The New Book Review

This blog, #TheNewBookReview, is "new" because it eschews #bookbigotry. It lets readers, reviewers, authors, and publishers expand the exposure of their favorite reviews, FREE. Info for submissions is in the "Send Me Your Fav Book Review" circle icon in the right column below. Find resources to help your career using the mini search engine below. #TheNewBookReview is a multi-award-winning blog including a MastersInEnglish.org recommendation.

Friday, March 30, 2018

Veteran Reviewer Shares Path to Reviewing for Others in Publishing Industry

I thought this little essay from author and book reviewer Dr. Wesley Britton would be different from the usual reviews you see here and help most everyone who drops by to this blog be they readers, publishers, other reviewers, or authors seeking to up their review quotient!


My Life as a Book Reviewer


By Dr. Wesley Britton


I don’t know for certain, but I’m pretty sure my first published book review came out in 1981 for Joseph P. Lash’s Helen and Teacher, the historian’s dual biography of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy.   I forget the name of the periodical, but I recall it was a newspaper printed for the Dallas-based Association of Individuals with Disabilities.  That little ditty published in a now long-dead publication would be completely forgotten except it became the first item on my first curriculum vitae a few years later.

In 1983,  I became a graduate student in American Literature at the University of North Texas. Very quickly, I began hearing the oft-repeated mantra of “Publish or Perish.” That phrase sounds very simple, but not so fast.    Back in those days, unless you were part of a Creative Writing department, publishing “primary sources”—meaning any creative writing, poetry, short stories, or novels—didn’t count toward your career path.  The research-oriented English departments wanted “secondary sources,” meaning scholarly studies of recognized classics or even short studies of other book-length scholarly studies.  It was all about critical analysis. But you could also add in book reviews, especially reviews of literary histories, biographies, or even more scholarly studies. And never expect to be paid for any of this. With luck, you could present your articles at academic conventions where, of course, you paid your own way to attend.

Those conventions turned out to be goldmines in terms of networking, especially meeting editors of academic periodicals who gave out those prized book review assignments.   Especially for new scholarly editions written by and for academics in specific subject areas. These often-expensive tomes were nice items not to have to pay for.

Which lead to my earliest reviews for publications like Texas Books in Review, The Journal of American Studies of Texas, Southern Quarterly, and American Periodicals. All this, in turn, lead to my being invited to become one of the main reviewers for the new online list-serve, The Mark Twain Forum. For that site, I wrote many reviews and I believe you can still see all of them today at the Forum’s archives. That was where I learned online periodicals didn’t have to worry about word counts, always an important consideration for print assignments. 

After I earned my Ph.D., I had one quest in mind.  Writing reviews for which I got paid. That didn’t always happen. For Choice Magazine, I was assigned titles for which I wrote very short reviews of around 300 words for librarians who had one question in mind—is this a book we should buy and shelve? That was another good example of knowing your audience—writing for a specific purpose with a very limited word count. 

Then I did get paid work from Magill's Book ReviewsLiterary Annuals in between writing all manner of encyclopedia articles. During those years, my target audience was very broad and very non-academic.  It was a very different approach from most everything I’d written before. It was very liberating.

By 1999 or so, I decided I was tired of writing short things. I wanted to write books and have reviewers review me.  So began my four books on espionage in the media followed by my six book sci-fi series. But I kept my hand in book reviewing.  For around a decade, I reviewed all manner of fiction and non-fiction for online sites devoted to spies in one guise or another. Once again, I had a very specific audience, readers already familiar with spy novels, TV shows, or films.  If your audience is already knowledgeable in one subject area or another, then you pitch your approach to those who might know as much or more than you do about the topic.

