Tag Archives: alphabet reading challenge

My Reading Alphabet Challenge – sum up

I had terrific fun with my alphabet challenge. It made me look beyond the books and authors I always choose, with the result that I’ve found some absolute treasures that I’ll be looking out for more from.

Rachel E Carter's Black Mage series
Start with the prequel and I bet you won’t want to stop.

Having to (mostly) stick to a particular letter of the alphabet provided some structure and there was a lot less dithering over what I was going to read next, which probably gave me more time to actually read. Although to counter that, there were a couple of letters where I spent far too much time trying to find something that fit the alphabet criteria but also seemed bearable to read. I admit to being fussy, but I was also surprised by how incredibly difficult it is to browse Amazon if you don’t know what book or author you’re looking for.

One book/review a week felt like a hectic schedule at times, but I managed it pretty much consistently (even if there were a couple of weeks where I needed to cheat mildly). I do read a lot and this challenge demonstrated that a book a week is more than do-able for me.

Cover of David Kudler's Risuko
Click to start reading

I will definitely be back with another challenge, although I’m not sure what. Shout out if you have a suggestion, otherwise I’ll think something up for myself in a week or two. Until then, though, I’m going to have fun reading more from some of the new writers I’ve discovered. Rachel E Carter and Rhonda Sermon are priorities (I’m halfway through First Year already), but I also want to find out what happens next in the Clearwater world created by Madeline Freeman, I hope David Kudler will be releasing a follow-up to Risuko soon, and I just saw on Facebook the other day that there’s a new Kitty Peck novel available.

Cover of Rhonda Sermon's The Midnight Society
Click for the preview (bet you’ll love it)

Maybe that’s the best result of my alphabet reading challenge – it’s reminded me what terrific writing talent is out there and what wonderful worlds are waiting for me to step into them. Now, please excuse me, I have reading to get on with…

Z is for … Zoikes, fetch an editor!

I have reached the end of my Alphabet Challenge! Whoop whoop, crack out the champagne!

I’d love to be able to gush over my final, Z book, but that’s unfortunately not possible. There were very slim pickings for the final letter of the alphabet. It took about three searches to find something suitable on Amazon, and having plumped for Z (The Abilities Series) by Lizzy Gomez (I mean: look at all those Zs!) I was determined to get to the end of it. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered, but as a writer it’s sometimes useful to articulate what exactly is the matter with books I don’t like.

I was, frankly, amazed when I reached the acknowledgements to read that Z had been professionally edited. I can’t imagine what it must have been like before that. The best I can say is that it read like a book I was reading for a friend prior to revisions and editing. It was a complete story with a beginning, middle and end, and on a sentence level it was okay (so I’m guessing the editor was hired for a copy edit, not the content edit it so dearly needed). It was so flawed I would highly recommend a competent, professional content/structural edit and a re-issue.

For example (and I’ll cut this down or I’ll be here forever):

  • This was pitched as a fantasy. It started in the contemporary world and took far too long to introduce any fantasy elements.
  • Toby was lovely, but he was also a complete cliché. Many of the characters were flimsy, only there because the plot required it, and lacked any real depth or motivations.
  • When we finally got there, the fantasy world was completely unrealistic. If you say it approximates the 14th century, you’re going to have to make it somewhat like the 14th century. Just having long dresses and knights won’t cut it if people speak in 21st century slang, drink tea, eat sandwiches and feed sugar lumps to their horses.
  • While we’re on the subject of slang – the heroine spoke entirely in modern slang and swearing, neither of which made her an appealing character. There was an f-bomb probably once every two pages.
  • There were far too many exclamation marks!!!! All the way through!!!!
  • The heroine knew everything and could do everything and everyone else was wrong/stupid/both.
  • And much of the novel was just plain weird. (Spoiler alert): someone tries to kill our heroine (frankly, I’d have been relieved if they’d managed it and the story had ended there, but still…), she fights him off by using her magical powers to fix some unspecified “darkness” she finds when she pokes around inside his head? soul? not sure. After this he’s immediately cured of his murderous tendencies, and the heroine knows she’s safe with him and everyone who doubts the fact is an idiot – and to round off the scene, the would-be killer’s sister doesn’t ask any questions about what’s just happened, but simply says: hey, thanks.

