Category: Book Reviews and Interviews

Sunday and Monday’s Blog Tour Stops

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Ariel Paiement

The last few days have been quite busy, so I didn’t have a chance to update you guys on the blog tour stops for them! Sunday, I was with Peter Younghusband on his blog Perspective by Peter talking about the themes in On Twilight’s Wings and how they reflect the overall themes of the rest of the series. You can find that here.

Yesterday, I did a video interview with Allen Steadham. This one’s more of a general author’s interview, so I answer questions about all kinds of things. Check it out on his blog or on his Youtube channel.

Today’s will be up once I have the link, but I’ll be on James Quinlan Meservy’s blog with another video interview, this time answering a different set of questions about me and the book. It was a ton of fun to do this interview with James, particularly since we recorded it with both of us talking back and forth. Allen’s was fun too, but that one was me just answering the questions he sent over. Overall, I’ve had a ton of fun with this blog tour so far, and I’m excited to share the last few stops through Saturday.

In case you guys don’t know, there’s a giveaway going on right now in celebration of the launch, and it’ll be running until March 7th. We don’t have many people signed up, so your chances of winning are high. We’ve got two possible winners. One will get an ebook bundle (which includes both the book I just released and Bane of Ashkarith in addition to six or seven other authors’ books), and the other will get a paperback copy of Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones (Mortal Instruments series that the ShadowHunters TV series was based on). The paperback is US only just because of shipping. You can check the giveaway out here, and no purchase is necessary to enter.

Choosing Themes or Themes Choosing Me: The first stop in On Twilight’s Wings’ Blog Tour

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Hi, everyone! We’re kicking off On Twilight’s Wings’ blog tour on Joanna White’s blog tonight with a guest post on choosing themes or, rather, God choosing them and them gravitating to me. Check the post out on her blog here! Tomorrow’s stop will be on Peter Younghusband’s blog, Perspective by Peter. When I have the link for that, I’ll post it here with a quick summary of what the post is about. Until tomorrow, I hope you enjoy tonight’s guest post and then come back for the rest of the days!

Author’s Interview with James Quinlan Meservy

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Today, I have James Quinlan Meservy with me on the blog to answer some questions about himself, his writing, and his inspirations! For those who don’t know, Meservy is the author of the Rai Saga, the first of which is the book The United. I reviewed that on the blog recently, so you can find that here. Let’s see what he has to say.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Mornin!

I am James Quinlan Meservy, Fantasy Author Extraordinaire, Creator of Creatures, Embellisher of Events, and Firebrand “Stories That Kindle Imagination.”

I am originally from Logan, Ut, USA.  Shortly after I graduated from High School I lived two years in the Far East region of the Russian Federation, serving a mission for my church.  My time in Russia and my knowledge of the Russian language greatly influence my writings, especially when I am creating names for characters, events, locations, etc.  For instance, Rai is Paradise in Russian

What kind of fantasy do you write, and what got you into it?

I write epic fantasy and YA fantasy with my Rai Saga, children’s fantasy with my Sykar Series, and urban fantasy with my self-published short story, Jackalopes: The Real Story.

I have always enjoyed the fantasy genre, and when the original idea for The United came to me as a young child, it happened to story about a talking wolf who gained immortality by devouring souls.  Now, that was a long time ago, and the story has adapted into its current novelized form, but once I started writing the story, I fell in love with the genre.

As for the Sykar Series, I wrote that so I could share one of my published stories with my children.  And it is a favorite of theirs.

What genres do you read, and do you write the same ones?

I will read any author once.  If I like what I read, I may read another title, or I may not.  But most of my reads tend to be Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Classic Literature (yes, in my world Charles Dickens and Mark Twain both constitute their own genres) Fantasy, and since I have two or three science fiction WIPs in mind, I am starting to read more sci-fi.

What are some of the things you like to do to relax?

To relax?  Well, if you ask my wife and kids, I don’t relax.  I am always reading, writing, exercising, eating (brownies and Cherry Pepsi will eventually be the death of me), or spending time with my family.  So, for relaxation, I guess I mostly play silly match 3 games on my phone and watch movies.

Can you tell us about your current work-in-progress?

Which one?  At present I have 4 WIPs.  Perfectly Evil, the Realm of the Light Book 3, Shades of Mortality, the Realm of the Light Book 4, UNTITLED, the Realm of the Light Book 5, and a science fiction project I am co-authoring with a friend.

Let’s start with Perfectly Evil.  That is a great story, beginning with Vulktyramous waking up in the Coliseum in Rome after losing the Second Great Denizen War to his brother, Arctyrus Hunter.  I don’t want to spoil too much of the story, but Perfectly Evil is really about how Vulktyramous went from a pawn in everyone else’s game to becoming a force to be reckoned with on his own.

Shades of Mortality is probably the most anticipated WIP on my docket, for it is the immediate sequel to The United, and chronicles the life of HeatherAnn Parkinson.  I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I will say this book shows HeatherAnn coming to terms with herself, accepting herself for who she is, and trying to find her place in the world.

If you’ve published (self-published or traditionally published), can you tell us a little about the experience?

I am hybrid published.  The Realm of the Light Series is published by Cosby Media Productions, and I have a number of self published short stories. 

About the experience?  Editing manuscripts is always fun for me, because I get to see ideas become novels, and then enjoy learning how to improve my stories and preparing them for publication, and I am constantly learning how to write better.

What were your inspirations for writing?

In 5th grade, I was given a Halloween themed creative writing assignment.  I thought about what I wanted to write about, then I had a dream about a wolf who obtained immortality through stealing souls.  And to be honest, my dreams have been my inspiration for stories ever since.

Who got you into writing when you first started?

