Review (Part 1): 'Twilight's Edge Volume One', by Heather Renee* Holden

(Sorry Heather, I'm not smart enough to do the little thing above the 'e' in Renee.)

'Twilight's Edge, Volume One' earns a Happy Hamster rating, because I will be recommending it to other readers.:-) The first installment of a serial about teenaged diabetic vampire hunter Raven Radley, 'Twilight's Edge' is definitely a story aimed at teens rather than kids,* with some mature content (high level of violence, non-graphic sexual situations, death, no swearing/cursing that I noticed though). I gave this story a reader enjoyment rating of four out of five, and a technical rating of four out of five. If you like a gritty vampire tale that doesn't stint on the violence and is filled with witty one-liners, then why not preview this story?

*Depending on reader sensitivity/maturity/preference, and/or parental decision-making... ;-).


Raven Radley has type 1 diabetes; in other words, she's the opposite of someone on the Atkins diet. *They* go out of their way to eliminate carbs - hopefully they'll donate the carb sources they don't need to her, because she needs to keep her blood sugar up.
If her blood sugar level falls too low, she won't be able to concentrate, and she needs to concentrate, because vampires keep trying to kill her, and some of them are smart.

Sure, since the mysterious 'Blessing' that made her the new slayer, she's developed her own unearthly powers, but the mysterious Vampire Master who keeps sending his stooges after her doesn't seem too concerned. After all, he only has to be lucky once.
And it's not like he's going to run out of vamps any time soon - he's got all the cemeteries in Crescent Valley to choose from, and they're filling up at quite a rate.

The Vampire Master has plans. He's going to do a ritual - he's been looking forward to it for rather a long time. Raven, a practising Wiccan, knows all about rituals - they're life-affirming events that tap and direct the positive energy in the universe. Not this ritual, though. This one will allow the terminally insomniac vampires to overturn the curse that turns them to ash in the sunlight, so they'll have twice as much hunting time. Raven has to stop them, before they slaughter her and her friends, or worse, capture her alive. The Vampire Master wants her alive so he can turn her into a vampire.

Slayers-turned-bloodsucker are famous for their power, their pure evil, and their ability to be able to cancel that pesky curse forever. If Raven's arch enemy gets his way, regular cravings for fruitjuice will be the least of her worries...

I will post part 2 later/tomorrow. In the mean-time, here's Heather Holden's website.

For adult readers: fake covers for Harry Potter...

It always weirded me out that you could buy 'Harry Potter' books with different covers for adults; I don't think I saw other stuff like that when I was a teenager, and I always used to look in the adult section to see which of my favourite authors had a big enough crossover appeal to be listed there too. Same covers, every time. Redwall, little mice waving swords, even. Was it Harry Potter that started this craze? I think I've seen alternative covers on the Northern Lights Trilogy since. Are there any others?

(Link below is for those with an appreciation of very crude humour only. They are indeed 'adult' covers... you have been warned).
This link, courtesy of whoever's behind 'pointlesswasteoftime.com', has a series of (yes, printable) fake covers for adults to put on their Harry Potter books, and links to more. I noticed they all seem to be geared towards men, though the copies with the real adult covers are selling well to both sexes. (I wonder if anyone's produced some fake 'romance' covers for HP, heh heh).

I find this phenomenon of different covers for different readers disturbing for the following reasons:

1. Surely the point of not being a kid/teen any more and leaving home is that you can read what you like. Gone are the days of cunningly hiding things from people who don't approve, or can judge and mock you for, or worse, control, you reading matter. Now I have the increased power of being an adult, I will read what I like where I like in my own time. If that turns out to be a picture book by Barbette Cole on the tube (subway to you Americans), so be it.

2. It kind of implies the original book/product won't pass muster for adults unless improved on/changed for adults. Philip Pullman had an excellent rant about the second class status of kids'/YA lit, which I will dig out and dissect at some point, and link to.

3. It annoys me as another example of society's obsession with surfaces, and politicians and celebrities who change the cover/surface/packaging for different consumers at different times. 'How do you like this? No? OK...' *fiddles around with the 'surface'* 'How do you like it/me/us now?'

Shudder.

4. Something that annoys me about how marketers manipulate people's opinions of others. Because someone provides me with a choice of 2 covers, I can now be judged for what choice I make. When I pre-ordered Harry Potter 6, I was asked which cover I wanted, and the decision I make says something, however insignificant, about me, because I had to make the decision.

