Christine Amsden's Blog: Christine Amsden Author Blog, page 16

Stolen Dreams (Cassie Scot #4) Cover Art Reveal!!!

It’s heeeeere!!!!

Stolen Dreams is the CONCLUSION to the Cassie Scot series. That’s right, the fourth and final. And it’s coming soon!

How soon?

Ebook readers: June 25 (No, that’s no typo! Less than 2 weeks!)
Print readers: October 15 (Sorry, these things take more time!)
Audiobook release: TBD (I will get the ball rolling as soon as I can, but I just never know until the day it’s released.)

Here’s a blurb:

Edward Scot and Victor Blackwood have despised one another for nearly a quarter of a century, but now their simmering hatred is about to erupt.

When Cassie Scot returns home from her sojourn in Pennsylvania, she finds that her family has taken a hostage. Desperate to end the fighting before someone dies, Cassie seeks help from local seer Abigail Hastings, Evan Blackwood’s grandmother. But Abigail has seen her own death, and when it comes at the hand of Cassie’s father, Victor Blackwood kills Edward Scot.

But things may not be precisely as they appear.

Evan persuades Cassie to help him learn the truth, teaming them up once again in their darkest hour. New revelations about Evan and his family make it difficult for Cassie to cling to a shield of anger, but can Evan and Cassie stop a feud that has taken on a life of its own? Conclusion to the Cassie Scot series.

And here’s a list of all the terrific bloggers who (with very little notice) helped me reveal the cover today:

KT Book Reviews
Sapphyria’s Book Reviews
  Leigh Writes 
The Book Review
Miki’s Hope
The Avid Reader
D. E. Haggerty
RhythemPoets
Pure Jonel Book Reviews
Wall to Wall Books
All In One Place
Laura’s ramblins and reviews
Sheila Deeth 
Cassandra Lost in Books

 

Movie Review: Maleficent

I am so pleased to report that Maleficent is a WONDERFUL new take on the tired old Sleeping Beauty story. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the movies today.

For those of you who don’t know, Maleficent is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of the evil sorceress Maleficent. A few weeks ago, in preparation to watch this movie, a friend and I watched the old Disney animated version, a true relic of its time. It was released in 1959 and it felt that way — from the music to the blonde beauty to the black-and-white struggle of good vs. evil. It struck me, watching the old movie, that the makers of Maleficent chose a good tale to remake. Not as popular as Cinderella or Snow White, it hasn’t been remade to death already. And as an added bonus, the 1059 Disney movie was so simple that watching it almost felt incomplete. I could conceive of endless twists and turns a cunning storyteller could take to fill in the gaps in order to add depth and dimension to both the story and to Maleficent.

Kind Steffan (Sleeping Beauty’s father) hurt Maleficent deeply. The strongest point of overlaps between this new movie and the Disney classic is the scene in which Maleficent arrives at the baby’s christening to curse her. This scene is halfway through Maleficent, and at the very beginning of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Some of the lines were quoted word for word, but when Maleficent says them in this new version, my heart went out to her AND to the innocent baby who had done nothing worse than be born to the wrong person.

I don’t really want to spoil this movie for you. I did see bits of it coming, but I didn’t even mind because the delivery was excellent. The acting was strong, especially by Angelina Jolie (Maleficent). I cannot recommend this movie enough to adults and older children (not the young ones — I’m on the fence about letting my 6-year-old watch).

Five stars!

Book Review: Reaver

This was another entertaining story in the Demonica world, this time involving Reaver — a fallen, reelevated, refallen, re… agenl who likes to break the rules. He goes after Harvester, a spy who is being tortured by Satan (a mission that is also against the rules). 

I enjoyed reading this book. I’ve enjoyed this whole series, which I’ve read back to back for the past couple of weeks. I can see why it has an average rating of well over 4 stars, even if my personal feelings about the series were 3.5. To the right person — someone who enjoys steamy supernatural romance with high action, bad-ass heroes and heroines, etc., this is probably a real jewel.

