New Free Kindle Download of The Fourth Wish.

With the holidays drawing close, I'm offering a second free Kindle download for The Fourth Wish, this time for three days: Sunday, December 15th through Tuesday, December 17th. The last one put the book as #1 in its category. But what made me happiest was the prospect of so many young people being able to read it. Here is where to go on those dates:

This story takes place over the winter holidays. It involves magic and wishes, complex family situations, and I've been told it's very humorous. A good read for both boys and girls, ages 8 to 12.

I hope you will check it out.

Meanwhile, what are some of your favorite titles for readers of that age group?

Some "Thank you's" and a Book Review.

As promised, I am back. Christmas was lovely, but I must say that December really got away from me. I am long overdue in thanking people for blog posts and awards, and way late for a book review I meant to write before now. 


First, my gratitude to two kind bloggers:


On December 10th, Richard Hughes (Writing and Living by Richard P. Hughes) posted a nice review of my book, The Fourth Wish,on his blog. You can read it here. So, belated thanks, Richard. And for readers of today's post, Richard has an interesting blog that includes articles about the writing journey, book reviews, and snippets of his own fiction. It's a spot worth visiting often.


Additionally, Ann Best mentioned my book on her December 10th post at her wonderful blog site. Thank you, Ann! Ann's memoir, In the Mirror has earned 24 five-star reviews at Amazon, and she has published two other books. You can learn more about them here:




If that wasn't enough, Richard included me on his December 3rd list of recipients for the Great Comments Award, a very nice award indeed: A condition of the award is to pass it on to the top 20 commenters on my blog. Well, that's very hard to sort out, as so many people do leave great comments, but here are 20 who come to mind:


Rosi Hollinbeck                                            Joanna Marple     
Rachna Chhabria                                           Tanya Reimer
Richard Hughes                                             Lauren Boyd
Carol Riggs               Lydia Kang at The Word Is My Oyster
TGayer                                                         Julie Musil
Ann at Inkpots and Quills                               Kenda Turner at Words and Such
David Powers King                                        Gary Gauthier at Literary Snippets
Ann Best                                                       Robyn Campbell
Jayne at A Novice Novelist                             Theresa Milstein
Kimberly at Meetings with My Muse               Michelle Fayard

I hope you will visit their sites. You are in for a treat at each one.


Next, the Book Review:

This month I had the opportunity to read Andrew Leon's middle grade novel, The House on the Corner, a “haunted-house tale” with a different twist. 


When the Howard family moves from Denver, Colorado to Shreveport, Louisiana -- a military move because the father is in the Air Force -- their new home is a creepy old house with what turns out to be a mysterious garage. And it seems the former inhabitants of the house disappeared years ago with no explanation.

As the three siblings, Tom (12), Sam (10), and Ruth (6), explore the house and neighborhood, they meet some strange neighbors and find a secret cache of odd weapons in a tool shed under the garage apartment. The garage apartment itself soon becomes the “Imagination Room”, due to unusual adventures that occur when the children meet in it. I don’t want to be a spoiler by giving away the kinds of adventures they have. I will say that the adventures kept me turning pages, although the first adventure doesn’t happen until Chapter 15. 

For this reader, the book could have benefited from some strong pruning. The early chapters bogged down in description and ongoing arguments between the kids, slowing the pace and sapping suspense. The children were believable, but they always seemed to be squabbling. Some variety in how they behaved toward each other would have rounded them out more for this reader. The narration was rotating first person point of view, through the eyes of each of the siblings. Then for some reason the last forty-five pages suddenly switched to third person narrative, sometimes close third, sometimes distant, but always from an adult point of view. 

Still, the story line is quite unique. The Imagination Room and the worlds it borders are intriguing, and the book ends with some unresolved issues that will lead into the second book of this author’s series. The book jacket by Rusty Webb is nicely spooky. 

The House on the Corner is available at Barnes and Noble on Nook for $2.99.

WHAT WAS I THINKING????