5. Harry Potter's universe is a fantastical, colourful place, and the YA/kids' cover displays that with pride. I think it's sad - 0r even disturbing - not to celebrate this. If you're reading a book with dragons in, why not have a lovely great big dragon on the cover that says, 'Hello, everyone, I like reading about really fantastic dragons!' rather than exist in dragon-denial with a plain or serious looking cover? Yaaarg.

OK, less ranting, more reading, and soon, review posting.:-)

Achuka and Teensreadtoo

While you're waiting for me to finish reading my first ebooks, here are two review sites for young adult/children's literature:

Achuka

I love this site. Not only is it dedicated to YA/kids' books, but it introduced me to one of my favourite books, Henry Tumour by Anthony McGowan. I'll post a review of that one when I've reread it, but it's a brilliant book (for those with a dark sense of humour; it's about a boy with a talking brain tumour, you have been warned) and I'd never have found it without Achuka. I read the review on Achuka, thought 'talking brain tumour? wow!'), took one look at the (groovy) cover, and went to look for it in my local book shops. It wasn't on any shelves, so I had to order it in specially. It took 2 weeks, but it was worth it.

'Henry Tumour' is definitely for teens and above. There is frank discussion of sex(uality) and cancer; I wouldn't give it a 'mature' rating, because there's nothing graphic, but it may offend some, or at least make them feel queasy...

I bought this book in 2005, and it was the first fiction book I bought that I discovered while broswing on the net. If I hadn't been online, I might never have discovered it - and that's a book published by Doubleday! When I was at school, I used to give and get recommendations for kids/YA books to and from friends, but now this isn't so common, as most of them mainly read 'adult books' (snigger) now. Since, I just browsed book shops for new titles every month or so, until I discovered the internet is an important source of info about books I might like to read. I hope this blog introduces some excellent books to people who might otherwise never have come across them. Browsing online sites is getting easier what with intelligent linking systems (ie 'customers who bought/viewed 'Book Y' also bought/viewed 'Book X' and 'Book Z'), and the ability to preview the first few pages free as one can in a brick-and-mortar book shop, but often books sold through online shops have no or not-very-useful customer reviews, so I think review sites will prove more and more useful for helping people to find books that they'd never find in the high street shops, as well as those they might.

Teensreadtoo is a massive site with loads of book reviews, author interviews, and information about books' release dates. I recommend having a good poke around.:-)

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone submitting books! I'm having fun reading them, and forming my inner reader's (and writing-nerd's) opinions, and I appreciate the extra variety self-published/POD books provide to my reading. Thanks to a combination of self-publishers, POD technology, and the internet, I am no longer limited to my local book shop and library for choice of reading matter. I appreciate that... :-)

Review Policy/Disclaimer

The aim of this site is to promote the reading and writing of Young Adult and Children's Literature. The way I see it, readers come first. Because readers come first, all reviews posted on this site will be my honest opinion.


If I read a book - whether submitted or bought/found/borrowed - and I have negative opinions about it as well as positive, the review will contain both. If I only have negative opinions about it, I may well still review it. On the other hand, if I only have positive opinions about it, I'm not the kind of person to make up negative stuff.:-)

All criticism will be constructive, and directed to the book and not the author. Likewise, please direct any criticism of the reviews towards those and not me.

If I chose not to review a submitted book, I will try to briefly explain why on the blog as soon as possible. If you feel one has slipped through the net, please email me at the address on the right rather than commenting on the blog, as I might not check comments as often as I check my email.

In the event that I know an author, I will state this in the review.

So, please submit your work for an honest and free review.

Anti-hamster Rating

Books that earn an anti-hamster... I hope none do. Here is a non-exhaustive list of reasons why I would give one of these:

• Book contains offensive stereotype characters, or celebrates/condones/pushes prejudice. I'm not taking about satire, or dark humour, or a healthy distrust of the PC lobby here.

• Book is not for YAs, it is impossible to conceive it having a crossover appeal to YAs. In fact, book has been submitted spam fashion with author's brain not engaged. (This is the only way I can think of at the moment that an anti-hamster could be earned by an author rather than his/her book).

• Book is not suitable for stated target audience, for reasons of content, style etc.

