Month: January 2013

Back to the drawing table

On By mikaelalindIn Writing

So. Yesterday I took a look at the synopsis.   And I was a bit appalled to discover that there were plot holes big enough to poke my head through.   I knew that the end was missing when I started writing, but I had planned to reach the point were the first draft stops before I outlined it.

This might sound odd, but I am glad this happened, since I suspect I have to cut the words I have written. The easy explaination is that the heroine is meek. Which she isn’t. She has been a merc, and she is used to tough investigations.

Also, there is no tension. Which it should be, since she is undercover, surrounded with people who doesn’t like her.  I think one problem is that I started the story in the wrong place, but I am not sure what the right place is.

WWW Wednesday Jan 16th

On By mikaelalindIn Books5 Comments

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

 

I found this meme at Book View Cafe, although originally it was created by Shouldbereading

 

• What are you currently reading?

The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  This is a freebie and it has been in my TBR pile forever. I know that Sherlock Holmes is a classic, but I just do not care about the mystery. To me he feels smug, and snotty.  No, I think I’ll give up on Sherlock Holmes, and re-read the Raffles series by EW Hornung instead.   ( Gentlemanna thief, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother in law.)
• What did you recently finish reading?

Heart of the Wolf by Terry Spears.  This is another book  that has been in my TBR pile forever. Parts of it was good, but I had some problems with connecting to the characters. 

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Not sure, either I’ll glom on the Granite Wolves series by Vivian Arend, or I’ll read Beautiful Scars by Shiloh Walker.

 

Read along: The Granite Wolves series by Vivian Arend

On By MikaelaIn Uncategorized

Book 6, Wolf Nip, will be released in February, so  to celebrate Vivian Arend is hosting a read a long of the first 5 novellas.  And, she is giving away prices too.  Join  the fun at her blog.   
( I definitely plan to. Also, this gives me a reason to review the first 4 novellas. Something I have planned to do for a long time.)

Things like this just don’t happen here

On By mikaelalindIn Life2 Comments

 

First, a train crashed into a house in southern Stockholm ( thank god the train was out of traffic and the house empty).   The incident is really embarrassing for the train company, since  it was a cleaning lady that drove  the train (!) and someone had forgotten the key in the ignition (!!).  Oh, and the house is newish, and the county hadn’t ” noticed there was a railway so close to the house.” ( Really? The railway has been there since the mid 1900’s.)

 

Second, a big car accident happened in the South of Sweden.  It was foggy and the road was covered with ice, and a driver lost control of the car.  The end result was a pile up with multiple cars and 18 wheelers, 9 injured and 1 dead.   While car accidents do happen, it is rare that they are so massive. 🙁

 

 

ARC Review: Haunted Sanctuary by Moira Rogers

On By MikaelaIn reviews

The Particulars: Paranormal Romance, Samhain publishing, available as e-book

The Source: ARC from the Author
The Grade: B+
The Blurb:
 Eden Green can’t remember a time she didn’t believe in monsters—her cousin was born one. Her family’s dark past casts a long shadow, making it hard to make friends and harder to commit to a lover. She lives a quiet life in small-town Clover, Tennessee, but she’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Tired of the city packs’ corruption, yet too alpha to be a subordinate in a sanctuary town, Jay Ancheta satisfies his need to protect by serving as Clover’s Chief of Police. As much as he’s drawn to Eden, he can’t offer forever to a woman who doesn’t know what he is—or trust himself to let her go after one taste.
When Eden’s cousin and his battered pack stagger into town, their tormentors hard on their heels, Eden is bitten in the chaos. Now Jay not only has a traumatized pack to deal with, but a newly turned wolf with enough hungry alpha power to consume them both.
With their combined strength, they can create a new sanctuary—if their passion can survive the ghosts of the Green family’s legacy.
Warning: Contains a newly turned werewolf heroine who enjoys a little rough dominance in bed and a badass alpha wolf hero who’ll fight bad guys, ghosts and even the past to protect what’s his. Be prepared for violence, death and heartbreak on the way to a happily ever after.
The Review:
I loved Moira Rogers Red Rock Pass series, so when Moira Rogers offered ARCs for this one, I requested it on the spot. And I am glad I did.
This was a sizzling, yet heart wrenching paranormal romance, set in small rural town that felt believable. I enjoyed the nuances in small town life, which made it feel believable. One factor that I liked was the historic feel of the farm were the pack settled. There were also hint of other things,more darker events, through the book which was a touch that I appreciated .
While the focus on this book was Jay and Eden, their romance was heavily intertwined with the apperance of Zach and his werewolf friends. The pack brought with them a lot of problems, which felt logical. But, I liked how they were determinded to create a better life, and everyone pitched in.
Eden and Jay had been attracted to each other for a long time, and I liked how their allowed their casual friendship develop into something more, despite the chaos their life turn into.The plot gripped me from the start, and the feeling of danger kept creeping higher and higher until it reached the breaking plot.  I loved how the pack dealed with the final confrontation with their enemies.  It was the perfect, and logical, sollution.   
The problem with all that tension was that it overshadowed Jay and Eden’s relationship at the end of the book. Not much, but enough for me to notice it.

To do list

On By mikaelalindIn Life

This is one of those dull and boring posts, that are more a reminder for me 🙂

To do:

Operation Shelfpurge:

  • Start sorting through books in bags, and decides which I want to keep ( I have a feeling it wont be many…)
  •  Enter them into the spreadsheet
  •  Upload them  to Bokbörsen

General:

  •   Go to the camera store, to see if they can replace the cord
  •   Clean the apartment. ( Enough said)
  •  Wait for answer on the job. *twitches*
  •  Go to the post office  and pick up the book Di sent me. ( Which means I have two copies, since bought one earlier this month. )

Writing:

  • Keep on working at  Trollkungens dotter.
  •  Resist the temptation to post mini snippets on the blog ( since it is, you know, in Swedish)

Friday Bargains: Diana Pharaoh Francis Horngate novels

On By MikaelaIn Uncategorized
The first three novels in Diana Pharaoh Francis excellent Horngate series are discounted to 1.99 at Amazon and BN.  ( They are 2.99 at Kobo)  If you like a gritty world featuring fascinating characters, I recommend you check them out. 