Somewhere in all that, all manner of projects opened up for me.  I don’t recall when or why, but editor Norm Goldman invited me to join his cadre of reviewers for BookPleasures.com.  I still write for him. What really opened up was the range of books I could review—murder mysteries, histories, celebrity memoirs, espionage thrillers, sci-fi.  And the assignments come in a variety of ways. Several times a week, Norm sends out blitzes of press releases from authors, publishers, and publicists seeking book reviews at BP. We reviewers than express our interest in whatever titles intrigue us, and Norm makes his assignments.   These days, I also get press releases sent directly to me usually because a publisher or publicist likes something I wrote. They hope to interest me in other books by the same author or books of a similar nature. While I was co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents,” many publicists hoped for a review as well as an on-air interview with the author. I loved those years.
  
Along the way, I also reviewed books, CDs, and DVDs for BlogCritics.org.  What made them different was the meticulous nature of their editors.  I have always treasured good editors, and BC had some excellent ones.  I stopped writing for BC when they made changes in their submission format and really made reviewers work to post reviews with all sorts of hoops to leap through at their site. Well, since they weren’t paying anything, getting free books, CDs, and DVDs just wasn’t worth all the hassle.

So what have I learned over the decades and what can I pass along to you?

It seems pretty clear one key lesson is to know what audience you’re writing for as that frames so much of our reviews.  It can determine length—especially for online sites—and the content—do you have a knowledgeable readership or are you addressing the general reader?

I’ve always felt the primary purpose of a reviewer is to give potential readers enough information so they can decide for themselves if they want to try a specific book or not.  That’s one reason many reviewers mention the names of authors who are similar to the title being reviewed, giving readers a connection to the genre involved. 

Whether or not I like a specific title really isn’t the point. So in pretty much every review I’ve ever written, I point out just what audiences would be most interested in a particular book.  Just because I don’t like or am mildly responsive to a new book doesn’t mean there’s not a readership out there who would love it.

I admit, over the years, I’ve gotten my fair share of grumpy responses from authors.  Mostly, they didn’t think a specific review was glowing enough.  Or I didn’t praise enough one aspect or another of their effort. I don’t think I’ve written that many out-and-out bad reviews.  I can think of two; one was simply a dishonest project, the other was supposedly a non-fiction study so personal that it was not worth the time of the subject’s fans.

I also admit I still have a hard time getting excited by Amazon reviews.  Recently, I was part of a Facebook group’s debate over whether reviews posted at sites other than Amazon were equal to the usual short paragraphs posted on the Zon. Yes, most readers go to the Zon and perhaps no where else. On the other hand, many serious readers—and therefor potential buyers—go to other places to get more developed reviews than the often general and unedited paint-by-numbers Amazon reviews.   Consider sites devoted to specific genres, for one example.  Consider such reviews aren’t likely paid for or written by author friends or supporters. Consider the in-depth analysis places like BookPleasures.com or BlogCritics.org offer.

True, there are countless personal blogs that don’t have a lot of credibility.  The lack of proper editing is one problem with such places. And credibility can be a valuable thing when publishers hunt for useful blurbs and quotes to promote books.  After the reviewer’s name, the name of a reliable publication is not a bad thing at all.  The Zon doesn’t count. So I’ very happy to see excerpts from my reviews included in other author’s media kits. Or reposted at places like the Midwest Book Review or The New Book Review Blog.

And, like I indicated much earlier, writing book reviews can help build up your writing portfolio, especially if you can find ways to have your reviews posted at sites that have good reputations and a good-sized readership.  These days, reposting our reviews is good for both the book authors and the reviewer.   Getting published at a good site or periodical is the beginning, but then you can repost at Amazon, your personal blogs at Goodreads, Book Likes, or wherever, And at the book’s page at Goodreads. Normally, you should include where the review originally appeared so that publication can get credit.  Like the authors we review, we too want to reach a wide readership.

 MORE ABOUT THE GUEST BLOGGER  

Dr. Wesley Britton is a frequent reviewer on this blog, author of The Beta Earth Chronicles and reviewer at BookPleasures.com. Explore his links below. 







MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Prolific Reviewer Shares Chapbook of Poetry



Author: Carol Smallwood
Publisher: Finishing Line Press, 2017
$18.99 [paper] 108 pp. 
ISNB 978-1635342338
Available on Amazon

Review by Judith Skillman originally for Ragazine

Carol Smallwood’s new collection, Prisms Particles, and Refractions, is at once playful and serious. Her work in this volume ranges from extremely concise poems such as “On Days of Slow Rain” where the speaker becomes “a child again / longing to read / darkened tree bark/like Braille” (53) to the four-page oeuvre written in journal form, “A Late Summer Diary.” The fact that these two poems are neighbors makes the transition between short and long more emphatic, and creates echoes and resonances.

As Smallwood deftly moves through a variety of content and subject matter, the reader gets a sense of an unpredictable world, despite the anchor of a wealth of scientific evidence to the contrary. Facts are posited, yet not accepted as givens. For instance, in “We See,” the persona examines exactly how we do see and absorb light, and questions knowledge imparted during college years. Here, the title becomes the first line: “We See / with rods and cones I learned / in college—it may not be true/today…” (13). As this poem deepens, mirrors, faces, and sacrifice come into play, as well as the automatic adjustment made by the retina from upside down to right side up. This piece is emblematic of Smallwood’s gift—focused examinations that lead to “aha” moments for both writer and reader.

The poems in this book have been published in many journals. Clearly the art of poetry is one Ms. Smallwood has lived and learned. Her forms range from cinquain to villanelle to sestina; she switches from formal to free verse with ease. The myriad references and allusions in these poems draw from philosophy, psychology, physics, metaphysics, history, and literature.

“A Prufrock Measurement” (74) employs playfulness and formal rhyme in order to merge two vastly different subjects—contemporary fast food proliferation with the persona of Eliot’s Prufrock. This willingness to draw from disparate sources creates a prismatic effect: varied and brilliant. In the introduction, Smallwood states her intention to present poems “aimed at capturing…aspects of light…and light as metaphor.” It is this reviewer’s sense that she has succeeded.

Judith Skillman’s recent book is Kafka’s Shadow, Deerbrook Editions. Her work has appeared in LitMag, Shenandoah, Zyzzyva, FIELD, and elsewhere. Awards include an Eric Mathieu King Fund grant from the Academy of American Poets. She is a faculty member at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle, Washington. Visit www.judithskillman.com

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Skillman also reviews for Scarlet Leaf Review, www.scarletleafreview.com and Mom Egg Review, http://momeggreview.com.  

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Book Shepherd Shares Dr. A.J. Harris New Mystery

Lucifer in the Celestial Gardens
Author: A.J. Harris
Publisher: Murder Mystery Press
Fiction: Mystery
978-0-9993570-0-2 paperback
also available on kindle
Library of Congress Control Number:  2017913190
Buy the book on Amazon 

Reviewed by Senior Book Reviewer Diane Donovan originally for Midwest Book Review 

Lucifer in Celestial Gardens tells of Lou Siffer ("Lucifer"), the son of a small-town Illinois undertaker who is used to seeing corpses in the basement of their house, part of his father's profession and the family routine. He becomes embroiled in death in a different way when scandal strikes the town and 

Lou becomes peripherally involved in adult matters that include a father's conviction that suicide was not the cause of a death, a corruption case that changes this perspective, and a series of circumstances that lead an already-distant son to feel even more alienated from his father: "My father, my stalwart beacon of integrity had fallen to—what I didn’t know exactly, but from that time forward, I regarded him differently."

Lou resolved at an early age to never become an undertaker, but death has him on the radar - and so a case that happened twelve years ago continues to haunt him as he grows up to face a real-life dilemma that still holds too many unanswered questions and special interests.

Lest readers think that Lucifer in Celestial Gardens is a murder mystery alone, it should be advised that A. J. Harris weaves fine coming-of-age experiences into events that follows Lou through romance, relationships with parents and peers, and a puzzle that plagues him throughout his life.