That would be my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Card.  Then as I grew up, I went through a prolonged I will write, I will never write again stage that lasted about 20 years, before I finally gave in to the dreams and ideas and thoughts that would not leave me alone.  So as a kid, it was my teacher, as an adult, it was inspirations and myself.

Was there anyone who came alongside you at any point when you were struggling in your writing journey and made a real difference? If so, who and why?

When I first self-published The United, it was poorly edited, had a bad cover, and not all that great.  And I knew it.  But, I received a message from Cris Pasqueralle, asking if I was interested in doing a review swap.  I agreed.  Since then, he has been my mentor and good friend.

When I landed a publisher with Tate Publishing, Cris helped me promote my book.  Then when Tate went out of business, he referred to Cosby Media Productions.  Cris has always been ready with words of encouragement, advice, and support whenever I needed it.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors and writers just starting on the writing journey?

Read.  Read everything, and anything.  Do not just read your genre, by everything I mean everything.  Read some how to write books, read some fantasy, read some scifi, read some classic literature, some thrillers, anything you can get your hands on.  And as you read, pay attention to how the author writes.  Learn from their successes and failings, and adapt writing methods and styles you like to your own work. 

Second to that is write.  Ideas are great, but I cannot read the ideas in your mind on my Kindle.

What is one thing you wish someone had told you before you started writing?

To read.  I was not a reader as a child.  I did not really enjoy reading until I read A Christmas Carol in a high school class as a senior.  So the first thing I did when I decided to take my story and turn it into a novel was write it out.  It was horrible and dragging, and boring, and predictable, and I had no idea how to write a fantasy novel.  So I read a lot of fantasy, some how to write books, some classics, and some books of different genres just so I could see how different authors write narrative prose.

What’s your favorite book, and who’s your favorite literary character? Why?

My favorite author is Charles Dickens, and my favorite book is A Christmas Carol.  As I mentioned above, it was the title, and he was the author, that really got me into reading.  Now that I think about it, I think that part of the reason for my love of A Christmas Carol is because it was the first book I ever read that inspired me to change to become a better person.

As far as favorite literary character, I have more than just 1.

Eponine from Les Miserables.  I love her so much.  She is one of my greatest literary crushes, and I love her story.  No matter how bad her life became after her father lost his inn, she never lost hope, and she did not allow her experiences to harden her heart.

The Bishop from Les Miserables.  Words cannot express how much his example of Christ-like love means to me.  The way he gave away everything he owned to those who were in greater need is nothing short of inspiring.

Renee, aka Captain Espan Rose aka Captain Varda from the Sovereign of the Seas series by KR Martin.  I love Renee.  She is my third literary crush. I love her determination, her devotion to both her cause and her family, and her drive to never give up.

The United by James Quinlan Meservy – A Large Cast

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Introduction

Hey, everyone! I’m here with a new book review for you all! Today’s is for The United by James Quinlan Meservy. He graciously provided me with a review copy when I mentioned I would be interested in having more reviews of different authors’ books on my blog. After he got in touch, we agreed that I would review his, and he was kind enough to provide a review copy so I didn’t have to purchase my own copy. I’m really excited to share this book with you guys, so let’s take a look! As always, the reader’s review is first followed by my review for writers. Don’t read that second review if you don’t want any spoilers provided for you.

rEADER’S rEVIEW

So, just being honest here… The beginning half was a bit hard for me. I don’t know for sure why because I did like the characters and the overall idea of the story–as I understood it–but I just struggled to wrap my head around what was going on. My main issue, I think, was the jumps that happened between the Realm of Light (Earth) and the Realm of Rai (which seems to represent Heaven or something of that nature). It was just difficult for me to make the jump between the characters in one place and the characters in another, and the fact that the Creatures of Rai could be in both realms was initially something that had me really confused.

However, once I got into it, I found that I did enjoy the book. The characters were written very well, and the way Meservy approached things was realistic and sensitive (when the issues being discussed called for it). The story itself was also a riveting plot line. I was intrigued by the legends and lore that was woven throughout the novel, and I think that was done pretty well. The incorporation didn’t feel heavy-handed or odd to me at all.

Sometimes, the fight scenes were a tiny bit difficult to follow though. Mainly because mind-control is a factor in a few (or I suppose mind-control in the form of causing someone to hallucinate and do things they wouldn’t ever do, like killing friends and family). Sorry for the slight spoiler there, guys! But basically, when characters end up under that mind-control, they no longer keep their own names or think of themselves with that name. They get this superhero pseudonym thing, so it’s a little hard sometimes to figure out who’s who in the hallucinations while they’re under the influence of the mind-controller. I didn’t like that too much because it just left me so mixed up and mentally fogged until the scene went back to normal. Still, it’s a relatively minor thing in the scheme of the entire story, especially considering the fact that the plot line was neat and the different mechanisms used in combat and in preparation for it were quite unique.

In the end, I would recommend it. It’s got a lot of clear references to Christianity and, I feel, presents things from a strongly Christian point-of-view without glossing over the fact that people make mistakes and lead lives that can have choices and events they end up regretting after coming to Christ (or even things they regret doing as a Christian). Because the book doesn’t shy away from openness about the fact that even Christian couples make mistakes and sin in the area of premarital sex, I wouldn’t say the book is one ultra-conservative Christians would label clean. Personally, I think that removing it would leave the book unrealistic and lacking, given the story James weaves. But, if you don’t want even the mention of sex included in your novels or in what your child reads, don’t pick this up. There aren’t any actual sex scenes or anything, but the characters are clear that they’ve had premarital sex and regretted it. So, yeah… If you’re not okay with that being brought up, The United might not be for you. Otherwise, it’s a good read.

