Category Archives: Book review

Rocking the Boat Authors must defend themselves

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Don’t say anything. Don’t make a comment. It will make you look bad. That’s the usual advice in the publishing industry when someone posts a caustic review of your book, under the assumption that this is about some type of insecurity on the part of a writer. This is not insecurity. It is frustration, and in this case, it’s also outrage. In fact, historically, authors are expected to keep their mouth shut about these things, but I am a proponent of the adage Silence equals Death. This advice to stay mum strikes me as the same mentality that got that Orange Nightmare in the Oval … Continue reading →

Is it Goodreads or Badreaders? Mean-spirited behavior is a learned behavior. It can be unlearned.

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I’ve always believed that every ill in our society falls under one or more of three categories: Greed, Ignorance or Zealotry. I was faced with an example of one or more of these while updating my author page on Goodreads. I came across a negative review, quite by accident, of one of my earlier books. Against my better judgment, I read it, and was horrified. The reviewer, obviously, did not like my book, and that’s fine, in and of itself, but this reviewer made statements that were patently false. She claimed the character in my book was “helping a pedophile.” … Continue reading →

Mistress of Mogador by T.T. Thomas Great book by a talented author

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I have never been a fan of historical romance, perhaps because most of my experience with them has been of the insipid, cheesy variety. Mistress of Mogador is not that. No ridiculous fragile women seeking validation from some musclebound man, poisoned by testosterone; no need to be saved by such a man, and no absurd, quixotic ruminations about love in the vein of puerile cupidity. No, the females of Mistress of Mogador carry the modern I’m-a-Nasty-Woman sensibility, in the most attractive and honorable ways. The characters here are also sufficiently flawed to burst from the page into personhood in the … Continue reading →