Samyann's Blog, page 67

The Racketeer – Review

The last 1/3 seemed to be cramming a bunch of plot into too few pages/scenes. The author tied up loose ends and seeing the end of the book in sight, raced to the finish. Secondly, if you’re a writer, you may question the current mantra regarding POV, point of view. There are opinions of editors/writers/publishers/agents etc., that a writer should pick one and and stick to it, no exceptions. This author does pretty much as he pleases with regard to POV. John Grisham doesn’t need to follow writing rules because, well … because he’s John Grisham. There are those, like Steven King, who say ‘story trumps all’ …ergo, trumps writing rules? Yeah, I think so. The story of the Racketeer is okay, creative. There are plot twists near the end as you would expect from Grisham. It’s not as good as his early works, so don’t expect it to be.

Yesterday – Audiobook Coupons – FREE!!

Happy to pass on a few download codes given to me by Amazon to help promote the audiobook version of Yesterday – A Novel of Reincarnation. I’d like to give them to anyone who would provide the best promotion possible. Examples: A review, an author interview on your website or radio program, a TV appearance, a movie contract *snickering*.  Send me a message explaining what you would do! 

Contact Samyann in the sidebar menu, I’ll send you one anyway .

Yesterday – AUDIO Coupons – FREE!!

Happy to pass on five free download codes given to me by Amazon to help promote the audiobook version of Yesterday – A Novel of Reincarnation. I’d like to give them to anyone who would provide the best promotion possible. Examples: A review, an author interview on your website or radio program, a TV appearance, a movie contract.  Send me a message explaining what you would do! (Click Contact Samyann in the sidebar menu.) I’ll pick five of the best submissions and send the download code and instructions by the end of April.

Camp Douglas – Chicago POW Camp in the Civil War.

Camp Douglas, located on the city’s South Side, was one of the largest POW camps in the North. At times more than 10,000 rebel soldiers were held behind its stockade, 4,457 of whom perished. The majority of the deaths were due to poor sanitary and medical facilities at the camp.

The Great Chicago Fire toll….

October 8, 1871. The damage figures are still appalling over a century later. Nearly 300 persons died; 18,000 buildings were destroyed; 100,000 people (one-third of the city) were homeless; property valued at $200,000,000 (about a third of the valuation of the city) was destroyed.

1870 Census – Did you know…

That the 6th question asked in taking the 1870 census was simply: Color?  Enumerators could mark “W” for White, “B” for Black, “M” for Mulatto, “C” for Chinese [a category which included all east Asians], or “I” for American Indian. The 18th question: Is the person deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic?

Unbroken – by Laura Hillenbrand – Review

A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Statistics – percentages – lots of them. It’s apparent the author did a tremendous degree of research regarding the war in the Pacific. There is a voluminous amount of detail from the survival ratios relating to American pilots and/or POWs. Everything from airplane crash stats to PTSD stats, to shark attack stats, etc., etc. What comes to mind is that when the primary character in the book, Louis Zampernini, made mention of something, i.e., life in a POW camp, or survival on a raft in the middle of the Pacific, Hillenbrand took that information and proceeded to conduct detailed research, and would pepper the story with pages of that research resulting in prolific detail, not all of which contributes to the story. It’s a compilation, albeit well done, of her notes, in many instances. Supremely educational, especially to those who are ignorant of WWII in the Pacific and Japan atrocities. It’s the true story of this man, and likely many, many other men, who were subjected to equally horrific  abuse. As a baby-boomer descendant of ‘the greatest generation’, I wonder what the descendants of Japanese prison guards think when they read stories like this. There are ‘black eyes’ in the history of all peoples, Americans included, but this type of inhumanity is beyond comprehension. Everyone should read. But be prepared for lots of numbers. Edward Hermann, as I listened to the audiobook, was the right choice for this historical read.

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Unbroken – Review

A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Statistics – percentages – lots of them. It’s apparent the author did a tremendous degree of research regarding the war in the Pacific. There is a voluminous amount of detail from the survival ratios relating to American pilots and/or POWs. Everything from airplane crash stats to PTSD stats, to shark attack stats, etc., etc. What comes to mind is that when the primary character in the book, Louis Zampernini, made mention of something, i.e., life in a POW camp, or survival on a raft in the middle of the Pacific, Hillenbrand took that information and proceeded to conduct detailed research, and would pepper the story with pages of that research resulting in prolific detail, not all of which contributes to the story. It’s a compilation, albeit well done, of her notes, in many instances. Supremely educational, especially to those who are ignorant of WWII in the Pacific and Japan atrocities. It’s the true story of this man, and likely many, many other men, who were subjected to equally horrific  abuse. As a baby-boomer descendant of ‘the greatest generation’, I wonder what the descendants of Japanese prison guards think when they read stories like this. There are ‘black eyes’ in the history of all peoples, Americans included, but this type of inhumanity is beyond comprehension. Everyone should read. But be prepared for lots of numbers. Edward Hermann, as I listened to the audiobook, was the right choice for this historical read.

Safe Haven – Review

This is a very typical Sparks romance. If you like him as an author and you like the genre, this’ll do. IMO, it is repetitive throughout and formulaic in the dynamics of the story and the relationships among all the characters until the ending, which is original indeed. Until the ending I sort of had the feeling that I knew the story, where it was going, and had heard it all before. The reader was good, emotional where it was required to convey the words written. I’ve heard this is to be a movie, and I guess money-goes-to-money is the reason why. I get the feeling that it was written with that possibility in mind. Which is ok, I guess..but transparent. Bottom line, worth a credit if you like Nicholas Sparks. It’s nice to have a male author write a sweet, PG-rated romance. You can let you teen read it.

Safe Haven Review

This is a very typical Sparks romance. If you like him as an author and you like the genre, this’ll do. IMO, it is repetitive throughout and formulaic in the dynamics of the story and the relationships among all the characters until the ending, which is original indeed. Until the ending I sort of had the feeling that I knew the story, where it was going, and had heard it all before. The reader was good, emotional where it was required to convey the words written. I’ve heard this is to be a movie, and I guess money-goes-to-money is the reason why. I get the feeling that it was written with that possibility in mind. Which is ok, I guess..but transparent. Bottom line, worth a credit if you like Nicholas Sparks. It’s nice to have a male author write a sweet, PG-rated romance. You can let you teen read it.