Jane Litte's Blog, page 969

Dear Author Is Six!

We actually turned six on April 3.  Jayne and I started the blog on April 3, 2006, and we had a few friends who came and read the blog. Now we have a few more friends. Seriously we have the best community of readers here at Dear Author and we want to celebrate our readership by giving away a few items because what is a birthday without presents?  Our presents to the readership includes the following:

Kindle Fire (x2)Nook Simple TouchKobo TouchKindle Touch (w special offers)4 $25 GC to the...

Backing Up Your eBooks

Last week included April Fool's Day and sometimes crazy things can happen on April Fool's Day. To prevent crazy things from adversely impacting your ebook reading, make sure you are backing up your ebook files. There are three primary ways to backup for your ebooks.

Cloud storage

There are more than a dozen cloud storage options today with everyone from Amazon to Apple offering cloud storage capabilities and often for free.  Cloud storage is space on a computer hard drive operated by a company ...

Recommended Reads Saturday: Magic to the Bone by Devon Monk

Magic to the Bone by Devon Monk is recommended by Darlynne. A reader, a baker, a former book matchmaker. Darlynne has been known to follow shoppers around the store until they've found the right right book or have called security.

[image error]

From Darlynne:

I am recommending this book because The fantasy genre of magic users in urban settings is turned on its head and re-imagined in this Portland, Oregon-based series about Allie Beckstrom, magic Hound and reluctant daughter of the city's most powerful...

REVIEW: Bared to You by Sylvia Day

Dear Ms. Day:

I requested this book from NetGalley after a prompt from KatiD.  She enjoyed it and noted that it was reminiscent of the infamous erotic romance that is sweeping the book reading world, Fifty Shades of Grey.  I have read your contemporary novella contributions to recent anthologies and really enjoyed them. I've often wished you would write full length contemporary romance instead of historicals or paranormals.  After finishing Bared to You, I'm convinced that your voice is well s...

First Page: In the Kingdom of Persephone (Fantasy)

Welcome to First Page Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. You may comment anonymously.

***

I saw Death take my one hundred and six years old great-grandmother. She was sleeping on the couch across from me. One minute, Great Grandma was breathing and the next, Death was in the living room. Great Grandma stopped whistling through her nose. I saw Death...

REVIEW: Knight of Hearts by Suzie Quint

Dear Ms. Quint:

Thank you for sending me your book for review.  The blurb and excerpt you sent signaled a cute contemporary romance with a storyline that I had not read recently.  Mac is recently divorced and trying to enter the dating scene but he is inept.  Inept is actually a kind word for Mac's skills with the ladies.  Mac uses more dated lines than are tossed around at a Tucker Max convention ( "Hey, Sexy! Wanna get naked with me?"  ).  Rachel agrees to tutor him in handling the current s...

Friday Midday Links: Vintage's 50 Shades Disclaimer; Apple Not Interested in Settlement with DOJ

ABA CEO Update on Google eBooks and Association's Meeting With DOJ | Bookselling This Week – This is a two for one link. 

First, Google has totally abandoned indie booksellers. Remember that not two years ago, Google was going to save indie booksellers bacon by allowing them to be affiliates of the Google bookstore. Now Google has decided to eliminate its reseller program and concentrate on building up Google Play. Independent booksellers are now left with no digital bookstore. Copia has...

REVIEW: Everything You've Got by Erin Nicholas

Dear Ms. Nicholas,

Perhaps I wasn't the best choice to review your latest novel Everything You've Got. I'm married to a physician and have worked in and around the medical field for most of my adult life. Your heroine, twenty-seven (I think) year old Dr. Kat Dayton, struck me as unbelievably immature and the problems she faces in her medical practice seem to be in large part of her own making. For most of the book, she annoyed the hell out of me and I couldn't see why your hero, the literally ...

Friday Film Review: What's Up Doc

What's Up Doc (1972)

Genre: Screwball Comedy/Romance

Grade: A-

Judy: Love means never having to say you're sorry.

Howard: That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.

Lots of people have tried to make screwball comedies in the decades after its 30/40s heydays but very few have actually succeeded. Usually, IMO, because they try too hard and what results is a film that seems to be saying, "Look at me! I'm a screwball comedy. No, really, I am. See. See how screwballish and funny I am!! I'm funny!!"...

REVIEW: A Monster Calls: Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd by Patrick Ness

Dear Mr. Ness,

I feel like quite the scrooge because while I liked your YA novel, A Monster Calls, I didn't love it the way everyone else I've seen reviewing it seems to have done. The book has a powerful and moving story of how it came to be. The idea behind it was the brainchild of author and activist Siobhan Dowd, who died of breast cancer before she could execute her vision. Instead, you wrote the book.

The book centers on Conor O'Malley, a thirteen year old boy whose mother is suffering...