Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 13

5 Useful Lessons from Indie-Publishing

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My adventure with indie-publishing Finding Refuge with the Kalikoi collective got me writing again, and has been fun. Plus I have actually learned some things about preparing, publishing, and *cue music*…myself.

1. Writing is a thousand times less stressful when I am writing primarily to please myself. You’d think I would’ve learned this lesson long ago, and I sort of did, but print publishing messed with my head.

2. I cannot comprehend the complexities of Photoshop or even its simpler rela...

#TBRChallenge – Competition: The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord

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The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord is a complex, far-future space opera that includes the sport of Wallrunning. The skills and implications of Wallrunning, it turns out, influence events on an interstellar scale.

I was very pleased to re-encounter characters from Lord’s earlier novel The Best of All Possible Worlds (described at the end of this post), though The Galaxy Game focuses on other protagonists. A prologue helped orient me to the spacefaring civilization featured in these novels, and a ...

My October Reading Log

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Fiction:
Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly is a reworking of her fantasy novel Bride of the Rat God as a straightforward historical mystery set in 1920s Hollywood. I was always sorry there weren’t sequels to Bride of the Rat God, so this made me very happy, and I hope it turns into another series. British scholar Emma Blackstone was widowed by World War One and lost her parents and brother to the 1918 influenza pandemic; she now works as a secretary for her sister-in-law, lovable and ext...

Dutch translation!

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My World War One romance “Under Her Uniform” has been translated into Dutch! The ebook has been collected in the anthology 5 Tinten verder historisch 6 – een trio, 6 February 2018.

Original English version, Under Her Uniform:
Isobel Hailey disguised herself as a man to fight in the British Army in WWI. Only a few people know the truth, including her pair of officer lovers–so why can’t she stop thinking about handsome Corporal Andrew Southey instead? Isobel has to keep her wits about her an...

#TBRChallenge – Gothic: Doll Bones by Holly Black

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Doll Bones by Holly Black is Middle Grade, but more than spooky enough for my tender sensibilities.

What I love most about this book is that it’s really about making stories, and the power of making stories.

Narrator Zach and his friends Poppy and Alice play complex imaginative games together with coherent fantasy worldbuilding, self-made props, and an array of dolls (Zach’s are “action figures”), including a terrifying, valuable antique Poppy’s mother keeps locked in a cabinet. Zach is twe...

Smashwords Interview

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I recently interviewed myself via Smashwords, which was sort of fun!

My September Reading Log

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Fiction:
The Factory Witches of Lowell by C.S. Malerich is historical fantasy set in nineteenth century Lowell, Massachusetts, which at the time was a factory town full of textile mills. Many of the workers in those mills were young, single women. Mill workers Judith and Hannah are using magic to help them lead a strike for better conditions, using methods that absolutely strengthen the novella’s representations of solidarity, female relationships, and the evils of capitalism. I give bonus ...

Finding Refuge available this week!

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My new novella, Finding Refuge, is now available! It’s science fiction with lesbian romance, telepathy, found family, and trauma recovery.

Kindle US.
Kindle UK. ​
Kindle Canada.
Kindle Australia.
Kindle Germany.
Nook, Kobo, Apple, Scribd, Indigo, etc.

They lost the revolution. But then, they found sanctuary—and hope.

After the fascistic Federated Colonies crushes their interstellar revolt, freedom fighters Talia and Miki have only each other.

Telepathic warrior Talia Avi lost her hom...

#TBRChallenge – Unusual Profession: Set This House in Order by Matt Ruff

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Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls by Matt Ruff won the 2003 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, now renamed the Otherwise Award, which “celebrates science fiction, fantasy, and other forms of speculative narrative that expand and explore our understanding of gender.” I would also consider this novel to be a mystery or puzzle novel, on top of all the rest. I was glad to have the opportunity of the TBR Challenge, and a long weekend, to finally read it, the first work I’ve read by this author....

My August Reading Log

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Fiction:
The Enigma Game by Elizabeth Wein, set mostly in Scotland during World War II, is a prequel to Code Name Verity. The main characters are Louisa Adair, a half-English/half-Jamaican teenaged girl; an elderly German immigrant woman who adopts the name Jane Warner; Ellen McEwen, a young woman who works as a volunteer driver for the airfield and hides that her family are Travelers; and a young pilot named Jamie Beaufort-Stuart, brother to one of the Code Name Verity narrators, who also ...