Sacha T.Y. Fortuné's Blog, page 22

The Freebie Flaw & The Fickle Reader

I now own 800+ free ebooks. (Yep. I counted.)

Which, in all fairness, isn’t even close to the limit. Amazon boasts its newer Kindles can hold up to 3500 books!

I need 20 more lifetimes to ever get around to half of these that I already have.

…And I get 20+ emails per day offering even more freebies. I don’t even remember signing up to half of these newsletter subscriber sites. So… yeah.

Honestly, I’m not surprised authors are complaining about “no/low sales”.

We’re not “part of” the problem....

Review: “A Tempting Friendship”

This book was awesome and awful and beautiful and ugly at the same time. I finished it in one sitting. And I have feelings. I’m just not entirely sure what these feelings are. I felt schizophrenic reading it, because I teeter-tottered throughout the book. But a review has to convey more than utter confusion, so let me try to be eloquent.

***First I should mention… there is cheating. I’m cool with that (in books!), but just a heads-up if you’re not.***

My likes: I loved that both characters ar...

Review: “The Predator Hunter”

I flew through this book in record time. It felt much shorter than its actual length due to the short, choppy chapters and fast-paced writing. It starts off a little slow but quickly picks up pace and strength as the writing flows. It begins as a simple tale: a weirdo seeking justice, and then when he picks the wrong guy to mess with… it goes dark, and fast. I didn’t expect it to get that dark, but it was a welcome surprise!

I’ve read other reviews mentioning the main character’s poor judgeme...

Review: “The Choices I’ve Made”

I enjoyed this book for the most part, and again — it’s one of those I really wish I could have rated higher. Clearly I’m in the minority because it’s by a bestselling author, and most of the reviews are stellar. There’s a lot to love in it, but as I’m a writer, I am an even more picky reader! I want more. I demand more. And this one had so much potential to blow my mind, but just fell short.

The dialogue is engaging and the writing is really good, easily flowing between the past and present...

Review: “Guarding His Best Friend’s Sister”

I think the genre of this was supposed to be adult romance, but I call it like I see it. Which is fine, if that’s what you’re looking for. I was hoping for more story than sex with this one, so I was disappointed.

The tropes were predictable — best friend’s sister, stalker mystery (which wasn’t really mysterious), bad boy, virginal girl — who suddenly turns into not-so-virginal girl the moment he enters the picture. The “best friend” was nowhere around for most of it, so the title and overall...

Review: “Kiss Me at Willoughby Close”

I liked the overall premise of this book, so I’ll give it a solid 3 stars for effort… but honestly, I felt like the story just ran out of steam. Literally and figuratively.

It’s a women’s fiction, so I took that in stride and set my expectations accordingly in terms of how much “relationship” to expect. In this case, not much. I’ve read various levels of “relationship” and “sex” in this genre (and I write both into my own “women’s fiction/romance” series), but the point of the genre is the de...

Review: “Chase Tinker & The House of Magic”

Unfortunately for the book’s genre, the comparison to the Harry Potter series in inevitable, which is perhaps its downfall. Preteen children coming into powers — check. Family legacies and elderly know-it-alls with lots of powers — check. Magical castle-house and environs — check. Evil antagonists wanting to steal powers — check.

The plot twist was a doozy, and I expected something totally different! But then, after the plot twist, the ending felt rushed. I know it’s meant to continue into an...

Review: “Ruined Plans”

I don’t mind a series, or books that end in a cliffhanger — I do, however, mind “piecemeal” stories that don’t even give you enough in the first installment to really want to bite into the larger story and continue reading. So that was my major problem here.

The pacing of these first 158 pages is my main issue — it is PACED for a much longer story. The inner day-to-day flow, the dialogue, the events that unfold — it needed at least 30% more pages to feel somewhat complete as a full story arc....

Review: “Homecoming”

I’ll admit this isn’t my typical genre to read. While I often watch crime movies or TV shows, it’s rare that I’ll pick up a book to read on the subject. This is because I find it’s difficult to translate the action of the criminality of “hood life” to paper. That said — WOW. This knocked that notion out of the park.

I had this book for awhile (received a free copy upon sign-up to author’s newsletter) and finally delved into it today. I breezed through the entire novella in a couple of hours.

...

Review: “The Best Laid Plans”

My first MMF romance/erotica, better than expected

As my first time reading this type of book, I went into this expecting the worst, but was pleasantly surprised.

I did get a free copy, and I admit that I likely wouldn’t have read this otherwise, as I’m not familiar with the sub-genre. But the opening page drew me in, and the writing style is eloquent, steady and easy to follow.

Despite the three viewpoints, I did not get lost figuring out who was speaking at any given time. The story was wel...