Despite the excitement, I'm feeling also feeling a little weird and whiney. Monday was my birthday, and it was maybe the 2nd or 3rd (out of 36) that I spent away from my twin sister. Usually, even if we aren't together on the actual day, we celebrate it on Thanksgiving. (Yeah, it doesn't matter what anyone else wants to do, Thanx is our holiday. Often we are just couch potatoes and book consumers together. Go to the movies, watch football, etc. As Mom puts it, we cling.) Not this year, though, because it was actually cheaper for me to fly to London than to Houston. (What is up with that?) I'm going to have fun, I know it, it's just different.
Anyway, I hope everyone (who celebrates it this week) has a happy Thanksgiving!
Photo courtesy of www.thanksgivingideas.com.
laundry
trash
litter pan
Pack:
clothes, etc.
iPhone
charger
Kindle
converter/adapter
camera
Errands:
dry cleaner
good will
post office
ETA: Okay, I'm getting through the list, which is good since I just realized my flight leaves an hour earlier than I expected!
Unrelated: on Ace of Cakes tonight, I saw that Mary Alice (who rocks) has a WTF? stamp. Want. It would be extremely useful for work. The risk would be overuse, actually. :P
Also, Jack's Mannequin on TDS tonight? Very, very good IMO. Must download a copy of Swim from iTunes, along with Them Crooked Vultures.
The subject line of an item in my spam folder asked if my love stick was hard enough. I did not realize anyone used "love stick" other than the authors of 80s bodice rippers, but I suppose spammers need to be innovative...
But I dunno. Labeling the vanity press "Harlequin Horizons", advertising it on Hqn forums, then saying it isn't going to be affiliated with Harlequin's "regular" publishing? Eh. At best that's disingenuous, at worst it is sleazy and deceptive. From a reader perspective, it feels like a sleight of hand. If I were a writer, it would feel like a cheap money-grab, especially since Harlequin is mislabeling the enterprise as self-publishing, when its business model is actually that of a vanity press.
I've purchased a self-published book, Matthew Haldeman-Time's Off the Record, which rocked my socks. In fact, it was the first gay romance I read, ever. One of my extended family published a family history narrative via a vanity press. It...was not the best piece of writing, frankly.
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Amazon has posted its Ten Best lists. I've only read one of the books on the Romancelist, and it was DNF -- Julia Quinn's What Happens in London. I skimmed the first few pages of Smooth Talking Stranger at the bookstore and put it back on the shelf because the premise and the characters did not appeal. Bending the Rules is on the TBR for when I feel more like a straight contemporary. *shrug* That's fine, though. Different strokes and all.
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The post office's track and confirm function tells me that they attempted delivery Monday evening at 6:52pm, then left a notice on my door. First, delivering at 7pm? The post office? I don't think so. Second, no, I was at home Monday evening and the weather was good enough that my front door was open, leaving just the storm door closed; no postal service employee knocked on my door. Third, no notice was left. Also, why is the package being held at a post office that does not belong to my zip code or deliver to my zip code ordinarily? I can't get through to a human being at the office because it either rang off the hook or was busy all day? Customer service fail across the board. How could anyone wonder why the postal service is going bankrupt with crappy service like this?
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Read a very brief Japanese-set historical today. Need to re-read. Was interesting. Not sure about sense of place. Setting and characters felt non-Western, but not all that historical. Notot sure how realistic setting and characters would have been, even taking liberties of genre fiction and the inherent fantasy.
There are a few possible diagnoses:
leukemia -- she would not survive the treatment
aplastic anemia -- same
myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) -- she could be stabilized and improve, but would not be cured
One last possible diagnosis, not dependent on a marrow biopsy, is a virus. The doctor thinks this is a possibility because her symptoms began not long after a flu shot. And it's treatable by treating the symptoms, I think.
She has accepted that she cannot go home right now, because she needs 24/7 care and no one in the immediate family is in a position to give her that kind of attention, in terms of their own health/family/work situations, and is willing to go to a nursing home or assisted care, at least until she's in a better state. But she seems to be stabilizing, in part because she's receiving platelet transfusions. She's not in pain and she's in better spirits than she has been in awhile. [In fact, she's harassing Mom to get more details about my upcoming trip and doesn't understand why Mom doesn't nag more info out of me.] While talking about potential treatments today, Mommom mentioned her own mother (Little Great Emily), whose life was extended by a couple of years via some very unpleasant treatments: Granny doesn't want to be the same way.