Writer’s Review

Okay, now for the fun stuff! Picking apart The United to go over what was done well and what wasn’t. First, as the title hints, we’re going to talk about the large cast of characters that Meservy had, why it worked, and what he did well with it. The second thing we’re going to talk about is handling books where you have things going on in two different realms or worlds parallel to one another. This can get confusing for readers, and it did in Meservy’s book, so we’ll go over why it was so confusing and what you can do in order to alleviate some confusion for readers.

First, let’s go with the good things Meservy did with his large cast! To begin with, lots and lots of people died in The United. Straight up, lots of people end up getting killed when facing off with Lord Yrimwaque, and without his large posse of characters to continue on the story after two or three died, Meservy wouldn’t have had much of a story left. The villain would have won, and that would have been that.

However, because he had a group of friends plus several Creatures of Rai to play major roles in the story, you never ran out of characters. Granted, this could become overwhelming for the reader easily, but in Meservy’s case, it didn’t because so many of them died. In the first battle, they lost one out of the three who were involved (and the rest barely escaped). In the second battle, they lost another two, if I counted right. By the third battle, they lost two more, leaving Blaze, one of the main characters, as the only one really left who played a major role in trying to kill the villain. The Creatures of Rai all survived since all of them were dead to begin with and just passed from the Realm of Rai (Heaven) to the Realm of Light (Earth) either through evil means or by order of their Master (God/Christ).

Interestingly enough, Meservy never actually got rid of the characters he killed off. Instead, they become permanent residents of the Realm of Rai as Creatures of Rai, and they helped to offer guidance and protection to their friends who were still fighting back on the Realm of Light. This was achieved through dreams, which those of the Realm of Light wouldn’t fully remember but still found would guide them later on as premonitions of sorts, or through direct interactions between the Creatures of Rai and the inhabitants of the Realm of Light. In a way, it seems as if those who died became like guardian angels.

This, obviously, is a bit of a departure from Biblical narratives on what happens to mortals when they die, but given the fact that there’s a lot in the story that’s meant to be allegorical or is just creative license, I wouldn’t fault Meservy on it. It was an integral part to the story and not something I found to be particularly objectionable. You may not want to keep your cast of characters the same size using this method, but note that it is an option if you want to keep people around even though they’ve died. Ghosts are a common theme in a lot of paranormal fantasy, so it’s a viable option for you, though obviously your spin on it won’t be the same as Meservy’s has been.

Now, about what I felt wasn’t done well. I mentioned in my reader’s review that I found the start to be difficult to follow. It was confusing and jarring to jump from one world to the other with everything going on at the same time or at different times but with no clear markers on which was which.

This is something I’m fairly sure Meservy addresses later on in his writing since his short story for the anthology I’m organizing is in this same world and has clear headers to let us know as readers which realm we’re on and who it is that’s the viewpoint character. I found this to be a much more effective method of switching between realms because without those markers, it becomes very jumbled. This is, of course, one way of handling a similar situation in your own novels to avoid confusing readers or jarring them out of the story.

Beyond that, Meservy had a third realm, of sorts, and that was the realm of the mind. In this realm, the character only enters it when under the control of Lord Yrimwaque and the Threat, at least in The United. Once they’re in this realm, the characters cease to view themselves as themselves. They take on names like the Avenger, Traveler, Friend, and more. While in this state, they’re approached by someone from the Threat who masquerades as someone they want to follow, and, under mind control in the hallucination/mental realm, they do follow instructions. This leads to actions in the real world that frequently end with friends killing each other or one friend attacking and killing other friends. They can be snapped out of this realm when sprayed with water (for whatever reason this is the only method that works), but it’s usually too late to save anyone.

This mental realm was also confusing because the lack of names made it hard to follow who was who. So, while, eventually, I was able to figure out what was going on, I was never certain which character was the one being controlled until the mind control was removed and we were left with a fresh body count. This was pretty frustrating. If you have something similar, I recommend that you show them initially fighting it or slowly succumbing to it as their mind fades into the scene and they begin to think of themselves as this other character. That way, even if we don’t know for sure who they attack or what they do to those around them, we do know for certain which character we’re following. This just helps to ground the reader as they read through what might otherwise end up seeming confusing or disjointed/divorced from the reality built up in the rest of the book.

Conclusion

Despite the confusion at points in the book, I did find the storyline to be one I could follow and enjoy. I would recommend the book even if it wasn’t always the easiest to understand at times. The confusion wasn’t bad enough to make the book a no-go for me. It was more a minor frustration and distraction when it showed up and not even a problem the rest of the time. I loved the characters, and it made me sad any time someone died because even though I knew they weren’t gone forever, I saw the impact on those left behind, and it hurt for that reason. That means Meservy did quite a few things right, so I’d definitely say this book is one I can recommend without too much reserve.

You can buy the book through Amazon, and you can get in touch with James Quinlan Meservy through his website or his newsletter signup. I will be doing an author’s interview with Meservy to go along with this post, so once he has finished the questions, I’ll put that up!

Be on the look out for that and for my review of TN Traynor’s historical romance set in Scotland, which will be posted on March 7th. I know it isn’t the genre I usually review on the blog, but she and I are doing spotlights as part of my blog tour for On Twilight’s Wings, and because I know her work, I said I’d spotlight the book even though I normally wouldn’t do that for non-fantasy on the blog. I’ve already started reading the copy she sent me, and I’m really enjoying it so far! It’s better polished than Idi & the Oracle’s Quest was too, so I’ve been having an easier time reading it. There won’t be a writer’s review because it isn’t what I normally talk about on the blog, but I’ll have a review from my perspective as a reader along with a blurb, book links, and the cover. So for all of you who read romance too, you can look forward to that special feature come March 7th!

Behind the Scenes with Ariel Paiement and Joanna White

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Hi guys! Interested in finding out more about my writing process, books, and philosophy for writing? Curious about Joanna White, who has been interviewed on my blog before? The two of us did an interview format question and answer where we asked each other questions about writing, books, and more. You can watch it below or on YouTube here. Thanks for watching!

