Ingrid Hall's Blog, page 32

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Hey,

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Love Ingrid xxx

Review of Death Proverbs Sayings and Quotes Compiled by Lawrence D Repp.

Mandala Studios of which Lawrence D Repp is an integral part is the publisher of a small range of IBooks, namely Cat Proverbs Sayings and Quotes, One Proverb, and Death Proverbs Sayings and Quotes of which I was lucky enough to receive a rare, handmade, limited edition.

Anyone who knows me and my writing will understand that I am intrigued by the subject  of death in general, and this gorgeous little book with it’s astonishing array of quotes and sayings definitely provides food for thought.

“The Boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague.  Who shall say where one ends and the other begins?”  - Edgar Allan Poe 

Although I am certain that the IBook version will be perfect for anyone with a preference for downloading via apple, I actually think that the publisher should consider making more of these hand crafted versions as I think they would go down a storm at arts and craft fairs and mind, body spirit conferences.  I know that I will certainly treasure mine! I also think that they need to look at publishing digitally beyond apple as they are potentially missing out a huge chunk of the market. (I wasn’t able to download via kindle, hence the reason for my beautiful little gift)

There isn’t really a lot more that I can say about the book, other than if you are interested in proverbs and quotes, then check out this fab range of books!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/death-proverbs-sayings-quotes/id811667884?ls=1&mt=11

http://oneproverbbooks.com/

https://www.facebook.com/oneproverbbooks

Review of Designed For Perfection by Elle Davis

Elle Davis lives in El Dorado Hills, California with her husband and two children. She is a registered nurse and works part time as a Wound Ostomy Specialist.   In her free time she enjoys cycling, boating, snow skiing and camping.

Ronan Callahan is not your average teenager.  Not only does he have supernatural powers, but he has also been genetically modified before birth.  During the first in this coming of age series, Ronan must come to terms with the fact that his parent’s chose a designer baby and unite with other genetically modified youngsters against the government agencies which are out to get them.

Sound cliched? It is and I would definitely have liked a bit more depth/exploration of the whole moral and ethical issues around cloning and tinkering with mother nature, however I am absolutely certain that this book will tick all of the boxes for the intended target audience. I am not normally a big fan of the Young Adult genre, however I was instantly pulled into the story.   For all he is initially emotionally detached (because of the personality traits package that his parents foolishly chose for him) he is incredibly likeable and I am sure that most socially awkward kids, even those from less privileged backgrounds would instantly relate to him.   The author has also done an exceptional job of creating well rounded young people that even mammy’s like me can relate to! His love interest Cat, is amazing.  I love the fact that circumstances have cruelly forced her to deal with bringing up her five year old “gifted” sister.  I love her friendship with her gay best friend and most of all I love the sincerity of her relationships with both Ronan and her sister Claire.  Likewise five year old Claire with her abilities to telepathically communicate and move objects around is absolutely adorable!

Like so many books that I have read recently, the author has chosen to write this as a multi -viewpoint novel, giving alternating first person accounts from both Ronan and Cat, and I am going to say no more on the subject other than the fact that she handles the whole viewpoint issue well.

I have to say that I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second half as I felt that as the book wore on, the author went into cliche overload, so much so that I started to switch off.   She has however, built in plenty of hooks to keep young readers eagerly looking out for book two, and YES, I will download a copy when it becomes available as I am curious to see where the story goes moving forwards.  If I could offer up one suggestion to the author it would be to really focus on the unit of Ronan, Claire and Cat and not be tempted to delve too much into the old bunch of teenagers escaping from secure military units and kicking shit out of every possible government agency routine… 

All in all, this was was a relatively fast paced young adult romance, and even though I know from her bio that she leads an incredibly busy life, the author must never be tempted to give up on her writing!

Designed For Perfection is available from Amazon and you can find out more about the author at:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18700490-designed-for-perfection

Unconventional Viewpoints…

Hey,

I am never afraid to admit when I am wrong, or when I am maybe behaving like a dinosaur and so I just want to spend a few minutes this morning mulling over the whole issue of unconventional viewpoints.