Mom asked the doctor what he would do if she were his mom, and his answer was to make her comfortable if it was any of the first three. If it's a virus, treat and then release when her platelet count stabilizes.
Typing those words makes me sad. Intellectually, I understand that Granny is almost 80 years old and has been in poor health for 20 years or more. She suffered a brain embolism (I think that's the right word?) 30 years ago, and surprised her doctors by surviving it. Her lung capacity is diminished, a function of pneumonia as a child and years of breathing second-hand smoke. She's diabetic, and disinterested in modifying her diet. But in my head, she's the woman who organized the life of her husband, kids, and grandkids for decades, the woman I remember as being always in motion (except during her daily General Hospital nap).
Fellow commuter is ranting about how the American government is just as bad as the Chinese government when it comes to censorship. Well, I don't know, I can't compare the two. But his reasoning is that as a government employee, there are certain websites he can't access from his work computer, like Yahoo! and Hotmail.
Okay, that's not government censorship of a private citizen and the web. That's an employer's decision about how to use assets. Not permitting personal, web-based email to be read during work hours, restricting personal browsing during work hours, these are not censorship.
I don't have anything to say about what I've read lately, other than to reiterate my irritation with typos and sloppy copyediting. (See below for a recent tally.)
What I do have is a list of December ebook releases that I'm awaiting impatiently. Paper books? Eh. When I skimmed a list of December releases, nothing really jumped out at me except the reissue of an old Victoria Holt romance.
On my e-TBB list:
December 1: An Improper Holiday by K.A. Mitchell, a historical holiday novella. Summary and excerpt available here.
December 15: Lessons in Temptation by Charlie Cochrane, fifth Cambridge Fellows mystery.
December 22: The Dark Tide by Josh Lanyon, the fifth (and final) Adrien English mystery. There's no "coming soon" page yet, but an unedited excerpt is available here.
December 22: The Cadaver Client by Frank Tuttle. Book 4 of the Markhat Files. Probably I should read books 2 and 3 before book 4 is released. The first book of the series, Dead Man's Rain, was a free Kindle book and got me hooked.
The running list of blatant typos/copyediting misses in last read -- yes, all from one book!
- Waive and wave are not interchangeable.
- Same for human and humane.
- Diffuse and defuse not only do NOT sound the same, they have completely different meanings.
- One may be a nervous wreck, not a nervous wreak.
- There is no such thing as peppercini; there is peperoncini.
- They probably tried to help the slower kid, not "they tired to help".
- A baby doll tee is not the same as a halter top; having a character wear one at the beginning of the scene but the other at the end would only make sense if she changed clothing during the scene. But she didn't.
Sentence that I read and loved in my current read: His hair was a marvelous haystack of auburn and orange. (A.M. Riley's The Elegant Corpse.)
Okay, what? Why would anyone go to a tapas place and ask for fajitas? That's like going to a sushi bar and asking for pad thai. Different cuisines entirely. Spanish and Tex-Mex are not interchangeable, thanks.
~ Marg at Reading Adventures is organizing a Terry Prachett 2010 Reading Challenge. I'm embarrassed to admit that although I've some Pratchett TBR, I've never read past the first 20 pages. Perhaps I'll join up :)
~ The last bit of The Biochemist's birthday present has arrived, so I can wrap everything and mail it on Monday.
~ I've gotten slightly organized and boxed up about 50 books to take to Good Will for donation. (My local library branch isn't taking donations right now.) Two small packages of books will be mailed out for an informal bookswap, too.
~ A beautiful quilt in green and blue, made by
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doctoraichafor the Save Dave auction, arrived yesterday. Not so great stuff for the weekend:
~ Granny is back in the hospital. She was severely anemic, and her doctor believes she may have developed an autoimmune problem because of the rapidity of the drop. [I'm a little peeved because Mom asked the nursing home to monitor her blood because this was a known concern after her last hospital stay, but the nursing home said it wasn't necessary given her age and general state of health.] The hospital is limiting patients to two visitors due to the flu risk/spread, so I can't visit.
~ Someone broke my car's passenger side mirror. It was fine Friday night. This morning, I saw that it was broken. My car was parallel parked at the curb -- it cannot have been hit by a passing car, but had to have been broken by a person on the sidewalk. And they had to have noticed when they did it, since it took a bit of force. I'm thinking it may have been the same neighborhood hoodlums who smashed my neighbor's pumpkins and stole her flower pots.
