Storm Front #6 Needs A New Title

It’s getting to a point where Storm Front #6 really needs a new title. I’ve been calling it The Oncoming Storm as a work in progress title, but I was never really happy about it. Mostly because the storm is no longer oncoming: it’s here! In the book, I mean.

So it’s time Tina’s first full-length novel had a real name. I’ve been brainstorming a lot, and I’ve come up with four titles that I think each fit the feel of the novel. But I need some help! More importantly, I need YOUR help.

Here’s the blurb (also a work in progress, but it gives the basic overview of the novel):

Tina Storm, an Australian teenage demon hunter, has been charged by the Council of Elders to infiltrate a coven of witches and figure out who’s leading their blood magic rituals – spells designed to hurt others for personal gain.

Because of her recent vigilante adventures, Tina’s powerful and inherited lightning vanquish has been banned by the Council. She has to rely on her latent talents to convince the witches she’s one of them, and try to avoid raising the suspicion of the hot and mysterious male witch who’s taken a shine to her… and his gift for blood magic has sinister intentions.

And maybe a male witch is better for her than the Chinese shapeshifting demon who’s keen to get to know her better. At least the witch is human… and they’re not on two sides of an ancient war.

Help me! Based on the above blurb, which title do you like best?

Review: New Girl by Paige Harbison

New GirlPublisher: HarlequinTeen
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery
Pages: 320 (paperback)
Release Date: 31 January 2012
Source: Netgalley.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars.

Blurb (from Goodreads.com)

A contemporary young-adult retelling inspired by the classic 1938 romantic suspense bestseller Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

They call me ‘New Girl‘…

Ever since I arrived at exclusive, prestigious Manderly Academy, that’s who I am. New girl. Unknown. But not unnoticed—because of her.

Becca Normandy—that’s the name on everyone’s lips. The girl whose picture I see everywhere. The girl I can’t compare to. I mean, her going missing is the only reason a spot opened up for me at the academy. And everyone stares at me like it’s my fault.

Except for Max Holloway—the boy whose name shouldn’t be spoken. At least, not by me. Everyone thinks of him as Becca’s boyfriend…but she’s gone, and here I am, replacing her. I wish it were that easy. Sometimes, when I think of Max, I can imagine how Becca’s life was so much better than mine could ever be.

And maybe she’s still out there, waiting to take it back.

Review (full review posted on Goodreads.com)

It was a little hard to get into, but by the time Becca’s narration came I was interested. Becca’s POV caught me by surprise – I wasn’t expecting it and I was completely prepared to not like it… but Becca was fascinating to read about – that level of sociopathy could only result in something tragic – much like the badly behaving teenagers in horror films always get killed – you know, the ones who drink and have sex. Teen horror flicks are morality warnings. I never felt this book was preachy, but I could certainly see how others might think that.

Sometimes I wondered if Becca was so bad just to contrast with how good ‘New Girl’ was. New Girl was a good girl. Sure, she was as bad as the other students: She broke all the school rules, snuck out after curfew, went to the boys’ dorm, had things with both boys Becca was after, and got drunk –  but she wasn’t half as bad as Becca, who was truly atrocious. Let’s look at some of my status updates for Becca’s character:

Page 55: I don’t even think this is slut shaming but Becca is all kinds of a bitch.

Page 66: Look, Becca may be a manipulative bitch whom I really don’t like but I’m really enjoying reading about her. She’s a great, flawed, insecure, desperate for attention drama queen and it’s a nice relief to see those imperfections when mostly in YA we get boring personality-less Mary-Sues like Nora and Bella and Luce.

Page 127: Wow, Becca is all kinds of psycho. Her parts of the story are definitely more interesting than the nameless 1st person POV. It’s like Mean Girls with extra bitch and an extra helping of slut. She’s so manipulative… I’m so glad I never knew anyone like her in high school!

Page 211: Becca is just all kinds of psycho.

Page 220: Ugh, this is way worse than the queen bee bitches of Before I Fall. Becca seriously has issues.

I guessed very early on what the twist would be. A red herring threw me off, but then it turned out I was right: I was wrong about another thing, but I was close enough to realise why Dana was so damaged. I knew she’d witnessed something. Her character totally freaked me out as well. It was easy to imagine someone losing their mind like that.

Throughout the narrative I sympathised with New Girl. She was adjusting to a new place and thinking about what her life would be like when she went home. Although I liked reading New Girl’s story, I was far more invested in and interested in the manipulation that was Becca’s narrative. It was so interesting reading about the things that happened the year prior, and when things were revealed, how they reflected in the modern day New Girl’s narrative. Although this book is about the New Girl, Becca’s narrative is integral. She was a truly fascinating character, and very believable.

One of the problems I had was being unable to really ‘place’ the year this novel was written. It made weird references to the film Titanic, Brad Pitt’s dating – he hasn’t ‘dated’ since 2000 – and Cate Blanchett (in Lord of the Rings, also from 2001), but then it constantly referenced Facebook as well. I’m pretty sure it was meant to be set in contemporary times, but the references to things from a decade ago was a little bit strange. Perhaps the author was not aware of whatever today’s teens are talking about, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the same things we were talking about when we were teens a decade ago.

