Ingrid Hall's Blog, page 27

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For a limited time, I am offering to edit your FULL manuscripts for just £120 ($202.21) 

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Review of Love in The Deep – The White Shadow Trilogy – By Todi

Most romance titles are reviewed over at Confessions of Luna Ballantyne, however, while there is a romance element in the book, there were so many other things going on, that I decided to review it here.

 Love in the Deep opens with a flashback that the hero, Krishna Patel (Kris) has while in a coma.  While snorkelling in the Gulf of Mexico, he comes across a young woman and falls in love with her at first sight.  Upon returning to his hotel complex, he tries to find her but is unsuccessful, however, can’t get her out of his mind, and upon his return to Boston he resumes his search for her.  After a protracted search, he eventually finds Rochelle, and soon discovers that she is not all he thought she would be.  Rochelle is a shipping tycoon with a dark life…

He strikes up a working relationship with an acclaimed ocean explorer, called Dr Wilson and against Rochelle’s wishes they embark upon a mission to search for an organism that could change the way the world views it’s oceans.  His research team gets killed, and he unwittingly becomes embroiled in a deadly conspiracy…

When I first started reading, I wasn’t aware that the opening scene was a flashback, as this is not made at all clear.  I was, however, hooked, as it has a fantastical, ethereal,  mermaid-like feel to it, and I LOVED the references to the sunken pirate ship and was really looking forward to an incredibly escapist read.  Unfortunately, the author quickly drifts away from this, and the next 10-12 chapters become a bit blurred as Kris, fearing that his mysterious woman has been kidnapped by pirates attempts first of all to find her, and then when that fails tries to forget her, before quickly realising upon his return to Boston that he simply can’t get her out of her head and embarks upon a somewhat madcap quest to find her.  The author is Indian, and his voice is reflected in the sentence structure, which frequently detracts from the read and needs ironing out.  There are also a lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes.

The character of Kris is incredibly sweet.  However, he is just too nice for my liking.  The author also has a very sweet and endearing way of doing this…f*** and s***when referring to swear words, really though, I would rather he had just called it as it was and said fuck or shit.  I also have a completely different take on erotica to what the author does.  My idea of erotica is full-on, in your face, explicitly described sex scenes.  The sex scenes in this story lack the explicitness to be billed as erotica.  I wouldn’t even describe it as steamy sex.  Like I say, I tend to lean towards the graphic end of the spectrum, and each to their own!

 In summary, I think with some rewriting and reworking this series has potential to be great. His ideas are sound; it’s just the technical elements to writing that currently let him down.  The author needs to have this and any future books fully edited prior to releasing book  2.

You can find more at:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21971402-love-in-the-deep?from_search=true

WATCH OUT FOR MY REVIEW OF FROM SOUK TO SOUK BY THE WINNER OF OUR SHORT STORY COMPETITION, ROBIN RATCHFORD…

Review of 365 Inspirations: One Minute Insights for Love, Success and Happiness by Mark Rose

Mark Rose says that he has spent most of his adult life discovering the secret to happiness.  He is married and 365 Inspirations: One Minute Insights for Love, Success and Happiness was published as a result of a Kickstarter campaign. You can contact him via  http://www.365inspirations.com  and www.accepthappinessnow.com and www.heavenonearthproject.com

I LOVE books with a positive message, in particular I LOVE books that I can dip in and out of whenever I am in need of a happiness/stress relieving boost; books that I can read on the go.  365 Inspirations, which as you have probably guessed offers a pint sized inspirational thought for each day of the year, delivers this by the bucket load.   The author takes a quote from a famous person and then adds his own insight into it and how you can work it to your advantage.

The more cynical among you will probably say that anyone can do that.  Or, you can easily get your daily fix of inspirational messages from social media, for free.  Yes, you can, but I think it is nice to have them in one easily accessible place.  The book is not designed to read in one go.  It’s aim is for people to dip in and dip out and give themselves the lift that they need to see them through.

Rather than download to your kindle, I would recommend that people download it to their smartphone.  That way you can access it on the bus, train, or on your tea break…

Mark Rose is also the author of several other inspirational/spiritual titles including Discovering Your Life’s Purpose and I am certainly keen to read more of his work… 

Indie and Proud – Floats the Dark Shadow by Yves Fey

Please take a moment to check out this review of Floats the Dark Shadow by Yves Fey at Daniel J Weber’s site.  You can also find my review of the same book by clicking here.

While you are at it, you might also want to check out Lenora’s review of Dark Messages by Daniel J Weber!!

Love

Ingrid xxx

 

Review of Why People Do What They Do – By Emilio Iasiello

 Emilio Iasiello  is the author of  the 2013 anthology of short stories Why People Do What They Do and the 2008 book Chasing the Green. He has published short fiction and poetry in numerous academic and literary journals. His stories have appeared in Buffalo Spree Magazine; The Larcom Review, Oasis, and Krater Quarterly, and his poems have appeared in the New York Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, The California Quarterly, The Washington Review, and The Wilshire Review, among others.

