A Bright Spot in my Weekend

My husband is away on a business trip this week, which always leaves me a little melancholy, but my Monday is a little brighter because of this tidbit of news.

A Soul Remembered was chosen by The Novel Approach Reviews as one of their favorite books from April!

Hopefully this will be enough for me to stay motivated this week!

Great review for A Soul Remembered

I hope everybody had a great weekend! It was a holiday for some, just the usual for others. Here, it was a long one, since one of my kids had a four-day weekend and the other got three days. We relaxed, ate chocolate, and played games without thought of responsibility or anything else. Just what I needed to recharge.

Then I logged on this morning to discover a pretty great review for my story, A Soul Remembered. What a treat!

Lana, over at The Novel Approach, gave it 5 stars and called it a "sci-fi gem," with so many more lovely things to say about it. To read the whole review, head over to their great site.

Ask any author, and we'll all agree. There's little else more satisfying than having a reader completely get what you were going for.

If you're curious to read more about the story or to purchase it, check it out at Amber Allure.

4.5 Hearts for A Flight in Ice

There's something exhilarating to starting off a busy work week with a good review!

Lisa over at MM Good Book Reviews took the time to read and review my Winter Games pax story, A Flight in Ice. She gave it 4.5 hearts and called it "refreshing and very tempting."

Check it out!

New review for What the Heart Thinks

I'm ending the week on a huge high. My recent release, What the Heart Thinks, got 4.5 stars from Lisa at the Prism Book Alliance!

It's one of those reviews where I breathe a sigh of relief, because honestly, not only did she have wonderful things to say, but she completely got Joe and Fess. It's always so rewarding to hear people enjoying heroes who mean so much to you!

Go check it out, and have a fabulous weekend!

Spectacle vs Substance

One of the two shows we had tickets for during our visit to Las Vegas was The Beatles' Love at the Mirage. That's what we went to see last night.

My reaction is...mixed.

Technically, it's really well done. The staging is clever, the costumes stunning, and the music is (understandably) fantastic. I loved that the speakers were in the headrest of the seats without being obnoxious about it. What didn't work for me was as much was just how busy the show is. I was fine that, unlike other Cirque shows I've seen, it was mostly interpretive dance rather than a lot of acrobatics, but it's very much focused on the spectacle and cramming as much into the space as it possibly can, so much so that it's impossible to know where to look. It's like one long hallucination. The best moments were those that were allowed to be more intimate, but they were just too few and far between.

I figured out later what my difficulty with it was. It comes down to spectacle versus substance. Too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter. I'm not a big fan of grandiose or being different for the sake of being different. This had so much happening all at once--multiple aerial acts at the same time, two or three different components on the stage, projections happening behind us--that it ends up diffusing the entire effect. It's an avalanche that buries you rather than allows you to experience it.

Phantom of the Opera is another example of this. I get into arguments with other theater friends all the time because they rate it so highly and I just don't. I do like a lot of the music, but too much of the show feels superfluous and shallow. Give me Les Miserables and almost anything by Sondheim instead, please.

Those have substance. Those have meaning. They know when to pull back from the spectacle to best highlight the singular moments that make the entire show worth it.

It's a lesson that can be learned in a lot of different venues.

New review for The Unbeaten Track

I got a lovely surprise over the weekend, a review from Love Romances for my short, The Unbeaten Track. She called it compelling, but the best part was that the reviewer really seemed to get what I was trying to do with it. It's a character piece more than anything else, and she responded to Judah and Sean exactly as I hoped.

It's always a gift when that happens. When authors put stories out into the world, they take on a new life. People bring their own experiences and expectations to reading our work, and we have absolutely zero control over how they will respond to it beyond ensuring that it's as technically polished as possible. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. Certainly, I as a reader have responded to books in different ways than some of my best friends. That's what makes us all so unique.

But from a writer's point of view, it's sometimes hard to see, especially if actions or intents get misinterpreted. The urge to explain to the reader, "No, this is what I meant, see?" is almost always there. In order to respect the reader and the subsequent opinions that are formed, we have to keep our mouths shut. It's out of our hands, and frankly, none of our business. I wouldn't want my favorite authors telling me what to think, so why on earth would I do the same to people to read my work?

Which is all a tangent and has absolutely nothing to do with Helen's review at Love Romances, except that I finished reading what she had to say about The Unbeaten Track with a huge smile on my face. Reviews like that are a reminder of why I do what I do. She complimented me on how real both men and their world seem, which is almost always my primary goal.

She got it. So to her I say, thank you so much!

New review for The Hearts of Yesteryear

I got a wonderful new review for my latest release, "The Hearts of Yesteryear." Cat at MMGood Book Reviews gave it 4 hearts and called it "well written" and "a very sweet love story," which just makes me all kinds of happy. John holds a special place in my heart, grumpy old man that he is, and the whole point of the story for me was to show that we all need love no matter how old we are or how settled we are in our lives. Cat got that, and for that, I'm so grateful. Thanks, Cat! 

For an excerpt and purchase information, check it out at Amber Allure.