Authors Behaving Awesomely: The Good Guys and Gals

You know, with all of the authors that do things that could and are considered to be awful behavior, we sometimes forget about the ones that show amazing behavior. I thought I'd highlight a few of them, especially the ones that are indie and/or self-published.

• Joe Basara. (Cypress Lake)

I came across Basara years ago via Amazon when he'd sent me a copy of his book Cypress Lake for review. The end result was that while Basara has skill, it was ultimately a book that just wasn't my thing. He was nothing but gracious when it came time for me to tell him this and he encouraged me to post my review. Basara is one of those authors that I really can't recommend enough just based on his personality. If you like surreal works or are familiar with 70s era Florida, you should check Cypress Lake out. 

• J. A.  Konrath (The Jack Daniels Mysteries)

I'll admit that I've never read his books, but I do remember coming across the author one day when he came into the bookstore I was working in. He was nothing but a gentleman and was genuinely happy to talk about his writing. Unless I've missed something, Konrath has always been a gracious man when it comes to his fans and reviews. 

• Naomi Clark (Wild)

OK, this one is someone that I know, but the point here still stands that she's an insanely kind person and reacts well with her readers. I remember cringing once when I didn't like one of her books as much as I wanted to. Rather than go off on me (which she could've since we're friends and if you can't go off on your friends, then who can you go off on?), she was incredibly nice about it. Definitely one of the good ones. 

• Stacia Kane (Downside Ghosts)

I've had no direct interactions with Kane at all, but I've constantly heard people crow over her books and how good she was about interacting with readers. More specifically, about how she tries not to be one of "those" authors when it comes to negative reviews. It doesn't hurt that she's also spoken out in defense of reviewers.

• Karina Cole (Fighting for her Soul)

This is another one that I haven't any direct interaction with, but I heard about her via one of the Goodreads forums. She received a negative review on FfhS and rather than get angry, she was incredibly polite. The reviewer had commented that the book could use a good editor, which Cole took to heart advice-wise. She not only thanked the reviewer but also offered her a free copy of the book once it got through the editing process. I'm closing this list off with her because it's just such an amazing example of awesome author behavior. Not only did she thank the reader for her time, but she took the advice to heart. Cole offering the reader an updated copy later on is just the cherry on top of the awesome sauce sundae. 

Book Review: Wild by Naomi Clark

Title: Wild (Vargulf #1)
Author: Naomi Clark










The premise of this book is rather unique. While I'm sure I'd find books about werewolves & drug addictions if I looked hard, this is new territory that makes a lot of sense when you think about it. How many times have various different authors described their hero(ine) reacting to their lupine urges in a way you'd expect a drug addict to react to their body clamoring for drugs? Mixing the two together makes a lot of sense, to be honest.

Lizzie Creighton ran away from her life a year ago, wanting to escape the pressures of university and just party. And that’s exactly what she did.

But now she's sick of the world she's fallen into – the drink, the drugs, the violence – and she's desperate to start again. The chance to do it comes from the last source she could ever imagine. After her deadbeat boyfriend steals her car and abandons her in the dead of night, Lizzie is bitten by a wolf. And suddenly her next fix is her last problem.

Now, caught between Nick Doyle, the outcast werewolf who claims he can save her, and Seth Weaver, the favourite son of the blue-blood werewolf royalty, Lizzie must decide what kind of werewolf she wants to be.

As shown above, I obviously loved the idea of a drug addict becoming a werewolf because of all the implications. If/when she went off the drugs, would the higher metabolism leave her without the urges or would they be that much stronger? Would it impact her wolfy behaviors? There's just so much possibility here that Clark could do just about anything she wanted & it works very well in this book. Lizzie is a very flawed character. She is selfish, but then that's to be expected from a drug addict & to be honest, I don't think that a selfless behavior would really be realistic here. I'm very glad that we didn't get a souped up Sue-ish character here- it made me that much joyous over Lizzie's triumphs & sad over her failures.

There's a lot that isn't said in this first book, which got to be a little frustrating at times. Without trying to spoil things, I doubt that anyone is what they really seem to be in this book & I can't wait for the next book to find out if my suspicions are a little correct. (After all, Nick's claims can't be entirely baseless, right?) I also want to see if Lizzie will have more after effects from the drugs as she's just starting off on a whole new path now.

This really was a joy to read & Clark has a very clever story brewing here. It's not quite perfect, but it's darn close & I can't help but think that this could be the start of a whole new trend of werewolf fiction. This isn't your normal werewolf story & that's what makes it so good.

4 out of 5 stars

(Reader copy provided by author)

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop!

Want to win some great books? Well, grab your four leaf clovers & gather together the luck of the Irish so you can win one of the great books I have up for grabs!