What was I thinking when I said I would post again Monday? Argh! Saturday we went out of town to visit old friends, right after I posted that. Then Sunday I met with my two writing groups, and, as always, I left with homework, because my beta readers always have such insightful suggestions. Monday I had book reviews to turn in to Sacramento Book Review -- and I was working on some of those suggestions. Then yesterday (Tuesday) I had a radio interview with Renee Hand. So. Now. A moment to catch my breath. And post.


First, I want to mention how much I enjoyed being interviewed by Renee Hand on her new radio show, http://www.Blogtalkradio.com/storiesfromunknownauthors . She has an easy style that relaxes you and gets rid of your nervousness. You can still hear the interview if you click on that site and then scroll down. You can also hear an earlier interview with Nicole Weaver, author of My Birthday Is September 11, and you can read about the coming interview September 19th with Britt Menzies, author of The Stinky Kid Series.


As a follow-up to the interview, Renee is holding a new give-away of my book, The Fourth Wish, ending on October 15th. If you go to her site, you can read the rules in full in a coming post. But, basically, if you follow both of us, your name goes on the list that will be submitted to random.org. So, if you are following me, and want new chance at a free copy, please go to The Crypo-Capers Review and follow her blog.


Second, I was pleasantly suprised to find that I received The Versatile Blogger Award from Elizabeth at elizabethannewrites. Elizabeth is a cool blogger I met on the Platform Building Campaign hosted by Rachel Harrie . Rachel will be hosting another one in January, and I would really advise getting in on it. For one thing, it's fun. She gives you some writing challenges. (The first one was to write a flash fiction. I'm eagerly awaiting the next two.) For another, you increase your circle of good blogging and writing friends. 


The rules for award recipients are as follows:
1. Thank the person who gave it to you and link back to them. (done)
2. Tell seven things about yourself. (See below. Way below.)
3. Pass the award along to 15 recently discovered blogs and let the bloggers know.  (Doing that one before #2, and it's a chance for you to meet some new bloggers, too, so do go visit them. Here they are:


1. Shallee McArthur                                           10. Brenda Sills 
2. Gary Gauthier at Literary Snippets                   11. Susan Kaye Quinn 
3. M. G. Higgins                                                 12. Joanna Marple
4. Ron Smith at Prince Balthazar                          13. Gail Shepherd at Paradoxy
5. JR-Williams                                                    14. Rebecca Bany at 
6. J. A. Bennett                                                       Memoirs of Me and Mine
7. Katharina Gerlach                                            15. Donna K. Weaver at
8. Robyn Campbell at Putting Pen to Paper               Weaving a Tale or Two      
9. David Powers King 


As for Seven Things About Me . . . . 
1. My husband and I met through a cat named Meathead. Meathead (who is no more) has   
         a very special place in our hearts.
2. I am not sporty at all, but I used to love to rollerskate. (Forget ice-skating!)
3. I love the Greek Festival, and I love Greek circle dancing.
4. I have attempted several times to learn Tamil (the language spoken in the part of India 
         where my husband is from.) Attempts at this finally joined attempts at ice-skating.
5. Neither my husband nor I are campers. We tried to be, but everytime we went, it rained.   
         Camping friends learned not to ask us to go with them. We cook Indian food for 
         them instead. Everyone is much happier.
6. To my surprise, I am becoming absolutely enamoured of technology. Adept at it? Well, 
         that needs work . . . .
7. I have read so many good books by good writers in recent months (years?), that I can no 
         longer say I have a favorite author. I have too many favorites! And what a pleasant
         problem to have.


Everyone have a nice week. I'll try to post before Sunday, but Sunday we are on a plane to Galicia again, so the next post may be next week from Galicia.


Meanwhile, enjoy the new sites; please follow Renee's blog, and October 15th (okay, probaby the 16th), we'll announce the winners of the give-away.

And The Winner Is . . . .

Good morning everyone. The winner of The Fourth Wish give-away is Jess at  Falling Leaflets. Congratulations, Jess.



And thanks to all of you who participated in the contest. It was certainly fun for me.


I'll keep this short, because we are going out of town to visit old friends. But I'll be blogging again Monday.


Everyone have a good week-end.

