Year: 2014

Urban Fantasy Review: ‘Vicious Grace’ by M L N Hanover

This is the third of the ‘Black Sun’s Daughter’ series of urban fantasies, written under a pseudonym by Daniel Abraham. The first, ‘Unclean Spirits’, was a bit spotty, overfull of angst, shopping sprees and housecleaning, not to mention a certain amount of breathless sex. The second, ‘Darker Angels’, was a lot better in all respects, and this one picks up even more. The plot revolves around Jayné and sidekicks Ex, Chogyi Jake and Aubrey (yes, yes, the names are terrible, and what makes it worse is that the minor characters have perfectly normal names). Jayné has inherited a vast array of property from her nice uncle Eric, acquired during his career messing around with supernatural nasties, in particular ‘riders’, demons which inhabit human bodies. Jayné and pals have to continue his efforts, while not really knowing what he was up to. The author expertly reprises the key events of the […]

Posted September 24, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Milestone achieved: fifty sales

When I pressed the ‘publish’ button for ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ twelve days ago, my expectations were realistic (read: low). First book, no platform, no horde of fans waiting anxiously. And no plan to promote the thing beyond telling people I know: hey, look, this book I’ve been wittering about? It’s out. So being realistic (read: pessimistic), I hoped to sell 15-20 copies to online friends, and thereafter perhaps a copy or so a week to random strangers. Maybe 50 copies in the first six months. Today when I checked my sales stats I found a nice surprise: a sale in Germany which brought the total sales up to 50. My first milestone achieved already. It isn’t much of a milestone, but it’s more than I expected at this stage, which is pleasing. So ‘Danke’, random stranger in Germany. I hope you enjoy the book.

Posted September 24, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing / 7 Comments

Fantasy Review: ‘Rebellion’ by Rachel Cotterill

This book was an unexpected pleasure. Unexpected, because it’s something that I picked up cheaply more than two years ago, when I was less careful about my purchases than I am now, and after a few disasters I’m a bit wary of anything that’s been lurking in a dusty corner of my Kindle for any length of time. And pleasure, because this was just a hugely enjoyable read. It started slowly and built very gradually, but it never sagged or got boring. Instead it wormed its way under my skin to become one of the best reads I’ve found this year. In many ways, it’s a conventional fantasy, a coming of age with a quest, an unusual sort of school, an Empire and exotic countries beyond it, and swords and daggers and horse-drawn carts and market squares. And pirates! Bonus points for the pirates. And the young girl fighting to […]

Posted September 18, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

A fangirl moment…

Excuse me while I squeeee for a while… Michael J Sullivan is one of my favourite fantasy authors, and he’s currently hosting a giveaway for advance printings of his new series. You can sign up at Goodreads and a couple of other places. Full details here. But that’s not really what got me all excited. Take a look at this… Isn’t that just the most amazing artwork? It’s by Andres Rocha. One day, when I’m rich and famous (ha!), I’m going to get cover art for ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ that looks as awesome as this: the sweeping vista, with maybe the Ring of Bonnegar and the spires and domes of Kashinor. Sigh. One day…

Posted September 17, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in General / 2 Comments

First review of ‘The Plains of Kallanash’

The first Amazon review for ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ is up, and it’s a positive one. “This is a grand, ambitious tale full of thought-provoking ideas and surreal circumstances that somehow manage to strike a balance between the real and the fantastical. I was hooked from the start…” Read the rest at Amazon.co.uk.

Posted September 16, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Uncategorized / 2 Comments

Urban Fantasy DNF: ‘Fated’ by Benedict Jacka

So there’s this guy who lives in London and has a magic shop, and he’s not really a mage but he has a really cool magely power: he can see into the future. Not the future, but all possible futures, which gives him a bit of a clue sometimes, not just that stuff is going to happen, but what makes it happen and therefore how to facilitate it or evade it. So whenever he gets into a tight spot (which seems to happen quite often), all he has to do to get out of trouble is to peek into some of those many possible futures and see which ones have him escaping, and work out how that comes about. And for a while I just thought: that’s a neat idea. But when he’s able to use that ability over and over, it becomes both repetitive and, frankly, too easy. I […]

Posted September 14, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 2 Comments

Fantasy Romance Review: ‘Bound’ by Kate Sparkes

This is a cracking story. Fantasy romance is a tricky format. It can veer from straight fantasy with a little romance on the side, through to outright romance with a little arm-wavy magic or the occasional dragon thrown in for light relief. This book leans more to the relationship side of the equation, but there’s some solid world-building underpinning it. Many elements of the story are quite conventional. Rowan is the teenage girl expected to do her duty and marry well, producing the babies in unexpectedly short supply in her country, Darmid. But she’s fascinated by magic, even though it’s illegal, and why does she have strange headaches? Aren is the royal from the neighbouring country, Tyrea, a powerful sorcerer whose even more powerful older brother now rules. When Aren is sent to capture a sorcerer from magic-less Darmid for experimentation, he meets Rowan and… Well, we can see where […]

Posted September 13, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 1 Comment

Published!

Yes, ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ is finally published. Hurray! Since it’s been on pre-order for a week or two, my daughter and stayed up until midnight to watch it go live on Amazon.co.uk. Eight hours later, it went live in the US. If I’d planned things better, I could have watched the roll-out around the world, starting in Australia. Then there was the paperback version to get up and running, which took a few hours for all the kinks to work out. Mid-afternoon, the ‘look-inside’ feature was activated. And then there were sales reports to watch and rankings to track and royalties to check. And hey, I’ve made around $5.00 already. Better get that Ferrari ordered… Oh, wait, there are refunds… 🙁 Last night I threw myself a launch party, with champagne and nibbles and a cake with ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ inscribed on the top in icing. And I’ve […]

Posted September 13, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing / 8 Comments

Romance Review: ‘The Duke And I’ by Julia Quinn

I love a good Regency romance, but all too often the ones I find are disappointing: too silly, too inaccurate historically, too inept with the language of the era. So finding an example which ticks all the right boxes, and also manages to portray realistic and well-rounded characters is almost too good to be true. But so it is here. Daphne is the eldest daughter of the Bridgerton family, a lady of remarkable common sense, intelligence and humour. She wants to get married, but not merely because it’s the thing to do, or to be something grand in society, but because, having grown up in a big, happy family herself, she can’t conceive of any more fulfilling ambition than being a mother of many children. I liked Daphne very much; she’s a down-to-earth person that I’d be very happy to have as a friend. The male main character, Simon, has […]

Posted September 11, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

‘The Plains of Kallanash’ now available for pre-order

The book is written, the final edits are done, the cover artwork is finished, formatting is complete and the files are uploaded to KDP. So now I just have to wait until the publication date I’ve decided on before pushing the button. But hang on a minute – Amazon now has a cool new toy for self-publishers. We can set a book up for pre-orders, just like the big boys. Even a complete newbie like me. I dithered a bit about it – once the date gets close, I can’t change anything! And what if I’ve made a mistake! It’s a bit like those did-I-leave-the-gas-on moments when you’re on the way to the airport. But my daughter assured me it would be cool to have pre-ordering available, so I went for it. And – hey presto! ‘Tis done. ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ is now available for pre-ordering, at special introductory […]

Posted August 30, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Plains of Kallanash / 5 Comments