YA Book Releases
The Wicked and Just by J. Anderson Coats
Released on: 17th April 2012
The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell
Released on: 17th April 2012
The Last Echo by Kimberly Derting
Released on: 17th April 2012
Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz
Released on: 17th April 2012
Released on: 17th April 2012
Book World News
It was a big week for J.K. Rowling and Potter fans alike. Firstly, the much anticipated Pottermore site went live for the general public.
“Many more Potter fans old and new will now be able to explore, discover and share the stories in a completely new way. At Pottermore.com, they will be able to join Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, get sorted into one of the four houses, and have a wand choose them, before starting a journey through the storylines of these extraordinary books and discovering exclusive new writing from J.K. Rowling.”
J.K Rowling’s new, adult book had its name announced this week as well.
News is also out that Rowling has begun work on a Harry Potter Charity Encyclopedia.
“For a long time I have been promising an encyclopaedia of Harry’s world, and I have started work on this now – some of it forms the new content in Pottermore,” she explained. “It is likely to be a time-consuming job, but when finished I shall donate all royalties to charity.”
Stephen King is working on a new horror novel, Joyland.
According to a Sunday Times profile by Neil Gaiman, King is working on a novel called Joyland, which sounds sounds like it’ll be a return to the pure horror genre.
Exciting news for fantasy fans of McAffrey’s Dragonflight Series. David Hayton is developing it into a movie!
McCaffrey herself also seems enthusiastic about the idea: “The fans and I have been waiting, not so patiently, for a long time to see Pern and her characters on the big screen. I couldn’t be more thrilled that a writer with David’s tremendous creativity and track record of translating beloved source material into fantastic movies has decided to make this his next epic adventure.”
Book Cover Reveals
Dark Companion by Marta Acosta
Revealed on: Kimba the Caffeinated Book ReviewsExpected Publication Date: July 3 2012
When foster teen Jane Williams is invited to attend elite Birch Grove Academy for Girls and escape her violent urban neighborhood, she thinks the offer is too good to be true. She’s even offered her own living quarters, the groundskeeper’s cottage in the center of the birch grove.
Something’s not quite right about the school — or is it Jane? She thinks she sees things in the birch grove at night. She’s also beginning to suspect that the elegant headmistress and her sons are hiding secrets. Lucky is the gorgeous, golden son who is especially attentive to Jane, and Jack is the sardonic puzzling brother.
The school with its talented teachers and bright students is a dream for a science and math geek like Jane. She also loves her new friends, including hilarious poetry-spouting rich girl, Mary Violet. But the longer Jane stays at Birch Grove, the more questions she has about the disappearance of another scholarship girl and a missing faculty member.
Jane discovers one secret about Birch Grove, which only leads to more mysteries. What is she willing to sacrifice in order to stay at this school…and be bound to Birch Grove forever?
Two and Twenty Dark Tales: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes by Anthology
Revealed on: The Story SirenExpected Publication Date: October 16 2012
Nursery rhymes sung sweetly can take us back to childhood. But deep inside many of those childhood favorites is… a hint of something dark. TWO AND TWENTY DARK TALES: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes imagines dark and sinister things amuck in Mother Goose-land. From familiar rhymes, to some of the more obscure, TWO AND TWENTY DARK TALES is a must read for anyone who enjoyed Mother Goose rhymes as a child, but has come to love the darkest of tales.
Taste by Kate Evangelista
Revealed on: The Book GoddessExpected Publication Date: April 16 2012
At Barinkoff Academy, there’s only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why when she is left behind at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threaten to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. He warns her to stay away from his dangerous world of flesh eaters. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Luka has other plans.
When Phoenix is caught between her physical and her emotional attraction, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of an ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. Phoenix doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Luka the more she is plunging them all into a centuries old feud.
Scandalous Scandals
So an author melts down in the comments section of this review. It is in response to a commenter who read the first 35 paragraphs of their novel and was unimpressed.
The author writes a blog post claiming to “pawn” (sic) him and claiming that he is a nitwit, buffoon, bully and telling him to fuck off. She contests his claim that he read the first chapter – admitting that while the link on her own site refers to it as the first chapter, there’s only four paragraphs. Which seems like a disingenuous claim because the commenter actually read 35 paragraphs.
She goes on to tweet comments about running him over.
Then, and I want to assure you all that I am NOT joking or exaggerating in any way, the author creates and tries to sell t-shirts about this person.
We actually have to stop and admire that if you’re going to go on a ranting spree of insanity – do it with style. The author does actually do that and we do take a moment to salute the badassery involved. Even if it is highly inappropriate and wrong… which we completely condemn. Still. Tshirts, man!
Apparently these were for sale. Cuddlebuggery was too lazy to personally verify that information, but based on everything else we’re going to go out on a limb and believe it’s true.
