Book Review

The Importance of Being Reviewed

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Let’s talk about reviews. Book reviews that is.

These days we rely on reviews. We read reviews all the time, for just about everything. And we certainly check the reviews before we buy or read a book. Why? Because we are so inundated with content that we have to pick and chose what we give our attention to.

As a writer, I am grateful for anyone who takes the time to write a review, even a negative one. A negative review still means that that person read your work and connected with it. They were moved enough by your work to write down all their thoughts on it and share those with the world. And sure those may be mean thoughts but hey, they read your book. That’s hours of their life they’ll never get back!

Personally, I am terrible at remembering to write reviews. If you check out my Goodreads page, I have added 284 books and reviewed 1. And it’s not even an accurate list of what I’ve read because I keep that in a notebook in my ottoman.

That’s beside the point. The point is that, even though I myself cannot remember to write a review to save my life, I am not above sheepishly asking all of you to post reviews for Celebrity Spin Doctor.

Where should we post these reviews, some of you may ask. Goodreads would be awesome. Amazon if you can. Or BN, Kobo, or iBooks (if that’s where you got the book from). And please be honest.

Book Release Details

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For those of you who like to know what’s going on, here’s the skinny on my book release:

This Friday, August 17th, my publisher, Inkspell Publishing, is going to reveal my book cover! I will be sharing it on this blog and all over my social media.

Also on Friday I will be posting links to pre-order the book! Pre-order is available through Amazon (Kindle), Barnes and Noble (Nook), and Kobo.

ALSO on Friday, I will announce my pre-order giveaway! The giveaway works like this: if you order the book, email or message me a copy of your order confirmation/receipt. I will enter you into the drawing, which will take place on September 20th (aka book release day).

 

Early Reviews

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The early reviews are in!

“It’s great.” – my friend Kris

“I read it in one day.” – my sister Hannah

“This is the worst piece of crap ever written.” – my inner critic

No but for real – if you’re a reviewer, whether you have your own blog (or review journal 😉 or are just really good at remembering to review on Goodreads, hit me up! I’m looking to trade ARCs in exchange for honest reviews.

Now that I’m a Librarian…

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I will be posting lots of book recommendations. There’s just something about working at the library that compels you to tell everyone about what you’re reading. For this post I happen to have a podcast to share of summer book recommendations that I made with the other Popular Materials librarians. We had fun making it, which hopefully means it’s also fun to listen to!

(I don’t know as I have made it a point to never listen to myself on audio recordings.)

Summer Reads 2018

My recommendations:

    

What are your summer reads?

The Milanese Stars, a Guest Post

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First, let me say thank you Celia for hosting me on her blog. She’s been truly helpful sharing my latest book on Instagram which I find hard to navigate. So thanks, Celia! 😊

With the new Ocean’s 8 movie out the possibility of female robbers isn’t unbelievable anymore. I’ve loved heist movies like “The Italian Job” and Pink Panther. It’s weird how women have always been painted the cops or the sidekick but never the msterminds.

In THE MILANESE STARS, a group of women plan, execute and make off with a set of five pink diamonds. The police and an insurance investigator, Samuel Keane are on the hunt. But the women pull off the heist successfully without any suspicion.

In the midst of it all, love blossoms and Samuel finds the woman he loves at the center of the crime. But the heist of the decade is not just about stealing diamonds, its about settling the score.

I must admit that I’ve never written a negative heroine before. Since I usually write sweet, contemporary romances, my heroines are always good, positive, world-changing. As the story developed in this book, I wanted to show women when pushed to their limit, can very well be exacting, ruthless and long sighted when it comes to their goals.

Vita isn’t stealing diamonds to get rich, she’s doing it to get even. Very few books have women in this role. So I’m glad to have written this story with a role reversal of sorts. It might seem unusual to my readers but I enjoyed bending the rules while writing this one.

It wasn’t easy. I remember my first edit, the editors and beta readers had comments like, “is this possible?” and “would she have said/ done that?”

I’m so glad that this book broke that glass ceiling for me. I didn’t set any limits on the women.  Yes, there are women who can hack into software, plan elaborate schemes, and market diamonds on the sly. There are women who have the audacity to take on the bad guys!

THE MILANESE STARS is on pre-order till the 25th of June.

Trailer

Do you think women can pull off heists? Let us know what you think.

– Pamela Q. Fernandes

Pieces of Things

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Some drafts I found:

From December 30th 2015

I like the idea of starting the weekend with a book suggestion. I hope you do too!

