I was excited to get my copy of Altered Life, a detective thriller from Keith Dixon. He was nice enough to send me a copy all the way across the pond and I dove into it the same day it arrived. The description on the Lulu page hooked me: ‘Altered Life transplants the attitude and pace of the American private eye story into a contemporary English setting.’
I’ve been following a disccusion over at the CreateSpace Community called “How Does Lightning Source Compare to Lulu and Createspace?” While the information has been very good across the board, I thought a recent post from someone called Penumbra Publishing contained a wealth of information that I’d share here…
Back on May 12th, I did a random search on Amazon.com for my book, Stealing Wishes, and found an odd separate listing for my book. It had no picture and only had one copy for sell by a third party seller. I promptly clicked on this link only to find the seller’s name was LuluPress. You can view the listing here, although the copy that was for sale and even the name of my book has since been removed from it. You can view LuluPress’s profile here. I decided to email LuluPress asking if their authors received royalties for these Marketplace sales. They replied two days later with a simple “yes.” So, I left it at that.
I did enjoy Marva Dasef’s charming Tales Of A Texas Boy, with its bonus insight into past events and lifestyles. Based on her father’s reminiscence, these appealing stories take us back to 1930s Texas during the Depression era when life was very different. Each tale begins with an explanatory paragraph and is embellished with wonderful old family photos appropriate to the story. Modeled on Dasef’s father, “Eddie” narrates with a touch of dialect so natural it was as if I could hear his voice inside my head.
I first came across the writings of Paul Ciccone Jr. last year when I read and reviewed his book, OH Brother. That review went on to become our top review of 2008 and Paul’s book was probably the most talked about. Like Mick Rooney, Paul’s writing definitely commands your full attention and is one that you will want to take time to read and mull over, rather than rush through it.
Hannah And The Magic Blanket – Land of the Dinosaurs represents Barry Nye’s debut children’s story. Inspired by the imagination of his granddaughter, Hannah, Nye brings her imagination to life in this first of a series books about Hannah and her magic blanket. We meet Hannah as a spunky preschooler, who is preoccupied with playing dinosaurs and whose favorite toy is a purple dinosaur. After a hard morning at play, Hannah lays down on the couch for a nap snuggling with her pink blanket and purple dinosaur. The next thing she knows, she is in an unknown land and Mommy is nowhere to be found.
Do you know the picture of the little fish about to get eaten by the bigger fish, himself about to become dinner for a larger fish, and so on? Turn the fish into a variety of mutants and aliens held together by nanobots, and you have a pretty good starting point for reading Elysian Fields. Typically I try to give you a plot summary, a few quotes, and an idea of what you’re getting yourself into by reading the book I am reviewing. In this case I’m going to have to send you in without the wisdom of my council because there’s just way too much for me to try to make it make sense to you.
I fell in love with Mary Hellick on page one and nothing through the course of the book caused me to change my mind. Mary is a prickly teenager who is an outcast at her school. Shunned by most of the students who taunt her and generally make life hell for her, Mary tries to keep to herself and not draw any attention to herself, but sometimes strikes back. This means that Mary has regular sessions with the guidance counselor, Mr. Landa. Mary is your typical awkward, rebellious teenager, with one exception. Mary is also clairaudient, which means that she can hear the dead, and that tends to complicate her life.
I first came across Dawson Vosburg in the Lulu Forums and, like many, I found it hard to believe that Dawson is only 14 years old because he is so well spoken. At 14, I was filling up pages of my journal with short stories and poems and dreaming that I might one day be a published author. Thanks to computers and the self publishing technology of today, Dawson has far surpassed my dreams from way back when. Lulu helped me to eventually achieve my own dreams, but had I known Dawson back then, I have to admit I would have been totally jealous.
Condition Black by Edwin Ong arrived with the look and feel of a graphic novel. It’s slick black cover with just a touch of glowing red from the trooper’s night vision goggles make the book exceptionally marketable, but the cover and the brief blurb on the back of the book do not prepare you for the thrill ride waiting on the pages inside. Unfortunately, there are no graphics, but the 96 pages of text are packed full of action and adventure. It begins like this…
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