‘The Magic Mines of Asharim’: ARCs available

I’m looking for volunteers to read and review The Magic Mines of Asharim, due out Sep 25th. It features a young woman running away from her past mistakes, two very different men, and a dangerous and ambitious plan. With plenty of magic, as always! One beta reader said: “LOVED IT. The plot was excellent, and I was hooked from the middle of chapter 1 all the way through. ” It’s 410 pages long. If you’re interested, email me with your preferred format: mobi, epub or pdf. Here’s the blurb: A fallen empire. A woman with dark secrets. A strange magical weapon. The glorious Akk’asharan Empire was torn apart by treachery two hundred years ago, its water supply cut off. Now its people are enslaved and humiliated, but they have never forgotten the past, and dream of one day restoring their former greatness. Allandra’s dreams are more immediate: how to control […]

Posted September 1, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Magic Mines of Asharim / 0 Comments

Mystery review: ‘What Washes Up’ by Dawn Lee McKenna

This is the third book in the sequence that started with Low Tide, and the author is really getting into her stride now. Florida cop Maggie Redmond, a divorced single mum getting by and tentatively inching towards a new relationship with fellow cop Wyatt, is a sympathetic heroine. But her life is quietly unravelling, with secrets emerging that draw her into the orbit of local crime-lord Bennett Boudreaux. As in all these books, there’s a crime-of-the-week, but the main feature is the intricate personal life of Maggie herself and the developments arising from the death of Gregory Boudreaux in Low Tide, which get murkier and more complicated than ever in this installment. The characters are so real, you feel you know them personally. However, the star attraction is McKenna’s glorious writing style, which is brilliant at the sort of superficial dialogue that hides an ocean of hidden meaning, and also […]

Posted August 24, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

On staying connected while travelling

There are many wonderful perks to living in the twenty-first century, but ease of travelling and a connected lifestyle are two that I love more than (say) ubiquitous coffee shops or fast food. What could be more fun than hopping on a plane and stepping off hours later somewhere jungly hot? Or leaping into the campervan and parking beside an empty beach on Scotland’s west coast? And as for connectivity, I’m one of those people who likes to be permanently online, checking email, reading blogs, catching up on forums and generally chitter-chattering away the days. It’s when you try to combine the two that things begin to get tricky. Wifi’s not an option on that glorious beach, and unless you’re very careful, streaming a YouTube video from that jungly resort could cost you an arm and a leg. If you’re on holiday, that’s fine. Look for an internet cafe once […]

Posted August 23, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Ramblings / 0 Comments

Mystery review: ‘The Mystery of Underwood House’ by Clara Benson

I enjoyed the first book in the Angela Marchmont series of country-house cozies set in the twenties, but to my mind this one worked a lot better. I didn’t guess the identity of the murderer, for one thing (although that particular character was definitely on my list), and this one felt much more satisfyingly complex. It also features Angela Marchmont, the lady detective herself, as the point of view character, which I think works much better than having her as a side character (as in the first book). Following her success in the previous murder, Angela is called upon by her friend Louisa to investigate her husband’s family. After his father’s death, a rather peculiar will left money to the four children only for their lifetimes, after which it reverts to the family solicitor. Now three of the four have died in mysterious circumstances. Is it murder? And if so, […]

Posted August 21, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Fantasy western romance review: ‘To The Gap’ by Kyra Halland

Well, that was a ball of fun, and no mistake. I’ve been loving the whole Daughter of the Wildings series, but I positively inhaled this fourth installment, quite unable to tear myself away from it. For anyone who likes a little fantasy served with their westerns, and a side helping of romance, this is absolutely the series for you. Start with Beneath The Canyons. Silas is a trained mage from Granadaia, sent to the Wildings as a bounty-hunter, catching rogue mages. Lainie is Wildings-born, with untrained mage power, which taps deep into the natural power of the region. Now they’re married and on the run, while Lainie learns to control her power and the two of them avoid mage-hunters and the hostility of Plain folk (those without magical ability). All they want is a safe place to live, and to be left alone, but those are proving hard to find. […]