Idi & The Oracle’s Quest: Characterization and Voice

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Introduction

This was the newest book on my list of books read. So far, it’s the only one I’ve finished this year. I’m off to such a great start on that sixty-books-read-this-year goal, aren’t I? Yeah, not really… Anyway, I finished this sometime mid-January but am only just getting to the review for the blog now. As usual, my reader’s review is the same as the one I post to the usual reviewing sites like Amazon, Goodreads, and Bookbub. If you are interested in learning more about the craft in the book, skip the reader’s review and go straight to the writer’s review. Or feel free to read both. I don’t really mind.

Reader’s Review

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It could have gone through another edit. There were a lot of little errors and problems that a strong editor could have ironed out of the book, and as an editor, those issues were abundantly clear to me. However, I found the story itself to be entertaining enough, and I don’t feel those problems would keep a reader looking for a quick read from enjoying. Unless you’re the type to be a grammar Nazi, a writer who’s picky about stuff being just right in every way, or a freelance editor like myself, you’re probably not going to notice the issues most of the time.

The characterization was pretty strong with several characters having particularly unique voices, which I appreciated. The variety in character, personality, and voice was refreshing, and I liked the struggles they all went through between choosing right or wrong in the entirety of the story.

That’s another thing. Right and wrong were clearly defined in the book with consequences for doing either clearly outlined too. It’s hard to find books that keep that line from becoming blurred, particularly in fantasy, so I liked that Traynor did this well. If you’re looking for that in your fantasy books, then this book has that going for it, for sure!

I would recommend this story. It’s a good choice for younger kids (pre-teens and up), I would say. There wasn’t anything terribly inappropriate, in my opinion, and the book doesn’t use any foul language. Kids who like adventure books with magic and wizards mixed in will enjoy this, and it’s easily accessible for even reluctant readers.

Writer’s Review

Now the fun part, right? We’re going to pick apart the craft for this book and talk about what could be better as well as what was well done. To begin with, let’s talk about the good things that we can all learn from. I’m going to focus mainly on voice and characterization since I noticed these two elements stood out as being nicely done in this book.

Voice

To begin with, voice was excellent here. When I say voice, I’m specifically referring to the different voices and flavors of speech that characters had. Some authors do very well with this while others don’t. Traynor did well with it. You could tell the difference between characters by the dialogue alone in most cases. The way they phrased things, what they said, and the word choices they used were unique with each character. Some were, of course, more similar than others, but they were all, in my opinion, different enough to allow readers to tell the difference. This can be pretty tough to do, so if you choose to read Idi & The Oracle’s Quest, pay special attention to the different ways Traynor differentiates between characters in dialogue. I think you’ll be surprised at how many ways it can happen with everything from sentence structure to the individual words themselves. It’s often more subtle than you’d think, though in some characters, such as the dwarves that one of the main characters stays with, have more unique voices than others.

Characterization

In many ways, voice is simply a subset of characterization. After all, the way a character speaks says a lot about who they are. However, voice wasn’t the only part of characterization Traynor executed well. Her characters in general feel as if they could be real people thanks to their little quirks, oddities, and practices. No two are alike, however similar they may be at times. Their uniqueness sets them apart from one another and goes a long way toward making the story believable. For me, the characterization was one of the main reasons I kept reading the book. I started it after picking it up in a Facebook review exchange group I’d joined, and we were only obligated to review if we felt we could give the book a good rating (anything above three stars). At first, I wasn’t positive if I could or not because of what the book didn’t do well, but the characterization combined with an overall interesting story-line saved this book from receiving no review or a shelving on the not-finished shelf on Goodreads from me. This just goes to show that many times, even if a reader isn’t fond of your plot or something else in the book, they’ll keep reading anyway if you can invest them in the characters.

A lot of what brought the characters to life was the humanity in them all. Idi started out with a petulant, rude streak but grew into a decent, kind human being. He went through struggles we can all understand (to one degree or another, at least), and I wanted to root for him. I wanted to know what happened to him. His mentor Marcus was also well-rounded. He was a kind old man who sometimes lacked patience but generally was very loving in spite of his insecurities and frustrations surrounding his apprentice. These are only two examples out of many in the book, but they’re good places to start if the area of characterization is something you struggle with.

What the Book Didn’t Do Well

Okay, so this is more a cautionary tale than anything. I know editing is expensive, or at least seems so when you’re a broke author struggling to make it in the highly competitive market, but it’s important. Now, I could tell some effort had been applied to this book, but it fell far short of professional in many places because of missing or misplaced commas, poor sentence structure, or lagging flow in the story. These are all things that, by themselves, wouldn’t necessarily cause a reader to stop reading for pleasure, but they’re certainly going to stand out to one degree or another.

We don’t notice what isn’t there. Unless it should be there, that is. Likewise, we often don’t notice what is there until it isn’t when it needed to be. This book is a good example of that. Mostly, its issues weren’t ones that an average reader would catch every time. They might notice a confusing sentence, a slow paragraph, or even a missing comma here and there. But for avid readers, it’s going to be a stumbling block. And here’s the thing. The avid readers are, many times, the ones who will share your books with all their friends and read them a million times if they really liked them. If they can’t point to a book and tell you it was a good piece of writing, they’re not going to recommend it. The average reader is going to read it, might mention it to one or two people (if they think of it or someone asks), and move on. Maybe they read the next book. Maybe not. If they’re not big readers but really found your book appealing, you may get a bit more exposure from word-of-mouth. Avid readers though are much more likely to become enthusiastic fans. I can say that honestly as an avid reader myself. I’d recommend my favorite authors in a heartbeat, and chances are that I’ll review them, share them, and talk about them too. At the least, I’ll be talking about them, even if I wasn’t directly asked. (Maybe a little too much sometimes).