Anyone who reads the reviews on this blog on a regular basis will know that I have been relatively critical of a couple of books over the past few weeks in which the authors have alternated between first person and third person  (See my reviews on Dogs with Bagels and Behind the Closed Door) I may have continued down this road of purist ignorance had it not been for a manuscript that I am currently assessing on behalf of a client who has adopted a similar technique incredibly skillfully (writing in first person from two different people’s point of view)  and I thought enough is enough and I decided to do some digging…

It would seem that these somewhat unconventional Viewpoint Variants (If an author is clearly separating each character by a different chapter) has become something of the norm and is widely regarded as being acceptable.  Two different first person accounts also works well if an author is wanting to say tell the story from the viewpoint of both murderer and victim.

There are however dangers in using multiple viewpoints and they really should only be used if the story warrants it, NOT because it is the most convenient thing to do.  If done clumsily then it can cause immense confusion to the reader and instead of removing barriers as intended it can sometimes increase them (If the switches are frequent and the reader is left with the feeling of having only just got into the head of one character only to be forcibly wrenched into the head of another)

So, I guess what I am saying is that for me at least the jury is out. It is crazy given how I personally write in such an unorthodox style that I should be so anal about viewpoint!  SO  from now on, I will go into each story with varying viewpoints with an open mind and judge them on a case by case basis in future rather than having a hissy fit because I consider it to be a taboo!

Review of Dogs with Bagels by Maria Elena Sandovici

Maria Elena Sandovici was born in Bucharest Romania and now lives in the United States. Dogs with Bagels is her first novel. She blogs at  Have Watercolors Will Travel (http://havewatercolorswilltravel.blogspot.com/)

Dogs with Bagels tells the story of Liliana, a young Romanian who moved to the U.S.A with her family when she was still a child. It is also the story of her mother Maria, and the two stories run side by side through what is an enjoyable but very long novel.

Credit where credit is due because the author has created several very different, emotionally flawed but immensely likeable characters in this book.  Liliana at first comes across as a bit of a brat and there were times when I wanted to reach through the pages of the book, grab hold of her and shake her.  Her inability to survive by herself, her unhealthy dependence upon Gretchen and her impulsive spending are themes which I am sure will resonate with many young women the world over.  Although why she would presume that she had a right to live rent free for so long was a little baffling.  Surely even the most naive of us know that everything, even friendship, has a price? Liliana does develop throughout the novel and I thought that her friendship with her father’s lover was quite touching.

It was however Maria that I identified with most.  Possibly because we are around the same age and I can definitely relate to the emotional and financial challenges of bringing up young children and her pain and isolation is palpable.  More than that though, I think it was the author’s amazing skill at dialogue that really drew me to Maria.  Maria speaks in broken English and having been around a few Romanian’s over the years I thought that her voice was captured beautifully in the dialogue and at times I found myself roaring with laughter.  I also thought that the whole issue of immigration and the hurt caused by Romanian’s being generically classified as “Eastern European” was also very nicely woven in.

But, there is always a but, the author alternates from writing in first person for Liliana to third person when writing about Maria and other family members.  This is clearly identified with a new chapter, so isn’t too much of a problem in terms of readability and I understand that the author has wanted to tell the story from several different points of view which would have been impossible in first person BUT it is NOT the correct thing to do.   This is the second time in as many weeks that I have come across  really good books that have been spoiled in this way and I sincerely hope that this is not the start of a new trend.  (Some might call it laziness) As an author you CANNOT have your cake and eat it.  If you want to tell a story from several points of view and don’t like the detachment of  third person then you need to try using the OMNISCIENT NARRATOR.

Rant over, apart from the issues with viewpoint and the fact that I think that with some clever editing the book could maybe benefit from being cut in length by around one fifth, then this is a thoroughly enjoyable, highly entertaining story with fully formed characters that will steal your heart.

