Lloyd Lofthouse Trivializes

I have an anti-Semite shelf at GR, I keep it for those few loathsome souls that deserve it. To get your books shelved there you either have to proclaim your hatred for all those Jewish or you can just do what author Lloyd Lofthouse just did.

“You might even want to attempt a Goodreads Giveaway, but be warned, there are trolls who are members of Goodreads dedicated to trashing books that—they never read—with rotten reviews and 1-star ratings, and that even happens on Amazon. Trolls are mean, sneaky, mentally ill people addicted to anonymously hurting others, and standing up to them just motivates the trolls to be meaner. Consider these trolls to be the Ebola virus of the internet. If you question why there are such people on the earth, think about Hitler, Stalin, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.” -Lloyd Lofthouse, Thank you for asking me to review your book, but …

That’s right, Lloyd just compared getting “bullied” on GR and Amazon to being murdered by the Nazis. Because while Lloyd sits comfortably at home, one of two,  with his talented wife and family free from the discrimination of being made to wear a yellow star  when in public, free to shop anywhere and anytime, free to travel, free to attend any religious institution he chooses, free from hunger, free from overwhelming fear of disappearing at the hands of a brutal regime and ending up tortured, starved and gassed, Lloyd feels that getting critical reviews and uncomplimentary descriptions of his posts and actions (like calling a local school system to report a teacher who was disagreeing with him) is just like being Jewish under Hitler. Because that is what he is saying even though I am sure he will disagree and cry “bully”.

You know what’s worse in a way than Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden, and Hussein? People like Lloyd. People like Lloyd who minimize evil and make it about their disgruntlement.  About their one star reviews. About being called bloviating. People like Lloyd who sit in their comfortable homes and dismiss the 6,000,000 as nothing but a convenient comparison.

 

 

Review- This Case Is Gonna Kill Me

I marked this book to read but something always seemed to get in the way then last week it popped out from the TBR pile and I finally read it. Glad I did.

Linnet Ellery is a recent law school graduate who has managed to land a job at a “White-Fang” law firm though she suspects that the friendship between her vampire foster father and a senior partner is the only reason she got the job. True, but Linnet earnest and rather fumbling is by chance and luck a little more than the vampire law believed her to be. One of the things I liked best about Linnet was the fact that her job was front and center in the plot so many heroines seem to have a job that falls by the wayside as they go off adventuring but not here.

When the lawyer Linnet is working with is killed by a homicidal werewolf, Linnet narrowly escapes the same fate. When Linnet is assigned his one and only case, a case that has dragged on for years, she realizes that somewhere in the mountain of paperwork is the reason for his death- and hers too if she can’t find it. Enlisting the help of the Fae investigator the firm uses Linnet sets out to find the truth.

Bornikova  has created a normal young woman who has worked had to please both her father and her vampire foster father, both of them seriously underestimate and undervalue her. She misjudges the intentions of a younger vampire in the firm and when she realizes it she has enough spine and anger, both at him and herself, to publicly call him out for his actions.  She has a love of horses and is an accomplished rider. She also has the most amazing luck when it comes to surviving werewolf attacks.

Normally I would be irritated by Bornikova’s sly hints that Linnet is not what she seems or thinks she is but I was so happy to encountered a heroine that worried about the rent, had a family, wasn’t the chosen one, had no mad ninja skillz, had normal friends, and wasn’t the girl all men wanted that I hope she leaves Linnet pretty much just as she is and doesn’t clutter her up with some sort of paranormal talent.

Not a perfect book but if you are like me and long for a main character who is pretty much like a normal person then maybe this book is for you.

Review- Heirs of Grace

This book started out fun and interesting and ended up not much of either. A good, basic plot of a young woman, Bekah, adopted as a baby who receives a mysterious inheritance from an unknown family member. A large part of the inheritance is a sprawling country house in the middle of nowhere and filled with stuff, some of it magical.  Throw in a handsome lawyer, a strange neighbor, something ominous in the woods, other unknown family members, and someone trying to kill Bekah and where could it possibly go wrong?

With Bekah, it went wrong with Bekah. While Pratt did a pretty good job of writing a female main character there was occasionally something just slightly off in her words or thoughts, just enough to pull me slightly out of the story. Trey, the lawyer, was mildly attractive but never seemed even after the geas was severed to rise to anything more than being the attractive nice guy at her beck and call.

I had two problems with this book, the first being Bekah’s reluctance to kill the homicidal Firstborn. here was someone who started out being more in control of her magic than Bekah and therefore more powerful who is shown to have no qualms about killing or trying to kill anyone in her way. Bekah does gain more power and learns, slowly, that she might be more powerful than the Firstborn. So how does Bekah decide to handle the situation? She talks to her, that’s right, she talks. No, just no.

I can’t quite swallow the reasoning of talking to a powerful, psychotic, murdering creature and asking her to leave Bekah and her friends and family alone, call me crazy but that just doesn’t seem smart. Just getting close enough for talking doesn’t seem smart. Getting just close enough to kill her seems reasonable. A nice big magical fight between two females for control of the magic left to Bekah would have been a great climax, instead we got something else with talking.

But that wasn’t the end and that’s where I had my second problem with this book. Pratt gave us a far too long wrap up Bekah’s life after the not so big climax. It lacked much of a point and just sort of felt like one of those overly long Christmas letters from a not very interesting branch of the family.

I liked Heirs of Grace but it could have been a much better book if the two main characters had been more fully developed, they were just a little too pallidly reasonable. while Heirs did not make me click the buy now button on Pratt’s other books it didn’t make me run screaming away from them. I liked it, it did not suck.