If I had to take a guess as to why I enjoyed it without loving it the way others have, I’d say there are a two main reasons. First, these books are crass. Lots of cussing and the romantic scenes are way on the erotic side — very hard core. Second, I like heroes and heroines with a degree of relateability that was never achieved in this series. That is to say, as much fun as it was to read about demons and angels and bad-ass humans, I couldn’t picture myself in any of their places.

Neither of these things are a failing of the books. They’re not a failing on my part either, they are just the reasons that I’m feeling 3.5 while the average is closer to 4.5. It may help other readers decide if these books are for them because if they are, you’re in for a treat.

Rating: 3/5

Title: Reaver

Author: Larissa Ione

Published December 2013

TV Review: Game of Thrones Season 1

All right all right already! I watched Game of Thrones. At least, the first season. I will be watching season two soon.

Why did it take me so long to begin watching this extremely popular television series? It’s not like I haven’t known about it for all four seasons it’s been on TV. I even read the first book in the series, and a bit of the second. Ah, but there was the problem. I didn’t love the books. I didn’t hate them. I would even go so far as to say that there are things I admired about them. But I did not enjoy reading them. I found them tedious, with far, far too many points of view to allow me to lose myself in the story. It felt like every time I was starting to get into something, I would get ripped away from that aspect of it and thrust into something completely different. I wasn’t even that bothered by the fact that heroes died and villains survived. That was gutsy and I respect it. But the bottom line for me is that the books were a chore for me to read. I never plan to finish them.

Moving on the the TV series….

This is an extremely well-done series. Watching it, I can’t even fathom how much work went into every aspect of it. We see the actors — who all performed their roles extremely well (even the children) — but behind them think of the wardrobe, the props, the makeup, the set designers. They have many, many horses in some of the scenes. A great group of people got together to put this show together, down to the tiniest details. It must have been one heck of an undertaking!

As a TV series (disregarding my feelings about the book, which roughly follows season 1 and which I can scarcely recall anyway), this was just very, very good. It’s something special. Something you don’t see on TV, and when you do it’s certainly not this well done.

Watching the episodes, I saw a world hovering on the brink of destruction from enemies within and without. I saw what I know was the underlying theme of the books — the game the nobles play while the common folks suffer. And they all have their reasons, they all have a purpose — vengeance comes into things a lot. But at its heart, whether for noble or selfish reasons, it is a game that causes nothing but grief. Brave and noble men die while villains carry on. Or villains may die. But justice doesn’t really play into it.

Meanwhile, on the northern wall, strange things are happening. The dead are coming back to life and the wildlings are fleeing south. Winter is coming. We hear that a lot, but for all people say it, the truth of the matter is far, far away from the games they play.

The TV series has some of the same problems that the book had. There are a LOT of characters. I can’t keep them all straight; I don’t know what most of their names are and I can’t spell the ones I do know! (In this, actually, the book might have an edge. At least they repeat names in the text very often.) The perspective of the first season is split: You start with the Starks at Winterfell and Daenerys (I looked it up on IMDB) who is the daughter of the last kind who was overthrown by the Starks and the current Kind Robert. Then the Starks split, some going south to the capitol, some staying at Winterfell, and one going north to serve on the wall. Perspectives split further in the capitol as new characters and introduced, and Lady Stark heads south with evidence that the Lannisters tried to kill her son.

It remained challenging to keep track of it all. BUT…

The season had 10 episodes, about 11 hours of viewing time, which was about half as long as it took me to read the first book. So it was less tedious. Also, the way they divided the viewpoints, I got a bit of everyone in almost every episode. There weren’t long stretches when I was following someone or something I couldn’t care less about, wondering when we were going to get back to the thing I did care about.

And most importantly, because the TV series wasn’t narrowly focused in the points of view of scheming people, I felt that it allowed this story to take on a nice wordly feel. And after all, that’s what it’s about — a whole world!

For those reasons, I plan to continue watching into season 2.

I’ve been thorough and specific for a reason. I don’t love this series any more than I loved the books, but I do like it more than I liked the books and feel it is easier to sink into and lose myself. It’s very dramatic. They show scenes that have made me turn my head away (pouring molten gold onto a guy’s head!!!!!) They cut off a horse’s head and showed the blood pumping out. (They didn’t really kill the horse, did they? You can do that with computer graphics? Because it looked really real!!!)

