Rhoda Baxter's Blog, page 39

Goodreads book review: The Accident by C L Taylor

The Accident by C.L. Taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed The Lie, so when I spotted The Accident, I had to grab it.
Sue’s daughter, Charlotte is in a coma after being hit by a bus. Everyone thinks it was an accident, but Sue is not so sure.
There’s a lot of discussion about unreliable narrators in thrillers at the moment. In theory, Sue is an unreliable narrator because of her PTSD, except you know that what she thinks happened, did happen. Where the unreliability kicks in, is whe...

Goodreads book review: Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner

Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up after hearing Julie Kenner talking about it on the Smart Bitches Trashy Books podcast. Demon Hunting Soccer Mom. I love the idea!

Kate Connor is a retired demon hunter, but there’s a whole load of demons around and SOMEONE has to do something about it. Turns out that someone is Kate.
I like the juxtaposition between domesticity/ parenthood and the drama of demon fighting. It’s a good, light hearted read. I figured out who th...

Goodreads book review: The Fixer by Jenny Holiday

The Fixer by Jenny Holiday

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I subscribed to Jenny Holiday’s newsletter because I love her @tropeheroine twitter feed. I picked up The Fixer because I was curious to see what her books would be like. Also, the idea of a school newsroom in the 80s made me think of Press Gang. Remember Press Gang? I was in love with Spike for years. Sigh.

Back to The Fixer. I was expecting something fun and fast. I wasn’t disappointed. Great dialogue. Interesting and well rounded character...

Goodreads Book Review: The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve been meaning to read this for a while, because it seems to be everywhere at the moment. Eventually, I picked up a copy in the supermarket.

It’s a well written thriller. The suspense relies on the fact that the main narrator can’t remember stuff because she has memory blackouts when she’s drunk. The descriptions of alcoholism is pretty good (If you want a proper visceral description of alcoholism, read Nina is Not Okay by Shap...

Goodreads book review: The Christmas Promise by Sue Moorcroft

The Christmas Promise: The perfect cosy festive treat! by Sue Moorcroft

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up because it’s a Sue Moorcroft book. I tend to read anything she releases!

Ava Bliss makes couture hats. She’s fiercely independent (to the point of irritating people ). She’s also being threatened with porn bombing by her sleazy, creepy ex. The ex is a total douchbag, but seems almost a different person when sober, so you can see what Ava saw in him at first. A lot of the book deals...

Goodreads book review: A Crack in Everything by Ruth Frances Long

A Crack in Everything by Ruth Frances Long

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve never been to Dublin and my knowledge of Irish Mythology is fairly limited (okay, I learned what I know from the TV series Merlin… so I don’t really know anything), but that didn’t matter. This is a fantastic book. It feels a bit like Neverwhere in that there are two cities coexisting on slightly different planes. I liked that. I also liked the battling matriarchs. I especially liked that you had no idea if Izzy could tru...

Point of View explained – whose head are you in?

I’ve found out that the links to the Beverley Guardian website no longer work (the paper has closed down). So I’m reproducing my articles here.

Point of view

Whose eyes are you using?

Last timeI wrote about character. Inextricably linked to character is point of view. In the context of writing fiction, it helps to remember that the phrase ‘point of view’ has two meanings. One is the position from which things are being observed; the other is an attitude or way of considering matters.

The fi...

What the heck is a character arc? Find out here.

I’ve realised that the Beverley Guardian website has disappeared, so I’m reposting my columns here.

Character arc

The protagonist must by changed by their story.

People like to know about other people, that’s why we watch soaps and listen to gossip. Even news stories are more memorable if they have a human interest angle to them. All good stories are about people. The best stories involve people being changed by what happens to them.

The character arc is the description of what happens insid...

Ten ways to get to know your character

I’ve just found out that the Beverley Guardian website has disappeared (as has the Beverley Guardian newspaper), which means my columns on creative writing have also gone, so I’m reproducing them here.

10 ways to get to know your character

Put your character on the couch and ask them questions.

As a mentor for the RNA new writer’s scheme, I critique a lot of manuscripts. Of these the hardest ones to fix are the ones where the writer hasn’t properly got under the skin of their character. You d...

Using conflict to power your story

This is another article written for the now-defunct Beverley Guardian, recreated here for your delectation and delight.

Conflict is the thing that powers your story. Your protagonist has a problem, they are trying to fix it, but there are things in the way, so they can’t solve their problem as easily as they’d hoped. So what are they going to do now? This tension, the wanting to know what happens next, is what keeps the reader turning the paged. The source of that tension is conflict.

Confl...