Death & Detention

I am really enjoying this book. David is offering D&D in five episodes, the first being free. After reading it I bought the book.

In the affluent town of Augustine, being picture-perfect means everything. Which is why the powers that be are so willing to write off a troubled teen’s suspicious death as an accident.

But when seventeen-year-old outsider Prudence Mallory finds an anonymous letter that makes her classmate’s death look like a homicide, she can’t turn away from the mystery. -Amazon

Two sentences that do not do justice to Prudence. She is simply, for me, the best 17 yr old heroine I have read in a long time. Mind you, I am only at 44% but Prudence has not disappointed.

Prudence is no stranger to what happens when doing the right thing makes you the pariah, she’s done that and is still there. She knows that her digging into the “accidental” death of a classmate isn’t going to make her popular but she believes that justice for Anna  is more important than being invited to the right parties- or any parties.

She can wield a mean can of coke, she has a bright pink scooter and a cell phone. She knows when a dumb idea is dumb but if that’s her only idea she’ll make it work out- somehow.

Oh, Prudence Mallory, I love you.

 

Plagiarism or Cannabalism?

Tez Miller pointed me over to Jenny Trout’s blog for this.

Dirty Little Secrets of Review Clubs: #1 is that they’re not connected with Amazon

It looks like Amazon is again cleaning house of coupon club reviewers who have no idea that they are doing something wrong. I should have posted this at the same time as Reviews Deleted by Amazon but better late than never. Once again this comes from Amazon poster Maine Colonial. If any of this information helps you then stop by the Top Reviewers Forum and say thanks.

▶︎ Review clubs are not affiliated with Amazon, even if they have some form of Amazon’s name in their name.

▶︎ The fact that a review club may advertise on Amazon’s website doesn’t mean that Amazon approves of the club’s practices.

▶︎ Reviewers’ personal information is not necessarily secure with a review club. Clubs have had their security compromised and member information leaked.

▶︎ Their rules are not the same as Amazon’s, and some of their rules are directly contrary to Amazon’s. Amazon’s rules for creating reviews are here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602680

Here is additional guidance from Amazon on customer reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201077870

▶︎ Amazon has been wiping out reviews and revoking the reviewing privileges of hundreds of review club members, especially AMZ Review Trader members. As of April, 2016, giveawayservice.com reviewers seem to have become a key target of Amazon purges.

▶︎ Nobody knows exactly how Amazon identifies who to purge. Reviewing through review clubs is a common denominator for the vast majority of those purged, but that doesn’t mean that the purges are limited to people who review only through the review clubs. The purges have included people who have been regular Amazon reviewers for years (including Amazon Vine members) and people who review a mix of items they bought for full price on Amazon and items they received through review clubs. People who value the reviews they’ve written over time and who enjoy writing Amazon reviews should consider whether starting up with review clubs is worth jeopardizing their entire review portfolio and privileges.

▶︎ Review clubs want reviewers to subscribe to Amazon Prime so that they can take advantage of Amazon’s free two-day shipping. A reviewer who is purged will *not* get a refund from Amazon for Prime.

▶︎ Review club members who are purged receive no warning, and when they try to get an explanation from Amazon, the most they receive is a form email saying they have engaged in review manipulation or bias. The clubs and sellers who get in trouble for breaking Amazon’s rules get a formal appeal, but reviewers don’t. Reviewers are expendable; the clubs don’t care what happens to them.

▶︎ Reviewers who are purged often feel bad about the products they’ve received and not posted reviews for yet. Not to worry, though. The clubs and club sellers know that huge numbers of reviewers are being purged and they don’t concern themselves about the products they’ve sent out that will never have a review posted for them.

▶︎ Sellers pay review clubs a fee to list their products. The way the sellers see it, they are buying a promotion tool: reviewers. Anyone who becomes a review club member should recognize that the club and sellers see review members as promoters, but that’s inconsistent with Amazon’s rules for reviewers. Amazon wants reviewers to post reviews *as* customers and *for* customers, product promotion is not allowed to be posted as a review.

▶︎ The clubs claim that the people purged were breaking club rules and that’s why Amazon purged them. Travis, the founder of AMZ Review Trader, claims that people purged are only [expletive] reviewers, people who fail to disclose and people who resold club products, but that’s not true. Not only that, but it’s not against any Amazon rules to resell club products. The real problem is that the way the clubs want its members to review breaks Amazon’s rules. The bottom line is that membership in a review club alone hugely increases the chances of a reviewer’s purge.

