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.

Sunday, April 29, 2018

Mindy Lawrence Reviews How-To for Self-Guided Journaling

Title: Journal Your Way to Creativity: A Self-Guided Journal
Author: Jen Nipps
Paperback: 106 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (March 25, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1986126889
ISBN-13: 978-1986126885

Reviewed by Mindy Phillips Lawrence

Author Jenn Nipps sent me a copy of her new e-book, Journal Your Way to Creativity: A Self-Guided Journal. I’d chatted with her and asked permission to review it since its title resonated with me, the subject matter close to my heart.

At first, this book seems simple, that is until you begin working with the prompts. Nipps’ introduction discusses how important creativity is and what it is and isn’t. Then ninety prompts pull you in and draw out your thoughts and insecurities. They lead you on a 90-day excursion into the blocks you have and direct you to discover ways to unblock them. Instead of telling you what to do in order to accept your creative life, this book leads you to discover the answers for yourself. 

The first prompt says, “Give your inner critic free reign for five minutes. Write everything it says. Then put it in jail. Put its words in an envelope and seal it. Don’t open it for at least a month or, preferably, after the end of this journal. Then see how you feel about what it said.” You reveal the weaknesses holding you back then you incarcerate them. Nipps asks you to be honest with yourself. Open the mental drawers and closets that hold the junk that keeps you from being free. 

Nipps includes a helpful list of books by other authors in the resource section that will give you more help in opening your creative life. She also lists her other works.

This book is as helpful as you allow it to be. You can add to the area in the printed version and say more. You can make your own file for the electronic version. Either way, if you allow the prompts to direct you and are honest with your answers, this book can greatly expand your creative life. 

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Mindy Phillips Lawrence is a writer and artist from Springfield, Missouri. She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, co-author of The Complete Writer, and has been published in Writers’ Digest Magazine. Her reviews also sometimes appear on Amazon.com and Midwest Book Review. She is also a columnist for #CarolynHowardJohnson 's SharingwithWriters newsletter, http://HowToDoItFrugally.com and will soon publish a compendium of those columns.  


MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG AND GETTING REVIEWS

 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, April 27, 2018

Doriana Fontanella Reviews Bonnie McCune's New Contemporary Romance

Title: Never Retreat
Author: Bonnie McCune
Author’s Web site: www.BonnieMcCune.com
Genre: Women’s fiction, contemporary romance
Name of reviewer: Doriana R. Fontanella
Publisher: Imajin Books
ISBN
Never Retreat paperback        
ISBN 978-1-77223-351-3
ISBN 978-1-77223-351-3
ISBN 978-1-77223
Never Retreat electronic book (Kindle/Amazon)       
ISBN 978-1-77223-350-6
ISBN 978-1-77223-350-6
ASIN   B079SY632Z

Review by Doriana R. Fontanella 

I have read Bonnie’s previous two novels and find that she does not have a cookie cutter approach to her writing. So many times in reading an author’s various works, we can tell that the plot is boiler plate and the characters just have new names. In Italian, we say “Cambia il maestro, ma la musica รจ sempre la stessa.” In other words, the characters change but it is always the same old story.

Especially in Never Retreat, Bonnie’s approach to story-telling has evolved and matured. There is such wonderful details and descriptions of the surroundings that they become part of the story even before the weather becomes a major character.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Doriana R. Fontanella
Write Connection LLC
Connecting Authors and Readers

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bonnie McCune has been writing since age ten, when she submitted a poem about rain rushing down the gutter to the Saturday Evening Post (it was immediately rejected). This interest facilitated her career in nonprofits doing public and community relations and marketing. She’s worked for libraries, directed a small arts organization, and managed Denver's beautification program. 

Simultaneously, she’s been a freelance writer with publications in local, regional, and specialty publications for news and features. Her civic involvement includes grass-roots organizations, political campaigns, writers' and arts' groups, and children's literacy. For years, she entered recipe contests and was a finalist once to the Pillsbury Bake Off. A special love is live theater. Had she been nine inches taller and thirty pounds lighter, she might have been an actress.

Her true passion is fiction, and her pieces have won several awards. Never Retreat is her third novel and her fifth book of fiction. For reasons unknown (an unacknowledged optimism?), she believes one person can make a difference in this world. Visit her at www.BonnieMcCune.com, Bonnie@BonnieMcCune.com, twitter.com/bonniemccune, facebook.com/authorBonnieMcCune, www.linkedin.com/in/BonnieMcCune.


MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG AND REVIEWS

 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 everything from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion and a whole lot you didn't know including how to use blurbs from reviews to sell books to catalogs. 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.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Veteran Poet Releases New Book from Poetic Matrix Press

  A Matter of Selection
 by Carol Smallwood
Publisher:Poetic Matrix Press (March 5, 2018)
Paperback:120 pages
ISBN-10:0998146986
Available on Amazon 
$17



Carol Smallwood, 
a whole battery of poetry chapbooks to her credit, has written another 
masterpiece.  By that, I don't mean something utterly impossible to
decipher or something that reminds the reader of poets' sonnets from her

11th grade English Literature class.  Many of the poems in Smallwood's 
A Matter of Selection are just as intricate, just as formulated. The thing is, 
you won't notice unless you make them into a puzzle to be unraveled 
or refigured like a Rubic's cube. And why would you want to do that?

Smallwood
writes intricate poems that are easy--even lazy. We read them for the spell
they create, the nostalgia, the wonder. Each is like images in the
opening poem: A melody. Morning fog. A path. 

