The Fire by John Heldt Releases Today!

The Fire by John HeldtWhen Kevin Johnson, 22, goes to Wallace, Idaho, days after his college graduation, he expects to find rest and relaxation as his family prepares his deceased grandfather’s house for sale. Then he discovers a hidden diary and a time portal that can take him to 1910, the year of Halley’s comet and the largest wildfire in U.S. history. Within hours, Kevin finds himself in the era of horse-drawn wagons, straw hats, and ankle-length dresses. Returning to the same time and place, he decides to travel again and again and make the portal his gateway to summer fun. The adventure takes a more serious turn, however, when the luckless-in-love science major falls for pretty English teacher Sarah Thompson and integrates himself in a community headed for tragedy. Filled with humor, romance, and heartbreak, THE FIRE, the sequel to THE JOURNEY, follows a conflicted soul through a life-changing journey as he makes his mark on a world he was never meant to see.

John Heldt was kind enough to give me an ARC of The Fire so you’ll be reading my review of it tomorrow, but for now I just want to let you know that his fourth book in the Northwest Passage series is now available!  If you’ve read my reviews of his first three books, you’ll know that I’m super excited to sink my teeth into this one.  I don’t want to give too much away when I say that Kevin’s story is not at all like the previous ones in that the main character travels back and forth in time deliberately multiple times.  But will this lead to tragedy?  It’s hard to tell.

Now available on Amazon for $3.99.

The Best and Worst of August 2013

It’s hard to believe August and therefore summer are over.  Here in Saskatchewan we had absolutely miserable weather for 3/4s of the summer and it’s only really been nice these past two, maybe three weeks.  Oh well, that’s life I guess.

Anyway, August was a bit of a hectic month for me.  Life-related things took over so I didn’t get as many books reviewed as I would have liked, an author suggested I kill myself and I ran a few giveaways.  August was also my second most successful month in overall statistics since I reached 6,545 views with 3,899 unique views.  That’s pretty good for me, especially considering that I just reached my 500 follower milestone.  I hope to hit my 500 review milestone this year as well!

But what were my most popular posts this month?  Let’s take a look at the statistics:

1.  The Day an Author Suggested I Kill Myself

2.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal

3.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

4.  The Ugly Side of Book Blogging: A Particularly Bad Example

5.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

None of these are a surprise, especially the first one.  The reaction from the book blogging community to that particular incident was both swift and relatively severe.  I know it inspired a lot of fellow bloggers to start ‘do not read’ lists, which is good considering what the author did.  I’ll just leave it at that.  The other posts are either old favourites, ones with good SEO **coughGOTcough** or ones to do with my little author trouble.  None of the ones appearing on this list are surprising in the least.

So what were my worst posts this month, you ask?  Well:

1.  Just Thought You’d Like to Know

2.  The Mad Reviewer is Open for Submissions

3.  Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer

4.  The Princess, The Crone and the Dung-Cart Knight by Gerald Morris

5.  The Surprising Benefits of Book Reviewing

Really, there are no surprises here either.  These posts are either really dated like the first one back when I celebrated my 50th review or are just unpopular books.  It’s too bad since the two books on here are good, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.  Seeing as no book/post is on the 5 worst list every month I won’t lose any sleep over it.

That’s how my August was.  How was yours?  How did you enjoy the summer?  Was it warm where you live?  Did you find any good books?

Discussion: DNF Reviews

For those of you that aren’t fluent in reviewer-speak, DNF reviews are reviews where the person did not finish the book.  Thus the abbreviation DNF.  DNF reviews are a little controversial in the blogging world and I’ll break down the two main points here:

Against: You can’t really judge the quality of a book if you didn’t finish it.  If you’re going to do a review you should be able to discuss all elements, including major plot points that may appear later on, character arcs, etc.

For: DNF reviews are a useful tool for reviewers to let people know that they gave a book a try but really couldn’t finish it because they hated it, were bored, etc.

Personally, I’m on the fence with this one.  If you’ve gotten half way through a book but can’t physically force yourself to read it anymore, I think a short DNF review is acceptable.  However, if you’ve only read a couple of chapters you should just chalk it up as a waste of time and not leave a review.  After all, you can’t really criticize everything about a book if you haven’t read all of it.

But now I’m curious: What do you guys think of DNF reviews?  Love ’em, hate ’em, couldn’t care either way?  If you’re a reviewer, do you ever write them or would consider writing them?  Why or why not?

The Mad Reviewer Challenge Check In #2

Yes folks, it’s the end of August which means there are only four more months left to finish The Mad Reviewer Reading & Reviewing Challenge.  We’re already two thirds of the way through 2013 if you can believe it.  I know I can’t.

As some of my regular readers may have noticed, my progress bar has not moved at all in weeks.  Obviously from my reviews this is not because I haven’t been reading but rather because I want to be a little more selective in the books I”m counting toward my challenge.  I want to be able to say that I read and reviewed 1000+ page novels for my challenge rather than count books that are only 100-200 pages.  As someone who reads a lot, I have the luxury of doing this.

So what I’m curious about is this: if you’re participating, where are you in my challenge?  Have you finished yet?  Are you thinking of upgrading?  Would you be interested in participating in my reading and reviewing challenge next year?

Short Story: The Princess of Egypt Must Die by Stephanie Dray

The Princess of Egypt Must Die by Stephanie Dray(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

Princess Arsinoe came of age in the glittering court of Ptolemaic Egypt. Abused by her ruthless sister, a pawn in the dynastic ambitions of her father, and dismissed by the king who claimed her for a bride, young Arsinoe finds herself falling in love with a young man forbidden to her. She dreams of a destiny as Egypt’s queen, but first she must survive the nest of vipers otherwise known as her family.

There are so many reasons to love The Princess of Egypt Must Die, but one of the main ones is because of Arsinoe herself.  She goes from poor naive princess of Egypt to forgotten bride of an ancient man to the mature, ruthless woman she would be known as later in life.  All of this happens in quite a short time span, but at least her story arc is believable.

Arsinoe starts out as the political pawn for her father’s ambitions.  She is married off to Lysimachus, the King of Thrace who was one of Alexander the Great’s bodyguards.  It takes a little more time than I would like to know this because it actually establishes the timeline here.  Throughout the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, there were many Arsinoes so having this information introduced a little sooner would have been nice, but it’s not a major issue by any means.  Once you realize the world that Arsinoe is living in is harsh and cruel and only going to get worse, it makes you want to read on.  Of course her much older husband virtually ignores her and Arsinoe can’t help but fall in love with Cassander, who is as tragic a love interest as they get.  His decision at the end of the short story is absolutely heartbreaking, as is Arsinoe’s.

Despite the short length of this novel I really did grow attached to the characters.  Both Arsinoe and Cassander felt very real to me and I could believe in their ready attraction.  Of course the plot being relatively fast-paced helps the story move along but there’s still plenty of attention devoted to character development.  This is my first sample of Stephanie Dray’s writing and I have to say I was pretty impressed with her style.  She knows how to describe just enough of her surroundings to be informative, but also knows not to drag on and on with such descriptions.  Her writing is addictive and I guarantee I’ll be reading more of her in the future.

I give this short story 4/5 stars.

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