Just what the title says: how to pick a time and place, research it, create the main and secondary characters, work out a time-appropriate plot, use time-appropriate language, and avoid anachronisms. Emerson even walks the reader through the writing of one of her own novels.
The book was worth reading to me just for the mention of dozens of authors of historical mysteries, most of whom I’d never heard of! Other than that, it included a lot of practical information and advance forgiveness for taking liberties if necessary to make the story work.
Old Red has been fascinated with Sherlock Holmes stories since he first heard ”The Red-Headed League.” When he and brother Big Red find a trampled corpse on the Montana range, Old Red seizes on his chance to do his own detecting, regardless of surly overseers and English visitors.
This book sounded better in concept than it actually read. I never found Holmes’ reticence the best part of his stories anyway, and in cowboy dialect it is even more annoying. Add no sympathetic characters, and by the time I was halfway through, I realized I didn’t even care enough about the solution to skip to the end.
Lots of guidance on deciding how much you want to have your own publishing business. Decent listing of possible publishing projects, from books to newsletters and even ezines. Also a pretty good list of questions to ask before starting the business, from financing to suppliers.
There are two major drawbacks. One is that this book was published in 2000 and does not reflect the online publishing revolution or the spiraling paper price that marked this decade, so I’m not sure how realistic the suggested publishing ideas are any more. The other is that it covers so many possible businesses that it doesn’t give specific suggestions for any.
Former RSS Captain Heris Serrano hires on as the captain of Lady Cecelia’s space yacht and tries to bring order to the crew. Drafted to remove her arrogant young nephew off-planet after he offended a prince, Lady Cecelia reluctantly transports Ronnie and his friends to a hunting planet for the season. As Heris and Lady Cecelia learn about each other, Ronnie is determined to exact revenge against Heris for what he feels is disrespect. But when a planetside escapade goes wrong, Ronnie’s life may depend on the skill and determination of Heris and Lady Cecelia.
I think this is the first of Moon’s books that I found interesting almost from the start. The initial mutual contempt between Heris and Lady Cecelia clearly springs from their misunderstandings and I enjoyed seeing it crumble as each woman realized the worth of the other. Unfortunately, it became less interesting as Heris and Lady Cecelia joined the riding hunt, and even worse after the young people were stranded on the island as Heris and Lady Cecelia tried to find and rescue them. I skipped the third quarter of the book. The last quarter, a rather involved and not very believable resolution of stories of a number of people, dragged somewhat but left no loose threads. This wasn’t really a “novel” in the sense of a main story with some subsidiary storylines, more like several short stories with the same characters running into each other.
At a judging seminar, now-pregnant Melanie attends a keynote address recommending that dog breeding change to accommodate the demands of animal rights activists, appalling his audience. Later, Melanie and Peg find the man murdered in a hot tub. Melanie, of course, comes up with several suspects, including his bit on the side, his injured wife, an exhibitor who came to the symposium just to meet him, and another judge who may have been taking bribes.
Not the most interesting start Berenson has written, but the story was fast-moving enough that I put up with it. Either Berenson is getting less slippery or I’m getting used to her style, because I nailed the secondary animal-rights plot even before the murder. However, she still fooled me about whodunit.
A middle-aged Chinese widower in San Francisco relives his relationship with a young Japanese girl during WWII while trying to connect emotionally with his college-student son.
I wanted to read this after I saw it mentioned in Writer’s Digest, both because the plot sounded interesting and because the writer was from Montana. But it relies on extensive flashbacks interposed with with “current” 1990-ish action, and I find flashbacks distracting and irritating as well as difficult to follow. I made it more than halfway through but eventually gave up and skipped to the somewhat-predictable end. (It wasn’t exactly what I had expected, but close.) There is a lot of lovely characterization and description in the book, but the story moves at such a leisurely pace and with so many distractions that I can’t recommend it to fellow story-holics.
Midwife Martha Cade’s delight at her missing daughter’s return becomes anger when Victoria insists on going back to New York City. Further complicating her life are a blind old man and the young boy he befriended, an abused wife, and a proposal from a long-ago boyfriend.
Second in this series, this book just didn’t get off to as interesting a start as the first one and I’m not sure why. Many of the characters from the first book reappear, but the plot seemed to drag. About a third of the way through, the story took off and from then on I didn’t want to put it down.
