Wednesday's Writer Shout Out - Sharleen Scott

This week's guest author is Sharleen Scott who says her first five star review of her contemporary romance/mystery, Caught in Cross Seas gave her a warm fuzzy feeling.  I'm sure reader/reviewer, Sharon will be delighted to know she can expect the sequel in October.  Here's what Sharon had to say:

A perfect summer read. What a delightful read this was! You will get drawn in to this story, and end wishing for a sequel! I am waiting for another book from you Sharleen Scott!

Short and to the point, but sometimes they're the best.  It certainly sparked my interest.

Here's the blurb for Caught in Cross Seas (an intriguing title, don't you think?):

It’s summer in the tranquil coastal town of Angel Beach, Oregon, but not everyone is enjoying the surf. Harlie Cates is caught in a sea of catastrophes. One of her homeless charges has died, her food bank may be forced to shut down, a reporter suspects she’s the missing ex-wife of a wealthy philanthropist, and her gorgeous new neighbor is threatening to have her arrested for stalking him. One more problem and she’s going under for the last time. 
Country music superstar Clay Masterson isn’t interested in dipping his toes in the cool Pacific. He’s on the trail of his supposedly dead father, who is wanted for murder in Montana, and the grapevine says he’ll find him in the vicinity of Angel Beach. For a guy with a famous face, hunting on his own isn’t easy. When he discovers Harlie isn’t a stalker, he enlists her in the search and soon finds his heart making discoveries of its own. 
The current shifts when details in a local murder match the Montana murder case. There’s no sign of dear ol’ dad and Clay is beginning to look like a suspect. Harlie knows the truth, but a promise has her struggling to stay silent. Whether she talks or not, someone will be sacrificed, and it may be Harlie who is in the most danger of all.

About the author:

Sharleen Scott writes contemporary romance/mystery/suspense and women’s fiction. Her debut novel, Caught in Cross Seas, was published in May 2014. Caught in the Spin, the second book in the series, is scheduled for release in the fall. Sharleen is a member of Romance Writers of America and Indie Romance Ink. Her former career as a travel agent introduced her to fascinating and romantic locales she could draw on for her books. 
Her present position as a rural mail carrier keeps her firmly planted in reality, a situation her imagination does its best to thwart. Sharleen lives in the beautiful state of Washington with her husband, Brett, and their two college kids. 

Wednesday's Writer Shout Out - Guest Author Michele Drier

Today I'm handing over my blog to author Michele Drier who has something very pertinent to say on the subject of reviews, as well as some great reviews to share.

Who Has a Review?

In every old movie about Broadway, there’s a scene when the cast and author wait until four a.m. with bated breath for the early editions of the New York newspapers.

Critics who came for the opening night rushed back to their offices and wrote reviews that everybody believed could make or break the play.

There are still critics and there are still newspaper reviews...and some of them may make or break a play, but there’s also the morass of reviews for books.

If you have a big publisher, they’ll print ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) and send them to big newspapers, magazines and review sites a few months before your book hits the sales venues.
Some rave reviews will probably make it onto the book itself before going to print. This is the hype that gets your book noticed, picked up, read and with luck onto a Best Seller list.

There are other reviews though that help or hinder a book in the sales wars, and these are from readers, smaller review sites, bloggers.

As an indie author, these are the ones that count. Without some number of reviews, and more that four stars or so in overall ranking, your can’t even buy a spot on the targeted sales sites like BookBub, Ereader News Today or Pixel of Ink.

I write in two genres, and for each I have review sites that always get copies of my latest and a request for a review.

And I’m incredibly pleased that my most recent book (SNAP: All That Jazz, published in ebook format at the end of June) is in the “rave reviews” category.

Paranormal Romance Guild said, “I loved all of the Kandesky books but there is love and there is LOVE, and this one I LOVED. I loved Nik and Jazz and their love for each other is beautiful in spite of the inherent problems, i.e. being a vampire and the violence. I can't wait for book nine to find out what happens with Nik and Jazz and Maxie and Jean-Louis.”

