Thursday, July 28, 2016

Advance Notice: Free Books on a Rolling Schedule

As promised: Your chance to get all of the Mercenaries books during August!

I’ll use the free book promotion Amazon Kindle Select allows to offer the whole series of books, six in total, in order for free on a rolling schedule.

Starting on August 8, Sandfall will be free for three days. Then, on the 11th, Allure, on the 14th, Freedom Does Matter, on the 17th, Connections, on the 20th, Coda? and finally on the 23rd, Discoveries.

If you ever thought you might like these, give them a try. Mark your calendar; follow me on the blog or on Twitter to be reminded. They won’t take up wallet space; they won't even take up shelf space!

Comments are always welcome.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Discoveries is Live

At both Amazon and CreateSpace, once they do their magic.

Find it at Amazon, or the paperback version at CreateSpace.

Look next week for a series of deals to begin, rippling through the six books that make up Beckie and Ian’s story so far.

I’ve enrolled it in Kindle Select, which means I can’t give ebook copies away in exchange for reviews, but if you’d seriously be willing to review and you’re willing to share a physical address, let me know and a paperback can find its way to you.

As always, comments are welcome.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Four Stars for This Short Kid’s Fantasy

I just got the 'final' proof of Discoveries to check over, so here's another review to distract you.

Bianca is the heroine of Fairy Pox, by Emily Martha Sorensen. Not to worry, the story is much more appealing than the title might imply. Still, I’m not sure most kids would be any happier than Bianca at learning about fairy itch and its cause. But Bianca is willing to try anything to keep her friends.

The Fairy Senses series Ms Sorensen has created, of which Fairy Pox is the fifth installment, deals with, so far, the problems of early to mid-teen girls. Problems with self-image, problems with parents and siblings and critically, problems with friends. While I question the too sympathetic characterization of Bianca and Cassie’s parents (on reflection, maybe not Bianca's parents so much), I thought the attitudes and interactions of Bianca and Alfonse (her older brother) and the crew of girls who are Bianca and Cassie’s current or recently past friends were spot on.

I found the characters entertaining, and Ms Sorensen has a gift for turning a humorous phrase. Needless to say, I enjoyed the story. It’s not a genre I frequently read, but I am tempted to pick up a few more in the series, just to see how the girls and the fairies work things out in the end. And to see if any boys begin to show up around the edges, to throw different monkey wrenches into the mix.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of Fairy Pox in exchange for an honest review, which you are reading here. Slightly different versions appear at Goodreads, and at Amazon.

I read Fairy Pox using the Kindle for Mac app on my MacBook Pro, and thumbed through the epub using iBooks. I found only one typo and the formatting looked nice.

I recommend Fairy Pox and the other Fairy Senses books to anyone looking for a clean fantasy set among real world problems and solutions. Preorders are active now, and it should be live tomorrow, July 15th at Amazon.