▶︎ Starting in late 2015, Amazon began removing the Amazon Verified Purchase tag from reviews posted by people who received the product at a deep discount. Review club sellers hate this new Amazon policy, because they want reviews to appear to be from people who bought the product at full price. So they are coming up with all kinds of ways around the new rule. But reviewers who fall for these tricks may find themselves purged.

For example, some sellers are giving out codes that the recipient thinks are discount codes, but they are actually gift codes. It’s against Amazon’s rules for somebody to review a product in exchange for money, gift cards/codes or anything else other than the actual product. This also means that it’s against Amazon’s rules for a seller to ask a reviewer to buy the product and then be reimbursed. We have heard of some sellers who reimburse reviewers through PayPal. This would be considered a paid review and could have severe consequences. Amazon is currently suing many paid reviewers.

▶︎ Asking reviewers to do keyword-based searches on Amazon is considered manipulation by Amazon and is against its rules. To be safe, reviewers should not use any seller links to Amazon other than the actual product ID number, called the ASIN. Other common tactics of review club sellers that are against Amazon rules include asking reviewers to put items on wishlists and asking them to upvote positive reviews and downvote negative reviews. Some sellers also plant questions in the Q&A section of the product page by asking reviewers to post the questions they give to them.

▶︎ Clubs want their reviewers to post photos. This is not required or even particularly encouraged by Amazon. Posting photos is completely irrelevant to Amazon’s decision whether to purge a reviewer.

▶︎ Review club sellers are not small businesses just looking for a fair break so that they can support their families. It is not the job of a reviewer to help sellers. Amazon specifically says that reviews are solely to help customers and that reviews are not to be posted by sellers or as product promotion.

▶︎ In many cases, review club members are not actually getting a deal on items they get at a supposed deep discount from the review clubs. Travis from AMZ Review Trader himself says that sellers there too often just buy a bunch of ultra-cheap stuff from Alibaba, slap on their label, jack up the price tenfold or more and then sell it to club members at a supposed deep discount that is more than they bought it for. Before picking any review club product, check the price elsewhere, especially on aliexpress.com.

▶︎ Speaking of deceptive pricing, once club sellers get a good base of positive reviews, they commonly jack up the price to regular Amazon shoppers. Reviewers were basing their reviews on what they thought would be sold for $10, say, and now it’s suddenly $20 or even more.

▶︎ Some club sellers will do something even more deceptive than these pricing games. They will get a big base of positive reviews for a cheap product, let’s say something like a USB charger, and then they’ll change their product listing so that it’s a much more expensive and entirely different product. All of a sudden, club members’ positive reviews are being used to scam Amazon shoppers into buying a completely different product for a lot more money.

▶︎ Another bit of deception is that a club seller might ask a reviewer to copy and paste his or her review to another listing the seller has on Amazon. This puts the reviewer at risk of being purged.

▶︎ Many review club sellers give out hundreds or even thousands of codes for a single product. This is directly contrary to Amazon’s rules. How useful is any individual review for a product with hundreds or thousands of reviews? The truth is, the seller doesn’t care about anyone’s individual review. The seller wants those hundreds or thousands of reviews not for their content, but because the sheer volume artificially inflates the product’s ranking in Amazon’s product search algorithm.

Sellers who issue excessive coupons aren’t just harming shoppers on Amazon. They are also taking business away from honest competitors who follow Amazon’s rules and limit the number of discount codes they give out.

▶︎ Amazon suspends sellers if they don’t have good seller feedback statistics. Sellers in danger of being suspended will quickly offer a lot of cheap products for free to review club reviewers to get them to post positive seller feedback on Amazon. They don’t even care about having product reviews in that scenario, because these are just bribes to get their seller feedback pumped back up.

▶︎ If a seller gets a couple of negative reviews, it will also use coupon clubs to offer a lot of free product so that positive freebie reviews will flow in and bury the negative reviews. Asking club members to downvote negative reviews is also a little trick they use to try to bury those negative reviews so that shoppers won’t see them without looking beyond the first page.

▶︎ Not all sellers who use review clubs are shady, but many are and review club operators have shown little or no interest in keeping the shady sellers off the club site, which just puts more reviewers in danger of being purged.

