James Master's Blog, page 10

Review of Britt-Marie was Here

If you’ve ever watched Merphy Napier on YouTube, you’ll know that she’s a fan of the author Fredrik Backman. If you’ve never watched her channel and you love to read (why are you reading a book review if you didn’t like to read), then I recommend you take a couple of minutes to watch one […]

Marketing Tips for Writers

Disclaimer . . . I’m terrible at marketing so I won’t blame you if you skip this week’s column. Oh, you’re still here. Okay, l guess l should actually put some effort into the topic of marketing for writers. So, here goes nothing. All jokes aside though, I am sort of terrible when it comes […]

Review of Skinamarink (2023)

I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed by this film. However, my disappointment didn’t come due to the film itself. The sense of disappointment came at the hype I heard about the film prior to my viewing of it. Before seeing the film, I saw only one trailer in theaters about it, but I […]

Sharpening Iron

I’ve probably already written a rant like this one before, but that’s bound to happen every once in a while. When you write a weekly column about a particular subject for years like I have, you’re bound to repeat a topic or two.  This week’s column is all about honing your skill. So, for Christmas […]

Reviewing Advice

I had an author friend asking for advice on her Instagram page. She’d won a collection of indie author books and stated that she was going to read each one and review each of them. In my opinion, that’s pretty great since the most challenging thing as an independent author is to garner reviews for […]

Review of M3GAN (2023)

I have to confess that when I went into the theater to watch the new Blumhouse film, M3GAN, I thought it was going to be a horrible film. And I don’t think I was in the minority, either. The trailer made it look like a gender swapped version of Chucky with some TikTok dances thrown […]

Last minute shopping idea: Buy a book

If there is one word that would best describe me, it would have to be “procrastinator.” I think I would make the best Santa Claus strictly for the fact that Santa waits until the very last minute to deliver his presents. Also factor in that he’s old, he has a stomach that shakes like bowl […]

Review of Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Deck the halls with boughs of holly… and reskins of classical action films. When I reviewed Violent Night (2022) earlier this month, I said that it was basically the Christmas version of Die Hard (1988). Well, while I was watching the newest inclusion to the Christmas Horror genre, Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022), the one film […]

Review of Fairy Tale

Well, I finally finished Stephen King’s newest book, Fairy Tale. It only took me a little under three months to read the 599-page story of a boy and his dog. To simplify it as a tale of a boy and his dog journeying into a magical land is a simplistic summary. In actuality, there are […]

Thankful for Humor

Thanksgiving is gone and done. We’ve eaten most of the turkey and pie. Now all that’s left is the plethora of leftovers in the fridge. We’re now in the midst of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. The holy trinity of shopping. Yesterday, I went with my sister and her kids to go […]