Category: Archive

FREE today! Great urban fantasy from Jen Rasmussen

FREE today! Great urban fantasy from Jen Rasmussen

I just spotted that there’s some great urban fantasy free today. Grim Haven was a 4* read for me (high praise when I’m not even an urban fantasy fan!) – I found it great fun, with some truly atmospheric moments (the word ‘Hitchcockian’ was used). Highly recommended, so hie thee to Amazon and pick up a copy free, gratis and for nothing. I’ve no idea how long it will be free, so don’t hang about. Here’s the blurb: Years ago, Verity Thane turned her back on a hometown teeming with dangers and consumed by dark magic, swearing to herself she would never return. Now, she has no place else to go. When she’s cornered into using her magic to save mysterious Cooper Blackwood from a chilling supernatural attack, Verity is unwittingly drawn into a war with a clan of lethal monsters. Hunted and burned out of her home, she’s forced […]

Posted March 28, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, General, News / 0 Comments

Five self-published gems of 2013

Five self-published gems of 2013

Edit: This is my original post, reposted here because it got lost in a cyber-black-hole. Self-publishing gets a bad rap. Some wit once said: the best thing about self-publishing is that anyone can do it; and the worst thing about self-publishing is that anyone can do it. Occasionally, trawling through the endless heaps of optimistic offerings on Amazon, it seems as if half the world’s population sat down at the computer, rattled off that novel they’ve always wanted to write, and without a single further thought clicked the ‘Publish’ button. Bad spelling, bad grammar, no punctuation at all, wooden characters, trite plots… But there are authors out there who write as well as any of the big names, and better than many of them. They take the time to edit thoroughly, they add professional cover art, they take endless trouble with formatting. Their work is indistinguishable in quality from anything […]

Posted January 15, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Ramblings, Review / 0 Comments

Pauline’s self-published gems of 2014

Pauline’s self-published gems of 2014

Edit: Reposting this which got lost in a cyber-black-hole. I read a lot of self-published books – about half my reading, both this year and last. I don’t specifically choose that, I follow my nose where books are concerned. If I like the look of a book, from reading the first few pages, I’ll give it a go. It doesn’t always work out, but I’ll try anything that’s well written and isn’t just a zombie-fest. I’ve found I’m just as likely to be happy with a self-published book as with a traditionally published one, although I confess I’m very selective. If there’s the merest hint of a grammatical error in the first chapter, that’s a no go. But there are some areas where the self-published books outshine the traditionally published ones. Here are a few ways: 1) The ebooks are usually cheaper. Self-pubbing authors have far more control over pricing, […]

Posted January 15, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Ramblings, Review / 0 Comments

Archive review: ‘The Silence of Medair’ by Andrea K Höst

Archive review: ‘The Silence of Medair’ by Andrea K Höst

I first read this in December 2011, when I was only just discovering self-published books, and finding most of them to be a bit ho-hum. Back in those early days of the Kindle, a lot of previously unpublished authors were dusting off long-abandoned manuscripts, kept in a drawer for years, maybe, and tossing them up on Amazon without much thought. The quality was variable, to put it mildly. There was a huge amount of dross, as is inevitable in a system with no quality control whatsoever, a lot that could have been better with a bit of polishing, and a few that just blew me away. This was the first I came across that made me say: wow, that was amazing! I’ve since gone on to read many more of the author’s works, and I highly recommend her for excellent reading that will shatter all your preconceived ideas of fantasy. […]

Posted March 21, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Review / 0 Comments

Archive review: ‘The Folding Knife’ by K J Parker

Archive review: ‘The Folding Knife’ by K J Parker

I read this book in January 2011, when I was only just finding my feet with reviewing. I mention below that it’s unlike anything else I’ve read, and four years later that’s still true. A strange but (for me) compelling book. As fantasy, it has no magic at all – or has it? I gave it four stars, and I still think that’s the right rating for me.   I loved this book. I had no expectations going in, and had never read anything by this author before, but it was mentioned as a good fantasy book, I sampled it on the Kindle, and liked it, although it’s totally unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It is a slow book to get into, but there came a point about a third of the way in where I stopped trying to follow the details of the plot (they’re not relevant) and […]