Just to get everyone up to speed: Harper Connelly sees dead people. Sort of. When she is close to a dead body, she can see how they died. Which makes visiting places like cemetaries and just about any historic place problematic. How'd she acquire this skill? Accidentally: it is the byproduct of being struck by lightning as a teenager. Harper speaks to dead people for their families, making a living for herself. Her stepbrother, Tolliver, is her manager, companion and bodyguard.
As I mentioned when I reviewed the first book (here), the two of them are scarred by the disasters of their youth: as much as the lightning strike has guided their professional lives, the personal tragedies and disasters of their family -- drug addiction, neglect, abuse, poverty, and a disappeared/presumed dead sibling -- have shaped them and continue to drive them as well. Although the reader never gets Tolliver's POV, his dialogue and behavior seem to mirror Harper's when it comes to their family obligations and baggage.
When I reviewed the second book of the series (here), I mentioned that Harris seemed to be taking the relationship between Harper and Tolliver to a place I did not want to follow. And she did in the third book, An Ice Cold Grave. I did not review that book, as I was ambivalent and rather squicked by it. My LibraryThing notes say, Vaguely squicked by the Harper-Tolliver relationship, despite repeated statements that not related. Family isn't just about blood.
This fourth book picks up not long after the third ended. Harper and Tolliver are in Texarkana, checking out the grave of a wealthy man at the request of his grandchildren. He died alone on the ranch, and the stronger-willed granddaughter just wants to know, to be sure his death was natural. Well, the client gets more than she anticipated. First because she learns that someone threw a snake at him, which exacerbated his heart condition and ultimately led to his death alone out on the ranch. And second, because Harper reveals that a family employee died after giving birth rather than from appendicitis, which leads to questions about the hidden pregnancy and where the child may have gone.
After doing that reading, Harper and Tolliver head toward a suburb of Dallas, where their half sisters live with an aunt and uncle. They are scheduled to visit, and are also announcing their changed relationship. Meanwhile, Tolliver's father has been released from prison and is trying to rebuild his relationship with his kids, whether they welcome him back into their lives or not.
While catching up with their family and taking a break from talking to the dead, Tolliver and Harper become magnet for violence. At the same time, out of the blue, there is a sighting of Cameron, Harper's sister who disappeared more than ten years ago. And the Texarkana family resurfaces with questions about the reading. These all seem to be separate threads, but in the end, they are all tangled up in a single huge knot that Harper and Tolliver have to untangle.
Generally, Harris has a talent for characters who feel real, people with good points and bad, who are neither paragons nor devils. And while the mysteries of this series have not been complex, they were solidly written. Having said that, I found Grave Secret to be a disappointment. It felt phoned in. The Bad Guy was a caricature Eeeeevil Bad Guy all the way through. The connections of the different mysteries were too far fetched, and the resolution felt forced. It felt like Harris realized that it was time to wrap up some storylines, so she scrambled them all together. The ending was rather Scooby Doo-ish, with Bad Guy telling what he did and why and how and when because...well, I'm not sure why. Harper as a character irritated me a bit -- she's been painted as being very cautious and safety-conscious generally, but there were a couple of occasions when her behavior verged on TSTL. And there were a few scenes and/or characters who seemed completely extraneous; I couldn't figure out what they contributed to the book, other than to be page filler.
Now that the overarching mystery that has existed through out the series has been resolved, and some of the family and relationship questions have been settled, I wonder if this is the last Harper Connelly book. I thought so, but someone mentioned (on a MB? Twitter?) that this was going to be a six book series.
Grade from me: C-
Lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver take a break from looking for the dead to visit the two little girls they both think of as sisters. But, as always happens when they travel to Texas, memories of their horrible childhood resurface. To make matters worse, Tolliver learns from his older brother that their father is out of jail and trying to reestablish contact with other family members. Tolliver wants no part of the man- but he may not have a choice in the matter.
Soon, family secrets ensnare them both, as Harper finally discovers what happened to her missing sister, Cameron, so many years before.
And what she finds out will change her world forever.
Excerpt (Chapter 1) is available here.
(Encountered over at Dear Author.)
Today I feel ambivalent about American militarism in general, and our ongoing "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. My doubts about the ultimate purpose of our "missions" abroad grow stronger as I do more research and talk to people who have served.
However I remain thankful to all of those people who served in the armed forces, past and present.