• I would actively recommend that almost everyone not buy this book.

If I give a book an anti-hamster, I will explain why.

Happy Hamster Rating

Books that earn the happy hamster, I would recommend to others. Maybe everyone, maybe people who read a certain genre. 'Happy Hamster' = 'definitely worth buying if...' To find out about the 'if', read my review.:-)

If I haven't given one, I'll explain why.

Technical Ratings

Technical ratings are for self-published books, unless stated otherwise in a particular review. The reason for this is that anyone can publish a book, for very little cost, or even for free, and because of this editing and general writing standards vary enormously. I have read some excellent self-published books, which is a good part of the reason I'm reviewing them here, but I've also read some with formatting and or spelling/punctuation/grammar errors, and/or minor to serious style/word choice problems. If more people are to read self-published books, as I hope you will - otherwise I wouldn't review them!:-) - they need to know what level of quality they're spending their money on. The most common reason people give me for avoiding self and subsidy/vanity published fiction is quality of writing/editing/formatting, which is why I'll be rating these aspects of books I review as well as story/characters and so on in the Reader Ratings.

Here are the technical ratings:

• Five hamsters: Pro. The occasional mistake slipped under the copyeditor's radar, but I had to really concentrate to spot one.

• Four hamsters: I winced occasionally over grammar/punctuation/word choice, but it was occasional, and I got over it pretty quickly. Minor issues that might not register with the non-writing reader, but a writer/editor/literary agent would probably pick up on.

• Three hamsters: The book has been carefully edited; nevertheless, I have one or two technical issues with this book that distracted me from the story in some places. Still, not all readers would notice, and the writing is strong for the most part. I've got my red pen out, but only in my mind...
  

• Two hamsters: Most readers would find something off here. Although the story might not be confusing in itself, reading it is a confusing experience for technical reasons. If I'm reading a hard copy of this, I've got my red pen out, and I'm using it.:-)
  

• One hamster: Serious technical issues, and possibly serious issues with formatting as well. Don't make me come over there!
  

Reader Ratings

So, I'm setting up a rating system, using hamsters, because I like them. This particular hamster was called Peanut. Here he is (this new mouse vs paintbrush isn't so great).

Here are the reader-ratings:

• Five hamsters: Knocked my socks off. I wish I'd written this! I can't think of any way of improving plot, characterisation, conflict, world-building, voice, anything!

• Four hamsters: My socks are still on, but only just. I will harrass people in the street and make them read this. I will probably read this again.

• Three hamsters: Good story, I enjoyed reading it. Recommended for people who like this specific genre. This could be an excellent story that wasn't quite for me, but I think others would love, or a story I liked elements of, but thought could have been more original, etc.

• Two hamsters: Good - or even great - concept, but something major got in the way for me as a reader.

• One hamster: I found this attractive enough to start reading, but was unable to finish it due to some major issues.

Upcoming for Review

'Twilight's Edge,' a paranormal (urban fantasy) novel for teens featuring diabetic vampire huntress Raven Radley, is upcoming for review. Author Heather Holden has a rather snazzy website you can visit here:

http://www.edgyauthor.com/

And here is an interview with her at teensreadtoo.com:

http://www.teensreadtoo.com/InterviewHolden.html

Hrmm, maybe she'll let me interview her. I'll think of some really weird questions, just in case.:-)

For those who want to check it out first, here's a link to Heather's book, which she published last summer. I believe that Volume 2, 'Within the Shadows', is coming later this summer.

Twilight's Edge on Amazon

Found by the crawlers!

Hooray! My blog has been discovered and crawled all over by google's robotic spiders. Now I need to remember how meta tags work, and see if my cunning plan for title tags has been successful. You wouldn't think I did a course in web design... Still, it's weird, using someone else's template. Really, really weeeeeeeeeird.

Go spiders! Yeah.

Yay! I'm in business...

Right, I've got my first few books - all pdf files, all recently published by Lulu. I've also looked out a few excellent but more obscure of my favourites from the last few years. Tomorrow, I'll post my first review, and also the site's Manifesto. Well, if those Euston people can have one, I can have one. I'm going to start working on it as soon as I get rid of this headache. That is an issue with ebooks that needs to be solved. Either that or epublishers should buy shares in optometrists...

