'Tis Nyte! by Elizabeth Watasin

These all crossed my paths this morning! Which is neat because I'd wanted all of these. :D

So Werewolf Whisperer is now #FREE, last I looked, and that was one I was going to pick up. :D

Also STAY by Emily Goodwin, which was banned briefly by Amazon is at 99cents only for Today.

And from Rick, something I'd also planned to pick up:

Death of the Body is FREE. If you like dark fantasy, horror, or occult fiction, this one is for you.

Bret said, "Kind of sick and twisted, yet kind of a wondrous magic. Kind of anti-religious, yet very spiritual. Kind of quirky and weird, yet that weirdness allowed it to be very unique - I've never read anything like it."

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H8II60I

Enjoy!

I got mine! The first Maliha Anderson in the series by Steve Turnbull.

~~~ A gorgeous paperback of MEDUSA: A Dark Victorian Penny Dread Vol 2 !  International is welcomed to partake!

Subscribe, here: http://a-girlstudio.com/?page_id=2105

How to win: you only have to remain on the mailing list. I enter everyone's email into a randomizer and it picks a winner. I haven't decided yet what to give away for April. hmmm

I'm sharing this quite late because of Amazing website meltdowns and Newsletter Fail (which is hosted at my site). It's been hilarious. No it hasn't. So this announcement comes with great relief until something else breaks.

But regardless, thank you for subscribing, and I hope you win!

To say I was completely and utterly charmed by this book is an understatement.

An avowed cat hater, screenwriter Peter Gethers is given a Scottish Fold kitten by a girlfriend. He is immediately captivated by the tiny grey creature whom he names Norton.

Norton is no ordinary cat; he likes to go on walks, travel, and meet new people.

Gethers shares various tales of Norton's adventures, including his trips to Fire Island, San Diego, and the titular Paris. Everywhere they go, Norton makes a new friend ... and teaches Gether something new about life.

This book was published 24 years ago, and Norton is long-gone ... but that doesn't mean I won't read his other two stories!

A billion years ago, someone asked me to pitch something for a new character/property/original comic idea (I can't remember), and I said sure! So I just sent that person 1 or 2 lines. Then that person said: great! Now write us the pitch! (he meant the 'proposal').

Uhhh. :-p

I remember that I had to ask a friend what that entailed, writing the *detailed* pitch (the Proposal), and to please send me an example, because sometimes even when you get this much:
Write a 2-3 line synopsis of the Concept

Characters: who's in it

Settings: where is it

Stories: 3 story synopses (1-3 paragraphs), and if asked for 12 total, 2-3 lines for the rest.

It can be hard to visualise it. My friend sent me a sample proposal for a video game, and I used that for the 2nd stage of pitching the "whatever it was that set me on the road to this thing". I mention this because whether you are doing it for a book, game, TV series, comic book/graphic novel, etc---that's either for an idea you own or is for a licensed product---the presentation is pretty much the same.

So I wanted to share who Explains how to do this well, which is Mark Waid. It really is a simple process but it requires a lot of work to seem simple. IN the end you want to communicate clearly, succinctly, and make it easy for the person reading your thing (who has read 1000's of these things), to get your idea, right away. And whether that person *likes* it is another story.

Here's Mark Waid's 'how to do the proposal' in two parts:

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/waid-wednesday-8-proposal-part-one.html

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/02/waid-wednesday-9-proposal-part-two.html

After All That, THEN:

You have 12 stories that are GO, green-lighted! Now to write them.

If you have Scrivener, this comic book script template by Sean E Willams is wunderbar:

http://seanewilliams.com/post/58067343789/vertigo-scrivener-template

An amazing template, because it makes the process of creating Easier, and that's half the battle.

onward, Storytellers!

