A Guest post and a Giveaway!

Today I'm guest-posting over at The Qwillery. Come on over, they have cookies. Well, not cookies, but they have books, which are much better for you (and you can enjoy them with cookies).

On Stars, Reviews and Other Shiny Things

There's been a great deal of commentary lately about reviews and authors behaving badly, using their blogs and Amazon and Goodreads to berate less-than-perfect reviews (and reviewers!) Enough has been said about the topic, and by far more articulate people than me.

As far as behaving badly goes, you won't find me doing that. In fact, you won't find me commenting at all, even if your review is glowing and super-wonderful.

Why not?

Because they're not really for me. When you publish a review, be it professional or amateur, it becomes a tool for readers to gauge whether a particular book might be something they'd like or not. The reader gets to weigh the reviewer's likes and dislikes against their own personal reading quirks. Reader me has a handful of things that can turn me off about a story, and a whiff of those things in a review gives me pause. I know I'm not alone in that. Which is why reviews are so useful (beyond the obvious marketing/exposure angle).

But know this: Just because I'm not commenting, it doesn't mean I'm not grateful. I'm very grateful and appreciative of any reader/reviewer who takes the time to read my book and give their thoughts—positive, negative, or anywhere on the spectrum in between.

Because when you leave a review, you're helping a reader find a new book to love.

So to those who have reviewed White Horse so far, and to those who review it in the future: Thank you. I sincerely mean it.

In other news:

Later this week I'll be guest-blogging over at The Qwillery--a blog directly responsible for boosting my to-be-read list.

One of the books that caught my eye at The Qwillery was Daniel O'Malley's The Rook. Holy moley, was it fun! I'm really hoping The Rook was the first of a series--that's how much I enjoyed it. Well done, Daniel O'Malley, you made me love an amnesia/memory loss story!