Kate Padilla's Blog, page 28

INDIE REVIEW: THE POOL BOY'S BEATITUDE

Part of what I like about reading indie- and self-published novels is that I never quite know what I'm going to get. Honestly, it scares me a bit, too. But there's nothing to be afraid about with DJ Swyker's The Pool Boy's Beatitude. This book is engaging, sometimes funny, and really interesting.

Jack Joseph is a pool boy who actually when to school to become a physicist. At the base level, this means he uses the quiet hours sweeping scum off people's pools to contemplate the questions of th...

BOOK ROULETTE: THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST

It's kind of sad to come to the end of this series, because I feel like Lisbeth and Kalle are too good to let go of just yet. If I'm being honest,I wasn't entirely sure where Larsson was going to go with this book after reading the end of The Girl Who Played With Fire.

[NOTE: This part may contain spoilers]

So when we left the last book, Lisbeth had just gotten shot in the head. At the start of this one, she's in the intensive care unit of the hospital. Because she's still a prime suspect in...

SPECIAL: MYSTICAL MYSTERIES PROMOTION

We're changing things arounda little bit today. This week's Alternate Voices will be posted on Thursday, because this promotion opportunity came to me and I didn't want to pass it up.

Each of the three authors featured in this promotion have earned the BRAG Medallion -- an award given for excellence in indie writing. If you like mystery writing, you definitely want to take advantage of this.

Starting tomorrow, each book will be available for $1.99. In addition, the authors have set up a d...

INDIE REVIEW: I TRULY LAMENT

I think what I love most about this blog, and about the reviewing I get to do for it, is that I never know what will come next. With the book roulette (the books in mypersonal collection that I haven't read yet -- I should really write a post about it someday) Iliterally have a numbered list of books that were added to my collection up until January 1, 2014. There are 583 titles, andwhen I finish one Ihighlightthe entry on the list andpull out the random number generator on my phone. With in...

BOOK ROULETTE: THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

In the context of the Millennium series, The Girl Who Played With Fire is where the big story starts. Last week, I mentioned that the purpose of the first book was to introduce the characters and set the tone for the series, and this is extremely important. But I also noted that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo can almost standalone as a novel, It's connected, but not in the way that these next two books are connected.

So we left Kalle Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander after the "Wennerstrom Affa...

INDIE REVIEW: THE SECOND COMING: A LOVE STORY

THE SECOND COMING: A LOVE STORY, BY SCOTT PINSKER. SCOTT PINSKER PUBLISHING, $3.16

I'm really excited to be further and further welcomed into the indie- and self-published community. I've received so many requests for review over the last few weeks (one of the reasons this post is a few days late, apologies), that I am both happy and sad to announce that I am completely full for the year. I have an indie review scheduled every week through December 23, leaving one week open for "Best of 2015"...

BOOK ROULETTE: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

This post is categorized under "Book Roulette," but really it's the first of a three-part series on Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy.

I've been hearing about these books for years but, true to form, I didn't read them until well after they faded from the headlines. As you can probably imagine, I was overjoyed when they came up on the Book Roulette (a randomly generated system I developed for reading the books on my owns shelf).

It's interesting to read the entire series and then think back...

ALTERNATE VOICES: SCOTT PINSKER

I'm really excited to start featuring some different voices on Blondie Marie, to give a little variety to the content here. Today I get to feature Scott Pinsker, the author of The Second Coming: A Love Story, which is my indie review for this week.

Scott is a nationally-recognized marketing expert who developed the concept for The Second Coming while attending law school almost 15 years ago. Feel fee to visit his website, or check him out on Facebook and Twitter. Also, stay tuned for my re...

INDIE REVIEW: BRIDGING THE STORM

BRIDGING THE STORM, BY MEREDITH BOND. SELF-PUBLISHED, $0.99

As I write into this blog and as my viewership grows, I'm starting to organize my posts into weekly columns. Saturday, as it's been for the past few weeks, I'll have the Weekend Wine Recap on the blog page. I'd like to have posts for different categories of reading I have on this page, as well. One of those categories, I'm developing, is indie- and self-published books.

My first indie author came by way of the blog hop I did over Val...

EXCERPT: "COMMUNICATION IS A SHODDILY COBBLED SHOE ..."

"COMMUNICATION IS A SHODDILY COBBLED SHOE encrusted with the muddling sludge of time, trampling, and ill wear. We speak of Isis, unaware that, in the vowel-less phonetics of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the symbols of the throne and the loaf that signified her name give us not Isis but Jst. And we speak of Jesus, he of a later mythology; but how many of those who yet kneel unto him know that this is a name that he never would have recognized or answered to, for his name was Yeshua? And we say of any...