Every so often, I read a book that catches me completely off-guard and I fall head over heels in love with it. Either it’s a random find discovered while browsing in a bookshop or it’s in a genre I don’t read very often. In 2010, Evil UnLtd: The Root of All Evil by Simon A Forward was that book. Or, more accurately, that ebook.
In 2010, I added to my world of books by building Twitter Towers* and here they are in all their glory. Unsurprisingly, Twitter Towers are made up of the books that I heard about through the social networking site. I know, I know. You don’t have to look at me like that… Even with my prodigious level of book-squirreldom, I was a little taken aback at just how many books I managed to accumulate in one year!
This is an even better read than Fairytale and I pretty much gobbled it up in one sitting. Welcome to my World tells the story of Harri, a travel agent who hasn’t actually been on holiday anywhere outside the UK yet, which is in stark contrast to her best mate, Alex, who has recently returned home to the Black Country village of Stone Yardley, after extensive travelling.
A very Happy New Year to everyone at the Nut Press from me! My name’s Jane Lovering (yes, honestly, that’s my real name, so I couldn’t write any thing but romantic comedy, could I?) and the resident squirrels have very kindly agreed to host me here today so that I can tell you all about my new book Please Don’t Stop the Music.
From the original quirky purple and pink cover (which has since changed for the ebook at least) and the title and blurb of Talli Roland’s debut novel, The Hating Game, I knew that this was no cosy, formulaic boy-meets-girl chick-lit romance and I was looking forward to reading it all the more because of that. I wanted a feisty heroine who wouldn’t melt into a puddle within metres of her dream man. I wanted a strong voice and some of the sharp wit I’d come to know from Talli’s tweets and blog posts and I wanted a great story in an unusual situation or setting with its own set of highs and lows, featuring characters that seemed more like real people than characters in a book. Talli delivers on all counts.
This time last year when I was still flailing around trying to figure out how Twitter worked, one of the first authors I started following was Miranda Dickinson. Her debut novel, Fairytale of New York, had just been published. For an aspiring author, it was fantastic to follow someone whose dream of publication had so recently come true and who was excited enough about that, let alone people’s positive reaction to her book and how incredibly well it was doing. (It was a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller and shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Award 2010.)
One of my lovely and talented writer pals, Talli Roland, launches the ebook of her brilliant, witty and fast-paced debut novel, The Hating Game, today and you can make it a bestseller. Here’s what you do: Help Talli Roland’s debut novel THE HATING GAME hit the Kindle bestseller list at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk by spreading the word today. Even a few sales in a short period of time on Amazon helps push the book up the rankings, making it more visible to other readers.
I’m over at the FutureBook blog today, reviewing the enhanced ebook of The Last Dragonslayer, which is Jasper Fforde’s latest book and also his first YA novel.
I first heard Simone Mansell Broome read her poems at a poetry magazine launch in 2009. Hers were the poems that stood out for me that night because they spoke of real life events that I could identify with but they were also delivered with a healthy dose of humour, real warmth, empathy and a highly-perceptive understanding of human nature…
One of the blogs I regularly read is that of short story writer Nik Perring. (If you haven’t yet read his collection Not So Perfect: Stories, do. It is simply brilliant.) On Wednesday, Nik blogged and encouraged everyone to put word-of-mouth into practice and spread the word about good books and good writing by blogging recommendations or by writing an amazon…