Courtesy of Murdoc Online. http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/427
Well...my gut reaction is to say, hell, no, I don't give people books. But that's not entirely true. I gave an autographed copy of a Sookie Stackhouse book to a friend last year because she'd just become hooked on the series. And I look for first edition hardbacks for The Chemist -- he buys/keeps only first edition hardbacks in his library, but for some reason his local bookstores seldom get first runs. And, well, I buy historical fiction for Mom for Christmas and birthdays. For the Biochemist, I might buy a reference book but, otherwise, nope. We exchange recommendations but do not buy for each other.
Receiving books as gifts? Uh, well, I'd rather not. That's how I ended up with copies of several Dan Brown's books. And Nicholas Sparks and Robert James Waller books.
Am not sure what happened as I read Hard Fall this time; the grammar of the narrator was still cringe-inducing*, but somehow the story managed to get beyond that. I was able to focus on the content of the book rather than form/delivery. I was able to appreciate Joe's struggle with himself and the tension between his sexuality and the demands or dogma of his church, and the irony (or ridiculousness?) of a church that thought homosexuality was okay as long as one stayed single; being gay was only really a problem when he found someone with whom he had an emotional *and* sexual connection. And the HFN felt right, rather than an HEA, since the two characters were so different and still dealing with a boatload of issues. The beginnings of a BDSM-involved relationship was just another thing Joe was learning about himself. I was intrigued by the fact that the roles were reversed here -- in the little BDSM romance I've read (most not very good), the noob is a sub looking to be dominated, but that is absolutely not the case here. Kabe is the sub, and he's the one reassuring Joe that what he did and what he enjoyed were all good.
Think I'm going to reread Buchanan's Cheating Chance and look for a copy of its sequel, Inland Empire.
After rereading Uneven, I'm still not sure what I think about the book. I can appreciate the story and the relationship dynamics between Rase and Gabriel objectively. But at the same time, I have a kneejerk reaction to the physical violence between them, and knowing that it was what Rase wanted didn't keep me from being uncomfortable. I could remind myself that it was consensual, but it still made me flinch when Gabriel hit Rase or beat him with his own belt. Taking a step back, I realize that the stylized violence in other novels I've read is fundamentally no different -- blows given/received by consent, resulting in a physical sensation (for both) that ends in pleasure, even if pain is involved. Why does the stylized behavior not bother me, but an outright slap or punch makes me twitch? I think maybe it's about form rather than content again, and is all about the baggage that I bring to reading. A punch delivered by a lover on the page flashes me to domestic violence; a flogger or crop wielded by a lover does not. So ultimately the problem is with me, not with the writing.
ETA: *I understand that the narrator's voice and grammar are an integral part of the character built by Buchanan, and that it was intentional. It was still hard for me to read the first time through. I mention in a comment below that hearing the narrator speak would not bother me as much as reading his speech patterns. It's a function of delivery and expectations: I expect better grammar on the page than in my ear. Unfair, I know.
Dear editors and authors:
Long, long ago and far, far away, I was able to read without paying much attention to typos, misspelling, or grammar. I'm not entirely certain what has happened, if my internal editor has clicked in or if my subconscious has just been offended by too many copy editing errors. In any case, more and more often, I'm distracted by the form of the book rather than the content, which is a shame because it means otherwise good storytelling has been diminished. Yes, I know I keep complaining; usually after one or two posts, I give up and move on to something else. But that's not going to happen with this topic, because I care about whether words are spelled and/or used correctly.
For today's SBD, I thought I would share some of the common typos that I've noticed repeatedly lately. I'm not sure if you are relying too much on SpellCheck and GrammarCheck, or if these are becoming commonly accepted incorrect usages.
1. Then/than. Then signals a sequential relationship, either in time or in order. Think of "if/then" statements in decision-making algorithms. Than is used to signal a comparison. Greater than, less than, equal to, etc.
2. Loose/lose. That repeated letter makes a huge difference in pronunciation and meaning. Loose can be a verb or noun related to a lack of restraint, control or order. Lose means to cease to have. One may loosen control or lose control, but one does not loose control.
3. Cache/cachet. A cache is, among other things, a secret stash or hoard, and it sounds just like "cash". Cachet is mark of quality or superiority. The silent "t" changes the syllable emphasis -- two syllables there, not one.
4. Physic/physique. A physic is a medication that purges; most often I've seen it used correctly in historical novels when characters are ill. Physique refers to the human body. Admiring your beautiful physic in the mirror makes no sense.