From an exciting but controversial project planned for the small town's elderly to events at a town hall meeting, an Odd Fellows Lodge, and more, the scandal that erupts leads to three friends finding their lives challenged and changed.

Lucifer in Celestial Gardens doesn't follow the conventions of formula mystery writing - and this may stymie genre readers who expect a succession of clues, whodunit subplots, and a clear murder scene, perp, and detectives. The strange culture and interactions in Winonka are as much a focus as the corruption and murder in a story that follows a funeral home scandal to its aftermath and lasting impact upon a boy who grows up, interacts with others, and forms relationships against its backdrop.

From retirement home profits and phony insurance policies to a mounting number of deaths, Lucifer in Celestial Gardens is unpredictable, engrossing, and follows murder cases that have no statute of limitations or age restrictions. It's unusual to have the story begin with a young boy who evolves into adulthood against the backdrop of loss and sadness that affects everything around him. 

The evolutionary process of disgrace, death, and special interests contribute to a powerfully multifaceted story that moves through time, space, and intrigue to present a solidly complex murder story that's hard to put down.

SUBMITTED BY

Mark E. Anderson
Graphic Designer, Owner
Book Shepherd for A.J. Harris, Murder Mystery Press
760-880-5174



MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.


Sunday, March 11, 2018

Dr. Wesley Britton Reviews "Reinventing Pink Floyd"


Reinventing Pink Floyd
Subtitle: From Syd Barrett to The Dark Side of the Moon
Author: Bill Kopp
Hardcover: 260 pages
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (February 9, 2018)
ISBN-10: 1538108275
ISBN-13: 978-1538108277


Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton originally for BookPleasures.com

Bill Kopp is far from the first rock critic to take on the legendary history of Pink Floyd, focusing on the formative years when band founder Syd Barrett   captained the group’s first album to his departure and replacement by David Gilmour to the group’s various experimental projects up to the seminal release of the highly influential Dark Side of the Moon in 1973.    I was intrigued to read Kopp’s introduction where he admits the Pink Floyd he knew best for many years was the period after Dark Side of the Moon with little awareness of what came before.    That was exactly the reverse of my experience. Back in high school, we “heads”—to use the then prevalent term to describe those of us into non-mainstream music—usually owned at least one Pink Floyd album including The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets, Umma Gumma, Atom Heart Mother or Meddle. Then and now, my favorite Floyd songs are “One of These Days,” “Interstellar Overdrive,” and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.” All are pre-Dark Side tunes.

So when Dark Side came out and took the world by storm two years after my high school graduation, I was rather bemused by all the new listeners the band earned.  I could understand why.  Dark Side was, as someone I don’t know observed, the Sgt. Pepper of the ‘70s. Still, perhaps it was simple snootiness when, for years, I maintained the pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd was the Real Pink Floyd.
   
I got over that sentiment a long time ago.   Now, I really have no excuse for any snootiness after reading Kopp’s new critical analysis of Pink Floyd’s evolution from 1967 to 1973. While this book was far from the first history of the band I’ve read, I learned something new on pretty much every page. For my money, two things distinguish Reinventing Pink Floyd from what has been published before.For one key matter, Kopp goes beyond the usual process of interviewing participants and contemporary observers and draws from his own background as a musician to comment on and analyze the songs, albums, and live performances from a musician’s perspective. For another matter, Kopp benefited from the release of the extensive 2016 The Early Years box set, a package he refers to at least once on nearly every page.

Even the most devoted Floyd fans are likely to learn tidbits they didn’t know before like the band’s first producer was Norman Smith who had worked on many of the Beatles albums.   I knew about the existence of Pink Floyd film soundtracks, but not the details behind the creation of the usually experimental scores for the often-experimental films. 

Fans who think of the post-Barrett Floyd as essentially the David Gilmour and the Roger Waters band with the late Richard Wright and Nick Mason as mere supporting players may well gain a new and deeper appreciation for the band’s keyboardist and drummer.      Richard Wright aficionados, in particular, should appreciate reviewing in minute detail just how much he contributed to the music of this period of the band’s creative development.