Pah. Get a content/structural editor, writers. You are giving independent authors a bad name by not doing so – and more to the point, you are doing a disservice to your STORY. This could have been a good story, but its potential was entirely wasted. I think the author probably doesn’t care as she’s merrily gone on to write a sequel, and that would be fine if she were writing for herself/her mom/her children. But to expect other people to pay money for this? That’s an entirely different matter. I expect professionalism as an absolute basic, and I didn’t find it in the pages of Z.

And that crabby snipe ends my Alphabet Reading Challenge. It’s been a fun 26 weeks. Check back next week to see what has risen to the top of my TBR pile now that I don’t have a thing to read!

X is for … eXcessive fashion reports

I always knew filling the X slot in my alphabet reading challenge might be difficult, so when I spotted a book titled Xoe early in the year I grabbed it. Due to my lack of choice I wasn’t especially hopeful.

Cover of Sara C Roethle's Xoe
Click to try it for yourself

Fie on me for a cynical doubter! Actually, Xoe was mostly a fun read. The relationships between the female characters was great fun and well-depicted. The paranormal elements were good and intriguing (we had the introduction of demons to bring a different slant to the customary paranormal vampires and werewolves fare). What I enjoyed less was the romantic element which felt slightly forced and clichéd, as though the author had been told to make the romance more obvious. And there were an awful lot of fashion reports. Maybe this stuck with me because I rarely describe my characters, and never in detail (I’m often told off by editors for this). But what do you need to fix a character in your mind? I don’t think very much – maybe hair and eye colour, and then if something’s remarkable about them mention that: they might be very tall, or always wear a hat. But in Xoe we seemed to constantly get a run down of what each character was wearing when we met them, which I found unnecessary.

But maybe I’m the one out of step, reader – do you like a full and detailed description of characters, or just a broad stroke of description that you can fill in for yourself?

And it’s hard to believe I’m nearly at the end of my alphabet reading challenge! Check back next week to see what I’ve found starting with Y.

T is for … truly spell-binding!

There was a bit of a wobble this week, reader, I’ll confess. I had a “T” book that was recommended by a friend whose books I love. Sadly, the book wasn’t half as good as her own and simply wasn’t for me. Referring back to my “speed of reading” measurement, when I’d been reading for 3 days and barely reached a quarter of the way through I knew we weren’t a good match.

So I shelved that and tried to find something (I was only mildly panic-stricken; no biggie). Taking what I’ve learned about searching on Amazon I picked a likely word, “Truth” and went in. Anita Oh’s The Truth Spell caught my eye. Oh, my goodness, it was a delight! It’s a first-person narrative and Lucy was so lively and spiky and fabulous the novel was a joy to read.

Cover of Anita Oh's The Truth Spell
Click to check it out.

I zoomed through it in two evenings’ reading, it was that good!

And a first for me – this was the first book I’ve read entirely on my phone. I often have short stories on my phone in case I’ve got five minutes to fill, but I’ve never tried to read an entire novel on my phone thinking it would be annoying to be continually swiping, but not at all. Clearly, if the narrative is gripping enough it doesn’t matter how I’m reading.

The Truth Spell is highly recommended if you like a fresh and modern paranormal tale. I’m now going in to find myself a “U” book, with the keyword “Under” – check back next week to see how that goes.

S is for … sand stunner

My S book for my alphabet challenge is Sand Runner, Vera Brook’s debut YA dystopian. Now, this was a last-minute addition and it offers a fascinating insight into my read/review process.

I review over on the Paisley Piranha website, with a group of other YA authors. Vera got in touch and asked if I’d like to review her soon-to-be-released Sand Runner, pointing out that maybe it could fill my “S” space (so points for paying attention, definitely). However, my heart sinks a little when I get asked to review pre-order books because one thing I do know is that I’m fussy. The number of books I start and discard is enormous, and the pile of books raved about by other people that have me scratching my head as to what the attraction could possibly be, is equally legion. What I always do is read the preview first to see if the book’s going to suitable – but that’s not possible with pre-release books (and, of course, I don’t want to ask the author for the first couple of chapters because then I’d have to say I didn’t want the rest and – argh! – confrontation!).