You can find Maria Elena Sandovici at:

http://havewatercolorswilltravel.blogspot.com/

The Great Debate – Guest Post by D.Z.C

It’s Thursday, so it must be Indie and Proud time and I am happy to hand over today to D.Z.C who has a very interesting insight into publishing erotica and the filtering that the large publishers put in place.  Is it right that explicit content should be filtered? Or is this an erosion of freedom of speech and expression?  Should readers be able to decide what they want to read? Or should publishers be acting as nannies for them?  You decide!

Love Ingrid xxx

GUEST POST BY D.Z.C

“The depiction of her mom made me rage. Loli sex slave? OK. Mom is pregnant and holding a spatula? I’m mad.”

“… It’s a ladle.”

- Discussion at Little White Butterflies -

             In one of my books the main character fantasises briefly about something which a lot of people would find abhorrent. It’s a part of the plot development and there are no anatomical details, but nevertheless, I thought long and hard (phnarr) about whether to cut the scene. People are very sensitive about that sort of thing these days after all, I thought… In the end I kept it, and no one has objected so far. In fact, what most readers find offensive about the book is something that had never even occurred to me as a source of ire, but more about that later. I’m only citing it as an example of the judgement calls that are thrust upon anyone publishing even the most innocent of tomes.

             In fact, I have a certain amount of experience in the field: I wrote my MA thesis on the subject of Porn and the Law (flying the face of my professors’ tactful hints), and have translated and published a variety of grot, from the sweetly vanilla to the probably illegal. (I should probably add, for purposes of social acceptability, that I didn’t set out on this path out of a burning devotion to the masturbatory arts – my own vice is politics, and I find most of the texts I work on tedious or repulsive or both – but because I needed to brush up on my Japanese, and if I could do this while taking a stand for freedom of expression, then so much the better.)

             Of course, you won’t find most of my work by googling it, because it’s been blocked. In 2008 Google announced that it would be sticking far more rigidly to its terms of service than was previously the case, and would not allow sites that published unacceptable content to profit from its AdWords service. Since most sites survived by AdWords alone, they had several choices.

1. Ditch the dubious content. This option was chosen by most of the big, non-specialist, non-porn sites, such as Mangareader (yes, Mangareader did more or less shut down immediately after, but this was for other, copyright-related reasons). Obviously, these sites had little porn on them to start with, and that was mostly vanilla, so filtering was relatively easy. The problem came with series that are considered mainstream in Japan but nevertheless contain loli (paedophilic – it’s a Japanese contraction of “lolita complex”) themes – the principal victims were Dance in the Vampire Bund and Kodomo no Jikan. Wildly popular and entirely non-pornographic stories, they nevertheless have an undertone of ick. If you’re a fan, tough.

 2. Separate out their operations. This choice was made, notably, by E-Hentai, probably the biggest dedicated manga porn site. From 2008 onwards, all content liable to fall foul of Google’s terms and conditions was shifted to a separate site: Ex-Hentai. You just clicked on the address and got a picture of a sad panda, didn’t you? That’s because it has an additional safeguard to prevent innocents from stumbling in there and reporting it to the powers that be. Google “get past the ex-hentai sad panda” if you want to find out about it.

 3. Drop off the radar entirely. Some sites, small enough to be funded and maintained by volunteers, have abandoned Google altogether (or been abandoned – Google blocks some extremely violent ero-guro material altogether). Their traffic is assured by word-of-mouth, and they can get by using volunteer labour and donations.

 What is particularly interesting about this, is that we are currently witnessing the process repeating itself, following Amazon’s sweeping censorship of incest and bestiality titles. While the authors, many of whom were making several thousand dollars a month (I know – Jesus wept), were speechless with rage at first, they have adapted swiftly to the new situation. Many of them have even made a virtue of necessity: suddenly Smashwords is full of titles labelled “Warning: this book is so hot that Amazon banned it” or similar, taking full advantage of the forbidden fruit effect.

