Review of Dragon's Egg

Don’t forget, my series of books, beginning with Sandfall, go free for three days each, beginning Monday the eighth. In the meantime, here’s a review of a really fun kid’s story.

Dragon’s Egg, by Emily Martha Sorensen, cover art by Eva Urbaníková.

Dragon’s Egg is an enchanting, clean short story that I suspect is targeted for a middle grade and somewhat older audience, even though the protagonists are older than that age group.

Rose is a college student, living at home with an oppressive, though loving, father, an enduring mother, and two younger sisters. She is determined to become a paleontologist over the wishes of Dad, who believes a women’s place is teaching if not in the home.

Henry, also a college student, has far fewer restrictions hanging over his head.

But Virgil James is the interesting one of the three, since his existence should be an impossibility. He may be impossible, but he also has atypical abilities and a definite sense of what he wants and needs. Others' wants or needs? Not so much.

The title should give you the biggest clue about the story you need. I’m not going to spoil it except to say that I dropped my rating to three stars because for me, Ms Sorensen ended the story too soon and then I gave one star back because I liked what she’s done with it. It’s fun, and twisty and begins to develop some complex family problems and solutions, and I liked the heck out of it.

Clearly, I must add more of these books to my budget. And I’m happy to do so.

Disclosure: I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review, which you are reading here. In similar form, it will appear at Amazon and Goodreads.

I read Dragon’s Egg on my MacBook Pro using the Kindle for Mac app and (for the epub), iBooks. I noticed no typos or other errors of that sort. Based on my experience, I believe there should be no problem using a Kindle. As you can see, the bright and cheerful cover deserves a color display.

I recommend Dragon’s Egg to anyone looking for a clean, fun—especially fun!—beginning to what I hope is a long-lived series with three characters you’ll want to take home.

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.

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.

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.

It's Hard Being an Interior Story

While you're all waiting for Discoveries to appear in paper, here's a review to whet your appetite, especially if it runs to epic fantasy, or action-packed love stories.

The role of the interior novel in a series is to advance the overall arc without giving too much away, while giving enough away that we readers are intrigued, anxious to keep reading. It’s a narrow path, with tragedy and pathos risked with every word the author writes. In Bloodbonded, Ms Davis has done a splendid job in my opinion. She has carried the promise of Ravenmarked through this next installment with aplomb; what this means, of course, is that I, like the others of Ms Davis’ “threes of fans,” will again anxiously wait for the next chapter.

Bloodbonded is the second volume in the The Taurin Chronicles. Building on the events in Ravenmarked, Ms Davis takes us through Mairead and Connor’s struggles as they come to grips with The Morrag and their disparate destinies. But along with them, Braedan, Igraine, Logan, Hrogarth and Maeve all play important parts, parts which are not always obvious.

I’ve followed Ms Davis since before Ravenmarked; I throughly enjoy her wordsmithing, her ability to convey the images we then use to see in our mind’s eye the scene she sets, the characters moving through those settings.

A disclaimer: I received a copy of this book along with a request that I provide an honest review, which you are reading. This review, in slightly different form, appears on Goodreads and will also appear at Amazon's page once the book is released.

Bloodbonded becomes available on July 1; however, hop over to this Amazon page and pre-order it now. Don't wait! I'd say they'll run out, but we all know better than that!

I read Bloodbonded using the Kindle for Mac app; there were no anomalies that I noticed. A cursory check of the pdf and the epub files (if those suit you better) likewise had no problems. The outstanding cover deserves a color display on whatever reader you select.

I heartily recommend Bloodbonded to any reader of epic fantasy, or even, any reader who enjoys an action-filled love story. Then we can wait together for Unquickened.

Discoveries Available Soon

As I said in my last post, I didn't sign up for CampNaNo this year. I still made a small donation (and recommend that you do likewise, if you can afford to). Real life intruded on my writing; I got very few words added to my total. But I did make some progress, getting Discoveries ready for publication, and finishing some other critiquing and formatting efforts.

Today, I published Discoveries on Kindle, so it should be available by tomorrow at the latest. It's in Select, so also available on Kindle Unlimited, like the others in the Mercenaries series.

The CreateSpace paperback is going through the process, which will take a little longer. I have to get a proof copy and review it, then approve it before it’ll be on sale. I'll enroll the ebook in Matchbook then.

The cover:

And the description:

Beginning as Coda? ends, Beckie Jamse has signed a contract providing protection for an archaeological dig in Baluchistan, Pakistan, but even with her experience, it leads her places she never expects. And provides a reward she hadn’t negotiated.

A quiet winter and spring at The Nest allows Beckie to prepare for her baby; monitor the several jobs Ian Jamse, LLC, had already undertaken; provision the new protection contract, and plan an appropriate response to Ian and Kevin’s murders. The calm evaporates like early morning dew when Ralf Jamse arrives, full of sound and fury and other baby specific needs.
Events in Pakistan only seem calm. Unbeknownst to her, the protection contract in Pakistan develops a complication neither she nor the scientists expected: the terrorists of Daesh (Islamic State) are targeting the region.
Even before Beckie’s doctor allows her to leave the hospital, a letter arrives that changes everything.

Discoveries is a thriller with romance, set in an approximation to the real world, intended for readers 15 up. It contains real language. For the most enjoyment, readers should be familiar with Coda?.

As usual, any comments on the cover or the description, or anything else, really, are welcome.

Camp NaNo 2016

Those who are doing Camp NaNo this April are half way through.

I hope all participants are writing and writing and writing, and getting their 50000 words done and, following DWS, ready for publication (See his articles on Killing Myths and Writing into the Dark).

I chose not to sign up this year, thinking I'd have to plead too much other work. Then, as it always does, life comes along, and since the first, I've gotten a 16000 word side story written, and a couple thousand words of rewriting on Discoveries, and then another 4000 words into Princess. So, nearly 25000 words and I would have no time for it! It's not DWS pace of 4000 words per day, but it's more than I expected.

Time will tell if the rest of the month is as productive. I'm waiting for feedback on the "last" version of Discoveries, after those edits it'll be available.

By word count, Princess should be about half done. We'll see when I get closer to the end how accurate that is.

I do not plan to develop a line of adult coloring books (grin).

Best wishes for those doing Camp NaNo! May the experience be the first step to your writing life.