The author does finally apologize in a blogpost here. It should be noted that in the instances of bad public behaviour, an apology is appreciated. However, we do take issue with statements like this:
“I no longer feel the post itself serves a purpose even though I was told by a few at the time that it was a “a good post and that they were glad I put it up” going on to say that I’d said what needed to be said. But since they’re nowhere to be found now, I retract my words.”
These weaken an apology and its effect. When the reason for deleting a post and apologizing is because you have lost support – that negates the point of an apology and brings into question any true repentance or understanding of why the reaction was so wrong in the first place.
But still. TSHIRTS!
Another author wrote a blog post regarding negative reviews. It is in response to this Amazon review.
“There’s something that’s been bothering me for quite a while. And, finally, I have grown the cajones to address it. It’s about reviews. No, wait… it’s about BAD reviews. No, wait… it’s about bad reviews from NOBODIES. And by nobodies, I mean people who aren’t qualified to be a professional reviewer. They don’t have any special qualifications or education or job that automatically makes their opinion any better or worse than anybody else’s opinion. Personally, (because I’m one of those nobodies) I don’t hand out bad reviews.”
“I guess what finally pushed me to this blathering here about bad reviews from people who aren’t qualified to actually review anything is a review I got on Amazon.”
“It was so personal that I’m actually wondering if my ex didn’t write it.”
For those that didn’t click the above link to the review, this is the entirety of it:
“I did not enjoy this book at all. It was very poorly written and made zero sense about 99% of the time. New facts were introduced late in the book to help explain the extremely odd behavior of the characters. This was not a romance but rather the adventures of two disturbed human beings. Skip it and save your money. “
So either it’s been changed, or I feel the author’s use of the term personal is a gross exaggeration. So are other claims.
“I looked up all the reviews by the nameless, hateful, ugly reviewer and found that one and two stars are her specialty and she LOVES to slam lesfic. I mean, SLAM. Sure, she loved one book or maybe two, but mostly she got her rocks off on seeing just how hateful she could be.”
A cursory look into the reviewer’s profile does not actually reflect this statement at all. Because if it did that would be cause for concern.
Fact: the reviewer has two frequently used tags. The first is “excellent” and the other is “lesbian romance”.
The reviewer in question has thirteen reviews that span since 2008. Of these they have written four five star reviews, one four star review, one three star review, six two star reviews, and one one star review. I would scarcely call one and two star reviews their specialty. I wouldn’t even call REVIEWING their specialty given the scarcity of their reviews.
The author latter commented to criticism to say the following:
“Did you read the rest of the comments on this blog? Some people say it so much better than I did. I truly didn’t mean it the way you took it, but I can understand how it was taken that way. I may have not communicated my thoughts/feelings properly.”
That is a fair comment. Perhaps she didn’t mean it the way we are reading it, but a case could be made that it is exceptionally easy to take it that way. And that it is a stretch of the imagination to say this review was a personal attack and that the reviewer slams lesfic. In fact, that seems like a personal attack in and of itself.
Mireya
Are these McCaffrey news “new”? I just noticed the date says 13 April 2011.
Kat Kennedy
@Mireya:
Well, damn! Ohnotheydidn’t might have tricked me! It’s where I steal all my best news from…
Lissa
@Kat Kennedy: Well yeah cause I was gonna say, Anne McCaffrey died and everything…
Kat Kennedy
@Lissa: My bad! It was a late night.
rameau
You are a goddess. Truly. Not only did I just request another galley–-though moments ago I swore to myself I wouldn’t until I’d reviewed a few–but also managed to make me read through that author meltdown without losing my sanity.
Kat Kennedy
@rameau:
Glad to hear it!
Katie @ Blook Girl
I just… there are NO WORDS for Sue Dent’s idiocy. I don’t care that she issued a half-assed apology. I just had to read her comments, her blog post, and the Twitter comments to know that she only apologized because she realized that her foot was lodged somewhere SOUTH of her mouth at that point.
I mean, who SAYS stuff like this?!:
“And since it’s clear you’re a bully, (by your using the words “awful” and “really bad” in regards to my writing after reading three paragraphs, (which of course I highly resent because now your dissing my “professional” award winning editors,) I will tell you what I told you in the comment section of my review and will now say here, (for others reading I was “told” by someone “in the know to say this to yours truly if things continued as they have.) Not that I wouldn’t have said it anyway:
“F**k off!””
She thinks bullying is someone using “awful” and “really bad” to describe her writing style? REALLY?! I can think of much more descriptive adjectives to describe her BEHAVIOR!
Sorry, gals, stuff like this just really pisses me off because I know people like Sue Dent “IRL” and they never learn. Ever. They’re always the victim and it’s always everyone else who has it out for them.
OMG. I think I need a cookie.
Kat Kennedy
@Katie @ Blook Girl:
Yes, it’s incredibly frustrating. But this kind of behaviour seems to be on the arise as opposed to declining.