▶︎ Some shady sellers frequently offer discount codes that don’t work and then ask reviewers to email them directly when that happens. Club members have reported that this is a trick to harvest the reviewers’ email addresses.

▶︎ Nobody knows what’s really in those beauty products and supplements the clubs offer. But considering price and volume, it’s not likely to be anything of high quality and may actually be dangerous.

▶︎ If a review club or seller asks reviewers to contact them before posting a negative review so that they can “make it right,” this is really just a tactic to prevent that negative review from going live. They keep right on sending out that same bad product and doing whatever it takes to get positive reviews and avoid negative reviews.

▶︎ Facebook-based club operators have been known to go to their reviewers’ personal Facebook pages to harass and insult them if the FB club operator doesn’t like something the reviewer has done or doesn’t think the reviewer has reviewed fast enough. Reviewers who don’t want their friends and family to read this kind of abuse should not join a Facebook-based club. Facebook-based club operators will also organize posses of people to upvote/downvote reviews they target.

▶︎ Some clubs market themselves by telling people that membership is a ticket to becoming a reviewer on Amazon. Not true. All it takes to review a product on Amazon is to register on Amazon and buy one product. Once that’s done, the person can then review any product offered on Amazon, including products they already own or that they acquire elsewhere. Amazon wants people to post reviews to help customers make good buying decisions, and the best source is to have reviews from people who own and use the product.

▶︎ The review clubs say they are just like Amazon Vine, but that’s not true either. Amazon Vine is the only review club operated and sanctioned by Amazon. In Vine, sellers have no contact with reviewers. All Vine transactions are handled by Amazon. They give out the products, the recipients post reviews and that’s it.

A Vine member may only have a handful of products at a time, other than books, where it’s possible to get quite a few more. Only a few of any Vine product are given out to the Vine membership and the recipients have 37 days from the ship date to post a review, though 10-day extensions may be requested. If the Vine review is late, all that happens is that the Vine member can’t select more items until the late review is posted. There is absolutely no penalty for posting negative reviews and no BS about contacting anybody before doing so.

Unlike other review clubs, Vine has rules against publishing a review too soon after ordering. Vine products are also deemed to be taxable income, subject to normal 1099 reporting rules and each individual’s tax situation.

▶︎ Membership in a review club is not a stepping stone to Vine. As far as anybody knows, no Vine invitations have been issued since 2011. Even if Amazon does someday invite new reviewers to Vine, nobody knows what the criteria for selection are. There are many people who have been writing excellent reviews on Amazon for years and who are very highly ranked but who have never been invited to Vine.

▶︎ Club operators and their sellers like the club-based model because it’s so easy to make people feel they are part of something positive and that if they follow the club rules it’s a win-win-win. They like to recruit people who aren’t all that familiar with the world of Amazon reviewing because they know that anyone who is knows that a real customer review looks very different from a review club review. With rare exception, review club reviews stand out a mile–not in a good way–and savvy Amazon customers often report that when they spot a product with review club reviews, they move on to another product.

▶︎ Most coupon clubs have no mechanism for de-registering. However, a reviewer can simply quit choosing products and, if s/he wants, can delete reviews already posted and not post reviews for products received.

*********

Here are some sources of additional information:

Amazon’s Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200414320

We also have a lot of other information on this forum. Keep in mind that we are all customers on this forum; we don’t work for Amazon. The longtime regulars of the forum have learned a lot about the review clubs, though.

This thread is about what gets reviewers purged: http://www.amazon.com/forum/top%20reviewers/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx2Z5LRXMSUDQH2&cdThread=Tx1U0Q0A61KKP1Z

Some readers might wonder what a “review club” is. It’s an operation where the operator brings together product sellers and reviewers.

The club operator enables sellers list the products they have available for review and for how much and reviewers identify the ones they’re interested in. Usually, sellers pick and choose among the interested reviewers (typically preferring those who review very quickly and give out the highest rankings), but some clubs operate by emailing notices of available products and awarding product access on a first-come first-served basis.

Typically, the product is listed as being available for free or at a discount. The reviewer agrees that in exchange for the product, s/he will post a review on a particular website; in this forum, we’re only interested in review clubs looking for Amazon reviews.