Giveaway #1

The first book is a really awesome self help book called Shift; 13 Exercises to Make You Who You Want to Be by Takumi Yamazaki.

It’s not that you’re lazy, and it’s not that you lack motivation. No—you have plenty of motivation, but it always seems to fade away just when you need it. The problem is not that you don’t have motivation, it’s that that motivation doesn’t stick around long enough. Shift takes knowledge and inspiration from motivation specialists and distills it into something easy to understand. Thirteen exercises and seventeen techniques illustrate points to help you take the steps to keep, bring back, or find the motivation you need to make the shift into who you want to be. A different take to your average business book, Shift is a full of amusing illustrations that bring the narrative to life and practical exercises that readers can use to grab a hold of that motivation to do what they want and become who they want to be.

Giveaway #2

The second offering is an intriguing indie read called Circle of Dishonor by Gwen Mayo.

Obsessed with finding the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society responsible for her brother's death, former Pinkerton operative Nessa Donnelly assumed his identity and followed his killers to Lexington. The trail ended there, and fourteen years have gone by. When local prostitute Belle Brezing turns to her for help, Nessa is immersed in a murder case that threatens to expose all of her secrets. She is dealing with more than murder. The KGC is active again in Kentucky and bodies are piling up. If Nessa doesn't find the killer fast, she stands to lose everything-maybe even her life.

Book Giveaway #3 & 4

(Two winners will receive the following ebooks)

Book #4

Book number 3 is an ebook giveaway (so the lucky winner will get their book right away). It's Night & Chaos (The Deva Chronicles) by Naomi Clark! (This book will be a PDF.)

Ryan McCarthy fled Applied Paranormal Theory and Tactics, her father, and her lover six years ago, desperate to build life away from the weird science and supernatural experiments of her childhood. But everything she hoped to escape comes back with a vengeance when she’s kidnapped and tortured by a possessed APTT employee out for revenge on the man responsible for his possession: Ryan’s father.

Now, reunited with the lover she abandoned, Ryan is forced back into a world of danger and darkness she no longer understands, pursued by enemies with powers she can’t fathom. But Ryan’s not entirely powerless herself. She’ll have to use every trick she knows – as well as the mystic gift she hates – to stay ahead of those enemies. And that will be easier said than done.

Book #4

Last but not least is another ebook giveaway by author James Hutchings, who has taken the idea of Twitter to a whole new level by creating a whole book full of stories... all of which fit within 140 characters! (This book will be an epub.)

Thirty mostly humorous stories, including science fiction, fantasy, horror and romance. Each story is less than 140 characters long (the length of a Twitter tweet).


How to Enter

There are three different ways to enter.

1) Sign up via the linky list below.
2) Follow my blog
3) Make a comment below. If you post your email address, make sure to put it along the lines of emailaddress (at) domain (dot) com so nobody can skim your email off with a program or something along those lines. :)

I'll try to pick one winner from each area. The winner has four days to respond, after which I choose the next person on the list.

The books going out through the snail mail will only be going to people in Canada or the USA, but the ebooks can go to anyone in the world. (Sorry- I'm too broke to pay shipping anywhere else!)



I just want to thank the various people who helped make this giveaway so awesome! I want to thank the publishing companies One Peace Books (who has some of the nicest people I've dealt with) & Pill Hill Press (who has some of the coolest titles I've ever seen- you HAVE to join their postcard club!) for donating copies to this giveaway. I also want to thank the two authors who donated ebook copies for this as well, Naomi Clark & James Hutchings.




Enter Here!




Other participating blogs!

Book Review: Demonized by Naomi Clark

Title: Demonized (An Ethan Banning story)
Author: Naomi Clark
Publisher: Damnation Books
Release Date: 03/01/2011
ISBN:9781615723379







I have to give a brief disclaimer at the start of this review & say that while this novella can stand on its own for the most part, to fully understand everything that is going on here you'd have to have read Afterlife. That's where Banning gets his demon (singular, not plural) from & parts of the novella have him speaking to the main character of Yasmine.

PI Ethan Banning is smoking too much, sleeping too little, and hearing voices. One voice, to be exact: the voice of the demon that possessed him on his last case. A voice that urges him to hurt, rape, kill, and Ethan doesn't think he has the strength to ignore it much longer.

When his latest missing person case turns into a murder investigation, Ethan finds himself fighting not just demonic urges, but black magic, an incubus with a hidden agenda, and a client who just won't pay up. Luckily, Ethan's got a few friends on his side, like Detective Anna Radcliffe, and his trusty dog, Mutt. If Ethan can ignore the demon long enough, he might just solve this case before it kills him.

