Archives for July 2020

Rev Req: The Pearl of York, Treason and Plot, by Tony Morgan

July 28, 2020 By S.D. Reeves Leave a Comment

I received this book for an honest review. All expressed opinions, sarcastic or otherwise, are my own.

Oh, historical fiction, how we love thee. It’s always been one of those deceptively difficult genres to write in. Fantasy authors like myself tend to poo-poo it because it, on the surface, doesn’t require direct world building. But think about it a little deeper, and you realize that narrative is a misleading. Good historical fiction is both blessed and cursed by facts. On one hand you are buoyed by a real setting to ground your story in. On the other, the information we have on your chosen era may be incomplete, or just plain wrong. History is a living medium, and our knowledge of it is ever changing. Plus, licenses must be made to make it readable. In the end you are either going to tick off your average reader or be put into the crosshairs of a history nerd. Hard to win.

That out of the way, Tony Morgan’s A Pearl of York, Treason and Plot, is a respectable undertaking.

Newsletters: From the Writer’s Drawer

July 22, 2020 By S.D. Reeves Leave a Comment

This is a part two of a TBD point posting about Marketing. As with the other posts in the writer’s drawer series, this is not going to be about how to do something right. Not directly at least. This is more of a post on what I did, have done, or am doing – and hopefully some of the information (my mistakes) here may be helpful. Now today we are talking about Newsletters, and not a historical context. [Read more…] about Newsletters: From the Writer’s Drawer

Rev Req: Dead Sky Order, by Timothy Murphy

July 8, 2020 By S.D. Reeves Leave a Comment

A book, like most things, is the sum of its parts. Good stories can make mediocre novels, just as a great joke can be bogged down by the performance. It is all in the details – the timing, execution, etc. And there are many degrees of separation between ratings; the more missed queues, the worse the overall experience is. Even if the core of the creation is a solid piece of work. The Dead Sky Order is a good example of this; a great story cut to death by many niggling issues.