Jane’s young son Nicholas finds a dead woman hanging from a tree in a wooded area. When Louise asks Jane to prove her cheating husband Ernie wasn’t involved in the girl’s death, Jane investigates in between working with her new famous-actress client and dating her new policeman boyfriend.
I’m not sure the author gave the reader all the information needed to identify the murderer. However, it was an enjoyable, fast read, so I’ll give the series another chance.
in The ages of chaos (omnibus)
Timing clues: before the Compact, nearly all Keepers are men but they have started experimenting with women Keepers, clingfire is being used in war, Renunciates are called Swordswomen.
Romilly has the full MacAran gift, and can communicate with horse or hound or hawk. But faced with an arranged marriage to an old lecher who expects her to be a proper wife, she disguises herself as a boy and runs away. She hires herself out to some travelers who do not know how to care for the sentry birds they are taking to the rightful king, to help reclaim his throne from his usurper brother. She winds up in a Sisterhood house, commissioned to return young Caryl Hastur to his father in Hali, and eventually part of King Carolin’s army facing the usurper Rakhal.
Involving story that unfortunately falls down at the end. Romilly “losing” herself doesn’t ring true and subsequent events are even less believable.
Young, beautiful nurse investigates her Scottish heritage and winds up in conflict with the handsome laird of the manor. IOW, yet another romance drivel that has nothing to do with nursing.
Lofts manages to warp the story of Christmas! She presents Mary as an independent thinker, her mother Anne as a shrew, and wise man Melchior as an obsessive wastrel.
I gave up very quickly – Lofts is entitled to her weird biases but I didn’t find them enjoyable.
Cheyenne is an ER doctor but was unable to save her sister’s life and is facing a malpractice suit from her abusive brother-in-law. Dane takes troubled kids onto his ranch to help them find their way, but the small-town mayor considers them dangerous and tries to have them removed.
I couldn’t tell you if the two stories ever connect; between the disjointedness and my dislike of seeing good people being persecuted, I gave up after 50 pages.
Slow-starting autobiography but full of surprises. As a child, she lived through WWII and her mother’s desertion of the family for a lover. As a teen, she took responsibility for keeping her alcoholic mother and stepfather housed and the family together. The book becomes much more interesting when she starts appearing on Broadway, with fascinating behind-the-scenes anecdotes of some of America’s best-loved musicals and the people responsible for them. It ends as she travels to California to star in “Mary Poppins.”
Autobiographies of famous people tend to be poorly-written, but Andrews’ is better than most technically. Her story still drags in a lot of places and would have benefited from serious editing, but I suspect most readers will forgive this much-loved icon as easily as I did. A definite must-read for Julie Andrews fans – in other words, the whole world.
Standard highschool romance featuring Kate, who is focused on making a million before age 20, and her friend Dal, who is obsessed with his girlfriend who is already off at college. As Kate makes a business of helping other teens get dates with their crushes and vents her anger at her mother’s desertion, she learns some valuable life lessons.
I suppose this was no sillier than any other highschool romance, but the author’s attempts to justify the mother’s desertion were appalling. That the woman chose to abandon her teen daughters (whom she had brought into the world) to pursue an advanced degree is inexcusable. The author made a big deal of how she had had children too young; she did, but it wouldn’t have killed her to play mom for a few more years and then chase her own dreams.
What a collection of unlikeable characters! I gave up pretty early in the book when I realized it was a shame more of them hadn’t been killed.
A Tennessee plantation family lives through the pre-Civil War and war years.
I hoped this would be a readable saga, but barely made it 50 pages into the book; the disjointed flashback storyline and endless North/South arguments between the characters were too boring for words.
When Captain Will Laurence of HMS Reliant accidentally bonds with a new-hatched black dragon, he grieves that his naval career is over and he must become a dragon aviator. But even before he and Temeraire start their training, they have become close friends.
Think of this premise as Horatio Hornblower on Pern. For someone who liked the Hornblower and Captain Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin series, it would have been easy for this similar idea to not measure up. But Novik nailed the naval attitude and added air battle strategy making use of the dragons. And dragon Temeraire is an engaging a character as I have run across. The denoument was easy to predict but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.
When an unpleasant handler who crashed Aunt Peg’s BBQ is shot the next day, his girlfriend asks Melanie to find the killer. I was dead wrong about the murderer, and some of the clues were extremely subtle, but they were there.
