Nicola Marsh's Blog, page 86

Giant book giveaway!

I've been participating in the RAVEN HAPPY HOUR Scavenger Hunt for a few years now.

It's loads of fun with HEAPS of books on offer.

Come play!

Banned Books Week

I expressed my outrage here last week about the comments by a professor over banning SPEAK, a YA novel I read recently and now proudly residing on my keeper shelf.


So today, as part of Banned Books Week, I'm joining the list here to review a banned book. And with all the recent controversy over Speak, it felt kinda fitting to choose it.

(I'm actually surprised I didn't choose to review it as part of the Weekend Book Club...then again, I was reading several YA books a week for a while there so it may've been put on the back burner!)


Here's a blurb:


Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.


I can think of many words to describe this novel: funny, touching, strong, searching but I think thought-provoking sums it up best.

Laurie Halse Anderson uses strong characterisation to convey the thoughts of a teenager struggling to speak out.
The confusion, humiliation and ostracism Melinda faces as she battles her inner demons builds sympathy to the point the reader wants to scream the truth alongside her in the quest for justice.


SPEAK raises so many important questions and to have the book summed up by one person as 'soft porn' because of rape scenes leaves me shaking my head.
Rape is about violence, not sex.


As a romance writer, I've come up against the 'soft porn' accusation a few times.
It's an ignorance thing: porn is for titillation, sex scenes in a novel as part of the characters' emotional journey is about relationship development. Vastly different.


Do you have a favourite banned book?

Launching a new series

Mills and Boon is launching a new series in January 2011, RIVA.

RIVA will consist of the current Modern Heat series and some of the fun, flirty authors from the Romance series (which basically means all my books will now be RIVA books.)

My current Harlequin Romance release, DESERTED ISLAND, DREAMY EX! out in the USA, will be part of the Riva launch in the UK alongside Kelly Hunter, Jessica Hart and Kimberly Lang.

So hot off the press, here are the new covers.


Very, VERY different.

Opinions?

The subjectiveness of publishing

Publishing is subjective.

A book I might love/an agent might love/an editor might love/a reviewer might love (you get the idea!) will have a reader/agent/editor/reviewer who doesn't.

That's why I don't pay much attention to reviews (unless they're mine and they're brilliant!) and prefer to judge a book for myself.

Here's an example.
ALL ABOUT ROMANCE (home of the Desert Island Keeper and a notoriously tough mob to impress) just reviewed my current release DESERTED ISLAND, DREAMY EX!

Here's the gen...

A do over

Grand Finals are draining.
They're a culmination of a long AFL season, where two teams battle it out for supremacy.

While my team wasn't playing on Saturday, I was heavily invested as all my family are Collingwood supporters.
I watched every second of the tense battle.
I even wore a black and white top.
I cheered loudly when the Pies kicked a goal and winced when they missed.

And I watched in disbelief as both teams ended up on 68 points apiece!

Yes, a drawn Grand Final means we do it all again ne...

Weekend Book Club: Shadow Kiss

I bought Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy earlier this year, read it, enjoyed it, but had so many other books I wanted to read I didn't read on into the series. This week, I remedied that fact. I quickly read FROSTBITE, book 2 in the series, and was very glad to have SHADOW KISS, book 3 on hand ready to go. If you don't know what the VAMPIRE ACADEMY series is about, here's a blurb: Two races of vampires walk our world. One, the Moroi, are alive and wield elemental magical. The other, the...

Melbourne madness

Visit Melbourne in late September and you can't help but get swept along in footy fever.

Tomorrow is the AFL Grand Final, the ultimate showdown for the grand prize after 22 rounds of football and a month of finals.

Collingwood has been the best team all year and are hot favourites (and the team I'll be supporting considering my whole family are Magpies). But I have a sneaking suspicion St. Kilda won't lose 2 GFs in a row...

Looking forward to a cracking game and may the best team win (which is...

Speak Loudly

I bought this book a few months ago in my YA binge after it came highly recommended.

It deals with teenage rape and the ramifications.

So imagine my outrage this week when I discovered someone (took me a while not to post something stronger) wants to ban it.

Here's my lovely agent's take on it.

And from the author herself.

Am truly left shaking my head over this.

Crafting a pitch

There was a great post by Rachelle Gardner yesterday on crafting a pitch.

She lists 11 questions to ask yourself when identifying important elements to make a good pitch.

Check it out here .

Versatile blogger

Thanks to Teresa Morgan for awarding me 'The Versatile Blogger' for a blog she's recently discovered and thinks is fantastic!

While I don't have time to list the 7 things you don't know about me or nominate other blogs (sadly, my blog reading days are a thing of the past the last few months) it did get me thinking about what being a versatile blogger means.

I blog daily which means I like to mix it up a little: writing news, writing tips, book reviews, life stuff, hot hero pics...

What does a...