Review Update

It occurs to me that I have not done a review update in a while. As usual, this review update has some good ones and some bad ones. I didn’t chase down every review–happily, that would make this post much too long. But this is representative of what I found.

The Book Smugglers – 6/10

The Bad:

I was expecting a straight Fantasy and got what I think was an Erotic Fantasy with some detailed sex scenes (although in all fairness, the sex scenes were nowhere near as graphic as they could have been) that felt out of place and awkward, and a couple of them did not aggregate anything at all to the plot.

The Good:

I loved that the novella follows a new, tangential character to the traditional fairy tale – instead of this being a princess book, it is in fact a book about a commoner-peasant as she struggles to find her place in a world that neither wants nor needs her.

Within a few days, I found this review:

The Book Pushers – B-

The Bad:

One main problem I had was that I didn’t find any of the sex scenes to be particularly sexy or sensual because they weren’t really touched upon – except for Talia’s relationship with Willard at the beginning of the book, which was more of a fumbling together.

The Good:

Despite the love scenes, though, I was really taken in by Talia’s journey, and was rooting for her to get her happy ever after. She’s a very likeable heroine, and all she wanted what was denied her, and that was Willard, whom she craved to have a marriage and life with.

The dichotomy between these two reviews was enlightening for me as an author.

Here’s my first really bad review:

We Adore a Happy Ending: 2/5 stars

The Bad

Talia was a character I did not find likeable. Maybe it was because the story was 97 pages and there wasn’t any depth or just because she was not that fun. She felt a little bit too flat for me. Her actions after her one and only went away where not acceptable and I could not understand her at all. It was just so shameful and bad.

The Good:

I did like the ending. Not to spoil it for you, but the title of my blog will tell you everything you need to know. If you would love to read a fairy tale with an edge to it, you should try it otherwise stick to the old ones.

Talia is a flawed character who will not appeal to everyone, but she does straighten up eventually.

RT Book Reviews – 4 Stars

This is a sqee! worthy site to get a review from at all. They didn’t have anything bad to say, but they called it “A delightful sensual fractured re-telling of Sleeping Beauty!”

A Girl Reads a Book

I loved THE SEVENFOLD SPELL. To begin with the reader learns about Talia, and how the life of herself and her mother is changed forever when their spinning wheel is taken away. From that moment on I forgot the story was about Sleeping Beauty, and got caught up in Talia’s life of misfortune.

Stella Matutina – 3.5/5 Stars

Even though Nevitt focuses in on Talia’s story, she doesn’t ignore Princess Aurora or the prince who’s destined to marry her. They both play key roles, and I’m sure their inclusion will thrill fans of the original fairy tale. I thought Nevitt did a lovely job of showing how Talia’s story is intimately connected with theirs, without letting it overpower the tale she wanted to tell.

The owner of the above blog is otherwise known as Memory, a longtime commenter on this blog, so this review was extra special for me.

I’ll close with the only review I’ve seen so far that was written by a guy. It’s from Amazon:

I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this story, I plowed through it in one sitting and could not make myself stop reading. The protagonist, Talia, deals with several issues always ignored in the fairie tales and, even as a man, I really connected with her problems.

Thanks, Joe!

By the way, my Amazon Review Drive Giveaway is still ongoing. I have 8 out of my first 10-review goal. When (I’m a positive thinker) I reach that goal, I’ll celebrate by drawing a winner from all commentors on this blog since my original announcement post.

Also, if you’d like some bookmarks for The Sevenfold Spell, please just email me and I’ll pop a few in the mail for you.

Last but not least, I never mentioned that I am currently the Spotlight Author over at Romance Junkies! They had me write up all kinds of crazy stuff about myself, and they even had me rope my friends into writing stuff. It was different and fun–check it out.

~*~

And that concludes my narcissistic post for the week. In the week ahead, I should have a full blogging schedule with a series review, the second post in my Classic Reread of Dragonlance, a guest post, and a just-for-fun handy guide to romance book covers.