One way for a writer to obtain reviews for a book is to agree to do reviews for other writers. The advice is that you need reviews in order to entice someone to buy your book, and also that very few readers will take the time to leave a review (no matter how nicely you ask!).

I’ve been involved in ‘review rounds’ organised by a group on Goodreads. Ten authors sign up, and the moderator ensures that there are no reciprocal reviews. You agree to read/review four books in return for four other people reading/reviewing yours.

Some of the review rounds have been in a specific genre. Others have been ‘open.’ So I’ve found myself reading historicals, romances, and even a children’s book along the way.

What I’ve discovered, now that I’ve been forced to read outside my preferred genres, is I don’t mind what the book is, so long as there is a character arc. Let the setting be in an alternative Japanese history, or an 18th century melodrama, or a small town in the 1970’s. If I find the characters engaging, if I can see (rather than be told) them change during the course of the tale, then I can take pleasure in a wide variety of settings.

Conversely, if the characters remain static for the course of the book, it doesn’t matter if the novel fits into my preferred reading material. I want to go on a (sometimes metaphorical) journey with the person I’m reading about. If I finish the last page and what s/he has been through hasn’t changed her/him in some way, then I find myself wondering why I’d bothered.

When I wrote my first two novels, my inspiration for character change was the singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg. I had many of his CDs, and I was intrigued as to how his voice had changed during his career. My thought was, ‘I want Gonard’s voice to change during the course of his travels.’ Not literally, actually, but in the way he would go from cowering in front of humans to a willingness to challenge them.

For my next two novels, ‘The Dragon Throne’ and ‘The Unicorn Throne,’ I knew the beginning and the end point for the characters, so writing their arcs seemed to come easily. Forgiveness features across the story of both Fianna and the Prancer. Both of them act in foolish ways, because they’re young. Part of growing up is to realise that your parents make choices which they feel were for the best, even if you didn’t think so at the time. Both of the main characters learn from making their own mistakes that they can forgive their fathers for those mistakes which their fathers had made.

But those novels, and ‘The Judas Disciple’, were written to be more self contained than my new series. The first ‘Penny White’ has been published, I’m reaching finishing line on the second book, ‘The Cult of Unicorns’, and I have ideas for at least another three. So it’s a challenge to both provide some character development in each book, yet leave matters open ended for the next one. That might be why I loaded so much on Penny’s plate! For example, jer parents dying when she was a teenager, her husband drowning just a short while before the first book starts, an annoying younger brother for whom she is and yet is not a mother. And the traditional romantic triangle, although perhaps not entirely traditional as the sexy ‘bad boy’ is a dragon.

The other challenge is to seed things into earlier novels which can then become important later on. The main idea for the fourth novel, ‘The Vengeance of Snails’, came to me while I was just about to publish ‘The Temptation of Dragons.’ So I was able to add an important point to the description of Clyde’s parent before I released the book.

Perhaps part of the challenge for me, personally, is that I haven’t read too many book series. The ‘Harry Potter’ books, of course, but those were able to develop the characters because the series followed them growing up. As a teenager I loved ‘The Dragonriders of Pern’ series, but the author’s attitudes towards women and gays now disturb me. I liked the first few books of the ‘Temeraire’ series by Naomi Novik, but these have become less interesting as the series has progressed.

So I’ve been making notes, and plotting story arcs, and trying to leave clues in earlier books which will make sense later on. But there’s only so much I can think of in advance. Or as my favourite Doctor once said, ‘Even I can’t play this many games at once!’ (Ghostlight, 1989)

I won a free copy of this book in a giveaway.

This was a slow moving book that really didn't take off until the 80% mark, just in time to try and hook readers for the following book in the series. For a novel that contained an assassination and three confrontations with a dragon there wasn't much action or anything of interest to draw the reader in. I also found that this novel seemed to borrow a lot from other works in the genres. Certain elements called to mind both the Pern series and The Derkholm duology by Diana Wynne Jones. There is also a scene at approximately the 80% mark which reminds me a great deal of a scene in the A Song of Fire and Ice series. I don't think any novel can truly be called original, but I prefer any connection to a previous work, especially such popular ones to be less obvious. Furthermore, the writing was quite rough in spots so even the semi-interesting bits were hampered by some oddly worded and structured sentences. I gave this book three stars, while I didn't enjoy it myself I could see the appeal.

February Wrap-Up

February was a good month for me. I completed 14 book and 3 graphic novels. Out of those 17 completed works: I rated six as 5 stars, two as 4 stars, and one as 4 1/2 stars. I only had two books that I DNF, which is awesome. My average for the month for DNF is around 5. Going into March I have four books on my Currently Reading List.

I'm still doing the buddy read for American Gods, this will take a while because our schedules don't always sync up. If we're lucky we can get together once every other week. I'm still enjoying it and I'm kind of getting frustrated that we can't get together more frequently. I'm also slowly going through The Annotated Sherlock Holmes Volume II. I've been reading one story every other day and I fully expect to be finished with this volume before the end of the month. I'm finding that the formatting of this volume is really annoying me and I don't know why; it's set up the same way the previous volume was. Each page has two columns, the story is printed on the inner column and any notes on the outer column. This formatting is kept up throughout the book, even when there aren't any notes, so some pages have a huge empty space on the outer edges of the pages. I started An Elementary Study in Chemistry in February as well. I've been picking it up and reading a chapter at a time whenever I feel in the mood. This one I fully expect to be reading well into April. The final book on my Currently Reading List is The Force Awakens, which should be completed before the end of this week. 