Off for a glass of water.:-)

website/blog published books

Here is my policy for reviewing books published online through blogs and websites:

Authors who have published their books on their own websites/blogs (whether they own the domain or are using a free service from geocities, blogger etc) are free to submit books for review: just send a link and description of your book. Please don't submit for review if your book is published through fictionpress or a similarly operating site. If in doubt, email me to ask.:-)

Book Categories

These may change as this project progresses. I'll tag the review posts with one or more of the following categories:

The first kind of category will give a bracket for publication date of the book...

• New and shiny! Books that have been out less than six months when reviewed. Submit these to "spaceysunday at gmail dot com" without the spaces and quotes.

• Post 2000 Books published more than 6 months before I reviewed them, and after the year 2000. Submissions from self-published and indie authors open at the above email.
  

• Old school Books I read when I aged ten to eighteen. First published before 2000.

• Classic Books published pre 1980, which may or may not be out of print
  

Category 2 will give info about the type of publisher.

• Mainstream Books from the big commercial publishers: Bloomsbury, Random House, Penguin Putnam etc
  

• Self pub Books produced using POD technology, for example by AuthorHouse or Lulu.com
  

• Indie Books from small independent publishers
  

• Ebook Books only available electronically, from an ebook publisher, on a website or blog etc
  

Category 3 will involve target audience age: since I'm 25 and still reading picture books, I don't really believe in the upper cut-off points, of course.:-) Also included will be tags about what kind of readers might find this book interesting.

• Kids Books suitable for aged 10 to 12. If I'm underestimating anyone younger than ten, yell at me.:-)
  

• Teens Books for age 12 to 15
  

• Mature Books for age 15 plus. May have graphic realistic violence, and/or frank discussion of sexuality/drug-use
  

• Gay/lesbian/trans Of particular interest to queer readers, or readers researching these issues
  

• Aspie Of particular interest to people with Asperger's Syndrome, or readers researching these issues

I can see I'm going to want more. I'll invent them as I need them, or as you suggest them.

Now, genres... I'm going to keep this as simple as possible, at least for the moment. Big umbrellas here.

• Non fiction/Memoir Does exactly what it says on the tin...

• Specfic Scifi, fantasy, horror, urban fantasy, paranormal, time-travel romance, magic realism... if it's not proved to be real, it goes here.

• Real life No dragons, spaceships, cities on wheels, psionics, time machines... just good old characters, conflict, plot etc

Hrmm, but which category would 'historical' go in? Would it need its own tag? I'm going to have to think about that...

Country of origin will also be relevant, although with the internet's distribution potential increasing and improving all the time, I hope people will read more books from abroad as well as their home countries. I'm a Brit based in the UK, so I hope to be reviewing some new books published here, as well as from the USA and other countries. Note to Brit and Australian authors: want to be reviewed by someone who understands your idioms, grammar, slang etc?;) But don't worry, Americans and Canadians, I have writer friends from both countries so I promise not to get (too) confused. Your review will be in UK spelling/grammar/punctuation though.:-P

None of these categories are set in stone. Comments for improvements welcome. Suggestions from authors and readers about genre/target audience/theme will be taken into account when categorising books. If you have a new idea for a tag, holler.:-)

Call for books to review

If interested in a free review, please email me at the following address (minus the quotes and spaces): "spaceysunday at gmail dot com" with 'review' in the subject heading of the email.

Please send me:
I am interested in reviewing stories, poetry and non-fiction for older children and teenagers. Electronic format is preferred, but hard copy can be sent if an ebook, or other electronic form, is not available.

My favourite genre is sci-fi and fantasy, but I will consider anything written for people of age ten to teen, or with a cross-over appeal to kids and teens.

Please don't bother with:
However, I will not review works of a racist, sexist, and/or homophobic nature, and nor will I review books whose purpose is to convert the reader to (or, alternatively, bash) any particular religion or world-view. I'm not the biggest fan of the politically correct lobby (trust me on this), but I know prejudice and attempted brainwashing when I see them.:-)

Mission Statement

The aim of this blog will be for me to post reviews of books for age 10 to infinity, focussing on those which have been self-published (conventionally or by using a 'self publishing' company) using POD technology, and also for YA books from epublishers , and any litho-printed YA/kids' books deemed independently published. All the stuff you won't find on Achuka-blog, and some you will.