We seem to be getting more and more short story anthologies for review, and I was grateful for the fact that the author had sent me this in a paperback version, because it meant that I was able to read it while in the bath – I have the art of multi-tasking off to a tee!

The collection is based on quite a brave concept. Namely to try and get into people’s minds and really understand why they behave in certain ways, unfortunately while the stories are well written, interesting and at times a little disturbing, I don’t think it actually achieves what it sets out to do in the title.

 I pretty much enjoyed all of the stories,, although I did initially think that the lead character in the short story Why People Do What They Do (From which the title of the whole anthology is born) was female, when, in fact, he turned out to be male… Maybe the character was just in touch with his feminine side, whatever, that is something that I think the author needs to watch out for!

  I also thought that the author was very bold in terms of the viewpoints that he used throughout, and my all time favourite story in the collection was What’s a Mother to Do.  None of the characters in this story were particularly likeable, and I don’t think they were meant to be! I did, however, have empathy for this particular mother, and could definitely understand how she came to the conclusion that she came to; even if some of her earlier rationalisation was seriously skewed.

  All in all this is a brief, but thought-provoking collection of short stories for people who like to think as well as those that are obsessed with the darker side of human nature.

 You can find more at:

www.goodreads.com/author/show/4156971.Emilio_Iasiello

 

 

 

 

Review of Valerie’s Retreat by Joseph Rinaldo

Don’t let the title put you off.  This book is far from boring! Check out Luna’s review of the amazing Valerie’s Retreat… http://lunaballantyne.wordpress.com

Also please follow my alter ego’s blog as I am changing direction, and will be releasing my first incredibly hot novella in August.    Freedom – Book 1 in The One Night Stand Series will be coming to a kindle near you soon!

Love Ingrid xxx

The Writer’s Drawer Anthology: A Mishmash or a Treasure Trove? – By Beryl Belsky

Following on from yesterday when we announced that Robin Ratchford  had won the Short Story Competition which Indie and Proud had teamed up with The Writer’s Drawer to organise, then I am turning my blog today over to the lovely Beryl Belsky...Make sure you keep an eye out for my posts tomorrow and Saturday, as I have two reviews ready and waiting to go live! You can also find Lenora’s review of A Certain Kind of Freedom here

The Writer’s Drawer Anthology: A Mishmash or a Treasure Trove?

“An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts” ˗ Wikipedia

When I first thought of compiling an anthology from the website I run, The Writer’s Drawer, my first dilemma was, how do I go about it? One thinks of an anthology as Wikipedia defines it above ˗ a collection of pieces of like genre: an anthology of short stories, an anthology of essays, an anthology of poems, or a collection on a particular theme. But an anthology of all three together – and without an overarching leitmotif? This is what it would have to be, however, if I wanted a collection from this intercultural and wide-ranging website to truly reflect the variety of genres that appear there: short stories, essays, poetry, memoirs, travelogues, book reviews, and more.

 After consulting with a fellow editor and determining the stories, essays and poems that would be included, I decided that the three sections of the anthology would be labeled Short Fiction, Stories from Life and Poetry. The second section was the most problematic: it wasn’t just a dry essay section, with titles like “The Spinoza Problem,” by Bob Maram, but also included more story-like pieces, such as Bryan Clark’s “The Smoke Bird” and D.K. Srivastava’s “The Decision That Changed Her Life,” tales that mirrored the many lands and cultures of the writers. Could I get away with that rather broad grouping?

It was more or less clear to me from the outset that I would self-publish, but with some professional help with the cover and formatting. All went relatively smoothly until I reached the publishing stage, when I had to categorize the book; none of the CreateSpace categories seemed to fit a multi-genre anthology. In the end, I chose “literature and fiction,” and inserted keywords such as “short stories,” “essays,” “poetry,” “international,” etc.

The final obstacle was the critics. What would they think? And who would actually agree to review it? Many critics have genre preferences: short fiction but not poetry; non-fiction only; poetry only… That narrowed the options down. Although some who accepted it were a little bemused (“An eclectic collection,” said one), the reviews were surprisingly favorable, with titles such as “Superb short stories and memorable essays and poems,” “A great collection of writing from all over the world” and  “A treasure trove.” It is indeed a book you can dip into at bedtime, at leisure or during a plane flight, and find a piece to suit your mood. It would also make a great present for Mother’s Day (which falls this year on May 11 in many countries) – together with a bunch of flowers, box of chocolates or bottle of wine, or all three!

My plan is to publish a second anthology; however, in light of the difficulties mentioned above, I will probably make some changes. For example, it may feature mainly short fiction and “stories from life.” I may also use one of the crowd-funding websites, such as Kickstarter or Indigogo, to cover the expenses of publishing it and sending copies to the writers (as there were 33 of them, they had to buy their own copies of the first anthology, the publication of which I paid for myself). These are just a few of my thoughts as we near the deadline for submissions to the second Writer’s Drawer anthology – September 15, 2014.

This is a chance for you shy or less confident writers to get published, and to receive free editing support. Everyone is welcome to submit their creative work to The Writer’s Drawer, and if it is good enough it may well be selected to appear in the next anthology.