Overall this was a pretty good tale. There's a decent mystery here & Clark does a great job of making you guess as to 'whodunit' for most of the book. I also liked how we're shown Banning suffering under the weight of the demonic presence in his body. He has to literally "feed the beast" by doing some pretty awful stuff or run the risk of the demonic voice gaining more power over him. Oh, and I absolutely love some of the new characters introduced here. The priest kicks butt.

Unfortunately it took me a little while to get into the book. I did eventually get into the book & get carried away, but it just took a little longer than Clark's previous works did. I'm not sure if that's because I'm used to having female lead characters narrate in my UF books or not. It's a very different experience, having a male voice narrate rather than a female voice. In any case, I still loved the book & look forward to more Banning tales, but it was just a slow beginning for me. I have no doubt that for people used to male narrators will have no problems with the beginning, however. (I didn't realize that 99.9% of my UF was all female narratives until this review.)

Final Diagnosis: This is a fine novella & well worth reading, but to get the full story you have to have read the previous book. This may discourage new readers, but the quick pacing in later chapters will keep them wanting to read more!

(Reader copy provided by author)

Book Review: Night and Chaos by Naomi Clark

Title: Night and Chaos (The Deva Chronicles #1)
Author: Naomi Clark
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services (self published)
Release Date: 01/01/2011
Buy it here: Amazon Kindle







If I could afford to buy up tons of copies of this book just so I could put it all in your hot little hands, I would. That's how cool this novella was. After reading another of Clark's works (Afterlife) I was immediately taken with her storytelling abilities, but after reading this I can't help but wonder why we aren't seeing her name plastered all over the shelves at your local Barnes & Nobles along with the heavyweights of the UF genre.

Ryan McCarthy fled Applied Paranormal Theory and Tactics, her father, and her lover six years ago, desperate to build life away from the weird science and supernatural experiments of her childhood. But everything she hoped to escape comes back with a vengeance when she’s kidnapped and tortured by a possessed APTT employee out for revenge on the man responsible for his possession: Ryan’s father.

Now, reunited with the lover she abandoned, Ryan is forced back into a world of danger and darkness she no longer understands, pursued by enemies with powers she can’t fathom. But Ryan’s not entirely powerless herself. She’ll have to use every trick she knows – as well as the mystic gift she hates – to stay ahead of those enemies. And that will be easier said than done.

This book might be short, but it's so well written that you won't notice the length until the book's end & you find yourself crying out for more. I honestly can't say what I liked more- the story or the characters. I loved Ryan for her kick butt attitude (even when she was rather helpless to defend herself) & I also loved the rich world that Clark has created. Then there's the powers- I loved how the shapeshifting in this universe didn't follow all of the tried & true rules that other books frequently use. It makes it that much easier for this universe to stand on its own & be taken seriously.

This book was so cool that Clark makes it all look so effortless & easy. This is as good as it gets & trust me, it doesn't get any better than this. I should know- I read enough to where some have said I should have gone blind years ago. If you don't read this book then you are seriously missing out on some real talent here.

So far this is only available in ebook format for the kindle, but this is worth downloading the Kindle PC option to your desktop. (Plus at only $3 it's far cheaper than some of the other UF options out there...)

(Reader's copy provided by author)

Book Review: Afterlife by Naomi Clark

Title: Afterlife
Author: Naomi Clark
Publisher: Damnation Books
Release Date: 12/01/2009
ISBN: 1615720529







I was a little nervous about reviewing this at first. After all, I know the author & I was worried: what if I didn't like it? What type of review would I write then? Luckily for me, this is a solidly awesome read.

Yasmin isn't your average girl. She might look like one, but in reality she's a wraith. That means that in order to survive, she has to eat souls. Yasmin is a wraith with a concience, so she tries to stick to revenants- dark souls that have returned from the afterlife, causing them to become bloodsucking fiends. During one of her hunts Yasmin sees a man get dragged into the Netherworld by a shining ghost. Unable to forget the sight, Yasmin involves herself in the investigation & unknowingly involves herself in something even more dangerous than she'd ever expected.

Taking a page from such UF (urban fantasy) favorites as Kim Harrison & Kelley Armstrong, Clark manages to take a plot that's been done before & not only make it her own, but bring a creative new twist to it. Wraiths aren't your usual UF fodder & Clark does a fine job of bringing in several as of yet non-mainstream spookies or giving already known spookies (vampires, necromancers) a makeover.

There's a lot to like in this book & fans who are jonesing for their next UF fix will find a solidly written tale here with a likable & sympathetic heroine. Readers should be warned- this book has been left open-ended & Clark's site says that there's going to be a follow up novel that will focus on one of the secondary (but still important) characters in the book.

The bottom line is that Clark did an incredibly good job with this book & I'm honestly puzzled as to why she's not on the bookshelves of some of the major chains out here. She's better than some of the others out there & this is just with the first book.

(Reader copy provided by author)