all the best, ~e

( Now this is what I'm talkin' about: "The Werewolf Whisperer is, in a word, brilliant. There is no trope to this book. Instead, the story is unusual, amazingly well thought out, mature, and definitely non-magical." Although I love well-done tropes. Or maybe I mean archetypes. REad on~~~)

****

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. - Ferdinand Foch

Any deviation is looked upon as a perversion, is feared, and is usually a target of hatred and prejudice. - Joey Skaggs

Fear is the most debilitating emotion in the world, and it can keep you from ever truly knowing yourself and others - its adverse effects can no longer be overlooked or underestimated. Fear breeds hatred, and hatred has the power to destroy everything in its path. - Kevyn Aucoin

Lucy Lowell’s life changed in an instant – an instant in which her partner with the LAPD Animal Cruelty Task Force, Officer Gabe Torres, was shot in the back. A moment when Gabe – changed. When fangs and claws grew, bones twisted, and a monster stood before her. Her life changed. And then life changed. For the whole world.

Now, the problems of walking the dog, training and, of course, housebreaking, gain a whole new meaning… as in, teaching the family teenager not to chew on the furniture or use the floor for a toilet. Nope, these aren’t your sexy, muscled up Alpha heroes so adored by us lovers of Urban Fantasy. Uh uh – this is “Jimmy, get off the couch!” “Sally! Spit out my Louboutin!” “Bad Tommy! No piddling on the carpet!” Since the appearance of the Kyon Virus, California really has “gone to the dogs” – and these dogs can definitely go feral. An estimated 1-in-20 Californians are struck down when the Virus appears. No one seems to know what it is, where it comes from, or even though it is supposedly limited to California, just how far it has truly spread.

Of course, as humans will, for every calm and positive person willing to accept the Afflicted into their lives and their worlds, for every family willing to work with and continue to love their newest furry family member, there are the cruel, the vicious, the hateful and the murderous. And then there is Lucy Lowell and her partner, Xochitl Magaña. Lucy, better known by the public as “The Werewolf Whisperer,” the woman who can calm your Hound, control your Feral, or help you retain your sanity by putting down your beloved child who has become a Werebeast. Life isn’t easy for Lucy and Xochitl – but it is about to get a lot uglier, and more dangerous, than they would have ever believed. For there is a lot more going on than appears on the surface – and all the kings horses and all the kings men may never be able to put the world back together again.

The Werewolf Whisperer is, in a word, brilliant. There is no trope to this book. Instead, the story is unusual, amazingly well thought out, mature, and definitely non-magical. While the whole book is excellent, the authors interest in and research regarding military, scientific and medical issues really grabbed me, keeping me deeply interested in not only the story of Lucy, Xoc and the other major and minor characters in the story – but also in how beautifully the technical issues of the book were handled. Of course, psychology plays a huge role in a world where your child, your wife, your husband, or even your grandmother suddenly devolves into a wolf – a wolf who may have the personality of the biggest, dumbest, happy-go-lucky Golden Retriever you ever saw --- or of a rabid wolverine with a nasty hangnail.

Hate plays a huge part in the story. Humans hate anything, or anyone, they perceive as different from themselves. And Kyon provides just the excuse that the violent, the religious fanatics, the sad and savage and cruel and complete and totally whacked need to justify horrific actions.

"So you handled him the way human beings always handle things that are bigger than they are. You banded together. Like hunters trying to bring down a mastodon. Like bullfighters trying to weaken a giant bull to prepare it for the kill. Pokes, taunts, teases. Keep him turning around. He can't guess where the next blow was coming from. Prick him with barbs that stay under his skin. Weaken him with pain. Madden him. Because big as he is, you can make him do things. You can make him yell. You can make him run. You can make him cry. See? He's weaker than you after all." – Orson Scott Card

Of course, poking and prodding at the ‘dogs’ just won’t satisfy the hate when guns and torture work so very well. And being able to train and communicate with the ‘newly furry’ places Lucy square in the crosshairs of the religious fanatics, sure that the Kyon sufferers are actually demons sent by Satan, hated by their god, whoever they choose to call ‘him’, and fair game for the savagery of the “Righteous”. This is a story well versed in the ‘humans behaving badly’ concept of humanity as an entity.