The second issue is that the Amazon purge has created a great many false positives, just like Dance in the Vampire Bund and Kodomo no Jikan - titles that do not contain offensive material but look as though they may do from the blurb. Obviously Amazon is not going to pay staff to check through every single title on its site, so at the moment it is using censorship algorithms. If your book contains words like “virgin” and “daddy” in the description, however innocently, you’re going down, and will need to apply for a manual check if you want to be reinstated.

While the system is clunky at the moment, it is only going to improve – something that writers looking to the future need to take into account. To take an example that I know well, I recently published an erotic short story by Sarah Pliton. While the protagonists are both over-age, the action takes place in a school, and we spent a good deal of time tinkering with the wording in an effort to make sure that the conjunction of “school” and “sex” will not get the book zapped in some future censorship drive.

Oh, and the aspect of my novel that people found offensive? The cynicism. For all the incest and bestiality, we really live in a terribly innocent age.

You can check out Luna Ballantyne’s review of Connie by Sarah Pliton at http://lunaballantyne.wordpress.com

D.Z.C.  Can be found at:  https://www.goodreads.com/DZC-books

Review of Story Sprouts CBW – LA Writing Day – Exercises and Anthology 2013 Edited by Alana Garrigues

REVIEW BY DAVE GIOIA

If you’re an aspiring or experienced writer who needs help getting your creative juices flowing then Story Sprouts is just the book for you.

Produced by the Children’s Book Writers of Los Angeles, Story Sprouts is a “how to” book about writing that includes exercises and resources to generate ideas and flesh them out and organize them into either a poem or story with a character, conflict and beginning, middle and end.

Nineteen talented children’s book authors accepted the challenge to attend the one-day workshop and write, revise, polish and submit two stories — in public, under the pressure of a six-hour deadline — with the promise of publication.

As CBW-LA president and founder Nutschell Anne Windsor says in the book description at Amazon, “First time writers often dread writing query letters because they fear that they lack the credentials to make their author bios stand out. Our goal for the Workshop and Anthology was to give our members their first taste of publication, giving them the confidence to pursue their writing careers. For workshop participants who have yet to achieve their dreams of becoming a published author, Story Sprouts will be the first of their many achievements, and something that will inspire them to keep on reaching for their writing dreams.”

 Producing good writing isn’t easy under any circumstances and I think all involved did a good job given the time restrictions. The book includes both poetry and prose written by the participants. My apologies to the poets and poetry-lovers among us but I’m more interested in prose than poetry, although I was delighted to find Robert Frost’s “Out, Out—“ included as an example of narrative poetry toward the end of the book. It’s my all-time favorite poem and never fails to leave me with a lump in my throat.

 Among the prose there are some stand out pieces. I was taken by Nora Rodriguez’s reflection on what writing means to her in “On The Road To A Masterpiece” and by Lissa Ross’ reminiscence about her grandmother in “The Rains of North Queensland.” My favorites, though, are two charming stories about magic, Glenn Jason Hanna’s “For Want Of A Better Thing” and Alana Garrigues’ “Wishing Hair,” both of which are imaginative and entertaining examples of why you should be careful what you wish for.

 So, if you’re not the type of writer who gets an idea and puts fingertips to keycaps and begins typing away then I highly recommend Story Sprouts to you. You’ll find the information about writing and the exercises and resources very helpful. Even if you have no problem generating ideas and getting them out I urge you to buy the book. CBW-LA is a group worth supporting.

You can find out more at:   http://www.cbw-la.org/

Dave Gioia can be contacted via: http://davegioia.com

The One Night Stand Series…Luna Ballantyne

Hey,

Just thought I would give you a quick update as to where I am with my alter ego Luna Ballantyne.  As most of you will know I am currently writing a steamy paranormal romance, however the story is more complex than I originally envisioned and I need to do a lot more research on the ground in Newcastle (visiting places that would have been there in the 17th Century)

So, because The Witch, the Virgin and the Highwayman might take longer to write than I had intended, I am also working on my One Night Stand Series and  these short stories/novellas will do exactly what it says on the packet! I am hoping that the first one, Freedom, will be ready by the summer…

Love 

Ingrid xxx

Review of Rogue’s Phoenix Chronicles Book One Thieves and Kings by Tommy Clark

Woo Hoo!

