A short interview, followed by a review of “The Bad Box.” Way to go Harvey!
Category Archives: Reviews
Underground Book Reviews: Harvey Click
Filed under Awesome Indies, Reviews
Mentioned on the TBR Podcast again — and Carol Ervin too!
Ok, so Patrick from the TBR Podcast just read Fool’s Ride and seemed to really like it — spoiler, I know, sorry 🙂 Can’t keep a secret. Another secret I can’t keep is that he’s now reading Dell Zero by Carol Ervin! I think he’s going to love it, because it’s actually quite a page turner (if you have a Kindle, simply spin it around several times for the same effect).
As with all things exciting in my life, I um…arrive at around the 6 minute mark… Carol er…uh…arrives too, a little after me… Just sayin’.
Again, if you like the podcast, maybe pop them a review. The more reviews they get, the better traction they make in the iTunes store. That way everyone…er…um…gets theirs.
Filed under Reviews
TBR Podcast update
So last week, I got word that Patrick Stemp of the TBR Podcast had started reading my first book, Kick. I was pretty happy, but also a little nervous. What if he didn’t like fast-paced, edge-of-your seat action with spunky sidekicks quipping cheeky catchphrases?
Waiting to hear what someone thinks of your book is a little like waiting to see if poison gas is about to kill Shrodinger’s Cat: maybe he’ll love it, maybe he’ll hate it. But hurray for me (and the cat) — he liked it! In fact, the other hosts (Michael La Ronn, Jamie Maltman) now want to read it. There’s a lot of competition on their personal “to be read” lists, with Michael wanting to read Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer, and Jamie wanting to read the Light Bringer series by Brent Weeks (awesome author).
I’ve been listening to this podcast for a few months now. If you like the show, maybe leave a review for them on iTunes?
Enjoying “Kokomo’s: Flagler Beach Fiction Series”
So there’s this writ
er guy named Armand Rosamilia, and he’s got this big fancy podcast thing (showoff), and he wrote this fiction series about Flagler Beach, a place where I once caught an enormous flounder when I was about thirteen years old.
What a great collection of stories. Love the characters, the description, the little insights, and found myself smiling and laughing a few times. Still not done with it, and I consider that a good thing — more joy to come.
Quick example of the quirky writing. In one story, a grumpy sort of grump is watching two young people sitting at a table, a guy and a girl. He observes: “Just a couple of young kids with a full life ahead, thinking they’d met their dream companion, and they’d spend the next fifty years in wedded bliss. Charlie wanted to go out there and punch them both in the face. Knock some sense into them.” And in case you think that’s some sort of spoiler, you need to read this story to the end. Beautiful, marvelous perfection. This was from the story “Maybe I Don’t Know.” I’m jealous.
The “To Be Read” Podcast is reading my book
So there’s a cool podcast I started listening to a couple of months ago, after first hearing about it on Kboards. The reason I like it is because it’s presented by authors like me, talking about the books they love. More than that, they talk about books I’ve actually read before. Authors I admire, like Larry Niven, Patrick Rothfuss, Neil Gaiman, and Jim Butcher, as well as lots of indie authors I’m interested in reading. Because of this show, I’d put “The Martian” on my own personal To Be Read list. So what a joy when I found out today that Patrick Stemp is reading my book. He’s currently 1/4 in and seems to like it — and that’s good enough for me! Haha, I’ll take it. Tune in next week for when he passes judgment on the rest of the book (queue the ominous music).
Special thanks to host Jamie Maltman for having downloaded it and mentioning it to Patrick.
Hearing people talk about your book is probably the greatest thing about being an author, short of buying my own island with robot attack dogs. If you get a chance, why not check out the podcast? They have a backlist of 28 episodes. Why not get started today so you’re caught up for episode 30 next week? 🙂
Glinda Harrison reviews “Kick”
It’s 4:35 a.m.
I was supposed to get up an hour from now, to write, but couldn’t sleep. Now I know why — someone was out there writing about “Kick” on her wonderful blog: http://glindaharrison.com/2014/11/19/review-kick-by-john-l-monk/.
The L’Monks of old, in scratchy old Scotland, would wake up an hour early whenever the M’Gibson clan got drunk and attacked. We always managed to beat them back to their ancestral “hooms” (homes) where they belonged. Our motto then was: “They can take our 8 hours of slumber…but they’ll never take…our freedom!” We used to shout that motto everywhere, wherever we went — more or less nonstop — and we were finally forced out of Scotland for it. The M’Gibson clan then stole the motto, changed the words a little, and killed anyone who said it hadn’t been theirs all along.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The Bad Box — 99 cents through 11/23
Absolutely wonderful book. Very dark, with some truly beautiful writing. If you love The Bad Box as much as I did, I guarantee you the author would love a review.
Filed under Awesome Indies, Reviews
Will Marck’s author & indie review blog
I was browsing kboards today when I came across this post. I was impressed. He’s sort of doing what I’m doing here with the Awesome Indies Project, except he’s more prolific 🙂 Go Will!
Kboards post:
I have decided to start reviewing books as the main source of blogging on my site. http://www.willmarck.com. It’s almost exclusive to indie books with few reviews. The goal is to find hidden gems and hopefully help some unknowns get discovered. I figure I should pay it forward. I love to read, and love to discover new unknown authors, so why not? Right? I know from experience that it’s difficult to get the ball rolling when you’re new and barely have any reviews. I do have some rules and information that can be found in more detail on the site. Basically, I only read fiction, specifically humor, sci-fi, dystopian, horror, and technothrillers. I am currently taking submissions for reviews. If you are interested, check out the site, read the rules, and submit your book via email in the format I lay out on my review policies page. Please only look into it if you’re an indie, that has under 100 Amazon reviews (not combined, just one title), is available on Amazon in Kindle format for under $2.99, and fits the genres above. I won’t accept every book and I won’t review anything outside of the genres I’ve listed. I will pay for each book and won’t accept any type of compensation. I do have a page dedicated to my own works, but it stays there. I don’t promote my work on the review pages. All that I ask is that you consider subscribing to the blog or share my page on social media. I look forward to hearing from you. Please, please, please, read my rules before submitting. Good luck to everyone and I hope success finds you!
Filed under Awesome Indies, Indie Publishing, Reviews
John L. Monk 