Posted June 27, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Review / 0 Comments

Archive review: ‘Ravenmarked’ by Amy Rose Davis

Archive review: ‘Ravenmarked’ by Amy Rose Davis

I first read and reviewed this in 2012, and it was one of the first I’d come across that successfully married epic fantasy with a credible romance, that wasn’t just bolted on as an afterthought, or where the female was more than the Arwen-reward for the Aragorn-hero. I enjoyed this so much that I waited impatiently for book 2 to arrive. And waited… Seemingly, real life got in the way, and the book was unpublished for a while. But the author is now working on the sequel again, so one day I shall find out how it all ends. Even without the rest of the series, it’s a great read. I’ve been enjoying the author’s articles for Fantasy Faction for some time now [Edit: they’re probably still in the archives there], but never thought to check her own website. Lo and behold, here’s the first part of a traditional-style epic […]

Posted April 18, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Review / 0 Comments

Five Star Archives: ‘Ready Player One’ by Ernest Cline

Five Star Archives: ‘Ready Player One’ by Ernest Cline

I read this back in November 2011. I’d expected the author to have a whole string of other books out by now, but no. The follow-up, Armada, is due out this year. That’s a long wait between books. I wonder what he’s been doing in the meantime? Enjoying himself with the royalties, I hope. Anyway, I still think this is a great book. Flawed, but great fun. PS I’ve only just noticed the tiny pixelly person on the cover. 🙂 I loved every single word of this book. I actually read most of it with a silly grin on my face, even the seemingly boring info-dump bits that started off ‘X was born in…’ – it was just pure pleasure, especially the parts set in the OASIS (the avatar-populated artificial universe where most of the action takes place). I’m not even much of a geeky technophile – OK, I love […]

Posted March 5, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Review / 3 Comments

Five-star archives: ‘The Lions of al-Rassan’ by Guy Gavriel Kay

Five-star archives: ‘The Lions of al-Rassan’ by Guy Gavriel Kay

I read this is 2011, as a follow-on to ‘Tigana’, and while it avoids the flaws of that work, it has a few all its own. I went on to read ‘A Song For Arbonne’, which I gave 4 stars, and haven’t read any Kay since. I do enjoy his work, but it is terribly over-wrought, and I have to get myself in the right frame of mind for it. My tastes nowadays veer more towards smaller, less ambitious tomes. Or perhaps just writing that doesn’t take itself quite so seriously. Well, this was a three Kleenex book and no mistake. That’s three boxes of Kleenex, of course. Not a book to read on public transport, unless you have no embarrassment gene. No one does grand tragedy quite like Kay. But I’m not totally sure what genre this is. It’s more fantasy than anything else, but the world-building is lifted […]

Posted February 8, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Review / 2 Comments

Five-Star Archives: ‘The Name of the Wind’ by Patrick Rothfuss

Five-Star Archives: ‘The Name of the Wind’ by Patrick Rothfuss

I thought it might be amusing to dig out some of my old reviews from the mists of time. This is one I read and reviewed in February 2011, and despite the glowing five star review, I haven’t yet got round to reading the follow-on. Hmm. Maybe I’m just less interested in wordy, doorstopper books these days. This is a debut book, and inevitably the first in a trilogy (‘The Kingkiller Chronicles’), by this author, and it is quite stunning. It is focused quite tightly on just one character, for it is his story, told largely in autobiographical form, from the perspective of a point in his life when he is still relatively young but has already become something of a legend. Unlike many fantasy books, the reader is not dropped headfirst into a morass of names and places and customs. Rather it builds very gently and precisely, a step […]

Posted January 27, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Review / 0 Comments