Going forward, my greatest hope is that they will start giving more air time to naked men. I mean, if they’re going to show so many scenes of topless women or the full, rounded backside of women, or scenes of women having sex with men, women, and sometimes all of the above, the least they could do is show a few equally good looking men in the buff! I mean, HBO, I am a little taken aback by all the nudity, but mostly I just want my fair chance to oggle gorgeous men.

This is four years later. If you’ve been on the fence about this … maybe you’re like me and didn’t love the books … give them a try. It’s really a different experience to watch something on the big screen and this is truly an epic story that has been masterfully put together.

Warnings: Excessive, gory violence (realistic battles, beheadings, etc.), nudity, and sex are all involved in this story.

Book Review: Rogue Rider

After Pestilence dies, he comes back as Reseph — without any memories of who he was or what he had done. Jillian finds him unconscious and naked in the snow and rescues him, at least until forces work to bring out the evil within the man once more.

There was a lot to like about this volume in the Demonica series. The apocalypse has been averted, but may still happen anyway. The world is healing in its aftermath. The demon-fighting agency that broke apart in the previous volume is still in shambles.

I didn’t entirely connect with Reseph’s internal struggle with his evil side because it wasn’t grounded in any sort of reality. Ultimately, I’m not sure why he succeeded or what would have made him fail. I’m not even sure why he lost his fight to Pestilence in the previous three books. The “mystery” of who the horsemen’s father was came as no surprise to me. I’m pretty sure I had it figured out two or three books ago.

 

Rarting 3/5

Title: Rogue Rider

Author: Iarissa Ione

Published November 20, 2012

Special Guest Author: Stephanie Osborn

I am pleased to welcome back Stephanie Osborn, author of The Dispatched Detective Series. Today marks the release of the fifth book in this mystery series inspired by Sherlock Holmes.

Who Knew?

By Stephanie Osborn

 Wow! Who knew?

I mean, I always knew Sherlock Holmes was a popular character. But I guess on some level I didn’t realize HOW popular. Here we are, with a 3rd Sherlock Holmes movie (Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr.) about to be released, season 2 of CBS’ Elementary getting ready to hang cliffs, and series 3 of the BBC’s Sherlock been and gone, with series 4 in pre-production.

And the fifth book (NOT counting the Omnibus!) of the Displaced Detective Series about to be released!

THAT is popularity.

For those of you who may not know me, I’m Stephanie Osborn, retired rocket scientist (yes, really) turned author. My preferred medium is the science fiction/mystery novel, and this Displaced Detective Series came out of an idea to play around with my favorite fictional detective, since almost all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories are in the public domain in the USA, and all of them are in the public domain in the UK. The series has been described as, “Sherlock Holmes meets The X-Files,” and that’s a pretty apt description. It starts out with Holmes in the Victorian Era of an alternate universe where he is combating Professor Moriarty, with Dr. Skye Chadwick in the 21st Century heading up Project Tesseract, a top-secret device literally UNDER Schriever AFB that uses M theory to access alternate dimensions. But in this particular version of events, Holmes doesn’t survive his encounter with the Professor at the Reichenbach Falls. When Skye knee-jerks in the middle of their climactic battle, she jumps through the wormhole between realities, breaking up the fight — and sending Moriarty to his death, and Holmes flying back through the wormhole into Chadwick’s reality.

There, he faces the choice of being sent back to die, or remaining and coming up to speed on the modern day…alone. Being a smart man, Holmes chooses to stay, and Chadwick is assigned as his liaison. Hijinks ensue as base security discovers a spy ring intent on wresting control of the tesseract.

By the time that mystery is solved, a strong, firm bond has been established between Holmes and Chadwick, and they continue to tackle mysteries of the STEM sort. By book 3, a…very Holmesian…romance of sorts has seen their way clear to marrying, as it turns out that Chadwick is her continuum’s parallel to the great detective, and to forming a consulting business, The Holmes Agency. A Case of Spontaneous Combustion takes place a bit shy of one year after Holmes’ arrival in his new continuum.