While this can certainly be placed easily within the UF genre, I refuse to limit the book in this manner. I would instead call it a marriage of medical mystery, legal and military thriller, suspense, horror, and, oh yes, urban fantasy. After all, the main characters in the book do turn into ‘wolves’. Just not wolves as we have ever seen them before. And believe me – this a good, very good, wonderful thing.

Note: I have no idea how I came across The Werewolf Whisperer, but I can’t find an email from a publisher in my inbox, so I take it that it wasn’t offered to me by a publisher as many of the books I review are. I read the book through Kindle Unlimited, so I read it for free (Score!!!). I can’t recommend it highly enough. In many ways, the tone of the book reminds me of the works of Natasha Mostert in its surreal yet highly realistic, in its own way, delivery and storyline. Get it. Read it. I found it more than worth the reading time, and I look forward to the next book in the series! (Oh, and for those who mentioned that the Hispanic character is too “white” for their tastes – both of the authors, Camilla Ochlan and Bonita Gutierrez have very light skin and eyes. I would imagine that being “too white” is just as difficult in Hispanic culture as it is in Native American or African American circles – so in my mind, the skin colour issue simply adds another layer to a complex character…)

( Laughed at this bit: "She wants to meet a guy who will sweep her off her feet and take her virginity. Yes, she is a virgin. She is a virgin of the virgins because not only that she hasn't been with a guy, she was never really interested in anything male that crossed her path."  Read on~~)

***

You just can't win with this Series, I guess. When the romance is good, the story is just so presumptuous and unbelievable that you simply want to give up on it. But then you go to another book where the story is quite refreshing and the characters are the ones who make you grind your teeth while the steam is coming out of your ears...

This is the kind of a book in which we have a heroin who is so blatantly annoying and FAKE that I wanted to gouge my eyes out from just reading about it.

Let me introduce you to the heroin. She is Gwen Cassidy and guess what she is? A physicist. Oh, yeah. A real one. Which means she is the smartest person alive. Or just the smartest female in oh, what was that field again? Mmmm, science, right? *sigh* *eyes roll*

That's how we need to perceive this person. She didn't do anything great, didn't write anything important, didn't finish school but just because she studied physics for a bit, she is the most intellectual female you'll ever meet. And she knows it. Must be a tough burden... 

Gwen has arrived to Scotland on a vacation. She is so smart that she hasn't noticed that she booked a tour with an elderly group. Yeah, smarts indeed. She wants to meet a guy who will sweep her off her feet and take her virginity. Yes, she is a virgin. She is a virgin of the virgins because not only that she hasn't been with a guy, she was never really interested in anything male that crossed her path. What a plot twist in this kind of genre, right? I'm amazed as well. Anyway, she's 25 and she is a virgin because none of the guys she dated were right for her and none of them deserved her "gift" of virginity.

"The sight of a white tee stretched across his muscular chest might persuade her to catapult her cherry at him."

That him is a Highland laird Drustan MacKeltar, a man who was enchanted and put to deep sleep in the caverns where Gwen was sightseeing. He was sleeping there for 500 years until she fell on top of him and so rudely woke him up. I mean, really, desperate-to-get-rid-of-her-cherry-woman? 

So she wakes him up from deep slumber and he acts like any medieval man would, ties her up and forcibly takes her with him. Because the guy needs help getting around, of course. I'm sure he has no ulterior guy motives. No, it couldn't be. 

But yes, indeed it is. She is his soul mate. He felt it. Must be fate. So he drags her along and on their way they even manage to go back to his time. And back again. 

Yes. Science. That's why.

I gave this book three stars only because of the great writing style miss Moning has and because Drustan didn't behave in all ways like medieval highlanders in the historical romances usually do. 

He was actually quite passive and confused. In some moments he was really funny and entertaining. I have nothing against him but that woman...

Gwen is a not-officially and not-really a physicist who doesn't utter one smart and interesting sentence but expects everyone to respect her.... because science, that's why.