Sellers who use review clubs to get reviews on Amazon generally pay the site operator a fee for making their products available through the club. They list their products on Amazon, with the listing usually stating that the product is sold by the seller and fulfilled by Amazon.

Some of the more recognized review club names are AMZ Review Trader, giveawayservice.com, Tomoson, Honest Few and Snagshout. There are also many, many Facebook-based review clubs. Review clubs and the sellers they have as clients vary in their rules and practices. Anyone thinking of doing business with a review club, whether as a seller or reviewer, is well advised to first become thoroughly familiar with the club and whether its rules and practices are in compliance with Amazon’s rules for sellers and reviewers.

 

Death and Relaxation- Review

It seems lately that I have read nothing but pretty bad books and that’s not true. Devon Monk has given us the gift of Ordinary, Oregon and the mortals, gods, and paranormals who live and vacation there.

I’ve read Monk’s Allie Beckstrom series and the Terric and Shame duology and enjoyed both but Ordinary was so much more fun.

It’s time for the annual Rhubarb Rally and police chief Delaney Reed and her sisters (and sister officers) have their hands full with the influx of tourists. And Delaney is still trying to figure out what or if she should do about the return of Ryder Bailey who she has crushed on since grade school. Then her ex-boyfriend returns unannounced, Death decides to vacation in Ordinary, and a god is murdered.

A god can die in Ordinary but his power doesn’t. The power is held inside one mortal, Delaney, and she has seven days to find the person the power will accept. Failure means death- for her and the town of Ordinary.

This was a fast romp with exploding rhubarb, perambulating caped concrete penguins, and baked goods.

I liked the relationship between the sisters, the feeling that Delaney is still learning the position she inherited from her late father, the way she loses all rational thought when Ryder walks into view.

If I had one complaint it would be the finding-the-new-god part, even I had that figured out chapters before Delaney. It lacked  subtlety.

But the dialogue, it was wonderful.

“”Rhubarb exploded,” I said, answering his first question.

“You don’t often see that in the heritage strains,” he said.”

 

“The door to the office opened and Jean sauntered in with a gust of cool air. “Guess who got her box filled with free hot donuts this morning?”

“Please tell me that’s not a euphemism,” Myra drawled.”

 

“”And I am a man of my word.”

“Do those words include ‘breaking’ and ‘entering’?”

…

“”I know those words,” he admitted. “But only one of them might be on the agenda tonight.””

 

Book two is due out in July and I can’t wait to go back to Ordinary and see what happens next.

 

Homosexuality, Religion, and Reviews

Sigh. Dear Readers, not sure how this will be interpreted but I am sure that since I’m wading in I accept that I might get a face full of blowback and, unlike the author of the moment, I will not engage in rhetoric guaranteed to fan the flames of what is at the moment a very small fire.

On June 7 Eric Shaw Quinn released a new book, The Prince’s Psalm. It is a new, and for some, a highly controversial interpretation, of the Biblical story of David and Jonathan of Israel. “1 Samuel 18:1 & 3: “And it came to pass… that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.”

David not only slew Goliath, he won the heart of Prince Jonathan, heir to the throne of Israel. They were star-crossed warrior lovers whose passionate affair changed history and gave rise to the nation of Israel, a legacy that has endured for 3,000 years. Their epic love story stands at the center of a religious tradition that shaped the world.

But Jonathan and David were also two men torn between duty and tradition, driven by their undeniably passionate and physical love for one another. Who were they beyond the historical facts given in the Bible? What were they like—as men? This modern-day novel tells the story of Israel’s first king and the man who captured his heart.”  -Amazon.

On June 10 there were two 5 star reviews, on June 13 two 1 star reviews appeared, one of which was by a very confused woman who ordered an ebook version by mistake. This one was subsequently removed for very valid reasons. The other was by a woman who seems to believe, amongst other things, that there were NO GAY characters in the Bible.

Now, to me, this person probably won’t ever be caught reading a M/M romance and probably thinks no one in her circle of family, friends, and acquaintance is gay but she is not actively saying anyone not hetero should die in the fire of hell she just wants to, well, probably she’d like to believe there are no gay characters in real life either but right now as long as they aren’t two guys from the Bible stories she has been raised with she’ll be okay.

Bless her heart.

Now sometime on the 16th a number of reviews appeared and I’m guessing this might’ve been the first or one of the first.