Clearly, this is a book strictly for Pink Floyd fans, especially for readers who aren’t intimately familiar with the pre-Dark Side era. It would help to have some knowledge of musical terminology, especially the equipment and techniques used in the recording studio. In the end, Reinventing Pink Floyd is a treasure trove of musical history for a very particular audience. But it’s a worthy addition to any rock fan’s library.


MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

To listen to interviews with Kopp, visit: http://reinventingpinkfloyd.com/audio_interviews.html.


MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER


Dr. Wesley Britton is the author of The Beta Earth Chronicles and a reviewer for BookPleasures.com




  

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.


Friday, March 2, 2018

5-Stars for “Rarity from the Hollow”by Robert Eggleton

 Title: Rarity from the Hollow
  • Author: Robert Eggleton
  • Web site link: www.lacydawnadventures.com   
  • Genre: Adult Social Science Fiction
  • ISBN: 9781907133060;190713306
  • Purchase at Amazon

Reviewed by Martha Fox originally for her Two Cents Worth 


At first I didn’t know how or where to begin to categorize this story. Two sitcoms, “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Third Rock from the Sun”, come to mind.  It’s clearly in the Sci-Fa genre, a mixture of science fiction and fantasy, always effective for establishing an environment ripe for just about anything to happen. I must say that once I got past the first third of the book, which could be a bit troubling due to the horrific living conditions and home environment of the young heroine, Lacy Dawn, that I laughed–a lot.

The author’s style is unconventional, which I consistently admire, at least when it works, which it did. Written in an omniscient viewpoint, it took a little while to get used to the inner dialog of all the characters. Each individual’s spoken statements were typically followed by an italicized blurb of what they were really thinking. While at first it was confusing, it was nonetheless effective in getting to know the characters.

The story itself is definitely unique as well. It centers around a young girl named Lacy Dawn who lives in poverty in a dysfunctional and abusive rural environment. This is not ever expressed in a horribly graphic manner and does a great job of setting the tone and setting, though there were times I was worried about whether it would get worse. Much to my relief, it didn’t. Her father, Dwayne, is a Gulf War vet with a severe case of PTSD. Her mother, Jenny, continually reminds her daughter (as well as herself) that Dwayne “used to be a good man.” Their neighbor, Tom, is a good friend of the family with a “secret garden” that he pays Lacy Dawn to tend.  The produce involved is not so much mystical as illegal, given that its marijuana.  Needless to say, numerous joints are rolled in the course of the story.

Lacy Dawn believes that it’s a child’s responsibility to fix one’s parents. This is certainly different than the usual practice to blame one’s parents. She’s not only highly intelligent, but has been chosen to save the Universe, a task for which she is being groomed by DotCom, an android who has arrived from elsewhere in the cosmos and lives in his spaceship on a nearby hill. At first it was difficult for me to figure out whether DotCom as well as Lacy Dawn’s conversations with the trees and her deceased friend, Faith, plus her ability to float “Roundabout” to visit her spacey friend, were simply part of a child’s vivid imagination. Either way, it was believable and contributed to the mood of the story.

I don’t want to get into spoiler territory so won’t say anything further about the basic story, other than to say that the remainder is entertaining. It’s loaded with plenty of raw humor along with interstellar jaunts to strange new worlds populated with numerous aliens. The characters were definitely well fleshed-out by their hilarious inner dialogs, reaction to various situations, and crude honesty.
Underlying all this, however, at a deeper level, is a rather sad, even tragic, commentary on our society. The fact that such situations exist is no secret. Otherwise, the story would not have been so believable. Neither is there any magical or interstellar entity out there to rescue those caught in the trap of poverty, need and abuse. So often the thought patterns of those living in such conditions revolve around sexual satisfaction, a good cannabis harvest, and whether the food stamps will last until the end of the month.