I don't even know why I'm reading the next book but I am. There must be something wrong with me. Some Moning-bug or Moning-virus that infected my body and against my better judgement is making me continue on with these cliched, ridiculous stories... *facepalm*

I've ran into a perfect summary / dramatization of this book on goodreads, also laughed my ass off while reading it:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/681167316

. . . but the work I do makes no money, so that is an unfortunate word. :-p

I thought I was only a few days behind in reading posts at BookLikes. INSTEAD, it's been 2 weeks. That's way too many posts. :(  I really enjoy reading what everyone is reading (because I've no time to read---well, reading fiction, and that's probably a horrible thing to admit to), and I want to catch up, but I think that task may be too big this time around.

I'd wanted to work in the word 'read' a fifth time in the above, but then the joke might come off more like I'm inane. ;)

Elle Black's POISON GARDEN is at 48K+ words, and perhaps that needs 10K more, tops, and *this* is the kind of stuff I'm been reading: Victorian hallucinogens and their societal context, first hand accounts on entheogen use (note, because I lack the experience---so far), the history of lsd/mescaline/peyote, the effects/plant physiology/harvest methods/preparations for henbane, belladonna, Hellebore, and a bunch of other poisonous plants to figure out which were hallucinogenic; Victorian vegetarianism, what the heck do botanists do, botanic illustrating, Victorian laboratories, how the heck plants propagate, and so on.

I don't know why I do this to myself. Ever been a Victorian sailor on a death-filled Arctic ship, Elizabeth? No! Let's write ICE DEMON. Do you understand what marble sculpting is all about as done by a 2000 year old sculptress? Not at all! Let's write MEDUSA. WANT to write about sinister glass conservatories full of poisonous exotica? YES, bring it on! Oh gods, BOTANICALS, what are these living plant things, I kill vegetation with my attentions! Let's throw in some hallucinogens!

I have come to the rather dreadful conclusion that if I'd written formulaic contemporary romance to begin with, I would be making a decent success of writing. I enjoy things that are too different, yet are so amazing to me. And these things are not so extraneous. They're what the world is beyond the accepted. So I don't know what I'm going to do; I have to come back to the mundane soon.

Thanks Anne E Johnson for the feature on MEDUSA!

"Today's guest author was determined to see her fictional world through her character's eyes, or, more accurately, through her character's other four senses. Elizabeth Watasin's Medusa features the romantic adventures of a blind woman in an alternative Victorian London. Intrigued? Read on!"

It was nice to write about this, I have a great fondness for Elvie and her story. :)

(I like this bit: "Just once I'd like a book where the female is part of the noble family and her love interest grovels at her feet. A story where she's mean at first yet her lover is okay with that and blah blah blah." )

***

I'm grouping Doon by Carey Corp & Lorie Langdon together with Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen because they both had something similar in the books that greatly irritated me. 

Starting with Doon

 (I actually really like the cover of this) 

This story follows Veronica and Mackenna, two best friends, who travel to Scotland for summer vacation. There they stay in Mackenna's aunt's little cottage and discover the world of Doon. There they get wrapped up with Doon's princes all the while being accused of being witches with a majority of Doon's citizens disliking them. Things in ensue that basically puts Doon's fate in their hands. 

I don't want to give away too much of the story because of spoilers. 

This book was okay. It definitely got a lot better towards the end, though I felt the ending sequence could have been paced a bit more. That whole scene that happens as the end was just meh and too fast paced. 

I didn't really like the "main" characters either. I say main because even though the story is told in the dual perspective between Veronica and Mackenna, Veronica's p.o.v is predominant. Veronica was very annoying. It was basically all about her and everything she was doing and I was so over it. She also kept saying how much she loved Jamie and just no.

I disliked Jamie (Veronica's love interest) even more. He was just so rude and mean and yet Veronica still "loved" him. He was so wish washy too. One moment he likes Veronica, the next he's ignoring her. 

I did like Mackenna for the most part though. She didn't necessarily have an instalove relationship, even though she kind of did. She wasn't annoying like her best friend though. And was not about to give up everything for some boy she hardly knows. 

The instalove was ridiculous. I tried justifying it because that's what I do, but I couldn't. Her and Jamie barely knew each other, yet the minute Veronica finally lays her eyes on Jamie, she was in love with him. The amount of eye rolling I did in this was ridiculous.

