Book Review of BEAUTIFUL CREATURES

Hi folks,

I thought I'd do another book review. I think I might write one a week or so, and I'll usually only write about books I really enjoyed. This is for a couple of reasons: first, I can tell you about a book you actually might want to read. Second, I won't have snarky comments sitting in the archives waiting to bite me in the posterior if and when I ever need a blurb from one of these writers.

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

I used to live in the South. True, it was Virginia, so it was Diet South, not Deep South. But I have to say, the sense of setting in this book, the overwhelmingly oppressive-but-it's-mine sense of small town, was spot-on. I viscerally felt the disapproving looks from the good folks of Gatlin.

True to my "no spoilers" credo, I won't give much away about the plot. The MC, Ethan, dreams repeatedly of a girl in danger. Then he meets her.

And there's a whole lot more to her than most people think.

A male, first-person narrative in a paranormal romance is a first for me. But the authors make it work wonderfully as they develop the best YA romance since TWILIGHT.

Yeah, I did it. I used the "T" word. And I'd do it again, too.

I love the idea of and the word "casters." It's a great term that avoids the pejorative connotations of some of its synonyms. It takes a while to sink into this plot, this world, but the heart of the story moved me from very early on.

And as soon as I finished reading it I turned to the beginning and read it again. There's some wonderful second-level stuff that I needed to fit together in my head.

The authors left enough loose ends for a sequel or two. I hope they won't keep me waiting long.

Bottom Line: I loved this book.

More fun than rewrites

Back when I wrote my dissertation in the late 1990s, internet access was slow and deliberate. A person who wanted to surf the web or even send an email had to dial in on a phone line. Pictures loaded ... inch ... by ... inch ... so ... slowly ...that ... they ... sucked ... your ... will ... to ... live.

I don't know how people ever finish long, boring research projects like dissertations anymore. There's too much fun stuff online these days.

I love writing. I've had days when my husband has watched the kids and about 10,000 words of a first draft have poured from me. These splendiferous moments are rare, but the feeling is sublime. If I didn't love writing so much, I'd never be able to complete a book.

Not with great sites like these online:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1glNuQiE77E

http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/

http://www.yousuckatcraigslist.com/

Thanks for the links, Carrie and Al.

Enjoy! And no, I'm not trying to distract the other writers out there from the Amazon contest that opened today:

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=332264011

Does anyone else see the similarities to American Idol?

You don't even have to buy me dinner first

I've been courting agents for months now. But so far, no offers.

I keep waiting for The Call. Like a Disney heroine, I'm stuck in my regular routine of sweeping, cooking, laundry, and other middle-age, middle-class activities as I wait for My Agent-Prince to pull up on that white horse and offer me representation. And then we'd ride off together into the sunset of a three-book deal and a movie option in a carriage pulled by, oh, I don't know, magic moose or something, since I live in New Hampshire.

Except real life is never like a Disney movie. If it were, I'd have trained that flying squirrel that keeps breaking into the woodshed to wash dishes by now. And I wouldn't have gotten that rejection letter yesterday, the one from the agency I don't even remember querying.

Seriously, has something happened to the space-time continuum? People now are rejecting me before I've even sent them a query letter. How much does that suck?

I look at the list of queries I've sent out, and I feel dirty. I'm a query-slut! I'll put out a letter to anyone whose website tells me that they rep YA or fantasy or both. I'll give up my opening pages to anyone with a web browser.

And they never call me in the morning.

What are you reading?

What's on your nightstand these days? Have you recently finished a great book? Please comment!

Read in Tooth and Claw

Last November, I attended the BackSpace Writer's Conference in New York City. I learned a TON about the publishing business, and the feedback on MINDER kept me in rewrites for seven weeks.

The first morning session, though, yielded the best quote of the entire conference:

(Regarding personal information in query letters)
DF: Don't tell me you have a cat. You're a writer; of course you have a cat!

To me, that's right up there with:

Homer Simpson: Animals are crapping on our houses, and we're cleaning it up! Did we lose a war?

I also learned that, if you have enough teenage boys helping you remodel your house, there's a good chance that your old bathtub will end up lodged in a tree in the yard. Thanks for sharing that story, GP!

There's no deep message here, except that the parts of the writer's conference that stuck with me were the great line and the great story. The basic stuff to improve my craft got internalized: don't overwrite, don't under-emote, show-don't-tell, and avoid the passive voice. But the parts I remember best were the charming little details. I think it's the same with a good book, as well.

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword...

... but, if you try to commit hari-kari with one, you just end up drawing all over your stomach.

Yup, two more passes on my queries mocked me from my in-box yesterday. I feel this visceral clench now whenever I see that I have email in that account. For every "Sounds interesting! Please send the first 50 pages!" I get, there are about ten "Not the right fit for us; best of luck." emails.

Plech.

I know that the chocolate in the kitchen cabinet is for my kids, but I'm considering mauling it anyway.

OK, enough disgruntlement.

Nathan Bransford has guest posters this week on his blog. Yesterday's was about making a book trailer. This was wicked timely, since I've been thinking about making my own for a while now, ever since my brother gave me his notes on MINDER.

My brother's the guy in the "IF AIR TRAVEL WORKED LIKE HEALTH CARE" thing on YouTube that I linked to a few posts back. Yes, he works in the movie industry and knows how to make movies. So he gave me a lot of notes about how MINDER could work as a movie.