Hazel Cartwright

Hello, faithful readers, I have a lovely little blog for you. I would like to tell you all about a new SPA, Hazel Mahogany Cartwright. That’s right, the “author” of  some rather incomplete works on Amazon.

Let’s start with this from Amazon:

 

And this from her author’s page on FB:

We all know that this isn’t Hazel:

 

This is Hazel and Mahogany.

Before we go further, I have exchanged some emails with Hazel and while I disapprove of her writing and her obvious attempts at being someone she is not, I do not feel she did it with any malice. But she has caused a few waves and I know we are all looking. Hazel has a FB page and would probably be very happy to explain, in her own words, why she did what she did. Ask nicely.

While Hazel insists that Hazel Mahogany Cartwright is her name, no. This is:

 

 

I think that Hazel, as she wants to be called, has no idea that some of her actions have been detrimental to how she is perceived in the community and I have failed to explain clearly why posting that you were drunk when writing anything is not a good way to introduce yourself.

Hazel is looking forward to making new friends and finding new books to read and I think we should be the friendly bloggers/readers/reviewers that we can be and give her benefit of the doubt and some book recommendations.

 

Review- Single Therapy: Single’s Guide

You know, I don’t think I’ve read a worse piece of crap. This is 42 pages of possibly the worst formatting or maybe just the worst design an author has ever tried to foist on the reading public. I’m sure that Cartwright believes that the her ability to write and read her grocery list  means that she is also capable of writing a book or, in this case, a pamphlet.

She would be wrong.

I think the author describes her writing process for this scamphlet best:

I’m not surprised by a confession of alcohol consumption, this is a wretched, dull, dreary, deadly, little collection of uninspired “tips” for enlivening the life of singles. Some of the “tips” are just dull, but others are venal or deadly if you were brain dead enough to follow them.

The venal, and notice the blank upper half page:

The deadly, if you are dumb enough:

Scorpions get their love and affection from other scorpions, not some drunk dumbass looking to fill a few lines in something she should be ashamed to have strangers read.

Before I continue let us reread that last sentence of Cartwright’s review of her scamphlet:

Ye-ah. Maybe she is still drunk.

But let’s continue, here are a few more gems:

Aside from all the weirdness of text fonts and random capitalization for no reason whatsoever, what the hell? Tip #1 makes no sense as it is written. Then we have:

A colleague of naked photos? This is a good reason not to write anything when you have been drinking.

Deliciously squared performers? I can’t even. Note the end of the sentence, “emotionally obligated to endure”, this is not the only time Cartwright seems to be saying that marriage is gonna be a draaaaaaag and to have fun, fun, fun before you are locked away and can no longer play in your sheets. Hmmm. I think that sounds much better when I write it.

Go Hair less.  Oooooh, how edgy, how randomly capitalized and it is hairless, one word. #33, sure, now tell me where to find one, idiot.

Do you mean a children’s book? Childhood is one word unless you are referring to a very young criminal.

Get the name right.

Bathe, bathe. Ouch, sorry but no. All those hard and sharp edged little gems and I can’t quite figure out the how or the why and am just going to say this is yet another example of WWD (writing while drunk).

Ookay, just let me say that not every male is excited by the color red or crimson. Let me also say that if he is a bloodied male chances are he’s thinking more about bandages and the ER than your tacky underwear. I did not know you could speed up your temperature, raise it but not speed it up.

And then there’s that “second date invitation”, trying not to judge but invite an injured man over and toss edible panties on the coffee table in the hopes of getting a second date? Oh, honey, face it. He’s not that interested in you.

Men are so turned off by Random Capitalization.

 

Goodbye

Susan Spencer-Wendel, author of Until I Say Goodbye, has died.

Review- Shield of Winter

Nalini Singh is one of the few authors I buy in hardcover and without hesitation. Mind you, I have not forgiven her for the awfulness of Kiss of Snow but everyone slips up now and then.

Shield of Winter continues the story line of the problems facing the Psy now that Silence has fallen. The PsyNet has started to fail due to a virulent virus that causes the Psy in the affected areas to go violently insane. No one is safe when the violence takes over with the affected Psy attacking not only other Psy but also any Human and Changeling in the area.

KAleb Krychek and his mate, Sahara,  are struggling to find a solution before all Psy are infected by the rapidly spreading virus. Krychek believes that the E (empathic) Psy are the answer but E Psys have been conditioned not to be empaths and no one remembers how their gifts could be used.

Deep in the heart of SnowDancer and DarkRiver territories Krychek brings together a group of Es and their guardian Arrows to try to find a cure before the Psy are lost.

This is also the story of Vasic, an Arrow on the edge, and Ivy, an E Psy who was brutally reconditioned when she first broke Silence.

I enjoyed their story even if it did feel that they achieved a degree of intimacy a little too easily and too quickly. Vasic was the traditional tortured hero and Ivy the traditional heroine who finds her strength in the face of adversity and it absolutely worked for me in this story. I think it worked because their romance wasn’t the whole of this book, the search for  a cure for the virus was equally strong and as interesting, maybe even moreso, as the romance.

A lot of familiar faces appear briefly in  Winter.  Nikita Duncan,  Anthony Kyriakis, and Krychek are the interim leaders of the Psy. Hawke and Sienna appear briefly, Lucas and Sascha even travel outside of DarkRiver territory to help the Es and the Arrows. Zie Zen, enigmatic Psy elder, returns on a surprising position. Even Devraj Santos appears.

After writing 12 other books in the same world it is hard to include an expanding cast of characters and no writer should have to but Singh included just enough familiar faces to satisfy the “but what about” factor.

A definite winner.

The Case Against Author Solutions, Part 1: The Numbers