A new review of ‘The Plains of Kallanash’

There haven’t been many reviews yet – one on Amazon, one on the UK Amazon also posted to Goodreads – so every extra one is much appreciated. Today marks the first review by a book blogger, although, to be fair, Anachronist is an online friend of some years’ standing, and also my fellow contributor over at book review site Fantasy Review Barn. She also beta read Kallanash for me, so not quite a random stranger. Here’s a snippet from the review: However you know what I liked the best? Like in real life there were no baddies rotten to the core, no really. Or rather I should say the baddies were so three-dimensional and complicated that, after a while, you didn’t perceive them as completely negative characters. You can read the full review (and many other great book reviews) at Anachronist’s blog here. And watch out for her interview with […]

Posted October 15, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing / 0 Comments

Fantasy Romance Review: ‘The Lost Book of Anggird’ by Kyra Halland

This is exactly the sort of book I love: a well-conceived fantasy world with an intriguing magic system; some great characters who behave in a believable way; a plot that’s driven more by the background and characters than the need for relentless action; and a strong, satisfying romance. Why can’t all fantasy be like this? Let’s start with the characters. Perarre (no, I don’t know how it’s pronounced) is a woman determined to make a success of her career in a male-dominated world. After a wild phase, she’s settled down to an academic life as a translator of old books, aided by her ability to magically ‘read’ the intent of the author (and haven’t we all read books where we could have used a talent like that?). Roric is the buttoned-up and demanding professor she ends up working for, a man hiding a surprising past. He’s given the task of […]

Posted October 10, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

‘The Fire Mages’: beta readers wanted

Another book, another step on the road to publication. Yes, ‘The Fire Mages’ is critiqued and revised, and now it’s ready for beta readers. But here’s the problem: only two people have read it from beginning to end so far, and they both loved it. My daughter loved it so much that when I told her I was revising it, she said: ‘No! Don’t change anything.’ So now I’m looking for readers who will tear it to shreds and tell me everything that’s wrong with it. I want people who will find the plot-holes, the implausibilities, the continuity errors. Because nothing’s perfect, right? ‘The Fire Mages’ is quite different from ‘The Plains of Kallanash’, being a much more conventional fantasy work. It’s about a young girl with an unusual ability, a coming-of-age story. If I knew how to define the YA genre, it might be that, too. There’s plenty of […]

Posted October 8, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Fire Mages / 4 Comments

Fantasy Review: ‘Silvana The Greening’ by Belinda Mellor

What a lovely book. Literate, elegant and charming, with a touch of whimsy, this is a story in the high fantasy style of Tolkien, although on a more domestic scale. It’s set in a world where tree spirits, Silvanii, reside in trees in the wildwood, living in harmony with men. Occasionally, a Silvana will choose to take a human husband, leaving her tree to take human form and live a different life. The story focuses on Fabiom, son of the lord of Deepvale, following his life from age four through to maturity. Fabiom has always been drawn to the wildwood, and on the eve of his seventeenth birthday he determines to try to win a Silvana wife for himself. What happens that night and afterwards affects him and his family deeply, and changes his whole life, bringing conflict between his duties as lord and holder, and the needs of the […]

Posted September 30, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 4 Comments

Kindle Unlimited

Back in mid-July, without any warning, Amazon launched a new subscription service: Kindle Unlimited. For a flat $9.99 monthly fee, subscribers could download and read as many books as they wanted from the 650,000 or so available (about a third of all Kindle books on Amazon). Now the same deal has started up in the UK: all you can read for £7.99 a month. For a voracious reader, this can be a terrific deal. You don’t have to read many books a month, even at cheap prices, to cover the subscription cost. You can download a book, read a few pages, decide it’s not for you and get another one. You can experiment outside your comfort zone, trying new genres and authors. You don’t have to feel guilty about the number of books you read, and the price of a book is irrelevant. You can read the first of a […]

Posted September 27, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in General / 4 Comments

Fiction DNF Review: ‘The Virgin Soldiers’ by Leslie Thomas

It’s the curse of the book group, isn’t it? Someone suggests a book, and you think: yes, that will be a light, fluffy read, something to make us laugh, a bit light-hearted and not too heavy or intellectual. Well, it wasn’t intellectual, sure, but light? Fluffy? A book about incompetent National Service conscripts sent off to fight in the jungles of Malaya? There were a few laugh out loud moments, it’s true. And the book had some potential to be the comic novel it was billed as. Perhaps when it was first published in 1966 it resonated more harmoniously with the experiences of others who had served their time in the immediate post-war years. There was a risque element, too: the inexperienced ‘virgin’ soldiers (in the literal and metaphorical sense) whiling away dull moments in their two years by dreaming endlessly of finally losing their virginity, and finding willing helpers […]

Posted September 26, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

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