5. Direct address commas. In dialogue, when a speaker addresses another character directly and includes their name, it needs to be tagged. "Come on Chris" is not the same as "Come on, Chris". Srsly.
I could go on, but it is a little too demoralizing, especially when it comes to your/you're, their/there, and here/hear. [Please note the use of "too", rather than "to" or "two". All different parts of speech and not interchangeable, thanks.]
Pop Quiz
1. In the medical community, attending JHU Medical School gave one a certain (cache/cachet).
2. Which of these is a direct address to Michael, and which is an instruction to someone else about moving him? (Don't move Michael!) (Don't move, Michael!)
3. The doctor gave me a prescription for a (physique/physic). While it may be good for me, I don't think using it will make a difference to my (physique/physic).
4. Better that he hear the news from me (then/than) from a stranger.
5. It took me a long time to find these; I do not want to (lose/loose) them.
Answer all five in the comments and you may win a copy of Ava Gray's Skin Game. (Winner will be chosen randomly.)
Good luck to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo. I'm looking forward to seeing/reading you again in December ;)
Almost Like Being In Love by Steve Kluger. This is the epistolary tale of Travis and Craig, who fell in love in high school and then drifted apart because of college. Twenty years later, Travis is still trying to find Mr. Right, and Craig is struggling to stay with his Mr. Right while following his political conscience. This is a beautiful love story, even if Travis comes off as more than a little flaky sometimes. In the end, as a reader I was cheering for Clayton (Craig's SO since college) and Craig and Travis all to get their respective HEAs.
Books I liked a great deal:
Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong. The Further Adventures of Elena and Clay: chasing a mutt across the country, they end up in Alaska, where they find more rogues, these being foreign, come to the US to claim their own territory and brutalize anyone who gets in their way. I've found that I enjoy the Otherworld books narrated by Elena best.
Lessons in Power by Charlie Cochrane. The fourth Cambridge Fellows Mystery, in which Jonty's past comes back to haunt the pair of them in the form of another murder mystery.
More good books:
Speak Its Name anthology. I bought this book for the post-World War I story by Charlie Cochrane, but ultimately enjoyed the story by Lee Rowan (set in India and Vienna) the most. First Erastes story I've read; content was okay but the narrative style -- 1st person, storyteller directly to reader or questioner -- didn't appeal.
On the Edge by Ilona Andrews. Urban fantasy. Quirky and appealing, but rather like chinese food -- probably not a reread, unlike Andrews' Kate Daniels series.
Thank You Mrs. M by Kate Rothwell. Mentioned here.
Four Queens by Nancy Goldstone. Historical nonfiction, reviewed here.
Doubleblind by Anne Aguirre. Mentioned here.
Out of the Pocket by Bill Konigsberg. YA fiction. What happens when the senior quarterback of the football team is gay? And is outed in the school newspaper?
Becoming Us by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox. M/m romance. Hmm, this sort of borders on being a coming of age story, since a large chunk of the plot centers on one protagonist's struggles with his sexuality. He likes girls, he likes guys, he's named after his gay uncle and has been harassed and teased by family as maybe being gay all his life based on that. And then his best friend comes out, which changes everything. There's a LOT of sex in this book, and I feel a little ambivalent about it -- could more relationship-building have occurred outside the bedroom, please? But then a lot of the sex is an outgrowth of Bryce's changing/growing comfort levels with his sexuality. So I don't know.
Re-read
The Other Side of the Dark by Joan Lowery Nixon. Someone posted online about another YA book by Nixon, and it reminded me of this one, which was a favorite in high school. Amnesia! Romance! Suspense! What's not to like? Uh, well, let's just say it was better left a sweet memory.
Books I couldn't be arsed to finish or that seriously pissed me off:
Can't Stand the Heat by Louisa Edwards. Debut contemporary. The descriptions of food and cooking were gorgeous and beautifully written; I wanted someone to cook me a gourmet meal to eat as I read. Loved the secondary characters. The hero was okay. All of the conflict came from the heroine, who was...a monumental cow. I couldn't find anything sympathetic about her. Even things that *ought* to make her sympathetic were twisted around and fed her negative qualities. She came off as a pretentious, snotty, controlling, know-it-all, selfish witch. I tweeted about this book as I read that I didn't care about her HEA. I skipped or skimmed the love scenes because I wasn't interested in reading about "love" scenes when I knew the heroine was planning on screwing the hero one way or another. Even the ending grovel didn't win me over, because of the way she did it, which was (again) all about her rather than the people to whom she was apologizing. Having said all of that, I would read Edwards' next book, because I think she has talent and the excerpt looks interesting.