So, generally, if a preview isn’t available it’s going to be a no from me. However, Vera had a short story available, Look at Me (follow the link to check it out) so I could read that. It’s entirely excellent: well-written, unsettling, believable and a little bit heart-breaking. After reading that, I had no hesitation in saying yet to a preview copy of Sand Runner.

Cover of Vera Brook's Sand Runner
Click to find out more.

And it’s equally stunning. I loved it. The dystopian world is close enough to our own to be highly believable, with disturbing elements you could picture coming to pass. Just my cup of tea!

Sand Runner is out on June 2nd, so not long to wait!

 

We interrupt our usual broadcast…

I’m so sorry! My blog this week should, of course, be all about my Q book. However, it’s gone a bit pear-shaped. I had it all worked out: on holiday I was going to finish my P book (managed that) and find and read my Q book.

A nice plan, but I hadn’t realised how rubbish Amazon is when you’re trying to find a book instead of buying one you already know you want. (Tara Sparling blogged about how frustrating it is to browse Amazon recently, and I quite agree).

Q book in the YA genre… Well, let’s face it, every other title is “Queen Something”, so that’s a good place to start … except that Amazon offered me 3 Queen titles, none of which grabbed me, and then that was it: have the top 100 books to scroll through. Pah. And because I was in foreign climes I couldn’t even go to a physical bookshop and ask someone (well, until I got back and that’s what I did).

I’ve also been busy as I launched a new book this weekend (yippee!). If you like my writing, please check out Dissent – and grab a copy this weekend while it’s .99 for launch (it’s also in KU if you have a subscription). If you haven’t read Discord yet (where have you been?!), it’s on a free promo, so you can get both the Echoes of Earth books for a paltry .99 (try getting that from your local Waterstones!).

Click for Amazon

Next week, I promise normal service will be resumed. I’ve started Shadow Queen (yes, I know that’s a cheat for a “Q” book, but I was getting desperate and it’s close enough) so I’ll be able to tell you all about it by then.

And if you want to know what I read on holiday when I couldn’t find a Q, check out The Good Riddance Project, which was tremendous fun. Can you project manage a murder? Read it and find out!

Cover of A K Lakelett's Good Riddance Project
Click for the preview

B is for … barely a story

Okay, that’s rather unkind, but there is a danger this post may turn into a slight rant.

My “B” book selection was BR Paulson’s Barely Alive. Now, one thing I’m loving about this challenge is that I’m finding all kinds of new and wonderful things. Barely Alive was pitched as a zombie romance – now, maybe that’s your go-to genre, but I was tickled to begin with by the idea that zombie romance is even a thing. How wonderfully diverse literature is growing, in topic if nothing else.

A lovely pile of novels
Loving my bookish challenge!

And actually, I thoroughly enjoyed Barely Alive. The zombie-ness was easy to suspend disbelief over (I know almost no science so I didn’t even try to pick holes in the virus that created the zombies) and the romance was low-key (appropriate when flesh-eating monsters are on the loose, I think) and convincing.

My beef came with the ending. There is a series, which is fine, but whether it’s a stand-alone book or a series in the vein of Bella Forrest with 37 books to work your way through, it is my absolute conviction that each book should tell its own story: beginning, middle and end.

I don’t even mind open endings where you have to exercise a bit of imagination about next steps for the characters as they head out of the pages and into the sunset, but Barely Alive cut off in the middle of the story with all plot arcs still underway and unresolved, which just left me grumpy, I’m sorry to say.

So am I Mrs Grumblepants, or am I right to be annoyed? Do you mind an unresolved story, or should the endings be tied up? Let me know in the comments.

Check back next week to see how I got on with my C book – Crystal Magic by Madeline Freeman.