It’s Indie and Proud time again and as well as interviewing Tommy Clark, Daniel J Weber has written an INCREDIBLY balanced review of Rogue’s Phoenix Chronicles Book One Thieves and Kings.

Check out: http://digerbop.ca/ for details.

You can also expect a review of this book from Lenora in due course and you can win a copy by entering the short story competition that we are running in conjunction with The Writer’s Drawer. Check out http://www.thewritersdrawer.net/short-story-competition.html

Love 

Ingrid xxx

Review of The Kennedy Half-Dollar by Mahree Moyle

Mahree Moyle was born in Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. She graduated from Irvine College of Business in Southern California.  A single mother of three, she has lived in the foothills of Northern California for the last thirty three years. 

The Kennedy Half-Dollar is a true life crime memoir.  The author has changed the names of the the characters involved however she is represented by the main character, Seely.  Straight after graduating, Seely “feels” like she has to move out of home (although the reasons behind this are never made fully clear) and reluctantly moves to Hawaii to stay with her sister. She eventually gets a job as a cocktail waitress in a well known nightclub in Waikiki and it is then that the assistant manager, Mark is shot dead and the mafia start coming after Seely.

This is a thought provoking  book which has kept me entertained from beginning to end. This review though, is one of the most difficult and challenging that I have ever had to write because while the author writes in a style that is easily accessible, there is an emotional distance about it which is to put it mildly infuriating, and which makes Seely come across as an unhelpfully complex and at times puzzling character. I am however painfully aware that this book is based on real life events and that it is impossible to cram a lifetime into two hundred and fifty three pages without losing some of the subtleties and nuance of events as they occurred.  I am also aware that the whole process of writing it must have been cathartic for the author, and I will therefore try to be diplomatic in what I say as I don’t want to add to any distress that she has already suffered, however I would be remiss if I didn’t state that I struggled with certain “plausibility” elements within the book.

The book is sold on the whole mafia murder angle.  There are some quite shocking revelations in the build up about Seely being taken by the mafia night after night and being repeatedly drugged and gang raped. Now, I don’t want to in any way detract from the seriousness of the situation, or cause any offense to the author or anyone else who has suffered in this way, however I found myself scratching my head and repeatedly asking why?  Because up until this point Seely, for all she is young and impressionable, is dating a police officer and comes across as being quite sensible and together.  So surely after she had been attacked the first time, she would have told “Fausto” OR she would have returned home to her parents…OR sought help from her sisters or roommates (whose role in the entire book is surprisingly vague) I would have at very least thought that even if she felt there was no one in the world that she could turn to, she would have quit her job in the nightclub and got the hell out of there. Regardless, I think that it is a shame that it wasn’t made clear in the writing as to why she repeatedly put herself in that situation? Why she didn’t seek help? Why she just flitted on with her life?

The murder itself and aftermath is then brushed over very quickly and the bulk of the book is a chronicle of the rest of Seely’s life.  Which while incredibly interesting and at times tragic and gut wrenching wasn’t really what I had been led to believe I would be reading by the blurb.

The mafia makes very brief appearances over the years to warn Seely off (Once when Seely is living in Alaska and then much, much later) However, their appearances are so fleeting, that again I kept asking myself what is the point?  There are some flashbacks right at the end of the book in which Seely, and Fausto’s involvement in the whole murder become clear, however I was left feeling a little cheated, because while I have without doubt enjoyed reading the book, I was expecting the book to be heavily focused upon the murder and aftermath and this could have been a truly gripping and explosive  true life crime memoir if the author had stayed within the scope of the work instead of wandering off into a cathartic, interesting, but at times utterly irrelevant exploration of her entire adult life.

The Kennedy Half-Dollar is available from amazon.