Is nothing sacred anymore? No, not a lot. I always saw that Bible verse as David dissing his wife for leaving and praising Jonathan for being his brother and staying with him but not maybe there is another way to look at it. But that is a discussion that I’m not having here and now.

This review seems to be, again, more about the challenge to a long held belief than about rabid anti-gay speech.

Also on the 16th we see nine 5 star reviews. Nine out seventeen, ten if you count the 1 star on the same day. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?. Wonder no more.

Wow. Religious intolerance. Gay bashing. ISIS. But wait- it gets better.

Religious terrorists.  Where have I seen this kind of inflammatory rhetoric before?

Oh yes,  Anne Rice, the woman who wants to know the name of every reviewer who doesn’t give her books a glowing review.

Let’s look at the third review which was posted on the 18th.

Okay, this reviewer has a definite bias but I can’t decide if he  abhors homosexuality because of his religious beliefs or if he’s just a homophobe using religion as an excuse.  I’m trying hard to see where terrorism rears its ugly head but honestly I don’t, while none of these three   are going to embrace a different view soon or at all, I do believe Quinn would have this kind of review even if he made Jonathan into Johanna or if he made David into Davina. When you reinvent any part of the Bible- watch out. Someone isn’t going to like it and they may call you names. You are toying with their religion, you have taken a cattle prod to their sacred cow.

Also on the 16th Quinn’s friend and Dinner Party co-host, Christopher Rice, posted this on FB:

Sorry for the weird break but Christopher, like his mother, writes one long wall of text. In between the release of TPP and the 16th there was Orlando. Rice writes that this isn’t about “a handful of hateful book  reviews from people who haven’t read the book” but this post is attached to discussion of those reviews. So we will leave Orlando, hate crimes, and assault weapons out of this. This is about book reviews.

On the 16th a 1 star review, nine 5 star reviews, and two FB posts, one by Quinn and one by Rice appeared. Both Quinn and Rice have a right to feel as much anger, fear, and betrayal as they want. But if it is not about a handful of reviews, what is this?

Note to Sarah MacDonald- Amazon frowns on you using other family member’s accounts to do this sort of thing. This sort of thing being a downvoting campaign. Because 3 reviews out of 17 tanks the book with a 4.3 out of 5 rating.

Yesterday Quinn posted this probably after the third 1 star went live:

If this is about hate speech and hate crimes then there is no need to upvote those 5 star reviews. Has Quinn and Rice succeeded in making a difference? Are their posts shining a big old spotlight on homophobia?

No. I did see a lot of “gonna downvote and report those haterz” and a lot  of  “gonna buy this book now” and “gonna give it 5 stars”. Let’s dwell on Laura’s insightful comment for a moment, yes, somewhere Quinn admits he is “trying to make a living” with this book as with his other work. And, hey, everyone has got to make a living. Let’s move on, sorry that my point is taking the long route.

There were a few comments from those who realize that you can’t expect universal acclaim when wielding that cattle prod.

Can’t argue with Stacy, she got it right.

He’s right, the target audience will see these reviews for what they are.

And right again.

Nope, because, Sabrina, you can deliberately or accidentally turn off the AVP symbol. And since you so conveniently brought that up, let’s look at these reviews.

Author M J Rose writes that most helpful of all reviews, the one that could be posted to almost any book on anything and, look, no AVP.

Four 5 star reviews without an AVP and one of them admits he hasn’t read the book. Are these not “fake” reviews? Or is that only reserved for 1 star reviews that might be written by conservative religious believers who might or might not have a problem with homosexuality? Where is the outrage for these reviews?

Oh, wait. I know the answer to this. Anne Rice has preached this gospel. Only 1 star reviews are fake. There is nothing wrong with a 5 star review if you haven’t read the book.

Look familiar? I couldn’t find the ss with Rice saying a fake 5 star is acceptable because it doesn’t hurt the author. It’s on another laptop and inaccessible for now.

Look, reporting and downvoting will accomplish what?  Nothing, nothing at all. It won’t change anyone’s mind. It won’t promote any positive position.  There were a number of negative comments posted on those reviews, but only one that advanced an argument in favor of Quinn’s interpretation.