And he knows people who make movies, including special effects experts, which is relevant because my characters are, as a friend from Yale so succinctly put it:

TEENAGE MUTANTS WITH SUPERPOWERS - IN LOVE.

And superpowers really do need special effects to "pop" on screen. How pathetic would it look to have things lifted by telekinesis and be able to see the string?

I also know the lead singer of the band Glenridge. They have a song called "Angels" that I want to use for the trailer, if and when I make it. And he said I could. No charge, just credit.

I listen to it and picture how I could start (about 1:38 into the song) with a Voice Over:

VO: I don't know how Del and his two friends died.

Flash an image of three boys lying dead in the back of a van.

VO: I just know that I killed them.

And then I see a montage of exciting images filled with magical energy stuff. And, interspersed with the images, a few written words: "Spark" "Charm" "Telekinetic" "Healer" "Remote Viewer" "Ganzfield"

The last bit would have the word "telepath" fade into "MINDER." I'm not sure of the other words have the resonance for potential readers, but this last bit really works for me, since it explains the title.

It's this middle part, the montage, that stumps me. I don't want to make something boring and cheesy, but I don't want to spend thousands of dollars to make this thing, either.

One short clip I'd love to have is Drew, who's a spark (a pyrokinetic), running down a dark, blue-lit hallway toward the camera, then flashing up a yellow-orange ball of fire in his hand and throwing it at the camera.

I also want one of the MC and her guy, sitting cross-legged facing each other and backlit by an upturned flashlight, as they lean in slowly to kiss each other. This is probably the easiest clip to get, since I just need two actors, a dark room, and a flashlight.

I'm still thinking about how to show an RV (remote viewer) with golden threads of light flashing out and haloing her head.

Yeah, that would be cool.

I think I'll daydream about it for the rest of the day, as I watch the snow fall outside my window.

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Give me an A - it's in a Plastic Binder!

Thanks to everyone who commented on or emailed about the last post; I'll be submitting a donation to Doctors Without Borders today.

Book Review

A few words about this:

First, if you want me to review YOUR book, please email a quick description (query letter material or jacket copy, that sort of thing). If it's YA, urban fantasy, chick-lit, humor, or some combo of the above, I'm all over it.

What's my taste? Some of the books I've enjoyed this past year include:

• Artemis Fowl: Eoin Colfer
• Twilight: Stephenie Meyer
• His Majesty's Dragon: Naomi Novik
• Dead Until Dark: Charlaine Harris
• Norse Code: Greg van Eekhout
• Wicked Lovely: Melissa Marr
• Savvy: Ingrid Law
• The Time Traveler's Wife: Audrey Niffenegger
• The Alchemyst: Michael Scott
• Vampire Academy: Richelle Mead
• Shiver: Maggie Stiefvater
• Marked: P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast
• Undead and Unwed: Mary Janice Davidson
• Soulless: Gail Carriger
• Graceling: Kristen Cashore
• The Lightning Thief: Rick Riordan
• Kitty and the Midnight Hour: Carrie Vaughn
• Hush, Hush: Becca Fitzpatrick
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Jane Austin & Seth Grahame-Smith
• Beautiful Creatures: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
• Evermore: Alyson Noël
• The Unlikely Disciple: Kevin Roose
• Impossible: Nancy Werlin
• The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins
• Strange Angels: Lili St. Crow
• Ruined: Paula Morris
• Blue is for Nightmares: Laurie Faria Stolarz

I'll be reviewing a bunch of these later, pretty much whenever I feel like it, 'cause it's my blog. But if there's one on the list you want to hear more about, please leave a comment. I'm not a blog tyrant.

Not yet.

But Oprah's going off the air soon, and there's going to be a void in the world of book recommendation. And, to my knowledge, Oprah NEVER reviewed a book where the MC was a werewolf.

That's where I come in.

But back to that book review. Remember? This post is supposed to be a book review.

Read away: there are NO spoilers here. I hate spoilers with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. It's one of the reasons I detest writing synopses of my own work so much.

SOULLESS by Gail Carriger

Genre(s): Humorous Historical Paranormal Romance

The tagline, "A novel of vampires, werewolves, and parasols," made me smile, and that smile stayed on through the entire read. It's set in a Victorian England in which vampires and werewolves are not only out in the open, they are part of society.

The MC is Alexia, a delightfully written "spinster."* I started rooting for her with the first whack of her parasol.

"I say!" said Alexia to the vampire (when he tries to bite her neck), "We have not even been introduced!"

SOULLESS has an original take on the supernatural versus the preternatural. It's funny and sexy and a delicious read. The zeitgeist of late-Victorian England is beautifully created in the details, such as the fascination with "modern" inventions and the importance of a well-tailored waistcoat, and it meshes seamlessly with the supernatural aspects.

And I kept wondering, "What happened with the hedgehog?" the entire time.

I started this review a couple of days ago, but got so caught up in SOULLESS again that I ended up reading it cover-to-cover again. I look forward to release of the sequel, CHANGELESS, in April. You can find more info about both books at: http://www.gailcarriger.com/

Bottom line: I loved this book.

* I have to put "spinster" in quotes since, more than twenty years ago, my high school English teacher wrote on my paper, "I find that word offensive; don't you?" It is only one of her comments that have haunted me over the decades. RIP Dr. Cole; my severe semicolon issues can all be traced back to you.