Posted August 17, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Fantasy review: ‘The Living Throne’ by H Anthe Davis

This is the third book in the War of Memory series. I’ve already raved at extended length about the awesomeness of these books, so I won’t repeat all that. Suffice it say that if you like your epic fantasy with industrial-strength world-building, compelling characters, a plot that stretches itself over a whole continent and a vivid writing style with just a hint of horror, you should give this a try. Start with The Light of Kerrindryr. So how does this book stack up against the first two? Surely by now the tale must be hitting mid-series sag and getting bogged down in plot sprawl or weighed down with its own history? It’s true that there are two large books’ worth of the story so far, and a huge array of characters to keep up with. I’ve said before that this is a series that would justify its own wiki, and […]

Posted August 16, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Update on the self-publishing fantasy blog-off (#SPFBO)

You may remember me mentioning some months ago that Mark Lawrence (author of The Broken Empire series) had organised a competition for self-published authors. He rounded up ten well-known bloggers who review fantasy, and sent each of them a ‘slush pile’ of 25 self-published books submitted by their authors. All the bloggers had to do was to work through their pile, just as an agent would, reading as much or as little of each as they wished, and choose just one book to put forward as their champion for a second round. Each of those ten would then be read by all the bloggers, who would award points and thereby a winner would be chosen. I submitted The Plains of Kallanash, and the blogger it was assigned to was Sarah Chorn of Bookworm Blues. With the end of the first phase in sight, she’s now read all her 25 books, […]

Posted August 14, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Plains of Kallanash / 0 Comments

I’m away for a few days…

…so there may not be any posts for the next week or so. Happily, my trips always allow me plenty of reading time, so there will be some reviews coming soon. Watch out for my 5* review of The Living Throne, part 3 of H Anthe Davis’s stunning epic fantasy series. I’ll also be reviewing another of Dawn Lee McKenna’s atmospheric suspense tales set in the Florida panhandle, What Washes Up. And in current reading, I’m deep into Clara Benson’s country house cozy, The Mystery At Underwood House, and just starting a popular traditional epic fantasy, Arcane, by Sever Bronny. After that, one of my favourite series returns: To The Gap is the fourth part of Kyra Halland’s enjoyable fantasy western series. The Mages of Bennamore is just 99 cents in the US (99p in UK) from 7th August! If you haven’t yet picked up a copy of the newest […]

Posted August 5, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in General, Publishing/marketing / 0 Comments

Mystery Review: ‘Riptide’ by Dawn Lee McKenna

McKenna’s literary love story, ‘See You’, is one of the finest books I’ve read in recent years, so I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to enjoy her inimitable writing style applied to a series of cop thrillers set in the Florida panhandle. The first of the series, ‘Low Tide’, was a good starter, tidying up the immediate problems, while opening up enough intriguing backstory to fill the rest of the series. Maggie Redmond is a cop getting by as a single parent after divorcing her childhood sweetheart, David, when he got involved in drugs. Now she’s tiptoeing around a new relationship with fellow cop, Wyatt, while also finding herself inexplicably drawn into the orbit of the town’s resident bad guy, Bennett Boudreaux. And all the while, she’s trying to forget traumatic events in her past. But when a severed leg turns up in a shrimp net, Maggie has to […]

Posted July 31, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

A new review of ‘The Fire Mages’

I don’t often post about the reviews my books receive. Reviews are really for readers, a way for someone who’s read a book to summarise what they liked and disliked about it, so that potential readers can judge whether a book is their cup of tea or not. So even a negative review can be helpful. Some reviews of my books say that they’re long or have slow patches or that the main character is hard to like. I wouldn’t argue with any of that. And it means that anyone looking for a fast, action-packed story with a likeable main character will know to move along. A review complaining about explicit sex or swearing will warn off readers who would find that disturbing. A review praising the gender equality in my worlds will alert readers to the possibility of something a little outside the norm. So all reviews are useful. […]

Posted July 30, 2015 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Fire Mages / 3 Comments