All that to say that editing matters. It pays off. I know it feels expensive and it’s easier to do it yourself, but unless you’ve got some background in editing or have done a lot of research on it to learn how, it’s only easier because you don’t see all the problems with your manuscript. No one likes to admit it, but that’s the way things are. Even for me, as someone who edits for clients, I find that I don’t catch everything in my work without multiple edits (probably four or five as opposed to the thorough, once-through or twice-through edit I can do for a client), and not even then sometimes. Why? Pretty simple. I wrote it. I know what I was thinking. No one else does unless I communicated it well, and if I didn’t, well, I’m not going to catch on to that little problem unless it’s so obvious that even I don’t understand what I was trying to say. (Then I know there’s really a problem. Probably something along the lines of “I wrote this when I was three-fourths of the way asleep, and I need to rewrite this whole section” kind of problem.) That’s going to be at least equally true of anyone with little to no experience editing.

There’s no shame in that.

But you do need to address it if you want your book to stand out from every other self-published title on Amazon that some beginning writer threw together in hopes of making a quick buck on it. We all know a good cover sells books, but you’re not going to sell more than a few copies if everyone drawn in by the cover wants to leave five pages in because your work is so full of problems it’s impossible to get through.

To be clear, Idi & The Oracle’s Quest was not that bad. It wasn’t bad enough that I couldn’t understand it or wanted to bang my head against a brick wall. It was just bad enough to frustrate me a lot at the beginning and to continue to needle me here and there once I was invested in the characters. But, since we’re trying to learn from what went right and what went wrong with these book reviews, I didn’t want to overlook this important point. Get an editor if you don’t know how to edit. Even if you have to ask a friend who’s good at it to do it in exchange for something else (like a free copy of the book or a really nice dinner out), get an editor. If you can edit proficiently, then find beta-readers. Get input from your intended audience members so that you know what you missed! You will not catch it all because you are hardwired to understand what you are trying to communicate. No one else in the world is. Make sure you know what areas you need to clarify before you go publishing things.

Conclusion

I hope this has been helpful to you all! If you want a copy of Idi & The Oracle’s Quest, you can pick it up in ebook or paperback formats on Amazon. In closing, I would like to point out that this book did have an excellent message. It’s clear that the book has Christian influences to it, so if you’re looking for a good juvenile or YA Christian fantasy, this would be a good choice. It isn’t as clearly Christian or allegorical as Joanna White’s or Allen Steadham’s stuff, but it’s still good. I’d say it’s more like what I tend to write in that it has clear Christian influences, but it isn’t necessarily meant to be expressly Christian through clear salvation themes or Bible verses woven into the text. The influences are there if you’re a Christian or know anything about Christian beliefs, but you won’t be hit over the head with it everywhere you turn either if you’re more in the mood to read a book without serious philosophical undertones.

Howling at the Moon – The Surprise Ending

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Introduction

To start off with, let me say that Howling at the Moon is a short story, not a book. So my review on the writers’ end of things will be a little bit shorter than it would normally be since there wasn’t as much in the book to dig into. But we’ll still go over that section, so let’s just dive right in!

Reader’s Review

Amber offered me a copy of this story when I mentioned I did book reviews on The Fantasy Nook and was looking to build up the content in that area. This was an already published work she had out, and I’m so glad I took her up on the offer of a free copy to review! This short story was over way too fast. I loved it, and I was really sad to see it end. The story drew me in from the start and held my attention through to the finish. The ending is a little bit unexpected, or, at least, it was for me, so I was a bit surprised by it. I had mixed emotions as a reader on the ending side of things. A part of me was glad that things worked out how they did, but another part was worried it might end nowhere good for the characters in the future. But, hey, it’s a short story, so the beauty of the ending is that we don’t know either way what happens as a result. All in all, I would definitely recommend reading the story. You can get a copy through Port & Key’s website or use the Amazon and Kobo links posted there to grab a copy.

Writer’s Review

Okay, those of you who are still with me are probably here looking to see what you can learn. If you’re just interested in reading the story or, at the very least, want to read it before I spoil it, please don’t read any further! There will be discussion on the story’s techniques and specific details, so please take the time to read the short story if you don’t want it spoiled. Then come back here.

Still here? Okay, let’s get started then!

The main thing I saw that was done extremely well was the twist ending Amber gave the story. At the beginning of the story, we have our protagonist, a witch who bakes cakes and cupcakes, and a woman who comes into the shop. The woman ends up having a tarot reading done by our protagonist, claiming she wants to know if her husband is cheating on her.

At this point in the story, I’m assuming that the main character might somehow help this poor woman or, since I didn’t realize it wasn’t a full-length novel, that the woman was just part of scenes to set up the main story. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Turned out the guy our protagonist was dating was married to the woman who came in for a reading, and they’d split, so the woman was trying to kill him. Now, I’m not entirely sure if she did it because she wanted to make sure that if she couldn’t have him nobody would or if she just did it out of spite and anger. Who knows. But I wasn’t expecting her to actually kill him, using the spelled cake made by the protagonist to fulfill the woman’s wish. The protagonist’s sympathy was misplaced, apparently.

None of this was anything I expected, but I really didn’t expect the finale. The protagonist tries to bring her lover back from the dead, and Circe, the goddess of magic the witches are bound to in this story, agrees upon the condition that our protagonist becomes immortal and acts as her hand to remind the other covens who is really in control. Yup. She ends the story with a shade for a lover, whom she can only see during witching hour, and immortality for herself. Not at all what I was expecting to happen.

But, it worked really well. Amber set it up beautifully, and even though I never saw it coming, it made sense later after I’d finished the story. For those of us trying to achieve a similar effect with our endings, this is a good lesson in doing so. Set up the clues, make them subtle but still there, and then surprise the reader with the ending those clues led to. After you do that, you’ll have the certainty that most readers will understand why the ending was what it was, even if they didn’t expect it at first. 

