I Wish I Were More Productive, but Beta-Reading Is Hard Work

Hi, you by-default wonderful people!

("By default" because anyone who stops by my blog and takes the time to read has to be nothing short of wonderful, of course 😉).

Life is busy as usual at the mo, but I've just added a couple of lovely chores to my list...I've been asked to beta read-again for Erin Callahan (her first solo work The Art of Escaping, which I'm proud to have perused in one of its early stages, is hitting the shelves next year!) and her buddy author Troy H. Gardner (the two of them penned the Mad World series, which hopefully will return with the last 3 installments soon!).

This is not Erin. Or Troy. They are actually very patient. But above all, I'm not a bearded guy

Michelle E. Reed: "Life After Dez" / "Missing in Atman" (Joint Review)

Title: Life After Dez [on Amazon | on Goodreads] / Missing in Atman [on Amazon | on Goodreads]

Series: Atman City (1st & 2nd of 3 books)

Author: Michelle E. Reed [Twitter | Goodreads]

Genres: Afterlife

Year: 2013-2014

Age: 12+

Stars: 2.5/5

Pros: Fresh spin on the afterlife trope. Teen POC adopted by white parents and in an interracial relationship. A side character gets an imaginative, interesting story.

Cons: The lead has a pattern of repeating the same mistakes and is cut a lot of slack regardless. Also, in Book 2, love triangle rears its head...

Will appeal to: Those who love stubborn heroines, romance and adventures in an afterlife context.

Blurb for Life After Dez: Bleeding to death on the side of a rural highway turns out to be the easiest part of Dez Donnelly’s unexpected Saturday. Swept away to Atman Station, the crossroads of the afterlife, Dez discovers her unprepared soul is trapped between worlds in a limbo existence where she’s given two choices: join the program or face the consequences. Her new reality is conduct manuals, propaganda, and unrelenting staff orchestrating a complex program designed to help transitional souls accept death and move on. To make matters worse, the beautiful and enticing Atman City - a stunning but dangerous metropolis that borders the outer boundaries of the station - is strictly off-limits to underage souls. Dez has to choose: go along to get along, or fight for the future she believed in. (Amazon excerpt)

Blurb for Missing in Atman: Dez is finally hitting her afterlife stride. She hasn’t missed a meeting or session in forty-two days, and she’s put the adventures and danger of her first days at Atman behind her. Life after death is becoming tolerable, yet nothing is quite what she’d hoped. In a missed encounter with Crosby, her prying gaze lands upon a single entry in the datebook on his unoccupied desk. These few, hastily scribbled words reveal an enormous secret he’s keeping from her. Possessed by a painful sense of betrayal, she once again sneaks off to Atman City, determined to find answers to an unresolved piece of her life. It begins as all their adventures do, but a stop in an unfamiliar neighborhood sets forth a chaotic series of events. Dez will have to fight for her very existence, and will face painful, irreparable loss in an afterlife teeming with demons wielding ancient powers. (Amazon excerpt) 

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I received these books from the author after approaching her on Twitter with a couple of questions about Book 3 and the series re-release (Reed put forth the new edition of Book 1 & 2 by herself, and is working on the final installment in the trilogy). She volunteered to send me Life After Dez and Missing in Atman in exchange for an honest review. That didn't affect my opinion and rating in any way. Please note: as a rule, I review all books in a series separately - except in particular instances. Since I got these two together, and most of what I had to say applied to both, I made an exception here. I hope it doesn't inconvenience you in any way.

EXCLUSIVE Cover Reveal (+ Blurb): "Deadgirl: Goneward" by B.C. Johnson

Welcome to a very special cover + blurb reveal...

Big tease, I know 😉

You know, as a rule, I don't do reveals. Well, I don't do mass reveals, or reveals for books that I'm not interested in. But this is one of my favourite series ever, so it gets the spotlight, and for free too. Heck, I would even pay for doing it myself. Or maybe not really...but you get the idea 😉.
I believe you heard me raving about Deadgirl and Deadgirl: Ghostlight once or twice. (Oh, but in case you are from another planet or simply new to my blog, don't worry...I'll recap 😀). The one below is the third installment in the Deadgirl four-book series, titled Deadgirl: Goneward. It involves four friends, a road trip and a lot of paranormal mischief. Because you know, main character = dead girl. PHANTOM girl - which is different from ghost girl, in case you're wondering. Lucy Day is something you have never seen in YA. You'd better take my word - I'm the expert in dead-undead characters, as this page testifies 😂.
So, here goes...

Tell Me Again How a Hyped Book Is Born

My precious dears,

please allow this seasoned (and middle-aged) blogger to be naive for a while. It won't be a difficult task for me, because after blogging for 4 years and a half, I still have basic questions I can't find the answers to.

Yes, I managed to stumble on a Who-Tennant gif for this, too 😂

In these 53 months, I've reviewed an almost equal share of traditionally published and indie/small press books. Not all the books in the first category were good (you can argue that it's a matter of taste, but that aside, what about books that predate on old, stale ideas/tropes? or reinforce equally old stereotypes? or simply are not that well-written? and so on), while I found a few hidden gems in the second. So I tried to tell the world that said hidden gems needed to be dug and polished and admired and LOVED. And more often than not, I found myself shouting into a void.

Waiting on Wednesday (One Shot): "The Art of Escaping" by Erin Callahan (Plus the Story of How I Was Involved in It)

Lookie! Roberta is doing a WoW post (*ooooohhhhh*).

Haha, really, don't get used to it - this is a special occasion, and since today is Wednesday, and I wanted this book to get special attention, I told myself - why not?

So, my dearest darlings...

...remember the post in which I explained why I try not to cross the boundary between fan and friend when talking to authors? because I need to be able to promote their work without sounding biased?

That is still relevant to this day. I'm still trying. And I've been blessed with meeting a few intelligent writers who can take criticism if needed, so I'm not afraid to speak my little mind if they ask my opinion on their books (as in, beta-reading) or even if they don't (as in, reviewing).

That being said, I'll admit that this lady called Erin Callahan is the closest thing I have to a friend in the author department. I (virtually) met her in 2013, when she asked me if I was interested in reviewing the first two books in the Mad World series, that she had (and still has) in progress along with her writing partner Troy H. Gardner. Erin had actually taken the time to peruse my blog and to pay attention to my reading preferences, which is SO rare. So, I reviewed her and Troy's first two collaborative novels (and later the third). I thought they showed promise, though I had some reservations about said books that both Erin and Troy received very graciously. The two of them were still rather new at the writing game, so they were eager to learn from any criticism their readers might throw at them. I don't know if they learned anything from me (I don't know if anyone can learn anything from me, period), but what I mean is, it was a pleasure to work with them.

I have stayed in contact with both Erin and Troy - if sporadically - since...especially with Erin, because she was (I think) in charge of what you would call the book marketing. Like I said, I reviewed the third installment of their series. I interviewed them. I befriended them on Twitter.