Smallwood's
repetitive line, " . . . it makes sense to cut up pieces to sew with needle and
thread" in her poem "The Universe" lets her unraveling of the cosmos
be understood with subtle sounds. "Read," "bed," and, yes "dread." You
won't need a reviewer to tell you not to sweat it. You'll just go with the
gentle flow. 

Smallwood's 
A Matter of Selection are poems all the better in the moment. Save
analytics for another time, another chapbook another text. Like a child
listening to her mother's voice, no need to analyze. 



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 everything from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion and a whole lot you didn't know including how to use blurbs from reviews to sell books to catalogs. 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.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

YA Adventure Available as Ebook

Mirrored Kingdoms
Subtitle: The Shadow's Quest
by Antony and Eliza Gregwood
A Christian fantasy adventure book.
ISBN: B076HFL9MM
Ebook
Purchase at Amazon



When twelve-year-old orphan Matthew injured his ankle on a school trip, little did he know that taking shelter in a cave would lead him to a strange land, drawn by a blinding light, where nothing was familiar.

Raised by a farming family, Matthew slowly adjusted to their peculiar ways and their strange customs and he set out on a quest to discover the truth of where he was and how he'd got there.


As he struggled to understand the mysteries of this new land, Matthew had to face his fears and strive on through a journey of hope, danger and adventure and he finds an important sense of loyalty to the family that took him in. 

This would become a journey that would ultimately change his life....forever.


MORE ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Find the author website at http://mirroredkingdoms.weebly.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 everything from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion and a whole lot you didn't know including how to use blurbs from reviews to sell books to catalogs. 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.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Bonnie McCune Blends Techniques for Powerful Third Novel

Title: Never Retreat
Author: Bonnie F. McCune
ISBN: 78-1-77223-350-6 Kindle ebook
ISBN: 978-1-77223-351-3 Trade paperback
Available on Amazon and xxxxxxxx

A feisty single mom clashes with an ex-military, macho corporate star at a business retreat in the wild Colorado mountains, where only one can win a huge prize. But when a massive flood imperils their love and survival, they learn the meaning of true partnership.

Years ago, Ramona (‘Raye”) Soto faced harsh reality when a roving con man knocked her up. Now at thirty-something she’s concentrating on her career in a major telecommunications firm and funding college for her teenaged son. Enter Desmond Emmett—a fast talker and smooth operator. New to the office, the ex-serviceman possesses every negative quality for a guy Raye should avoid. Thrown together at a corporate retreat in the wilderness, the reluctant duo struggles to complete management’s extreme mental and physical tests for a huge reward. But only one can win the prize, and Des needs the money to underwrite medical treatments for his adored younger sister. See-sawing between attraction and antagonism, the mismatched couple, Raye and Des, face their biggest challenge: learning the meaning of true partnership. When a massive flash flood sweeps down the rocky canyon and threatens their love and survival, they must put aside their difference to rescue their colleagues—and their future as a couple.


MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bonnie McCune has been writing since age ten, when she submitted a poem about rain rushing down the gutter to the Saturday Evening Post (it was immediately rejected). This interest facilitated her career in nonprofits doing public and community relations and marketing. She’s worked for libraries, directed a small arts organization, and managed Denver's beautification program. Simultaneously, she’s been a free lance writer with publications in local, regional, and specialty publications for news and features. Her civic involvement includes grass-roots organizations, political campaigns, writers' and arts' groups, and children's literacy. For years, she entered recipe contests and was a finalist once to the Pillsbury Bake Off. A special love is live theater. Had she been nine inches taller and thirty pounds lighter, she might have been an actress. Her true passion is fiction, and her pieces have won several awards. Never Retreat is her third novel and her fifth book of fiction. For reasons unknown (an unacknowledged optimism?), she believes one person can make a difference in this world. Visit her at www.BonnieMcCune.comBonnie@BonnieMcCune.comtwitter.com/bonniemccunefacebook.com/authorBonnieMcCunewww.linkedin.com/in/BonnieMcCune.

FIND MORE REVIEWS:

“Few novels operate on such different levels, moving their characters to challenge not just each other, but their own perceptions. . .McCune provides just the right blend of comic relief, interpersonal encounters, and outside environment changes to make her story a powerful blend.” —Midwest Book Review. http://www.midwestbookreview.com/mbw/oct_17.htm#donovan; Donovan's Bookshelf


“. . .offering intriguing lead characters. . .the novel is a swift and satisfying read. The fresh air helps turn this office romance into a truly romantic adventure.” --Kirkus Review  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bonnie-mccune/never-retreat/


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 and a whole lot you didn't know including how to use blurbs from reviews to sell books to catalogs. 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, April 4, 2018

YA Author Crosses Over into Sci-Fi That Engages Adults

Title: You Have No Power Over Me
Author: Mark Logie
Genre: Sci-Fi, Also for adult reading.
ASIN: B0051/6D3M
Available as an e-book on Amazon 

YA AUTHOR PENS SCI FI STORY FOR ADULTS

April 4, 2018
Format: Kindle Edition

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Learn more by clicking on his name on Amazon to take you to his profile page.
Find him on Facebook.com/mark-logie-author-1022617024509611/
Twitter: @MarkLogieAuthor

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 and a whole lot you didn't know including how to use blurbs from reviews to sell books to catalogs. 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 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.