Mindfire – Worldviews in Writing

Featured Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Okay, guys! So, this book review is a little bit of a different fantasy sub-genre than I’ve reviewed in the past. Hunter and Shifter were both more allegorical fantasy or high fantasy. This one is superhero fantasy. If you don’t know what that is, you can take a look at my Sunday Sub-Genres post on it here.

Normally, I’m not much for superhero books, honestly, so when Allen asked me if I did book reviews on my blog–which I do–and asked me if I’d be willing to review Mindfire, I was kind of a little bit… Hesitant. Yeah, I know. I read a lot, and so why would I be hesitant about this? Well, my family and good friends will attest to the fact that I seriously have a thing against superhero movies on the whole. I watch very few of them. Sorry to those of you out there who adore the genre! I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, obviously. I’m just saying I don’t enjoy it. Doctor Strange and the very rare episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D when my family has it on is the extent of my superhero movie or show watching.

Given that, you might understand why I didn’t really feel overly excited about Mindfire. More like, cautiously curious. I knew Allen was a Christian author though, so I was really interested to see how he would handle superpowers and weaving God into his stories. I was pretty happy with what I got. So, that said, let’s get into the reader’s review first, and then we’ll talk about the writer’s side of it.

Reader’s Review

As I said above, I wasn’t jumping with excitement over reading Mindfire. I approached the book with curiosity because it wasn’t my usual genre. However, since I’d just finished blogging about superhero fantasy, I thought it would be a great example for my blog’s review section to help those looking to write this kind of fantasy.

As a reader, I found that I did have a bit of trouble getting into the story at first. I guess just because I don’t usually enjoy the genre. It also didn’t help that my reading time often consists of ten minutes snatched before work shifts or on a break from grading papers. So not all of the attention issues stemmed from the book. However, once I was into the book, I did enjoy it a lot more. I was invested in the characters and wanted to see what would happen to them.

Allen used a varied approach in how people had powers and why, which I appreciated. Some of the superheros were your typical, my powers just showed up or I had an accident and they manifested, kind of superhero. But others were genetic, like the werecats and werefoxes. One of my biggest complaints about superhero-themed books and movies is that they generally tend to develop the powers because they were in some freak accident or something. Obviously, that doesn’t hold true in every case, but things get pretty predictable after a while in the genre. Because that’s one of my biggest pet peeves about the genre, I was extremely happy to see that Allen didn’t do that. The story, while it may have highlighted superpowers, did not tell the typical story you see in the superhero genre.

One noticeable difference I saw was the characterization. Often, superhero films and the few books I have read seem to portray superheros as these epitomes of goodness. That’s going by the wayside a bit as you get heroes like Arrow who aren’t always morally black and white, and I appreciate that shift. I do believe right and wrong should be clear in any book or movie, and Allen definitely adhered to that, but the choices we make aren’t always black and white. I felt that Allen’s characters stayed true to that. Some of them made really terrible choices and had to live with the consequences, but all of them came across as very human. They had reasons for what they did, even if the reasons weren’t good. Superhero and supervillain alike struggled with decisions made and had things they regretted. In short, the characters weren’t all good or all bad. Even the best of them had their problems, just like we do in real life.

If you really enjoy this genre, you’re probably going to like this book. I will say that, for those who aren’t religious or aren’t Christian, just to be very transparent, you may not be the audience for this book. Allen is very overt in his talk about God, Christ, and salvation. Even when it isn’t directly mentioned, the theme of second chances, redemption, and forgiveness are woven throughout the entire book. If you don’t mind this, you’re probably going to enjoy the story. If you’re actively anti-Christian or just prefer to avoid reading books that are openly pressing home the points of Christianity, you may not like this. Still, if that’s not you or you’re just on the fence, I would highly recommend this book to you. It’s a good choice, and once I got into it, it was a very easy read with relatable characters. I don’t think you’ll regret it. As a bonus, parents, if you’re looking for a good book for your superhero-loving child or teen, this book would be appropriate for even the younger kids, though it might be a little hard for some of the young ones to grasp all the concepts.

If you’re interested in Mindfire, the purchase link is below.

Amazon

Writer’s Review

For those of you who are here to learn more about the craft of writing, this review is for you. Don’t read this if you plan to read the book and wish to avoid spoilers. Read the book first, then come back to this if you’re interested in seeing my take on what we can pull from this book. With that disclaimer, let’s jump right into this.

Characterization

Let’s start here because this is one of the things I felt the author did a phenomenal job with! Now, I kind of came to this book expecting a run of the mill superhero story. I was not, by any means, expecting characters who would come to life on the page the way Allen’s did. I guess I was anticipating larger than life characters for both superheros and supervillains. Relatable was definitely not in the list of expectations.

So, I was very happy when I discovered that the characters were relatable. Particularly Leia and Dane. These two characters both had superpowers, and both of them discovered more about themselves and those powers in the course of the book. These characters definitely went through some traumatic stuff. Dane lost his mom, the only family he felt he had left. Leia lost both of her aunts by the time things were said and done, she killed one of those aunts trying to protect her birth mother, husband, and unborn child, and she discovered her mother wasn’t really her mother, among other things. To top it all off, her birth mother is the supervillain everyone most feared: Malevolence. Not exactly what one wants to discover about one of their parents, right? 

Through all of these challenges and difficulties, these two characters continually rise to the challenge. But they don’t make the choices you normally see people make in the superhero genre. These two, one of them a previous superhero and the other trying to figure out where she fits, both end up deciding not to become superheros. I was a bit shocked by this turn of events, especially with Dane, because their parents were superheros, and they had powers. Normally, things go the direction of saving the world (or at least their city) one crook at a time. But not with Mindfire. 