The Writer’s Drawer – http://www.thewritersdrawer.net/

A Certain Kind of Freedom: Stories and Poems from The Writer’s Drawer (available both in print and kindle at Amazon and other online bookstores) – http://www.amazon.com/Certain-Kind-Freedom-Stories-Writers/dp/1492890316

The Writer’s Drawer on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thewritersdrawer

The Writer’s Drawer on Twitter – https://twitter.com/beryl_belsky

 

And the winner of our Short Story Competition is…

Huge congratulations to ROBIN RATCHFORD (UK/Belgium), the winner of the Short Story Competition that Indie and Proud ran in conjunction with The Writer’s Drawer!!!

From the judges: “[the story] manages, sparingly but powerfully, to encapsulate and highlight a painful and often hushed-up social problem – that of the abused wife.”

Prizes for the winning entry:

A free copy of my novella The Tunnel Betwixt…

A free copy of Tommy Clark’s Rogue’s Phoenix Chronicles Book One: Thieves and Kings

Inclusion in the next Writer’s Drawer anthology

Publicity (Guest blog or interview, links) for the winner’s story and their blog/website/books via The Writer’s Drawer and the Indie and Proud network.

Special mentions also go to:

Auntie Tata (Iran) for Lettre au Miserables (Letter to the Poor)

Declan O’Leary (Ireland/Germany) for Meet the Parents, Poland, 1986

Timothy Rodriguez for Mann’s Clothing Store

Their stories will be included in the next Writer’s Drawer anthology. (Other stories entered in the competition may also be selected for inclusion, but only later in the year.)

Other Entries in the Short Story Competition

The One That Got Away, by Stephen Reeves

A Tale from Ikkapur, by Sowmeni Menon

Maggie’s Adventures, by Patricia Roy

The Castle, by Malobi Sinha

Fire Box 598, by Joe Corso

Don Francisco Rides to La Paz, by Robert Walton

Quagmire, Lorene Stunson Hill

The Hunter and the Hunted, by Kirk Sellis

The Painting, by Pothoppuram Kesavan Jayanthan

Rain, by Peter Heppo

A Viking’s Tale, by Tobias Haglund

Weekend, by Dheeham Bhuyan

Pigbeef, by Niles Koenigsberg

All I Ever Had, by Luke Daragh

Cecelia and Sun Tzu, by Chris Palmer

The Tomb Rose, by Pritesh Chakraborty

A Chance Encounter, by Colin Read

I have downloaded a copy of From Souk to Souk by winning entrant Robin Ratchford, and shall be reviewing it over the next 7 days…

 

Review of The Cut: A Wolfe Novel by Peter Churchill

Peter Churchill joined the police force at the age of 24.  He spent five years in uniform, patrolling some of the toughest streets in Europe, before being promoted into CID.  Now retired, he has taken up writing and tries to put his knowledge of crime investigation in the eighties and nineties into his books.

Set in Leeds, in West Yorkshire, The Cut is another in a growing trend of British crime novels.  The book revolves around D.S Wolfe’s at times bloody- minded quest to take down a drugs cartel which are importing an obscene amount of cocaine into the U.K and flooding entire neighbourhoods with it.  The story moves constantly been mainland Europe (Mainly Amsterdam, yawn!) and Leeds, and also flicks backwards and forwards in time so often, that, by time I was even twenty, or thirty pages into the novel, I had completely lost track of the time line.

 Apart from the annoying time line issues, the book is written to a very standard.  D.S. Wolfe is an intelligent, and emotionally flawed hero who is still struggling to come to terms with his marriage breakdown.  The fact that the author is a retired police officer is impossible to ignore, as former cop is stamped all over the writing, which at times rather than adding to the story, I actually felt hindered it.   Because with his inside knowledge of how the police force works, also comes the incredibly irritating stereotyping of certain communities, which I think (and this is a personal opinion) afflicts the police.   There are some very vivid descriptions of the underbelly of society in there, which while some readers may love, I actually found quite patronising. Having been raised by law-abiding parents on a council estate myself, I would like to remind the author that not everyone who hails from those estates, are crack-heads, drug dealers, work shy or prostitutes and nor do they all live in filthy dirty houses!   I know that the police have to deal with some awful situations and odious people, but I would have liked to have seen a little balance in his portrayal of the council estates.

 I also struggled with the fact that the whole plot revolves around a drug deal, as frankly it bored me.  I love crime novels and have no doubt that there is a huge audience out there that would soak up this book, but I definitely have a preference for murder mystery, over drugs.

 The author describes himself as the Andy McNab of cops, which is not a bad analogy.  So, if you are looking for a less well known version, then Peter Churchill, may well be your man!

You can find more at:

http://www.rhubarbtriangle.co.uk

Norse Fantasy Fiction…

I am particularly keen to read and review some Norse Fantasy Fiction.  If anyone has any that they would like reviewed, please send a MOBI version to ingrid@grannyirene.com

If anyone has any Norse Fantasy already on our list pending review, please drop me a reminder email and I will move it towards the front of the queue.

Thanks

Ingrid xxx