I’m reading a book, one co-authored by a friend of mine in a genre new to her. Co-authoring is also new to her, I think.
I’ll be honest–the book isn’t the best written thing I’ve ever read. (And I feel bad saying that, because this co-author IS a friend, and I’ve read other things by her that are very well written.) But it grabbed hold of me, and I’m having a really hard time putting it down, even to go to work.
Overall, the writing isn’t horrible. Though–once the main character is named, she needs to be referred to by name, pronoun, or title–like if she’s ‘the queen’ or ‘the priestess.’ Something more generic, like ‘the blonde,’ just jerks me right out of the story, because I wonder if it’s the barmaid or something, who just happens to be blond. It’s just too generic to be used to name the main character, once the main character is named and described.
I’m also finding the characters almost caricatures–this one is supposed to be carefree and fun-loving and maybe a bit ditzy–and she’s SO ditzy, she’s on the verge of stupidity. That one is not only evil, she’s fat and disgusting. This other one is a total snob with no redeeming characteristics. This one is too good to be true. That one is so focused on scholarship there’s no connecting with people. Caricatures. And yet–and yet…
I cannot put the book down.
I HAVE to see what happens next. It’s an epic fantasy published on Smashwords (and other self-publishing e-book platforms) about a girl who’s chosen by the magic flute to be its player. There’s an evil queen and her suckups, and a noble count who wants to help the girl, but also maybe use her to save his country–and maybe the whole land–from the queen, and things happen, but we don’t know why they happen or what they mean, and the magic-flute-player is supposed to be a virgin, but this girl SO isn’t, and…
Well, the book just sucked me in. I’m rolling my eyes at the extreme extremeness of the characters, and occasionally stopping to figure out just who, exactly, is doing or saying whatever (I mean, surely, there’s more than one blonde in this universe), and gulping it down fast as I can. I sure hope the end answers all the questions raised and all the nasty bad guys get theirs and– Well, I’ll let you know.
Yeah. So, if you want to take the chance of this book grabbing you by the throat (or the eyeballs–whatever), it’s called THE NIGHT HOLDS THE MOON, by Colleen Thompson and Parke Roberts.
Oh, I am still working on the revising of the book. Making notes about large changes–haven’t really reached the parts where I think it may need them, just reading through, marking small changes, and making notes…