The romance and the characters reminded me a lot of Black City but not as annoying.

Moving on to Stolen Songbird. 

(this cover is gorgeous as well.)

Despite one small thing, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I never read anything with trolls before and the world and the magic in this was amazing. 

On the day before Cecile is to leave to live with her mom in the big city, she is kidnapped and sold to the wife of Tristan, the troll prince. Cecile had grown up thinking that the trolls living in the mountain were a myth. What a shock is was to learn the stories she grew up hearing were actually true. And on top of that, a rebellion is brewing and she somehow ends up in the middle of it.

Cecile is the type of character I like reading about. Instead of moping about the crappy situation she was forced in, she gets up every day and does what she can. She learns about the trolls, about magic, about her place in the rebellion.

But over time she falls in love with her husband.

Now the reason why I grouped these two books together. I honestly could not stand either love interest. Now Tristan wasn't as bad as Jamie, but he was still annoying. Literally they're first night together, he locks Cecile in a closet. I couldn't believe it. I was done with him then and that was just the beginning of the book. He got better as the book progressed but was still very arrogant. And every time they fought, if Cecile was mad at him, Tristan always flipped the conversation onto Cecile and got angry at her and made her feel bad about something completely irrelevant. It was okay for him to be mean to her but not okay for the other way around. That annoyed me.

Just once I'd like a book where the female is part of the noble family and her love interest grovels at her feet. A story where she's mean at first yet her lover is okay with that and blah blah blah. 

I will be continuing Doon and will sit and wait patiently for Stolen Songbird's sequel because the ending was a horrible cliffhanger and I need to know what happens. 

Just once I would like something different in YA. I do recommend these books for the most part if you enjoy fantasy as much as I do and aren't as nit picky as me. 

 ~ Carl Sagan

(edited), uh, I guess it didn't work? Regardless, I'll leave the post up. It did work on the Preview. *perplexed*

 links for ref:

https://www.booktrack.com/#!/?booktrackId=8a11ca95b9e24133a3747eb816d83bcd

https://www.booktrack.com/#!/?booktrackId=ebc14978cc7c4911aaef0e7005257d1f

The ending is accurate.

***

“If I am mistress here,” Beauty asked without looking at him, “why am I mistress of a library of books I cannot read?”

“Why, Beauty,” he said lightly, tilting her chin so that she had nowhere to look but at him, “you are mistress of the house, and I am master of everything in it.” He dropped her chin and left his paw in her lap. It lay there like a dead thing. “Tell me,” he said, “do not you think me very ugly?”

Beauty said nothing.

“Come, you are mistress of your own voice; speak,” said the Beast.

Beauty opened her mouth.

“But remember I am master of all the words spoken in this house,” he said, taking her hands and pressing them tightly. “Remember that.”

“I think nothing of the kind,” she said.

“You may go to bed,” he told her, smiling. “I will eat your dinner for you.”

From USA Today bestselling author Kate Danley. Pre-order her latest paranormal book release, MOON RISE, a Twilight Shifters book, here! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TYWLBTY

The first book is The Dark of Twilight!

“The stories we are told as children do, undoubtedly, mark us for life. They are often stories of dark and terrible things, and we are usually told them just before the lights are turned out and we are left alone; but we love them. We love them when we first hear them, and even when we are grown, and think we have forgotten them entirely, they never lose their power over us.” (4)

"Still look on the bright side, not knowing anything doesn't that mean anything can happen" (343)

~Skin Lane

Skin Lane is one of the most stunningly haunting books I've ever read. Choose your time well to begin this book. The first time I read it I began it just before friends dropped by for dinner so there were several hours before I could return to Mr. F and his haunting dreams and the fur trade. But after everyone had left, and it was quiet, I sat down and didn't stir until I'd finished the last page, the last sentence, the last word. I closed the book, and sat there thinking, thinking, thinking for a moment. Then I opened it up and began reading it again.