Now, pay attention. If you read NOTHING else that I recommend, read this book. If you read nothing else this year, read this book. If you don’t read, well, I’m not sure how you found this post but I’m glad you did because I’m going to tell you to read this book.

The book I’m talking about? Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski

This book does something that should have been done a long time ago. It would have saved all of us, but particularly us women, a lot of heartache. It tells us that we are normal. Specifically, our sexuality is normal. Emily says a lot – we have all the same parts, just organized differently. She tells us that unless you are in physical pain, you are normal, your sexual response is normal, your feelings and attractions and desires are guess what? Normal.

For someone who didn’t absorb anything in science classes, Emily made this stuff approachable through some great metaphors. She walks you through the technical parts and shows how important those are to understanding the social, cultural, self expressive parts of sexuality. She gives us hope that no matter how screwed up your childhood was or what cultural messages made you feel inherently wrong or bad, you can heal and recover and are still normal.

Some of my most deeply held ideas were challenged by this book in the best way possible.

From March 9th 2018

Whew, it has been a long time since I’ve written on here. Part of me wants to delete the whole thing and start again so that no one can read the rambling posts from my years ago self. Only that’s how I’ve ended up with so many internet footprints. One time someone told me they found and read a blog of mine that I was certain had been deleted. Yet nothing is ever truly gone from the internet. Not when sites and companies own all of the content you post.

But I digress.

You are seeing me, dear readers, at the end of my graduate school journey. It has been a long two years and the next six weeks are certain to be an uphill battle to graduation. I am full of trepidation about the future and the constant feeling that there’s something I’ve forgotten in the present.

I have some ideas for the future of this blog. Of course I will continue to write about my writing journey and the weird romance novels I find. But I’m also going to put in some longer pieces about library topics I think are important. If you follow my instagram (and you should) you know that I post there about three things: my life (ok, mostly my cats), library stuff, and writing stuff.

Dewey The Library Cat

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It’s been quite the year. I survived a wild, whirlwind of a summer followed by an even more wild fall. In September I started my masters program in Library Science, began a new job, and moved across the state. Now it’s November and I don’t know where 2016 went or how it’s already time to pull out my Christmas movie watch list again!

I have been blogging, just not here (I know. Terrible). For library class we each keep a blog of our class reflections and reading take aways. If you’re dying to read some stuff that makes little sense out of context, check it out.

Meanwhile, I’ve been making a Herculean effort to keep up with my personal reading. Hopefully getting back into my blog updates will help with that.

deweydookLast Friday I finished the book Dewey The Library Cat by Vicki Myron absolutely bawling. It’s the true story of a kitten that was abandoned in a library book return in rural Iowa and grew up to become the joy of the small town public library. Dewey was a big, fluffy orange tabby who spent his days snuggling with kids during story hour, sitting in on important meetings, and sleeping on as many laps as he could. Honestly, living in a library has always been a childhood fantasy of mine so I was incredibly jealous as I read about Dewey’s glorious life.

There was also a lot in the book about the changes rural Iowa went through during the 1980’s farming crisis and beyond. It was a part of history I’d never thought about, at all, and having it as part of this heartwarming story of a library cat made the book that much better. I wouldn’t say I loved the writing but I can certainly see why people loved Dewey.

If you don’t have time to read the book (and it’s past time to own up to the fact that most of us don’t), here’s a cute YouTube video from the Iowa Public Access story on Dewey. It’s very 80s and the librarian glasses are a riot.

Book Review: Convincing Leopold

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It’s hard to believe that I read my first Ava March book a little over a year ago. Since then I’ve read almost everything else she’s written, including this ARC of the re-release of Convincing Leopold.

Convincing Leopold is the sequel to Convincing Arthur. This is what I love about Ava – she writes the first book about her rakish and uptight men fighting their feelings for each other, a falling in love tale. In the second she shows us what happens after the happy ending. In this book that means challenging her characters to keep the promises they made when they initially got together.

I liked seeing their struggle – the real fears come to life that weren’t just manifestations of jealousy and paranoia. There is a real and present danger that this tenuous relationship may crumble when faced with the inherent incompatibility of the characters’ day to day life. I really enjoyed this book, more than the first one even. Plus it set up the third book in the series (which hasn’t been released yet) and I love a good tie in.

Read more about Ava and her Regency M/M Erotica here.