I’m going to try to wrap this up now. I tried to see in those reviews what Quinn wanted me to see but I didn’t. I saw in Christopher Rice’s FB post the outrage, but not in Quinn’s numerous posts.  Instead I found the echo of Anne Rice’s complaints about 1 and 2 star reviews. I found the same lack of understanding that Amazon does not require you to read the book before you review it. I saw  the same thing we’ve all seen before, the rush to buy a book, down vote and report critical reviews, upvote the positive reviews and leave a review, any kind of review as long as it’s 5 stars because the author, the poor author, has found a new way to sell a few more copies of his book.

Le Mans 2016

Congratulations to Team Ford on their historic Le Mans win!

1966

2016

Stealing Books in the Age of Self-Publishing

Stopped by Rachel Ann Nunes’ GoFundMe and found an update with a link to the following article.

One day two years ago Rachel Ann Nunes, who writes Mormon fiction and romance novels, received an email from a reader asking a strange question: Had she collaborated with someone named Sam Taylor Mullens? Nunes had never heard the name before. But the reader went on to say she had noticed similarities between one of Nunes’s novels, A Bid for Love, and another self-published book by Mullens. When the reader confronted Mullens about the parallels, she was told the two authors were simply collaborators. If that was a lie, the reader said—and it was—then Nunes may have been the unwitting victim of plagiarism.

With that single exchange, Nunes found herself part of a trend affecting many professional authors in the age of self-publishing. An anonymous stranger seemed to have stolen her book, changed it superficially, and passed it off as her own work. First published in 1998, A Bid for Love did well enough to spawn two sequels before it eventually went out-of-print. Mullens’ book, titled The Auction Deal, looked like the same story with much of the same language. In Chapter 2, Nunes writes, “The dark brown curls were everywhere. They were a curse, and had been for twenty-eight of Cassi’s twenty-nine years.” Compare that to Chapter 2 of Mullen’s book, which begins, “Dark brunette curls were everywhere. They were a curse, and had been for the thirty-one years of my life.”

For more view original post.

“Saying that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married or be parents is not the same as murdering them, OK? Clearly. But this is where that road leads. This is what happens when zealous hate masquerading as faith is allowed to go unchecked.” – Trae Crowder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Error Code- Part II

R K Howard left a comment on my Amazon review. He was courteous and professional. So while I won’t recommend Error Code Howard has 3 other offerings on Amazon, so go and look and maybe one or more will interest you.

This one caught my eye. I ride the bus, a mass transit detour story might be just the thing to read on the Ride.

 

Or not.

Review- Claimed

Tonight is the full moon mating ceremony, and the Lunar Creek Pack’s new alpha will be choosing his official mate. That mate will need to prove her devotion to her alpha by having sex with any number of partners of his choice. Only then can the two be officially mated, and she will receive his mating mark, proof to the whole pack that she is his…and he is hers. Amazon

Before I eviscerate this miserable excuse for a story I want to talk about this: *Claimed is the first book in a paranormal erotica series. Intended for mature readers. 6620 words.*  Length: 17 pages.

That’s right, Dear Readers, this ‘book” is 17 pages. And it doesn’t improve much lengthwise with the second “book”, Amazon lists it at 21 pages. In the author bio I found this: So far, she has written the “Lunar Creek Wolves” series, which is planned to be about ten books long. She may stop at six if the series feels complete as it is. Are. You. Kidding. Me. ?.

So I went and looked for a description of the length of a novel and found this and this  and this. Wikipedia said this:

How many words does a novel have?

Between 100,000 and 175,000

Novelist Jane Smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel. However, novels can vary tremendously in length; Smiley lists novels as typically being between 100,000 and 175,000 words, while National Novel Writing Month requires its novels to be at least 50,000 words.

Hmm, I guess there is a small difference of opinion on this subject. If Stephens doesn’t drop below the 6600 word count of this installment then she might squeak by with only 6 parts and all 6 parts would then make up one BOOK. Claimed is not a book, it is a serialized story at this point. I’m not an author so why do I know this but the author doesn’t?

You want to see how a good serialized story is written? Right now Ilona Andrews is writing the third Innkeeper book, One Fell Sweep, and posting the chapters free on their website. When the story is finished they will remove it, edit it, and publish it.