Of course, I've tried many times to put on paper why I love this book so much, but any review I have attempted since the first time I read it last year was so spoiler-y that it would have ruined the book for anyone who might decide to give it a try. It's not a book you want spoiled for you. Believe me. To really appreciate Skin Lane it's better to read it knowing just the bare bones of the story and allow Mr. Bartlett to lead you one step at a time into Mr. F's world of the late 1960s, the fur trade, his life.

Skin Lane is a book that defies categorization, having elements of a fairy tale mingled with gritty realism. There are these ... startling contrasts setting the tone for most of the novel and utilized powerfully throughout Skin Lane. There's Mr. F's physical description of being a rather large man with broad shoulders and a 'sturdy' build but with hands always framed by a pair of clean cuffs, rather large but not 'rough' or 'masculine'. In fact his hands are almost feminine: white, well manicured and with long, tapering fingers and perfumed. There's a sexual tension stretched so tautly that your skin tingles yet Mr. F is a virgin; there's the barbarism of the fur trade intermingled with the strange beauty and sensuousness of the finished products; there's the steadily building tension of impending horror that transforms into something else entirely; there's the monotony of Mr. F's routines juxtaposed with some of the most expertly written dramatic passages I've ever read. And there's the question of who is Beauty and who is Beast rocketing around this retelling of that popular fairy tale. Phew! Sounds a bit intense, doesn't it? Parts of Skin Lane broke my heart, parts made me want to jump into the book and put a comforting arm around Mr. F, but that would have probably made him feel more discomfited rather than less.

Mr. F's story is told in a bare bones manner that brings all the contrasting elements into sharp relief and in doing so made Mr. F's story more personal, more powerfully moving than it would have been had Mr. Bartlett wrote in a more elaborate, complex style. This is my first book by Mr. Bartlett, but not my last. I've read Skin Lane several times, and Mr. Freeman's story (as he becomes known by the end of the book) is still as emotionally wrenching and heartbreaking as the first time I read it. After each time I've read it, I find myself searching for images of Skin Lane, St. James Garlickhythe, and The Hill, looking for some ghostly remnant of a man in his white cutter's coat standing atop eight stone steps in front of a black painted door. Mr. Bartlett said in an interview with The Independent that if he had to choose between shelving his books in the fiction section or the gay section of a local bookstore, he'd rather have his books in both. I agree. I do believe with all my heart that Skin Lane needs to be read, experienced, discussed. It belongs on everybody's book shelf.

When I was reading Paul Bowles' exquisite The Sheltering Sky, I jotted down a phrase here in my notes to include in my review: the ambiguities of human behavior.
When we create art, we (meaning we members of the human species) are almost always guilty of placing the art in a digestible context. Perhaps guilt is the wrong word to use, because it indicates a transgression - perhaps this context is wholly necessary in that art must be able to be internalized in some fashion or it fails in communicating anything at all. With writing, this translates into the creation of a pleasing and familiar story arc with discernible beginning, middle, and end. Many readers find great comfort in this familiarity - in fact, they demand it in their novels. Book series are an indication of this phenomenon. In book series, we are allowed to reenter a familiar set of literary preconditions and live among characters we've grown accustomed to. These same readers often despise books that upset the standard story arc. Books are not a place to be challenged, set off balance, or placed adrift in a morally ambiguous universe. Novels are enjoyed by these readers because they clarify moral situations, not muddy them! Readers of this sort will undoubtedly hate The Sheltering Sky and its ambiguities of human behavior. For the rest of the reading world, this novel offers a profound and moving experience. My son asked me this evening which book that I had read this past month had I enjoyed best? I told him this one, and in fact, I have plans to carry on with Bowles and read Let It Come Down beginning tonight.

Books like The Sheltering Sky - books so keenly observant of human frailty - are truly rare. And in being unafraid to show ourselves our frailties, it offers us rare and beautiful truths. It surprises me in some respect that this novel is not more highly valued, though I do see it ranked among best books of the 20th century. Bowles reveals himself a master observer. The character he creates with Kit Moresby is one of the most outstanding and complex I've read in the past couple of years.