My only criticism of the story itself, at least at the superficial level, is that toward the middle it felt a bit disjointed. The plot broke down somewhat with too many “shopping trips” to “The Mall” where momentum was lost. The ending, while satisfying, was slightly less than I’d hoped for.

Thus, you may wonder why I awarded this story five stars. That’s because it made me think. Very few stories I’ve read recently manage to do that. There’s sufficient symbolism to place this story soundly in the literature category. What better disguise for difficult topics than humor?

There’s Lacy Dawn, the child who’s been exposed to and seen things no ten year old should, who has genius potential and wise beyond her years. Fixing her parents versus blaming them, what a concept. Then there’s DotCom, the android from another world, who’s there to help Lacy Dawn achieve her destiny, yet he begins to evolve and become a bit too human under the influence of people who would best be described, albeit rudely, as white trash.

The materialism of The Mall, principles of capitalism, what constitutes a celebrity or inspires human motivation to excel or achieve can all be found lurking beneath a raw and sometimes vulgar look at the human condition. Even the ending holds a powerful message when looked upon more deeply. Who’s really in charge and is it a higher or lower lifeform? The answer to that is definitely politically incorrect, a term invented to cover up that which will ultimately destroy civilization if we continue to yield to its misguided allure.

If you want a cleverly orchestrated story saturated with sci-fi and fantasy and packaged with plenty of crude, bathroom humor, you’ll enjoy this book tremendously. If you can’t deal with coarse language, don’t even bother. If you enjoy reading stories at a deeper level and analyzing what they’re really trying to say, you’ll likewise enjoy it, probably even more. Brilliant satires such as this are genius works of literature in the same class as Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” I can picture American Lit professors sometime in the distant future placing this masterpiece on their reading list.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Two more purchase links: 
                        http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rarity-Hollow-Robert-Eggleton-ebook/dp/B007JDI508

Learn more about and follow Eggleston at https://twitter.com/roberteggleton1 



MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.



Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Orlando Sentinel Editor's Newest Book Reviewed by Midwest Book Review

Title: "Tate Drawdy"
Author's name: Michael Ludden
Genre: Suspense / thriller
Pages: 294 
ISBN: 978-1-978210-73-8
Name of reviewer: Midwest Book Review 

Originally reviewed at  Midwest Book Review


Synopsis: Amid the engravings of the evangelists, the stained glass, the marble, the serenity of Savannah's Cathedral of St. John the Baptist are two dead and naked bodies. One of the victims is a priest; the other, a teenage girl. And now John Robert Griffin, a savage killer, wants to help Tate Drawdy solve the crime. That way, there will be more of Drawdy left for him. Drawdy must survive a horrifying clash with the priest's killer in time to face Griffin. But something's wrong. Drawdy's beginning to suspect someone else out there wants him dead. And he's starting to make mistakes.

Critique: It is interesting to note that author Michael Ludden is a former Deputy Managing Editor at the Orlando Sentinel, where he directed an investigation that won a Pulitzer Prize. He's written for magazines, advertising and marketing firms, edited books and been a senior writer/editor at CNN's Headline News. Therefore it's no surprise to find out with his novel "Tate Drawdy" that he has a genuine flair for narrative driven storytelling and is a master of the mystery genre, Exceptionally well written and replete with unexpected twists and turns, "Tate Drawdy" is unreservedly recommended, especially for community library Mystery/Suspense collections. Dedicated mystery buffs should be aware that "Tate Drawdy" is also available for their personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $2.99).
Purchase link: 

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR



Michael Ludden is a former Deputy Managing Editor at the Orlando Sentinel, where he directed an investigation that won a Pulitzer Prize. He’s written for magazines, advertising and marketing firms, edited books and been a senior writer/editor at CNN’s Headline News.
"Tate Drawdy" is his second novel, following "Alfredo's Luck". He also has a blog, "Tales from the Morgue", where he tells short stories from his days in journalism. https://michaelludden.net/
He lives in Atlanta, where he’s working on another Tate Drawdy thriller. 


MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.