So when an entire village on the Salisbury Plain is wiped out in an apparent case of mass spontaneous combustion, Her Majesty’s Secret Service contacts The Holmes Agency to investigate. Unfortunately Sherlock Holmes and his wife, Dr. Skye Chadwick-Holmes, have just had their first serious fight, over her abilities and attitudes as an investigator. To make matters worse, he is summoned to England in the middle of the night, and she is not — and due to the invocation of the National Security Act in the summons, he cannot even wake her and tell her.

Once in London, Holmes looks into the horror that is now Stonegrange. His investigations take him into a dangerous undercover assignment in search of a possible terror ring, though he cannot determine how a human agency could have caused the disaster. There, he works hard to pass as a recent immigrant and manual laborer from a certain rogue Mideastern nation as he attempts to uncover signs of the terrorists.

Meanwhile, alone in Colorado, Skye battles raging wildfires and tames a wild mustang stallion, all while believing her husband has abandoned her.

Who ― or what — caused the horror in Stonegrange? Will Holmes find his way safely through the metaphorical minefield that is modern Middle Eastern politics? Will Skye subdue Smoky the stallion before she is seriously hurt? Will this predicament seriously damage ― even destroy — the couple’s relationship? And can Holmes stop the terrorists before they unleash their outré weapon again?

Next up for Holmes…

Fear in the French Quarter…

““

Short bio:

Stephanie Osborn, the Interstellar Woman of Mystery, is a veteran of more than 20 years in the civilian space program, with graduate and undergraduate degrees in four sciences: astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics, and she is “fluent” in several more, including geology and anatomy. She has authored, co-authored, or contributed to more than 20 books, including the celebrated science-fiction mystery, Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281. She is the co-author of the “Cresperian Saga” book series, and currently writes the critically acclaimed “Displaced Detective” series, described as “Sherlock Holmes meets The X-Files.” In addition to her writing, the Interstellar Woman of Mystery now happily “pays it forward,” teaching math and science through numerous media including radio, podcasting and public speaking, as well as working with SIGMA, the science-fiction think tank.

Website:

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

 

Purchase A Case of Spontaneous Combustion:

Amazon

TV Series Review: The Voice (Season 6)

I have been watching The Voice from season one but, I confess, never all the way through.

This may sound strange, but I simply LOVE the chair-turning round in which four professional singers have their back to the auditioning singer and have to judge him/her/them solely on their voice. (The live audience may provide some influence, but mostly…) I watch this round in my browser and switch the window away so I also cannot see the singer before they begin. I pretend like I’m a judge and turn my window only if I really like what I hear! IMHO, the only thing that could improve the bind auditions would be if they truly became blind — no intro story to try to sway our opinions before they go onstage. Give us exactly the same experience as the coaches.

This show has lost me well before the final round in each of the five first seasons. The battle rounds were a BIG problem at first. I found them tedious, and with no power to vote for the survivors, there was little investment for me. In fact, the battle rounds tripped me up until season 5, when they introduced the steal — this added drama and helped quite a bit. It did not, however, solve many of the other underlying flaws in the battle rounds:

The biggest problem with the battle rounds is that they don’t show every type of singer to full advantage. I have noticed that no duo has ever survived the battle (to my knowledge — correct me if I’m wrong). The battles also unfairly favor singers who can do “tricks” with their voices — falsettos or warbles or long, long notes. Don’t get me wrong, some of that stuff is cool, but there’s a lot more to a great singer. The net result of the battle rounds is, I fear, a group of finalists who are all of a type — big voices and high energy. Since the singers did not even get to choose their own songs they have absolutely no mechanism for defining themselves as artists until the final rounds, by which time I’ve lost track of whatever individuality they brought into the competition in the auditions.

Adding a second battle round this season was an awful decision for all the reasons I just said — if one is bad, two is, well…

I got through the battle rounds in season six by half-watching/listening on my browser while I did other things. This approach meant that by the finals, there were some singers I was definitely more invested in than others — the ones that made me sit up and pay attention!