SOMETIMES YOU CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES. AND SOMETIMES, THEY CHOOSE YOU…

Once, Max dreamed of a career, a home, a loving family. Now all she wants is freedom…and revenge. A witch named Giselle transformed Max into a warrior with extraordinary strength, speed, and endurance. Bound by spellcraft, Max has no choice but to fight as Giselle’s personal magic weapon — a Shadowblade — and she’s lethally good at it. But her skills are about to be put to the test as they never have before….
The ancient Guardians of the earth are preparing to unleash widespread destruction on the mortal world, and they want the witches to help them. If the witches refuse, their covens will be destroyed, including Horngate, the place Max has grudgingly come to think of as home. Max thinks she can find a way to help Horngate stand against the Guardians, but doing so will mean forging dangerous alliances — including one with a rival witch’s Shadowblade, who is as drawn to Max as she is to him — and standing with the witch she despises. Max will have to choose between the old life she still dreams of and the warrior she has become, and take her place on the side of right — if she survives long enough to figure out which side that is….

THERE ARE GOOD GUYS. THERE ARE BAD GUYS. AND THEN THERE’S MAX.
Max knows what trusting the wrong person can cost you. Her former friend Giselle, a powerful witch, enslaved Max years ago, turning her into a Shadowblade—a deadly warrior compelled to fight for Giselle. But there’s more at stake now than Max’s thirst for revenge. The Guardians, overseers of the magical world, have declared war on humanity and on any witches not standing with them. Max and Giselle have come to an uneasy truce in order to protect what’s left of Horngate, their coven’s home. Max would do anything for Horngate—even give herself over to a mysterious otherworldly creature in the nearby mountains in exchange for his help. But first, she intends to save the mortal family she left behind. And Alexander, the Shadowblade warrior who could be her closest ally or her deadliest enemy, is going with her.
On a road trip into the unknown, Max and Alexander face wild magic, desperate enemies, and battles that bruise both body and soul. But the greatest challenge will come from unexpected revelations that test everything Max believes about who she is—and where her loyalties lie. . . .

The world is falling apart. The magical apocalypse has come. Now is the time to guard the covenstead against both raiders and refugees. But Max has been stolen by a powerful demi-god who is determined to force her to find a way to use a magical power she never knew she had—even if it kills her. Meanwhile, back in Horngate, a Fury is birthing. When the creature breaks free of the fragile bonds that enclose her, her rage will scour the covenstead from the earth.
Max finds herself in the Shadow City, a place of mysteries and magic, where she must battle for her freedom or become a slave to creatures of dreadful greed and power. Back in Horngate, Alexander must swallow his anger and pride if he hopes to defeat the Fury, a creature that no one has ever successfully fought before.
In the end, it will be courage, friendship, faith and loyalty that win the day. Or else so one will live to see tomorrow.

Operation Shelfpurge

On By mikaelalindIn Books, Life2 Comments

Earlier this week ( or was it last week?)  Laura Anne Gilman purged her shelves of non-fiction books on twitter.  Yesterday, I realised that I need to do the same but with fiction.   Let’s be honest: I live in a small apartment, I have a cupboard filled with books, and  I have  a lot of books at my mom’s as well.  And… most of them I haven’t read in years. Some of the books are on the keeper shelf, but most of them aren’t.

So, the plan is to  go through them, and sort out the keepers from the not keepers. And then sell the culled books on Bokbörsen.  I am a bit sad that Alibris didn’t work, but I can understand the buyers ( If I priced a paperback at 2 dollar, Alibris added 12 dollar in shipping, which put the price at 14 dollars.).

But I am toying with idea of putting up a list the books I am culling at the blog, and let  interested blog readers buy directly from me.    Well, we will see.

( You can see the Fantasy books I am currently selling here.)

I’ll never again complain about Amazon’s Whispernet fees

On By mikaelalindIn Books

So, I have been poking around at Dito recently, since I got a nice hefty Giftcard for Christmas. I have bought some books, mostly in Swedish, but I have also grown more and more appalled at their prices.  Not the prices on swedish e-books, since I already knew they were high. ( There’s a reason I get most of them from the library)  No, what appalls me is their prices on english e-books.

Let’s take a few examples:

Stolen by Shiloh Walker:
List price: 7.99.  Price at Dito:  13.50.
Maya Banks Highlander Trilogy are priced the same. Misfit by Sylvia Day: List price: 2.99, price at Dito: 6.99. Jeaniene Frost’s Cat and Boone series:  List price: 7.99 Dito: 14.99

Maybe the reason that I am so appalled is that I am used to the US prices, and the fact that both Books on Board and Kobo gives me discounts.    I understand that Dito needs to turn a profit, not to mention the distributor wants their cut.    Maybe the reason is that they want to price the English e-books at the same level as Swedish e-books.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I am very interested to see how they react to Bokon.  Why? Since Bokon offers US list prices on their English e-books. Uh-uh.  You read that right.  Granted, their sortiment is different.  Bokon sells e-books from indie publishers ( Samhain, Kensington, Carina Press etc) while Dito sells a lot of the bigger publishers.

And, I am pretty certain I will buy more books from Bokon than Dito in the future. The main reason  is that I really like what they are doing.  Their webpage is easy to navigate, they offer the possibility to pre-order books, and not to mention they sell books from  my favorite publishers.