What Happens in London by Julia Quinn. Please see my complaint here.
Relentless by Lauren Dane. SF/Futuristic romance. Liked the world building, didn't care about the characters. And the use of vocabulary for body parts was repetitive and not very imaginative. DNF
Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts. I'm sorry to say that is was a DNF. The pretty cover was the best part of the book. The story was average, not sparkling or different, but the kicker was the "big fight" as the end approached. The heroine crossed a line and then when the hero called her on it (reasonably, IMO), she threw a temper tantrum. It was all about what she wanted. And the way their mutual friends took her side, even though his behavior was completely consistent with the character as it has been established earlier in the series and in this book seriously pissed me off. If I'd had a paper copy of this book, I'd've ripped it in half. As it was, all I could do was delete it from iPhigenia. I'm sure he groveled and apologized, but frankly, she should've been the one to grovel and so should the circle of friends. DNF
At 4pm, I called the conference number while working on some other things, remaining on hold for about 10 minutes. No one else joined me (which I expected, being the only one who planned on calling in to participate -- everyone else was attending in person), so I went through my emails and realized that the finance committee's conference call had been rescheduled for Thursdays at 4:00pm.
So I disconnected and went on about my business.
Only to realize this morning that the original meeting reminder was correct...except it was for the financial sustainability committee (separate from the finance committee, different goals, etc.) that did meet at 9am.
I fail at calendar management.
Unrelated bitch: I hate having board meetings from 9-11:30am. It ruins my entire work day: not enough time to get to work and do anything meaningful, by the time I get to the office afterward, it's at least 2pm because of traffic and the distance between locations. Why not 3-5pm? And the upcoming meetings conflict with scheduled CLE and other things on my calendar. While I love this organization, I don't have time for it right now.
I dunno. I've posted already that I have a problem with criminal behavior from main characters. In the past, okay. Ongoing on the page, not so much. I'm not sure if I want to read this book now, no matter how well-received and well-reviewed it has been.
First and foremost: yay for Persuasion fans!
Second: I'm disgruntled and disillusioned by the authors who continue to post over at Dear Author on Jane's post about readers' copyright rights, redirecting the conversation to piracy, which wasn't the point of the post. And by redirecting, they seem to be tacitly saying that it was okay for people to call Shayna Englin a thief, and to not recognize that multi-device use of Kindle accounts that complied with the terms of service were neither theft, piracy, nor deceptive, dishonest or a slippery slope toward piracy.
Piracy is wrong. It is stealing. Here's the thing: I don't believe that every download of a pirated book is a lost sale to the author; the vast majority of people who pirate would NEVER have purchased a legal copy, electronic or otherwise. And likening ebook readers who want to share (compliant with the TOS of Kindle or Nook or whatever provider) to pirates is insulting and alienating.
It's enough to make me give up buying anything new.
And the treacly call for a united front to combat piracy...I'm not sure that readers and authors can or should present a united front. Readers can help combat piracy, sure, but readers' interests in the share-ability or transfer of books and ebooks are different from those of authors.
Third: holy god, I read a teaser sample of an ebook last week that was horrendous. In the sample, which contained one short story and part of a second and was probably the equivalent of 10 printed pages, I noticed the following:
- a boarder between Texas and New Mexico (hmm, really, not a border?)
- a burm (instead of berm)
- who's for whose (completely different parts of speech!)
- you for your
- utter lack of direct address commas
- lack of commas to signal/separate clauses
A sample like this is NOT going to sell ebooks. [No, I didn't buy the book to finish reading it.]
Beyond that, I downloaded this sample because of a review that gave the anthology a good grade. There was *no* mention of the sloppiness, which makes me wonder about how reliable this reviewer is, in terms of matching her taste to mine.
Last and not least, just to see if anyone is paying attention: K.A. Mitchell's Collision Course is out in trade paperback. In honor of the release and one of the accident-prone heroes, the first person (located in USA or Canada, pls) to comment including their klutziest moment ever will get a copy of the book.
(Anti-FTC warning: any book mentioned in this post was purchased by me, or sampled via the Amazon TOS, or borrowed from the library. The book I'm giving away will be purchased via an online bookseller and shipped directly.)
Also, because I watched the Root/Hinds version of Persuasion this past weekend: A viscountess, she is a viscountess!