All throughout the book, every character faces difficulties and decisions that aren’t fun to make. Leia and Dane are only two examples, which I felt were very prominent. But even the super-villain, Malevolence, is made relatable and human for the reader as the reasons for her choices and the difficulties she faced, which led to her assuming the identity Malevolence, are revealed through the book. No character remained flat or inaccessible because of some super-human ideal. Unlike Superman, who almost doesn’t seem touchable, every superhero and supervillain in this book is as human as you and I, with the exception of having a little extra boost of superhuman ability.

While not everyone here is going to write a superhero book, everyone here will have some degree of characterization required for their story. With Mindfire, you see a very good example of how to make characters realistic and relatable for the reader. If you’re writing fantasy, there’s a pretty good chance magic is involved, even if it isn’t in the form of superpowers, and other species besides humanity may also be front and center. You need to ensure that, despite these differences, readers can connect, and Mindfire is an excellent example of how to do that.

Themes

This is another area I felt worked well for Mindfire. Allen did a good job of weaving themes into his story. You can see the Christian influence everywhere, but this book isn’t allegorical like Joanna’s books Shifter and Hunter. Set in this world as opposed to other planets, Mindfire took a much less subtle, but still appropriate, approach to the author’s worldview. The most obvious themes in the book are those of redemption, forgiveness, and second chances.

Malevolence is probably the clearest example of these themes. While she wasn’t necessarily a huge obstacle our heroine had to overcome to save her loved ones and home, she still made choices that, while relatable, led to suffering. In particular, her choices in trying to be a mother to Leia indirectly led to the death of Leia’s mother-in-law and Black Fox, Dane’s mother. Her choices also led directly to deaths or injuries to people around Leia as Malevolence used her telepathy or telekinesis to protect her daughter. Through the course of the book, Malevolence gradually changes. She reverts back to Angela Merrick, her original identity, for a time until that’s too much to bear because of the guilt and pain. But once she’s back to Malevolence’s personality, she still doesn’t quite become like she was. Far from being a heartless villain who wants only power, she is a concerned mother, about to become a grandmother, and a grieving individual who has lost too much. As the story continues, Malevolence eventually does find forgiveness and redemption as well as a second chance. She goes from being the villain everyone fears to being friends with her daughter’s family and having a place to belong.

For writers interested in using themes, what you can learn from Allen’s approach in Mindfire is two-fold. First, you have to realize that a theme should be a natural extension of the story. If Malevolence hadn’t been working toward being better, hadn’t realized her mistakes, hadn’t regretted anything, then Allen’s themes wouldn’t have worked out. The characters and the story have to support it. Two, the integration should be smooth. If it fits well with the characters and story, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but the key point here is that readers should get the idea without being smacked in the face with it. It should be clear but not overwhelming or obvious in a heavy-handed way.

Christianity

Okay, so this was an area I had mixed feelings on. Allen wove themes of Christianity into the entire novel. (See my previous point on those themes). That worked really, really well for Mindfire. However, he also included some places where salvation, God, and Christ were discussed quite prominently. As a Christian author, I wasn’t particularly bothered by this. I appreciate the courage it takes for an author to overtly include Christianity that way because it definitely will alienate certain audiences. The mixed feelings came in more with certain conversations. Some of them felt a little bit contrived.

There were a few I really liked, such as the conversation between Leia and Sue, her adoptive mother, at a few points in the book as Sue tries to help Leia to understand that Christ and a relationship with God can be the calm in her storm as well as an answer to her current unrest. However, there were others that felt much less natural. The points where Leia was saved and the conversations between Sue and her mother in the flashback scenes felt a little more heavy-handed. They pulled me out of the story to sit and think about the scene instead of reading through it, grasping the main concept being presented, and moving on. I didn’t enjoy those parts as much because they felt out-of-place instead of intentionally woven in. The different terms used were also very much “Christianese”.

I think the thing to learn here is that your worldview, no matter what it is, can be presented in a way that’s natural and in a way that’s heavy-handed. Obviously, you don’t want to be the kind of writer who tries to hide their worldview. That’s not a good thing, and it’s, in my opinion at least, wrong to manipulate the reader like that. But worldview and beliefs ought to be woven into the story so that readers are able to see how it fits. It needs to make sense. If it’s feeling forced at all, it probably is. So, if you really need it to be there, find a way to smooth it out and fit it in without trying to make a round peg fit in a square hole. Readers will notice if you’re forcing it, and that isn’t what you want.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, despite points where the use of Christian terminology and Christian viewpoints was a little preachy, the book was still a good read. I skimmed those parts and moved on with reading the story without too much disruption to my suspension of belief. For writers looking to learn from Allen’s use of writing techniques in Mindfire, there’s definitely a lot to learn. Picking apart his writing style and the various tools he used will provide you with a lot of different things to learn. I’ve just scratched the surface in covering the areas I felt were most important. Hopefully you’ve learned something from this though. If you’re interested in Mindfire, the purchase link is below.

Amazon

Shifter – A Lesson In Story Building

Ariel Paiement

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done a review on here. In fact, I haven’t done one since the first one I did for Hunter by Joanna White. (If you haven’t read that yet, you can read it here.)

As with the review of Hunter, I’m going to split my review into two sections. The first is intended for my readers who simply want a new book to read. If you’re not interested in spoilers or seeing the craft in the book picked apart to learn from it, then this first review is for you! However, if you’re interested as a writer trying to learn what works well in writing (or what doesn’t in some cases with books), the second review is for you.

Let’s get started!