Fourth Wish Contest and More

Busy, busy, busy!  The Fourth Wish is on Kindle now and I'm holding a contest.  Winner will have a choice between the paperback or the Kindle version if he/she lives in the US; otherwise the winner gets a Kindle version, assuming he/she has a Kindle reader.

Here are the contest rules: The contest starts today and ends Friday, September 9th at midnight -- California time. You can get a point each time you:

     1. Comment on this post
     2. Tweet the contest and this site
     3. Mention it on FaceBook
     4. Mention it on your blog
     5. And, if you are a new visitor, following this site.
You can do the first four as many times as you want. (Well, please don't comment four times in a row, because that could look strange, as in "Here I am again." "And again." "And again.")

Whenever you do #2, #3, or #4, just let me know so I can give you your point. At the end of the contest I'll use random.org. to choose the winner.

There is also another contest you should know about:
David Powers King, who has one super blog -- both funny and extremely informative -- is having a contest where the winner can get one of three books.  That's right, three! They all look good, and I certainly put my dibs in for the one I would like to get. Hurry over there now and get in on this. The rules for his contest are in the post you'll find when you click here  .

Last, but not least, I want to pass on the Helping Hands Award to two very special blogging friends: Michelle Fayard, who clued me in about how to run a contest, and J. L. Campbell, who clued me in on delivering the Kindle version if that's what the winner wants (and whose own ebook I won in a similar contest.)  Thanks, Michelle and Joy.  No obligation goes with it except to pass it to those you feel have helped you. Meanwhile, anyone reading this post should hop on over to their blogs which are always full of good reads and reviews and through-provoking articles.

     

That's it for today. 

This Was The Week That Was

This week I hardly did any writing for three reasons: 1) We had more company than we've had for awhile (and boy was I ready to see emmisaries from the outside world again!)  2) I was going through the procedure to set up my book, The Fourth Wish, on Kindle. 3) I was answering interview questions (via email) about writing The Fourth Wish (quite fun.)

I'll work backwards:
Interview: Diane Gross writes book reviews for Sacramento Book Examiner and will be reviewing my book later in the week (I'll tweet it when she does). The two part interview is prelude to the review, and you can read part one of her interview here.


Kindle: Ah, Kindle! Friends have been telling me I should put my book on Kindle, and so I decided to do just that. Originally, I self-published The Fourth Wish through CreateSpace, a very user-friendly publishing site with links to Amazon -- you can sell your book through both sites.  CreateSpace also offers incredible technical support. (I speak gratefully, since I am one who can be one click away from disaster whenever I try new ventures in technology.) They helped me immensely when setting up the original publication, and they helped me set it up for Kindle (charging a small fee to first format the book for Kindle). By phone, a technician walked me through the whole process of  downloading a free Kindle for Mac from Amazon, downloading my formatted book so I could read it to see if it looked good (it did), and then uploading it into my Kindle account. This was last Wednesday, and CreateSpace will connect the two links so that all reviews, etc. go to both sites, and both the paperback sites and the Kindle site are shown together, giving one a choice of which way to purchase. (The paperback sells for $14.95; the Kindle for $6.99.)


Visitors: I have been truly lucky, even before this week.  One of my classmates from art class has stopped by a couple of times with the teacher's demo pictures she saved for me. She also brought pasta, pasta sauce, and fresh basil. My wonderful neighbor has stopped by several times with books to read, a bag of  eats and treats, and a beautifully potted African Violet. (Visits I especially appreciate, as she has had surgery of her own to deal with.)

But last week's visits came all in a bunch: A writer friend stopped by with a beautiful potted succulent plant whose name I can't pronounce. Our nephew out from New York and stayed overnight. Friends from Colfax brought us lunch -- tortalini, salad, fresh bread, fruit salad, berry pie -- we are still marvelling over their kindness. (Especially kind for Sir Husband, as I am not cooking yet.) And yesterday my picture book writing group met at our house, since I also am not driving yet.

But I will be, and soon! I'll be doing all of it, and then my news will encompass more than the state of my foot. Until then, I look forward to visiting your blogs again and catching up on your news.

And please leave some recommendations for good reads.  I'm reading again.