I have to admit that this reviewer has become somewhat of a fan. In her review of the previous book, SNAP: White Nights, she said, “There is always something new in each book but the characters remain the same.  There is romance, love and sex and always danger of one kind or another.  I can't wait for the next book in the series, so Ms. Drier please just sit at your computer and write.”

The other site that’s always on my send-to list is The Reading Cafe. Their review of SNAP: All That Jazz said, “...this of course, is a must read! Like the rest of the series Ms. Drier has woven an intricate tale of two completely different societies and the issues of falling in love and the adjustments needed to male room in their lives for each other....     Grab your favorite beverage (cause you won’t want to stop) (personally, I found a fan handy). This is a series, you can read each book as a stand-alone, but it’s soooo much better to read from the beginning. Enjoy, everyone, I really, really, really love it!”

As wonderful as these are, they’re like the icing...the cake is the reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, B&N by the readers. Almost every book I read today on my ereader has a plea from the author about posting a review.

The game has changed and we’re never going to get an opening night New York Times review, but we still write the best books we can, put them out there and hope that readers and reviewers will love them as much as we do!

About Michele Drier

Michele Drier was born in Santa Cruz and is a fifth generation Californian. She’s lived and worked all over the state, calling both Southern and Northern California home.  During her career in journalism—as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers—she won awards for producing investigative series.

SNAP: All That Jazz, Book Eight of The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, was published June 30, 2014.  The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles paranormal romance series include SNAP: The World Unfolds, SNAP: New Talent, Plague: A Love Story, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder, SNAP: Love for Blood, SNAP: Happily Ever After?, SNAP: White Night and SNAP: All That Jazz.  SNAP: I, Vampire, Book Ten in the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles is scheduled for publication early 2015.


She also writes the Amy Hobbes Newspaper mysteries, Edited for Death and Labeled for Death. A third book, Delta for Death, is coming in 2014.

For more information, visit Michele's website by clicking on this link.

Wednesday's Writer Shout Out - Author Elizabeth Rose's Top #Review

The best reviews don't have to be long and wordy to make an impact, as author Elizabeth Rose discovered when she found this review on Amazon back in July.  The review is for her recent release The Dragon and the DreamWalker (great title, Elizabeth), Book 1 in her Elemental Series.  Here's what Amazon reviewer, Ron Kell had to say about the story, which he claimed 'stayed true to form till the end':

Lots of magical story's use the magic as a way around having to plot out a good story line and rescue the characters when the author can't devise a way. Not this one, it is well and true throughout, with magic limited and characters flawed but believable. This has a little bit of good vs evil, taming of the shrew, the hulk and dream walkers rolled together to get a love story Zane Gray would have enjoyed.

The review certainly makes me want to know more about the book, and if you do too, here's the blurb:

The Dragon and the DreamWalker - Book 1 Fire

Drake Pendragon saves Brynn from being sacrificed to Dracus, the dragon of Lornoon. He is shocked to see the dragon's fire has not harmed her, and realizes she must be the Lady of Fire that the villagers fear and call a witch. 

Brynn has faerie blood running through her veins, and while fire cannot harm her and gives her power, water weakens her and can destroy her. She is thrilled to have been saved by a heroic knight, until she awakes and realizes he has brought her to her late father's castle. She knows at once her savior is none other than the infamous Dragon's Son. The feared man of all, and also the man who stormed her father's castle and claimed it as his own. And while their relationship on the physical plane is rocky, Brynn has the ability to dreamwalk, leave her body in her sleep, and their relationship on the etheric plane is much different indeed. 

Can two feared people work together to destroy the dragon, or will they be stopped by their haunting pasts as they realize they really fear themselves?

About Elizabeth Rose:

Elizabeth is a author of over 30 novels, writing mainly medieval, paranormal and contemporary romance. She loves to write strong heroines and tortured heroes. She is an also an artist and creates all her own book covers and book trailer videos. You can see them on her website by clicking on her photo or this link.