My Interview with Janeal Falor

Janeal FalorJaneal Falor is the author of You Are Mine, a novel about a society where magic is real and where all women are owned by warlocks.  Below is our discussion about the inspiration for her fantasy/dystopian novel, the sequel Mine to Spell and why self-publishing was the best option for her.

1.  Where did the inspiration for You Are Mine come from? 

I’d been in a mood to read a lot of marriage of convenience/arranged marriage-type books and then I thought: What if these girls weren’t being sold off for money? What if they were being sold for something they had that was of great value, but something they couldn’t control. Something like… Magic! And You Are Mine was born.

2.  What was your world-building process like?  Did you start out with a basic idea and then build around it before you started writing or did it all come to you as you wrote?

Most of it started with a basic idea and came as I wrote. There were a few spots where I knew I needed to show more of what the world was like and I thought, how can I add something that supports their world and the story at the same time? But mostly whatever flowed out was what happened.

3.  Who is your favourite character in your first novel?  Why?

Katherine. Though I’m probably biased towards because I just finished writing her novella. She is sweet, but strong. She’s been through a lot and is able to use the strength she’s gained to help Serena.

4.  What made you decide to self-publish?  Would you recommend it to anyone else?

Short answer: I had been trying to get an agent for this book, but stopped because it just didn’t feel right. After a break from trying, I realized I still loved You Are Mine and wanted to do something with it. I thought a lot about the pros and cons to all my options, made a giant list of them, and in the end, self-publishing just felt right. Really right.

Short answer to the second questions as well: Yes, BUT it’s tons of work. That means it’s not for everyone. It’s an intense process when done right, but is an amazing feeling when you see your hard work pay off. There are a lot of great choices in publishing right now, so you can pick what works for you and your books. Thankfully if you do go with self-publishing, there’s a lot of great information out there.

5.  Do you have any advice for any aspiring writers reading this?

Read. A lot. Write even more. Believe you can follow your dreams.

I still have a lot to learn, but these are the things that have helped me the most.

6.  Can you give us any hints as to the next novel, Mine to Spell?  Do you have a tentative release date yet?

Yay for hints! Let’s see what I can say without spoiling anything…

As much as I love Zade and Serena, the hero Cynthia falls for in Mine to Spell makes me all melty and swoony. Seriously, sometimes I “edit” gushy parts just because I want to read more about him. This means there’s more romance than the first book, though it’s still not the main focus of the book.

The first chapter starts a few months after You Are Mine ends on Cynthia’s 17th birthday. Also, I think the end of the first chapter is going to make a lot of people happy/excited and help with understanding Cynthia so much better. Nice, vague response 😉

And very tentatively, I’m shooting for releasing in Spring of next year. Probably March or April.

The Devil of Ponong Giveaway Winners

How time flies!  It seems like only yesterday I was putting my giveaway up and now it’s over.  So now it’s time to do my favourite part: announce the winners.  Here are the winners and the prizes they’ve won:

Winner #1: Mark Lee  (Paperback copies of The Devil’s Concubine and The Devil Incarnate)

Winner #2: Linda J.  (Paperback copy of The Devil’s Concubine)

Winner #3: Luciana Cavallaro (An ebook copy of The Devil’s Concubine)

Someone from Wayzgoose Press should be contacting you guys shortly.

My First Ever Interview

As you guys know, I do review a fair number of authors considering the size of my blog.  But in the nearly two years I’ve been blogging I haven’t once been interviewed.  That’s why I jumped at the chance to be the first blogger to be interviewed for The Masquerade Crew’s new Blogger Banter feature.

So if you want to know a little more about me, The Mad Reviewer or blogging in general, you can check out the interview here.

Discussion: The Changes to Goodreads

For those of you that don’t know, Goodreads announced a change to their terms of service the other weekend.  Essentially, they will no longer permit readers to create shelves or reviews about author behaviour.  For more information, you can see the entire thread here.

Now, in theory this is a great change because I am fully aware there are reviewers out there that make mountains out of molehills and accuse authors of bad behaviour when they’re actually the innocent party.  I get where Goodreads is seemingly coming from.  Yet I feel this policy actually hurts reviewers and allows bad authors to thrive.

You see, if a review just completely trashes the author, go ahead and delete it!  I’d be first in line to say that Goodreads needs far better moderation.  Yet if the reviewer points out in their review in a non-threatening manner something the author has done (i.e. told a reviewer to kill themselves) I don’t see anything wrong with that.  It allows the potential reader to see if they really want to give this money to this author and it can warn any potential reviewers that maybe this author isn’t the best to work with.

The thing is: how do you decide what constitutes a trashy review vs. a snarky one?  Who decides this?  And if Goodreads is doing this to protect authors from us nasty reviewers, how about banning authors like the one that told me to kill myself?  If authors are supposed to be protected, shouldn’t Goodreads work just as hard to protect reviewers?  The thing is, the abuse goes both ways.

I could do a whole article about this and likely will in the future but now I want to hear you guys weigh in: What do you think of the changes to Goodreads?  Do you think they’re for the better or worse?  Could Goodreads have done something differently in order to protect both authors and reviewers?  Please, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Sworn to Transfer by Terah Edun

Sworn to Transfer by Terah Edun(Cover picture courtesy of Terah Edun.)

Companion trainee Ciardis Weathervane has won the friendship of the royal heir and saved his claim to the throne. Yet her interference in the inheritance rights leaves more harm done than good. With the death of the Princess Heir, the Ameles forest – the home of the kith, is dying. The inhabitants of the forest, magic-wielding non-humans, are defiant. They have not forgotten their long struggles nor are they content to watch as the last of their lands perish. As humans begin to die in gruesome deaths, the Emperor dispatches the royal heir to the forests with the solution to the kith concerns.

With enemies closing ranks in Sandrin, Ciardis can little afford to leave the city’s nest of vipers to take on a new task. But she’s given no choice when her loyalty to the crown and courts are called into question.

To keep the Companions’ Guild happy and the favor of the Imperial Court, Ciardis will be tested in frightening new ways, especially when she’s faced with an obstacle that could risk the lives of her friends and the family she never thought she had.

This second novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Raise.

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook from Terah Edun in exchange for an honest review.]

Some authors never improve, but Terah Edun is not one of them.  Instead, in Sworn to Transfer she fixed pretty much everything that was wrong with the last book.  The pacing was much better because everything was slowed down to a manageable but interesting speed and the villain wasn’t such a caricature as in Sworn to Raise.

What I liked the most about Sworn to Transfer is how Ciardis’ character has developed over time.  You can tell that although she keeps getting in trouble with the Companions’ Guild for breaking protocol, overall she’s far more sure of herself and her powers.  At the same time, things are a little more awkward between Ciardis and Sebastien.  You can tell they’re starting to develop feelings for each other, but they’re still not sure just how to express them.  At least they’re not falling in Insta-Love, but rather their love is growing organically.

What I really liked were the plot twists.  The huge jaw-dropping twist at the end was completely unexpected but made sense.  In addition to that shocker, there were several little turns of events that kept me reading late into the night.  I don’t want to give anything away so let’s just say that every character has their secrets and they aren’t exactly eager to share them with Ciardis, the wild card in the Imperial Court.

If you enjoyed Sworn to Raise you’ll love Sworn to Transfer even more.  The extended world-building, the character development and the evenly paced plot make it a huge improvement over the last book.  And although there are some moments where the plot drags, when you finish the book you’ll be begging for the next one to come out.

I give this book 4.5/5 stars.

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