional wet nurse, like her mother before her, and she makes it her business to know all the intrigues and scandals that the upper crust would prefer to keep to themselves.

When her own child is caught up in a family scandal, Susan must use all of her street smarts to rescue her baby from the powerful mistress of the house. The scheme she weaves is bold and daring, and could spell ruin if she fails—but Susan Rose has no intention of failing.

This looked familiar to me and I thought I had already covered it, but I haven’t. The hook had me at “her bosom is her future.” It looks fabulous.

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Fantasy and Science Fiction

The Native Star
by M. K. Hobson
Spectra

MM Paperback

It’s 1876, and business is rotten for Emily Edwards, town witch of the tiny Sierra Nevada settlement of Lost Pine. With everyone buying patent magicks by mail-order, she’s faced with two equally desperate options. Starve—or use a love spell to bewitch the town’s richest lumberman into marrying her.

When the love spell goes terribly wrong, Emily is forced to accept the aid of Dreadnought Stanton—a pompous and scholarly Warlock from New York—to set things right. Together, they travel from the seedy underbelly of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, across the United States by train and biomechanical flying machine, to the highest halls of American magical power, only to find that love spells (and love) are far more complicated and dangerous than either of them could ever have imagined.

The author hyperlinked several elements from her cover copy, which I thought was pretty cool so I left them in place. This novel looks like a lot of fun.

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Any float your boat? Discuss in the comments.

I’d also like to do a round-up of reviews of THE SEVENFOLD SPELL, and I intend to include both the [...]]]>

Posts this week will include:

• A Debut Showcase, which is already written (unless I discover more debuts)
• A review of a historical romance
• Progress on my Classic Reread, which will be multiple posts

I’d also like to do a round-up of reviews of THE SEVENFOLD SPELL, and I intend to include both the good and the bad. So far, along with some unrated reviews and some five-stars, it has received one two-star review. I’ll tell you why in a few days.

One thing about those big romance sites is they’re way out ahead of most science fiction/fantasy sites when it comes to the reading of ebooks. They are all perfectly willing to do so. Even Dear Author, and it’s kind of scary to contemplate getting a review at Dear Author. A few of you have consented to read it (thank you!). If you run a decent-sized fantasy blog and you’re willing to read an ebook, please let me know. (I’ll tell you up front that my target audience for THE SEVENFOLD SPELL was women. It is somewhat racy and has a happily ever after.)

I am now willing to read ebooks because it would be awfully hypocritical of me not to, but I am still very picky about publishers. Even so, I’m more likely to buy the books I read because I am unable to commit to reading by release dates at this time.

And finally, my feed numbers have taken a small but noticeable jump, so to all my new subscribers, welcome!

That’s right, pristine and unread omnibus copies of both novels. How the heck did that happen? Well, I [...]]]>

Wow, this was close! I counted 5 Dragonlance votes and 6 for Paks (including one person who voted for both). I was leaning toward Dragonlance, so now we have a tie. And looky here:

That’s right, pristine and unread omnibus copies of both novels. How the heck did that happen? Well, I wore out my original Dragonlance omnibus, plus a set secondhand individual paperbacks, which I replaced with this omnibus, and which I have yet to read.  As for Paks, I originally had another copy of this omnibus, but the plastic started peeling off the paper almost since day 1. After a whole bunch of readings, the curl of plastic started driving me to distraction. When I saw this omnibus reappear in the bookstore, I grabbed a copy.

So what am I going to read? I’m going to read the first chapter of both and see which one I’m most in the mood for. Dragonlance is more fun, but I’ve always wanted to review Paks. So we’ll see!

I opened up the comments on the excerpt page, so feel free to let me know what you think. I am preparing a PDF with a longer excerpt, [...]]]>

I did some site maintenance tonight, including posting an excerpt of The Sevenfold Spell and a page for data that book bloggers might find useful.

I opened up the comments on the excerpt page, so feel free to let me know what you think. I am preparing a PDF with a longer excerpt, and I’ll post it when I have it ready.