I DO NOT object to anything that’s in this book. I don’t understand how the students keep getting their hands on alcohol and I don’t understand why adults don’t seem to care there’s underage drinking, but all of these things? It’s AWESOME. It adds conflict. It makes the book interesting! I LIKE reading about all the fucked up things teens do – teens that don’t have my background. I still hate parties because of all the drama that happens at them – but I love reading about it.

The biggest problem I had with the narrative was all those extremely common moments when the narrator told the audience what was going on, instead of showing us. Really simple sentences that could have been elaborated, but weren’t. Stuff like: Dana looked shocked… all of them said yes, nodding… the guys were all laughing and clapping at them. This happened a lot early on in the novel, although I think by the end I was either so used to it I didn’t notice anymore or it didn’t happen so much. I was a little disappointed by such simple writing, because I felt it could have been so much better.

The build up to the climax became somewhat unbelievable. It was far too convenient that Blake’s family would pay for a bunch of private hotel rooms that included beds when a bunch of underage drinking teens were involved. Is no one worried about preserving these teens’ virtue? I started to wonder if all the sex and drinking wouldn’t be more suited to a university style of life, because there was next to no adult supervision at any time, and all the rule-breaking didn’t seem particularly difficult or dangerous. Age everyone a few years, remove all the rule breaking and it’d be completely normal. But then I guess the whole Becca thing wouldn’t be so outrageous.

And upon reaching the climax, the audience is suddenly thrown two completely new points of view that we just totally don’t need. This should have been planned from the beginning, and subtly shifted to omniscient POV, not limited head-hopping for a random page. And it’s not accidental: these POVs are labelled so we don’t get confused. I just can’t understand why they’re even there.

And then the ending didn’t make much sense. New Girl tells us that she’s been having recurring dreams all year, but she’s only had one or two. Becca’s body is found a year after she dies in the water – still identifiable? Not decomposed or anything? It just doesn’t make sense. My forensics-trained and former morgue technician hubby tells me her body would definitely be bones, picked clean by the sea life – and maybe not even bones, depending on the area. So how did they find Becca’s body, what condition was it in, and how did they identify her?

But as a bonus, New Girl actually grew as a character. She grew and changed and changed her life as well! It was awesome watching her make the connections in her brain and outgrowing her old home as she had all these new experiences at Manderlay. Yay for heroines who can think for themselves!

And love triangle? Pfft! What love triangle? It’s not a love triangle: it’s a damned train wreck. But I mean that in a good way. Everyone is fucked over by everyone else. There’s no pining and puppy dog eyes and ‘I can’t live without you.’

Overall, despite its flaws, I really enjoyed this book and during the final third I couldn’t wait to get back to reading it. I give it a firm four stars.

AND I really want to read Here Lies Bridget.

Review: Good Girls by Laura Ruby

Good GirlsPublisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Pages: 304 (paperback)
Release Date: 1 September 2006
Source: Library.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars.

Blurb (from Goodreads.com)

Audrey Porter is a “good girl”: a good student, a great daughter, an amazing friend. She’s also the last person anyone expects to be hanging out with Luke DeSalvio, the hottest guy at Audrey’s school. But Luke is a liar, a player, a dream, and Audrey knows it. She dumps him at her friend’s Halloween party with no intention of looking back, but not before giving him one last goodbye gift…

The next Monday, messages begin popping up on people’s phones and email inboxes. Somebody has taken a picture of her and Luke together and soon everyone knows, including her teachers, her mum and her dad… Now she must discover strength she never knew he had, find friends where she didn’t think she would, and learn that life goes on – no matter how different it is to how you think it’s going to be.

Review (full review posted on Goodreads.com)

When someone takes a photo of Audrey, the school’s resident ‘good girl’ – otherwise known as a spock, swot, or general nerd – in a compromising position with a boy at a party and spreads it around her school, Audrey has to deal with the fallout of a tarnished reputation, a broken relationship with the boy in question, the friendships of other ‘good’ and ‘bad’ girls, and her parents.

And the biggest question is, who took the photo and destroyed her reputation? Was is a friend of the boy? Was it Audrey’s ex-boyfriend, the guy who couldn’t handle being dumped? Was it another girl jealous that Audrey was casually ‘hooking up’ with the hottest guy in the school?

It doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable issues. The scene with the doctor had me cringing. The reactions of almost everyone in the novel is completely horrible – most of the boys decide Audrey’s easy and will want to have sex with them, the teachers who found out disapprove and think they’re ‘warning’ her the behaviour wasn’t ‘appropriate’ for a girl of her intellect, and the girls of the school turn into complete bitches. This is slut shaming from the point of view of the slut. And we all know that slut shaming in YA books is wrong and quite often misjudged.

Which is why I think a few specific people will like this book, because Audrey’s still a good girl. She still goes to church (and to all honesty, normally I’m against using religion in YA novels but in this instance it works), she still studies hard, and she still works on her relationship with her parents. She also has hobbies – notably the school plays where she’s in charge of the stage design.

