"You see things as they are and you say,'Why?' But I dream things that never were, and I say, 'Why not?'" ~ George Bernard Shaw ~
"If you do not have the need to read, you don't have the right to write." ~ C. Hope Clark ~
"Saying you have "writer's block" is like saying, "Oh my God,I'm not hungry!"~ Elizabeth Berg ~
“You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.” ~ Robin Williams
Giselle Carmichael: Arms of a Stranger
Arms of a Stranger by Giselle Carmichael nearly became the worst book I’ve ever read. It would have been the worst had the last three or four chapters not picked up in pace. That said I have a book mark that has the word BELIEVE inscribed into it. I noticed I referred to it often while reading this book and I’ve come to the realization that I did so to reaffirm my belief that I could/would finish the book.
There was nothing special about this book. The characters were flat. None of the people in the book popped off the page, well none of the ones we were supposed to care about. The best character in the book is Courtney. She’s outrageous and your first instinct is to not like her. This character had fire and passion. Then there’s the hero’s name, Keithen what’s up with that? All the other characters had normal names you didn’t have to stumble over to read. An unusual name or spelling does not make a character different or interesting. The dialog was stilted and boring. The scenery of the gulf coast popped more than the story or characters.
What did come through is the author’s passion for the gulf coast. It’s too bad that passion didn’t translate to her characters and story. (*)
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
It was okay. I'm not a Jane Austen fan to begin with let alone romance novels. I liked all the Zombie parts best and even those were too tame, but they made Austen's original words a tad bit easier to get through. (***)
I'm a writer, photographer, mom, wife & dog trainer but not necessarily in that order.
reading, writing, photography, training my dogs