After the battle rounds, each coach’s top five had the chance to perform a song of their own choosing and the coach then picked their top there. At least this time the singers got to choose their own songs and begin to define themselves, but once again as the viewer of a reality show, I was left feeling no connection. It wasn’t even up to me until there were 12 left standing.

The finals rounds are a problem because of their slow pace. Each week, two artists are eliminated, and then we have to do the whole thing again. We go from 12 to 10 to 8 to 5 to 3. Each singer is essentially awesome at karaoke, and we watch them choose different songs each week.

Again, I’m sticking with it this year by watching in my browser while I do something else. At this point there is only one thing that has made any of the singers stand out from the rest — an emotional connection. This is not something that the coaches have touched on much as they are hyper-focused on technicalities. Me, not knowing musical technicalities, only know that some singers make me feel a song and others are just very, very good with song choice and vocals.

This year, Josh and Kristin have made me feel it. Josh actually gave me goosebumps during his performance of “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

Ultimately, I feel like The Voice is giving us a few things that other singing competitions don’t have and I applaud them for that. I will probably keep watching the chair-turning try-outs every new season. But I don’t feel like they’ve found the right follow-up yet, and I wish they would keep trying. Playing with the format to see what happens. FWIW, I would like to see more audience participation much, much sooner (#1 recommendation) and possibly an alternative to the battle rounds that encourages more diversity in the final choices.

Book Review: Lethal Ride (Demonica #8)

The story of Death and his fight to save his unborn child was my favorite of the series. I loved the conflict in this story, both between him and the mother of the child as well as between him and his conscience — for he had to decide to kill his own brother to save his son and the world.

Rating 4/5

Title: Lethal Rider

Author: Larissa Ione

Published May 2012

Cassie Scot: $0.99!

Buy Now:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

TV Review: Switched at Birth (Pilot)

I watched the pilot episode of “Switched at Birth” on Netflix for two reasons. First, I was in the mood for something sappy and maybe more family-oriented (compared to, say, “New Girl,” which is decidedly NOT). Second, this show had a very high user rating — over 4 stars — which is rare.

My expectations were high, both because of the user ratings and because of the deeply emotional setup (two teenagers discovering they had been switched at birth). I was quite prepared to cry. I’ll even go so far as to say I was in the mood for it.

I expected the ENTIRE pilot episode to show me how they discovered the switch and how they first responded to the realization. This is a shocking, deeply emotional situation that received a sort of hand-waved in the first 5-10 minutes of the show. And now they’re coming over to dinner and we’re getting to know each other.

Okay, obviously by turning this story into a series, that part was coming. But why, in a show that is supposed to be dramatic, do you ignore the first test of both emotions and characters?

The result of glossing over the setup without stopping for tears was that none of the characters came to life and in fact, almost none of the characters are remotely likeable. They came across as lacking depth because they were not shown handling truly deep situations. What remained was pure stereotype — Mr. and Mrs. Millionaire reacting more (at least based on screen time) came across as narrow-minded, snobbish, and racist. Your typical rich cliche. Their daughter, upon discovering that her “real” mother was half Puerto-Rican, lost every ounce of sympathy I might otherwise have felt from her. Meanwhile, on the other side of this equation, we have a deaf girl. The deaf girl was the most likeable member of the cast, but then, it’s hard to dislike a deaf character. She did not rise above her stereotype either and came across as little more than an icon of deaf culture. I might have expected that to some degree, given how little most people know about deaf culture, but again going back to the primary plot problem here — I have no idea how she felt upon discovering that her mom was not her mom. She decided to go to the preppy school near the end of the episode. Why? Her lack of hearing is the only thing defining this girl at the moment.

All in all, the pilot was a disaster, covering situations that should have taken at least 4 hour-long episodes to fully develop. I wanted to like this show, I really did. And maybe the characters will rise above their stereotypes if I watch further, but I don’t see myself doing so for one simple reasons: The writers have already proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they do not know how to handle drama.

I do not recommend.