Tatiana (The Readventurer)
“I looked up all the reviews by the nameless, hateful, ugly reviewer and found that one and two stars are her specialty and she LOVES to slam lesfic. I mean, SLAM. Sure, she loved one book or maybe two, but mostly she got her rocks off on seeing just how hateful she could be.”
This is SO easy to misunderstand, right? Give me a break, I say.
Laurie
And the jackassery continues. What is wrong with these people? I must admit the Tshirt thing was a new height in insanity If you’re going to pull a nutty I suppose it is always better to do it full out. You know, these constant blowups only push me to read and review more. I hope reviewers don’t quit over these fits. How about the rest of you, does it turn off reading/blogging/reviewing alltogether?
Amanda
@Laurie: Comment
I, for one, am not going to stop reviewing because of authors that can’t take it. If they put a book out there, they better be able to take both the praise and the criticism.
Adam Pring
With regards to Layce Gardner I for one am steering clear of her whether she meant it or not
Lynn K
Will the drama never end? =/
On the other hand, I’m looking forward to Glimmer’s release!
Ana
I think it’s skeezy in the extreme for Layce Gardner to say she meant anything other than what she said. Her language could not be clearer. Adding insult to injury, she herself gives only 5-star reviews, to books from her own publisher, including by her partner. If she’s that concerned about bias in reviewing, she need look no further than her own mirror. Also I was very disappointed to see other big-name lesbian authors supporting her hateful comments.
Kat Kennedy
@Ana:
It is incredibly problematic. I usually don’t make too many comments about it. But I’ve heard more than one author suggest that WE”RE defiling the integrity of reviews and ratings – but that is antithetical. We have no vested interest in doing so. Authors and small self-publisher co-ops, on the other hand – do.
Cyna
Woooooooooooow. I hope Gardner is totally cool with all the “nobodies” who won’t be reading OR reviewing her book at all after this. Seriously, I think this is one of those comments the really kind of brings the boycott on itself.
“If you don’t like it, put it down…” – more like “If you don’t like it, step away from the computer…”
Sarah @ Smitten over Books
Ouch! I’ve just been called a nobody. That kind of stung a little bit. Although I’m not a PROFESSIONAL reviewer and my reviews are not quite like your reviews here (which are genius by the way), I do think that I’m entitled to my own opinion. The other one with the Tshirt was funny, though. In a sick sort of way. 😀
BarkLessWagMore
@Sarah @ Smitten over Books:
Oh honey, didn’t you get the memo? We’re all nobodies until we get the high and mighty Reviewer’s Doctorate Degree.
Kate C.
I looked everywhere for a mention of the Dragonflight movie, but there is nothing past a year ago. 🙁 Although, a small part of me is relieved, because there is NO WAY a movie will ever do those books justice. No WAY.
Just once, I would like to read the Buzzworthy new and have ZERO mentions of badly behaving authors. *sigh*
Kat Kennedy
@Kate C.: It does seem to be becoming a very regular feature of our reporting.
Cassi Haggard
She really thinks you have to be “qualified” to review on AMazon. Oh how she misunderstands the internet.
Even though technically I could be considered qualified (journalism degree) I think that assertion is ridiculous. You can only claim that if you only want “qualified” people to read your book–so if you sell it to anyone that’s what you get.
Very few of these apologies feel genuine, more like embarrassment at being caught.
Lexie B.
First off: GONE, GONE, GONE! I AM VERY EXCITED! HENCE THE CAPS LOCK!
Second off, J. K. Rowling is just fantastic. True, Pottermore isn’t particularly great, and true, the description for her next novel sounds rather dull, but this is the woman who went from being a billionaire to a millionaire because of how freaking much she donated to all these different charities. And now CERTAIN NAMELESS AUTHORS coughCassieClarecough are doing encyclopedias for their worlds, because . . . why? Because their world is actually big enough to need one? That’s laughable. No, they’re doing it to milk the cash cow. And then there’s J. K. Rowling, who’s spending ages on this thing for the sake of charity. G-d I love her.
I’m going to be honest, regarding the dramas, those were both so completely ridiculous that I just laughed a bit. I mean. T-shirts? T-SHIRTS?
Also, I hope Ms. Gardner is aware that cajones means drawers. I’m happy for her, because, y’know, some authors never get the drawers to speak up about this.
roro @roro is reading[rogier]
GONE, GONE, GONE! I AM VERY EXCITED! yes i am yes i am
bad 2 hear author drama
Kat Kennedy
@Lexie B.:
I did not realize cajones meant draws. I use that term all the time! It’s a favourite of mine!
Stephanie Sinclair
@Kat Kennedy:
I think she spelled it wrong.
Patricia
I’ll write a book. It’ll probably suck balls, but you two’ll have to read and review it. Then I’ll talk about how evil you are with your nasty rant.
Remember the whole Sherlock posters everywhere? Or Kony? Well, I’ll do a Kennedy and Sinclair-Awareness video, then make some t-shirts and dresses.
Oh.. the fame. <3