Now let’s proceed. I had to check that this first installment wasn’t listed under YA or NA because it read very young. I guess you can’t get much character development in 17 pages if you need to have a group sex scene and since this story is listed in erotica, paranormal erotica, and romantic erotica I’m pretty sure the sex scene is required. Just think about it, the longest installment (so far) is 32 pages and there will (probably) be sex in every installment. This presents a problem because how does an author advance her plot or flesh out (no pun intended) her characters if she has to keep them rumpy-pumpying all the time?  I’m not sure but after reading this installment I can’t see Stephens managing to do it.

First two sentences:

“She met his eyes as she slid her mouth down around his cock, taking as much of him as she could. He shuddered and she heard a hitch in his breathing as she locked her lips around him and began to swirl her tongue around his tip.”- Claimed.

Why is this? What is this? They are italicized and then with no break flow into the first paragraph which is Vanessa, our heroine, looking in the mirror. They are repeated in the obligatory sex scene where they do belong but at the front of the book, placed as they are, they make absolutely no sense.

So Vanessa is a blue-eyed, long blond-haired, shimmery pink glossed lipped werewolf in a tight blue dress who is just panting to be chosen as the mate of the new alpha. I guess she never saw an episode of What Not To Wear because if she had she would have known to use brown eyeshadow to make her eyes pop and chosen a dress that made her look hot but not  hot-to-trot.

Anyhoozle, Vanessa and her BFF, Anita, head off to the annual mating ceremony, whatever that might mean because it is never really explained. Is this the only time during the year the werewolves seek a mate? Is it just a night to pick out a hot body and take it for a test drive? What? What? But this mating ceremony is THE ONE, the one where the new alpha will pick his mate. Now Vanessa has been longing for this guy to scratch her where she itches since she met him in high school. All she wants to do is get down and dirty werewolf style and pop out some puppies.

And once again we are left in the dark about how well Cody, the new alpha, and Vanessa know each other. They met in high school but she doesn’t mention dating or hooking up with him at the annual mating ritual so I’m left with the impression that except for Vanessa’s years long desire to be his puppy mama they really haven’t spent any time together, not even over a bowl of water or the warm body of a plump bunny. How can she want someone who has never left a bunny or part of a deer on her doorstep?

I guess it will be no surprise to you that of course Cody chooses Vanessa, “The truth is, I have known for years who I would choose on this night. The one I have chosen to rule by my side is a brave woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to let others know as well. She is caring and compassionate, and just a little headstrong, but never reckless. She has a strong desire to be a mother and raise a family, and I have had my eye on this woman since I was in high school.” Shades of creepiness. He sounds a little Edward Cullen-ish. Is having Cody describe what Stephens wants you to believe Vanessa is like what is going to pass for character development? I’ve got to say that Cody’s description doesn’t match up with mine. At all.

“His lips looked soft and full, and she couldn’t wait to find out how he kissed, …” They never even kissed before this? What the? How does this work? He’s had his eye on her since high school and she’s been panting harder than a Husky running the Iditarod and they’ve never locked lips? Grrr.

I refer you back to my first paragraph now because now that Cody has chosen Vanessa before they can kennel up and breed she has to sex up a few other packmates, why is never explained. So Cody chooses 3 men and Anita and Anita’s cousin and tells everybody else to do the wild thing. The three men strip her and two of them fondle her and then proceed to a little oral sex. The other guy takes on Anita and Tffany until Cody tells the other two to join them. It is the weirdest menage/group sex scene I’ve ever read and not at all sexy. And what turned Vanessa on? It wasn’t receiving oral sex or giving oral sex it was, “Marcus had done an okay job, but it was Troy’s steady hand at the back of her head that had gotten her really worked up, and she could still feel her pulse racing at the excitement of it all.”

So then Cody and Vanessa do it in the missionary position, he bites her, he comes, she doesn’t, and voila, Vanessa is someone of importance. “She would be able to give her honest opinion without fear of being dismissed. She mattered, and it was all thanks to that little mark on her neck.” I can’t even. I want to hork a hairball. This just feels so fifties with the little woman being validated by serving meatloaf on Mondays and ironing his shirts on Tuesday. Vanessa thinks the night has been so perfect and she can’t wait to do some freakier, dirtier stuff with him.

Then comes the declarations of eternal love and freakier, dirtier stuff.

“You and I are going to have a wonderful life together,” she said softly.

He nodded. “I hope you’re right.” 

“Whatever in love means.”- Prince of Wales