Roundup
First, yesterday was the official release day for UNHOLY GHOSTS in Poland!
Witamy polskich czytelników! I z pewno?ci? nadziej?, ?e jeste? korzystaj?cych NIESWIETE DUCHY! Przykro mi, ale nie w j?zyku polskim, ale robi? mój najlepszy z t?umaczy online.
Nie wiem od daty dopuszczenia do NIESWIETE MAGIA (My?l?, ?e), ale mam nadziej?, wynika, USA / Wielka Brytania dat, które b?d? na pocz?tku lipca.
Jestem zachwycony które zostan? opublikowane w Polska!
O to strona ksi??ki na stronie Wydawnictwa Amber je?li chcesz je zobaczy?.
And I certainly hope that looks okay and I don’t get dinged by Wordpress for all of the Polish letters.
Of course, I HAD a blog topic, and it was a good one, too, but I can’t for the life of me remember now what it was. I hate it when that happens. Oh! POV, that was it.
On Tuesday I went to a couple of bookstores in the area; three, actually. And I got to chatting at my local B&N with a bookseller I hadn’t met before about urban fantasy in general and POV in particular, because he shares my preference for third person POV, especially a tight, deep third. (Because most men love tight, deep things, you know. Ba-dum-bum. Oh, the hilarity never stops here!)
Anyway. We both felt the same way about first-person, which is that it’s distancing. And I know that sort of goes against the popular perception of it; I think most first fans-at least the ones I’ve spoken to-feel that it puts them closer to the action.
For me, reading a book written in first person doesn’t feel like I’m experiencing it. It feels like I’m sitting in a restaurant or something, listening to someone tell me a story that happened to them. Do you know what I mean? I feel a step further removed from the action, like I’m somewhere safe and I’m just being told a story.
Yesterday I saw a reader comment somewhere-can’t remember where-that they have a hard time truly feeling suspense with a first POV book, because obviously the narrator survived. I don’t necessarily disagree with this, but I don’t necessarily agree either; yes, we know they’re telling us the story, but for all we know they’re dead and telling us from the afterlife, right?
And of course it depends on the story and character and writer. I generally don’t like books written in present tense at all, and have sadly put down a few books I really, really wanted to read and love because I just couldn’t get past the present tense. But then there are books like Angela Huth’s WIVES OF THE FISHERMEN, which I absolutely adore, and which I honestly didn’t even realize was written in present tense until I was over halfway through it. Yes, it’s possible that this is in part due to the fact that the book contains a lot of flashback/memory scenes, which are in past tense, but it’s also because it’s just such a great book and so perfectly written.
Anyway. With a tight third I feel like I’m actually in the story, in the character’s head. I’m not being told a story, I’m seeing it. That’s why I like to read third best, and why I like to write third best. How about you?
And we have more reviews, of course!
The Book Lovers gives it 4.5 bookies:
The pace of the book was wonderful and the story gripped me ASAP and didn’t let me go till the last word. I loved how Ms. Kane shows us that looks are deceiving and we should never judge a person just with taking one glance at him or her. A highly recommended read not only for Urban Fantasy lovers, but for anyone who likes a good story.
There is also an interview & giveaway chat with me at Book Lovers, so go check that out as well if you’re so inclined.
Jessica at A GREAT Read says:
Finished Stacia Kane’s Unholy Ghosts today, her debut in her new series and it was seriously a wild ride! It was dark, gritty, edgy and enthralling from the first chapter!
This weekend I plan to get the PDF of the first three chapter of UNHOLY MAGIC up on the site; I’m doing some general site updates as well (or rather, the fabulous Frauke at Croco Designs is, and those should be completed soon; UNHOLY MAGIC will finally get its own page, with the back cover copy and everything, I’ll finally get my sidebar links updated (there are several things I was able to figure out how to do on my own here but the sidebar links seem to be in a separate file or something, I don’t know, but I need help, lol), we’re going to add some more fun stuff to, well, the Fun Stuff page, and maybe a few other things here and there.
Which is another question. What sorts of things would you guys like to see? The recipe downloads are pretty popular (now that they’re working, lol, because apparently they weren’t for a while), and I plan to add a few more, but of course there’s no cooking in the Downside books the way there is in the Demons books.
So what do you think is fun extra content? Or do you really not care?
Have a great weekend everyone; it’s a long weekend, isn’t it?
I may post an UNHOLY MAGIC excerpt here on the blog later…
Originally posted at Stacia Kane. You can comment here or there.