But of course nothing is ever black and white. This novels explores the shades of grey of sluts and slut shaming and good girls. And I use the term slut ironically. Why do girls get called sluts and boys get called players? Why is a girl having sex a slut and a boy having sex a god? Why is a bad boy really a good boy, and a good boy is a pansy or a mama’s boy?

Audrey’s a realistic portrayal of a teenager, even if she’s a little too perfect. I knew a girl like her at my high school who changed schools when something like this happened over the summer holidays. And the teenage voice in this book is spot on.

I think it’d be an accessible read for adults who enjoy reading YA books as well as a great book for the YA crowd. My version of the book had a parental advisory warning on it for mature content, so if a mother is thinking of giving this to her daughter, maybe she should read it first. I’d be more than happy to give this to a fourteen year old.

Createspace’s New International Distribution

Something amazing happened last week in the print on demand universe.

Createspace, Amazon’s print on demand company, announced that it will now distribute books in European countries.

(!!!)

Also, they’re doing it for free.

(!!!)

This isn’t Expanded Distribution. This is simply following Amazon’s Kindle practises, and printing Createspace books in Europe, with European prices and delivery, to be available on the international Amazon sites.

(Proof copies and member orders will continue to come from the US.)

I imagine, if I still lived in England, it would be quite momentous.

Alas, I am indeed living in Australian now, and we don’t even have our own Amazon site *sob*.

There is absolutely no hassle involved in making your American-market book available for Europe. It’s apparently as easy as clicking a button.

I will have a think about whether or not I want to click that button, because my paperback sales aren’t as high as my ebook sales. I am concentrating on writing this year, rather than publishing (and marketing). I wasn’t planning on making paperbacks out of any more books, but I might in the future when everything’s settled down.

(Here I was thinking paperbacks are just as important as ebooks but it turns out everyone else takes ages to put their paperbacks together…)

What’s your opinion on this? Is it amazing forwardness on Createspace’s part? Should they have offered paperbacks in all Amazon countries from the beginning? Comment away!

Review: Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols

Publisher: Pocket Books/MTV Books
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Pages: 245 (paperback)
Release Date: 17 March 2009
Source: Library.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars.

Blurb (from Goodreads.com)

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO?

All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far…and almost doesn’t make it back.

John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won’t soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won’t be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge — and over….

Review (full review posted on Goodreads.com)

I can’t for the life of me come up with any good reason for why this book is 4 stars and not 5 stars. Normally five stars for me are rated for books that have a huge emotional impact or connection, or challenge me (or are just plain and simply awesome, or I read in my childhood and I’m totally nostalgic for). I didn’t really have an emotional connection but this book did have an emotional impact on me, because I cried in one particular part near the climax. Still, if you ask me what you could change about this book to make it 5 stars, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I really liked it, to me it just wasn’t amazing. However, I would recommend it to romance readers and people who love contemporary YA.

And I think it’s a really beautiful novel about two damaged people learning to love and overcome their fears. The romance developed nicely and despite Meg’s age (17) it was totally believable.

And I totally love Meg’s attitude. She’s not a bitch, just a rebel with no cause and no fear. John was a giant sweetheart and a total hottie (I don’t often find literary characters hot but Echols’ descriptions were really great, and I got sucked in to Meg’s head to see the attraction) but there was something about him that made me feel that he was a tiny bit manipulative. Maybe it was his protectiveness and his need to CONTROL ALL THE SITUATIONS but he seemed to manipulate Meg a bit, especially physically which is so NOT okay especially as he’s this huge cop and she’s this tiny teenager.

Well sure, the entire plot revolves around John’s decision to make Meg ride along with him. And I secretly have a thing for Gothic novels, which abhors the feminist side of me, because the I’d hate to be in the same position myself but there’s a reason Belle from Beauty and the Beast was my favourite Disney princess for many years. I like reading about strong girls trapped in an environment with an older dude who has a position of power over her. Don’t do that to me in real life, but I kind of like it in my entertainment. It’s my guilty pleasure. That’s why I liked The Castle of Otranto, Northanger Abbey, and Jane Eyre.

Going Too Far isn’t a Gothic novel, but it does have the basics of one. Meg often wonders if she’s suffering from Stockholm Syndrome because she’s being forced to spend time with Officer Hottie.

The novel was written okay. I had some issues with the text, mostly because I think they might have been speaking in slang sometimes and I’m not from America, and sometimes the dialogue was ambiguous and vague so it took me a few pages to realise what they were talking about. But I’m clever enough to work it out in the end, and maybe that’s what matters.

Pretty much the only problem I had with the book was at the end when Meg decided to dye her blue hair back to brunette. I understand why she did it – because the blue dye represented her fight with cancer, and accepting that it was over meant going back to a normal colour. But to me it looks like the shrew has been tamed – that the wild child has settled down. I know characters have to change over the course of novels but I would have liked it if she dyed it a colour that wasn’t her natural colour: blonde, or auburn, or even green. The dye represents a change in her attitude but the colour delivers the message to the reader.

If you like contemporary YA romances you’ll probably love this.