2016 Reading Challenge Update

1. Participate in four readathons. 

 I've participated in two readathons so far this year. In January I did the Bout of Books, which ran from January 4th-10th. In February I participated in the Rainbowthon 2.0, which ran February 7th-14th.

2. Finish "The Wheel of Time" Series.

  I left off at book 5 in the series sometime last year. In March I'm planning to start up the series again, though I might need to refresh my memory of what happened in previous books. 

3. Read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

 I haven't done this yet and will probably not happen until later in the year.

4. Reduce Library Shelf by half.

 I've already removed 21 books from my library wishlist, most of them I couldn't remember why I had added them in the first place.

5. Read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

 I started and finished this in February. I'm kind of mad at myself for putting this off for so long. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be picking up more of Dickens work in the near future to read.

6. Finish one series other than "The Wheel of Time".

 This was done in January. I completed the Harper Hall Series, which had been sitting on my shelf unread for a ridiculous number of years. 

7.Read at least 100 books.

 Two months into the year and I've already read 32 books. I don't expect to keep this pace throughout the year. Usually around April my reading slows down, so it will be nice to have a good cushion going into the warmer months.

March Reading List

I have nine books on my March Reading List, one I've started already. The Dragon Throne, I won in a giveaway over a month ago. I know the author was expecting a review, so I feel bad about putting it off for so long, but there were other books that wanted to read before I dived into that one. After an almost three month hiatus I'm planning to jump back into the "Wheel of Time" series with The Lord of Chaos. Due to waiting so long, I will probably have to find a summary of the previous book on-line to refresh my memory and will be reading this book towards the end of the month. Relativity, Planet X, The Masterharper of Pern and Infinite Jest have all been on my shelf for over two years so it will be nice to clear them. March should be a good month

‘Where do you get your ideas?’

When a writer was asked this, at a science fiction convention I was attending, he said, ‘Well, there’s this company we authors write to. We send a cheque, and then about two weeks later the idea arrives in the post.’

If only…

Where do writers get their ideas from?

A month ago I was looking through an old school notebook, and I found the first draft of ‘Dragons Can Only Rust.’ I wrote it when I was fifteen years old, and the whole point of it was The Great Reveal. The story seemed to be about a flesh and blood fantasy creature, but when his Master opened him up, Gonard was revealed to be a robot. In the original story, the dragon was dismantled at the end. It took a friend of mine to ask, ‘Oh, why can’t the dragon live?’ for the short story to become the first chapter of the novel of the same name.

I can’t remember how all of the novel came to me. The green crystalline City emerged in my imagination when, as I was driving through the Peak District (England), I heard the Starship rock anthem ‘We Built this City.’ The combination of the song and the rocky peaks around me gave me the vision of green crystals growing in response to song.

‘The Dragon Throne’ and ‘The Unicorn Throne’ grew out of my reaction to the fantasy novels I was reading at the time. My feminist hackles were rising because, novel after novel, the men got to be knights and go on adventures, whereas the women ran the home and had to preserve their virginity for marriage. So I deliberately created a world in which both men and women could serve as knights, rule kingdoms, and it didn’t matter if you weren’t a virgin on your wedding day. Bringing in a unicorn as one of the major characters was originally meant as a way of emphasising that a Queen could still associate with a unicorn even if she were bedding her squire. That the Prancer would then develop his own character arc wasn’t something that I had foreseen.

My one off move into Christian fiction came from a friend’s fascination with Judas, the disciple who had betrayed Jesus. ‘How could he do that?’ she would ask. And so I explored how it feels to be betrayed, how one can betray with the best of intentions, and set the story of Jesus into our modern day world.

I only had the idea for my latest novel, ‘The Temptation of Dragons,’ on 10 September. I was driving to visit a family to talk about the baptism of their baby in my church. On the way, I was pondering a conversation I’d had with a senior clergyman some years ago. ‘Holy water is a protection against vampires,’ I had told him. ‘But what if a woman priest has blessed the water, and the vampire doesn’t accept the ordination of women?’ ‘Only you would ask that question, Chrys,’ had been his response. But what, I wondered, if he had responded differently? What if he had said, ‘Of course vampires aren’t injured by holy water. How could they be baptised if they were?’ And I pulled the car over and sketched out notes for what became the second scene of the novel.

It can be hard, though, to work out where ideas come from. I’ve sometimes taken a break from writing, wondering what on earth to put down next, when the scene suddenly appears in my head. Other times I can sit and stare at the computer screen and absolutely nothing comes.

Maybe I should have asked that professional writer for the name and address of where he sends off for his ideas…

This is a wonderful fantasy story for any age, and the ending will blow your mind.

The Dragon Throne follows Fianna, princess and heir to the dragon throne. We first meet her at the age of 11, a year after the death of her mother. Her father inadvertently threatens her position when he takes a new wife, bringing about the possibility that a new, male heir would be born. Fianna runs to her aunt's home, where she is taught the ways of the Dragon Throne, though her aunt's tutelage carries the bitterness of a firstborn woman who also lost the throne to her younger brother.

We also follow The Prancer, a unicorn on a journey of honor as he seeks the dragon who killed his milk-brother. The Prancer is honest, determined, and witty, but his past is shrouded in mystery, and he bears the marks of both painter and dancer - positions usually bestowed to twins.

Along the way Fianna makes friends with Deian, a boy who's connection with the land is unlike any other human's, but the land and her magic are dying.

This is a beautiful fantasy turned sci-fi that strikes all my favorite chords - unicorns, dragons, princesses, and magic - without being cliche or predictable. The story ends with a bit of a cliff-hanger, but the author addresses enough of the story to satisfy the reader while leaving an incredible hunger to start the next book.

This book comes highly recommended!