My other Blog

Dear Reader!

I’ve just realised that many do not know that I run a eBook review blog as well.  I take mainly from the free book lists, hopefully to give reviews that’ll help new authors, and to give my own personal opinions.  So here is a re-blog of a post that was popular , maybe you will like to drop by!!!

https://booksandanna.wordpress.com

I don’t usually go for foody books, so I must admit I skipped a little on the bits when Fin goes into her thoughts on cooking, but this book was a bit different anyway.  The plot device of the storm coming in and wrecking things, could not be predicted and was a great jolt.  The closeness of the Cornish community came over so well, I guess she lives in such a community as this part of her writing shines out, it almost takes over from the main narrative. Oliver is a little one dimensional for me, but the great gang of eccentrics compensate for this. The ending felt a little hurried for me, but I really enjoyed this, it got to the I don’t want to put it down category. I’ll be reading more of her books.

But what I DO hate, even though it was paged up on the contents (does anyone read  a contents page any more?) is thinking I still have 10% left only to find it’s taken up with a sample from someone else’s book,  arrrrrrrghhhhhhhh!

Falling for Rain by Janice Kirk and Gina Buonaguro

 

I’ve just heard from the authors of this book, that all the annoying bits I’ve ranted about have been removed since May, so what can I say but ENJOY!
This book has been in and out of the Amazon Bestsellers over the past couple of months so I thought I must have a read.  Love story, rural setting.  I loved it, strong characters, good-looking bloke, all the things that I felt weren’t tied up, were by the end, good twist and conclusion was all I could wish. It’s well written and produced too, although in a really amateur manner they had to split the word falling on their title page.  I was interested to see how a collaboration between two writers would work, and it does.

BUT   I really, really disliked the commercialism.  Twice in the text, comes a page, saying if you liked this, you’ll love our other books, blah,blah, blah.  First time had me thinking it I’d inadvertently downloaded a sample. This is so intrusive, it’s unbelievable.

This almost had me put the book down and not review it, but I have to have my rant!  If your book is good, you don’t need to be peddling it in this way. Its annoying.  I don’t want to know about your website, or the other books, except maybe at the end when I may want to read a sample of your other books, but this is AWFUL!  It’ll actually stop me reading anymore by these two.

Book reviews and an offer

1st May and first trip up into the mountains, Weisspriarch

One of my ideas on the other blog  is to offer to do book reviews for books people send me – eBooks I should think mostly.  Then I will review it here, add the review  to any Amazon site, such as .co.uk and .com and so maybe increase sales.

In the same breath, I want to offer to do critiques of anyone’s book, if they want an in-depth analysis. I’ve a first class honours in English and am an author (!!!!!!), have experience with analysing texts – my brother being the last victim but I’ve done others.  I wouldn’t be offering to get anything published as an agent I’m too far from the UK and US to be effective, but maybe could help people on their way.   I would need at least two chapters and a short synopsis to begin with. Again any such book would then get a review on the Amazons if already self published.  For this, I would have to make a fee but we could negotiate.

Any takers???????

PS forgot to say, contact me through comments!

Barking at Winston by Barry Stone

You can click on the picture to see and buy!

Oooh good I thought,looking at a list on Kindle, let’s have an animal book for a change.  A nice doggy one. 

The story starts as Brucie, a collie cross is adopted from a Rescue centre by a crazy family,  and he happily goes off into his new life.  The dog has been abused himself and in his first days he finds out more about the bereaved family which consists of two sets of twins who fight and love.  I’m not so sure about seeing emotions as colours and dogs having second sight, but I was totally engrossed in the characters in the story, from whatever perspective they are written. It worked really well as a technique too – you’ll see what I mean when you read it. 

Then I thought, blast, it’s turning  into a gay book and prepared to ditch it, but no, it’s about love.  It certainly isn’t what the cover looks like. Its quite unique. Its sad and heartwarming, true and fantastical.  I wonder if my dog ever thought or felt these things? More please, Mr Stone

Tom – my new eBook!

 I am so chuffed to tell you that my book, Tom is now available as an ebook on Kindle!

What can I say, except that I wrote this many years ago, but still feel it has something to say, and is a good read. I’m unapologetic that it has a strong Christian theme of healing and faith.  But it also has drama, romance and a look into the debate of mental illness and demonic possession.  I don’t want to give too much away, but here’s the idea;

Fleeing to the countryside from Londonto escape another bad relationship, Clare hopes to make yet another new start that will finally sort out her life.  She finds things aren’t so simple as her best friend Sylvie is abroad leaving Clare to share the house with enigmatic and moody Alex. Clare soon finds work and a new livelihood but still finds that all her relationships with men seem doomed to failure.

 Alongside the tale of Clare’s new life runs the story of Tom’s troubled childhood and adolscence.  How will he fit into Clare’s world? Set in the 1990s, before widespread use of Mobiles and the Internet, ‘Tom’ is not only a sinister tale of lost identity, possession and mental illness but also a journey to fulfilment and love as Clare, Alex, Tom and Sylvie find healing and faith.

 Do write comments if you read it, or even contact me direct on this email address.  If you like it, tell your friends and send this page on – please!!

If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download Kindle for PC for free on Amazon. You can download a preview before you buy or look inside too. Just type in my name or the book title! You can find it on;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-eBooks

 http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks

http://www.amazon.de/ebooks-kindle

Blessings!

Anna

Publishing an ebook

Published!

Way back in 1992, I wrote a book,Tom.  A seriously Christian book that in some ways reflected my life (I see it more now) but amateur and with many faults.  Carried away by having done a course with the London School of Journalism, I felt I could write and it was a good way of occupying myself as the kids were now both at school.

Our Pastor’s wife patiently typed it out and then I spent many hours searching the Writers and Artist’ s Year book, looking for publishers and preparing my synopsis to go with it.  All my sendings came unceremoniously back, and I was thinking of papering the walls of the downstairs loo with them.  Of course its difficult to break into the publishing market, but I became so disheartened that I gave up on writing and spent the next five years doing an OU Degree to acquire the knowledge and skills behind the art of novel writing.  Enjoyed it too, but once it was done, it really was time for me to go back to work and I ended up in an office working in Fine Art Insurance.  Tom was buried.

Tom remained so for several years, stuck on some very old floppy discs, which I found by chance on the Internet could be reformatted for Word, which I did. I brought the book here and it gathered dust as we settled in.

I did fiddle with it, but the biggest surprise came on my 50th Birthday when the kids presented me with a bound copy – I was in print!   Now spurred on by my brother’s success (Hi Wilbur) on ebooks, where he’s successfully published his own novels, I’m grooming Tom to go online.  To anyone out there, answer me this;

Why do the epublishing websites not provide a cover creating programme with their editing pages?  I’m so surprised that Microsoft hasn’t jumped on this and created a programme with templates.

Why can’t editing the book be made easier, I get these pages of gobbledgook when all I want to do something like remove a blank space, why can’t these online editors be as simple as Word – Go on Microsoft and Apple -do something!