Jane Litte's Blog, page 918

Daily Deals: YA and classic romance

Wal-mart is offering $100 iTunes Giftcards for $80.

The first three books are published by a company called Spark Point Studio. They sent me a press release and said if you purchased three titles (Girl Unmoored, India’s Summer by Therese, and Finding Emma by Steena Holmes) you can be entered into a contest. The first one has quite a few accolades but the second two are questionable. One review calls into question the editing. Ultimately I opted not to feature the second two because they just d...

Seven Sexy Sins, Summer Fling, Remember Me, White Hot Christmas & Stranded with a Scotsman by Serenity Woods

The following is a compilation of reviews for Serenity Woods.

Seven Sexy Sins

A few weeks ago, Ruthie Knox was raving about this book on Twitter so I decided to give it a whirl. I’m glad I did. Seven Sexy Sinsis a bawdy, diverting read that skims the surface of real emotion just enough to make one care for its characters.

Faith Hillman is, though only twenty-two, a successful writer for a New Zealand magazine and web-site. (Her column was recently voted “the best editorial on women’s matters i...

REVIEW: Perfection by R. L. Mathewson

Dear Ms. Mathewson:

After enjoying Playing for Keeps, I immediately started on the second book in “A Neighbor from Hell” series. The title is apt because all Travis Bradford wants is perfection. The concept that you tried to sell here is that the inside matters more than the outside, but the execution of it faltered and not just because there are grammatical and proofreading issues throughout. No, my real problem with the book was the unintentional size-est message that permeated the story.

Tra...

It’s Not All About Taste

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So here’s the thing: I think we’ve oversold the virtues of subjectivity.

When I first entered the online Romance community, I faced a steep learning curve when it came to calling out what I felt was poor writing and sub-par editing. Frustrated at being chided for “sounding like an English teacher” or being “too picky,” and worried about insulting other readers, over time I learned to couch my criticism in terms like “not to my taste” or “not everyone experiences a book the same way,” and other...

Tuesday News: B&N to launch in the UK in October; Penguin and Harlequin Australia launches digital first lines; The next generation wristwatch

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Barnes & Noble to launch in the UK in October – Barnes & Noble will launch http://nook.co.uk in Mid-October and will announce partnerships with “leading UK retailers” shortly. “The first products to be available when the company begins offering its products in the UK in mid-October include Barnes & Noble’s line of critically acclaimed E Ink® Readers, NOOK Simple Touch™ and NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight™, the top-ranked eBook readers in the US.” I don’t understand why B&N isn’t trying to of...

Daily Deals: Newbery Medal Winner, Romance, and Jane Austen fan fic

[image error] Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. $1.99.

From Jacket Copy:

This Newbery Medal Book describes how a ten-year-old Danish girl’s bravery is tested when her best friend is threatened by Nazis in 1943.

In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.

The Giver by this author was on sale a few days ago.

Amazon BN Sony Kobo

[image error] Care and Feeding of Pirates by Jennifer Ashley. $1.99.

From Jacket...

REVIEW: Dangerously Close by Dee J. Adams

Dear Ms. Adams:

The attraction of this book was the blind heroine but honestly the heroine was so capable that the only difference between her and a sighted person was being told on an occasion that she was blind. This is the third book in the “Adrenaline High” series.

Ashley Bristol sustained an accident in a previous book which resulted in a coma. Sequelae following the coma included poor vision which Ashley hoped would improve over time. At the start of Dangerously Close, Ashley sustains yet...

REVIEW: The Superheroes Union: Dynama by Ruth Diaz

Dear Ms. Diaz,

The blurb for this one just sounded like so much fun that I hurried to snatch it up from Netgalley. A superheroine with family issues – namely an ex who had turned evil – and who has to worry about childcare. These are certainly not our grandparents’ comic book heroes anymore! But wait, there’s more. Much more as you pack lots of different angles into a compact story that’s easy to read in one sitting. It has a few rough edges but overall I enjoyed it.

It starts out as a normal d...

Monday News: Parodies, Women ruining the prestige of YA, The Starbucks analogy, and KDP Success

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Image via BigStock Photo

A prestige-free zone – Last week, I posted an article by Meghan Hewit at Atlantic about how YA literature has become dominated by women. Salon attempts to argue that the reason YA literature is not seeing the JD Salinger’s of old is because YA has lost its prestige. It’s being ghettoized by the vagina, you guys! Laura Miller, the author of the short Salon piece, offers no justification for this argument only that gynocracy is rubbing off the patina of prestige that YA...

REVIEW: Pride, Prejudice and Curling Rocks by Andrea Brokaw

“Darcy Bennet lives to be on the ice. When the other little girls were watching the Olympics and dreaming of figure-skating, she was dreaming of representing her country not with skates but with a broom.

At seventeen, Darcy still has Olympic dreams, but she has more immediate concerns. Like getting her team to Regionals, making sure she’s accepted by the local college, and convincing her best-friend and team skip not to go to a university on the other side of the continent. Oh! And, possibly m...