Reader’s Review

As a reader, I’ll be honest in saying that I enjoyed Hunter more. That said, I did eventually get into Shifter, and I really enjoyed it once I did. It just took me a bit. Part of the problem for me, personally, was that I was so attached to Jared and Averella from Hunter that I wasn’t really ready for a move to a new set of characters or a new ship. That said, I believe that Joanna has since published a short story, Sightless, that helps to give a bit more final ending to Jared and Averella’s story, at least for the time being. Had I read this before Shifter, I may have had an easier time transitioning. 

That said, I did enjoy the book. It made me smile, laugh, and cry. I’m not a big crier usually, so the fact that the book could make me cry is a good indication that it really got me invested in the characters. The struggles the characters went through really resonated with me, and I was rooting for them the whole way. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, but I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the action scenes, the entire premise of different kinds of shifters, and the way she moved through the book. The plot took a variety of twists and turns that I didn’t expect, and the end was definitely no exception.

The end wasn’t my favorite. Be warned ahead of time that it’s a bit bittersweet. It definitely made me sad. I wouldn’t say it spoiled the book for me because there was clear evidence that it was only the beginning of a bigger story, but it took a while for me to accept how it ended. Then again, if a book can pull at your heartstrings enough to make you feel pain, joy, or anger, the author has done their job well. Assuming they’ve elicited the emotional response they were going for, that is! I feel the author knew what she was doing and wrote the ending the way she did intentionally, so I don’t feel it really took away from the book.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to people who enjoyed Hunter or who are just looking for clean fantasy to read. As a bonus for those who are Christian, the book does have strong Christian ethical themes and a morally solid message. If you’re looking for that, this won’t disappoint there. Even if you aren’t, the story is still an enjoyable read.

Writer’s Review

**Spoiler Alert: If you want to read this book before you pick it apart to learn how to improve your own writing or if you just want to read the book for sheer enjoyment, do not read any further! Read the book first and then read this or just don’t read this at all. That said, if you aren’t intending to read the book, already have, or don’t care about spoilers, welcome to the section for those of you looking to learn more about the craft!**

So, Shifter had some interesting things in it that never showed up in Hunter. I wasn’t really expecting them, to be honest. I’d read other stuff by Joanna, but apparently, I hadn’t read anything that had these elements prior to reading Shifter. So, I have a few interesting points to pick out for you all today!

Languages

The first really big thing I noticed in Shifter that wasn’t present in Hunter was the use of another language. In Shifter, Joanna builds her own language for the Shifter clans (mostly for the dragon Shifters). This was entirely unexpected, frankly. She’s put awesome bits of world-building into her work before, but, as I said, there were elements I hadn’t seen before, and this was one of them.

This one was a bit of both positive and negative for me. On the positive side, I absolutely loved the level of realism it lent to the story. I mean, we have multiple languages in real life, so why not in fantasy on another planet? I appreciated that Joanna took the time to create a very consistent-sounding language to incorporate. She gave the words life and meaning, and she used similar or common sounds to help make the words feel like they could be part of a real language. This is a technique that I noted was useful in my post on building languages on Saturday Setups.

But here’s the negative side of it. The words’ sounds weren’t intuitive. This made it difficult to decide how a name or a word ought to be pronounced. Now, I know that as writers, we have to give our readers some creative license. We have to understand that readers won’t pronounce things like we do all the time. But the hope is they can get close. For Shifter, it took me over half the book to even get close to remember how different letter combinations should sound.

In Joanna’s favor, though, was the fact that she did have a main character who didn’t know the language. So, the male lead, Beroan, had to explain how things were pronounced and tell Nsi, our female lead, how to say words or what those words meant. This helped alleviate some of the frustration of not knowing how to pronounce the sometimes odd combinations of letters. I did appreciate that.

On the whole, I would say that this technique is one to use carefully. As you can see, Joanna’s use of it had some downsides but also some upsides. I don’t think she made a poor choice to include it, but when she built it, she might have, in hindsight, wanted to make the words a little more reader-friendly.

So that’s something all of us should keep in mind if we choose to create languages to become a part of the world-building. Use combinations of sounds that the reader can at least guess at. Use pronunciations that readers can get close to by looking at the word.

And if you aren’t going to do that, provide a glossary in the back with the foreign-sounding words and their meanings so that readers who might be bugged by this can have a guide to look at. (Trust me… As a reader who can get frustrated by an inability to figure out a pronunciation, a pronunciation and meaning guide is something I greatly appreciate.)

Ending With a Bang

Okay, so I understand why Joanna wrote the ending the way she did, but as a reader, the ending she used in Shifter didn’t really leave me satisfied initially. As a writer, I understand that it was a structurally sound ending, but emotionally, that didn’t really compute. What Joanna did with Shifter was to end it with Beroan, the dragon-shifter male lead, dying in the final boss fight. This, of course, broke Nsi’s heart. Mine too, frankly.

I was not expecting this ending at all! I mean, I expected injuries. Even severe injuries. But not this. An ending like this could majorly backfire because readers get attached to your main characters. Beroan, in particular, was a very likeable character. So this is another technique that I advise using with caution. You don’t want your reader to see the ending coming, but you may not want to go to these extremes. In some cases, such as Joanna’s, there’s a good reason and one that’s called for. But if you don’t have that good reason, don’t go here.

Here’s why. A reader who sees this ending and is upset can still look back through Shifter and recognize the signs that this was the ending. They didn’t see them while reading, but they see them now. If those reasons are not good, clear, and strong, the reader is going to feel cheated, not just upset. As writers, it’s our job to deliver an ending that sticks with the reader in some way. But if it’s a sad or bad ending, we have an extra responsibility to give the reader justification for that. Joanna has, I feel, done this in Shifter, but it could easily have gone the other way too. Make sure you think carefully before utilizing this technique!

Conclusion

Shifter was a great novel in my opinion. I would highly recommend reading it for anyone who likes clean fiction with Biblical themes and morally upright principles. You can find Shifter here or follow Joanna White on Amazon here.