I started reading this and immediately got aggravated at Melanie’s wimpiness all over again. But I kept reading … and kept reading … and finished it and I still don’t know whether I liked it or not. Sam’s back with a big engagement ring and thinks Melanie should just get over being upset at him taking off. Bob is still buying Davey, this time with a pony, and his new girlfriend is less than thrilled that Melanie is even around. As someone closes in on Melanie, the long list of suspects is full of unlikeable characters. The story plods along and resolution is rather simplistic, so I have no idea why I kept reading – but I did.
Yet another of her female 18th century heroines that everything bad happens to. Hester is born out of wedlock, her mother is killed helping a highwayman, she is used by thieves to gain access to an old woman's house and sentenced to be transported, falls in love with a weakling, and faces a slave rebellion. This was actually more interesting than her similar books but I still skipped chunks of pages.
Pretty good but very basic guide. Assumes no Internet or marketing knowledge on the part of the reader, so it's suitable for a rank beginner. I've been selling online since 2001, so I didn't find anything I didn't already know.
This book tells what are really two separate but related stories. In the first part, Skeeve is left on his own to masquerade as King Roderick as the king's wedding to a homicidal but rich ruler approaches. In the second part, Aahz has returned just in time to sell Skeeve's services to the Deveel merchants as protector against the Mob, whom Skeeve provided access to. If this sounds convoluted and improbable, of course it is, but it's also fast-moving and fun.
Rather sad biography of Sir Walter Raleigh, his dancing attendance on Queen Elizabeth, his marriage against the Queen's wishes, and his unsuccessful expedition to South America, and I wonder how accurate it is. Among other items, I've read in other sources that he had two sons, not just one. But the main elements, including his long imprisonment at the hands of James I, are all too true.
Perfect Cheryl, Josie's neighbor's daughter and the bane of Josie's existence, is arrested for murder. It takes a serious bribe to get Josie interested in establishing Cheryl's innocence. A dreamy guy, Cheryl's hostile attitude, and the various discoveries Josie and best friend Alyce make about Cheryl's perfect life complicate the investigation as well. This is another one that I don't think the reader was given all the information to identify the killer; I sure didn't suspect the right person.
Odd and rather depressing story of a young woman hired as a modern-day governess to a precocious brat on a politically dangerous Mediterranean island.
In this sequel, Amy is back in Chicago, adjusting to living with her father, the drama of her best friend's love life, the annoying boy down the hall, and the cost and power of popularity. A surprise visit triggers insecurities but may help un-ruin her life.
This borderline-Christian-chick-lit story started too slowly, with a group of (mostly) whiny twentysomething women complaining to each other in between their monthly Bible-study get-together where they never got to the Bible study part. But as the story advanced, each faced challenges in her life and tried to act on her Christian faith. I'm glad I didn't give up early on.
Sam's ex-wife Sheila appears, determined to get him back. Melanie really tries to avoid becoming involved in solving the inevitable murder in this one, but a rebellious child and a hidden treasure lead to a completely unbelievable climax based on the dogs' failure to bark at an intruder. The people could easily have been distracted by their conversation, but not the dogs! Shame on you, Berenson!
This young-adult book is a variation on the "my parents made me do something horrible that I eventually loved" theme. In this case, a very spoiled 16-year-old girl whose parents never married, and who blames her father for not trying hard enough, is suddenly drafted to go to Israel with her father for the summer to meet a flock of relatives (including a grandmother) that she didn't know she had. What follows is a predictable but enjoyable what-she-learns-and-how-she-changes tale.
Every now and then, some writer takes the fact that few books are written in the second person as a challenge. This author not only wrote in the second person (You were tired. You spilled your Starbucks on your partner.) but alters the "you" he is talking to. The "you" was bad enough, but the changing "you" was so distracting I couldn't focus on the events and didn't finish the book. Take a look if you're curious about the technique, but don't expect a coherent story.
Definite Christian chick-lit but with a real story in it about a woman with amnesia who appears on a West Texas ranch. The characters are a bit one-dimensional but it's a fast, undemanding read.
Now this is SF as it should be written. Involving characters, scary but believable situations, and humans reacting to a truly alien environment. I don't know enough science to judge whether the dual-planet scenario is accurate, but one needs to suspend some disbelief to enjoy SF anyway.