Tuesday 24 November 2015

BETTER THAN THE BEST ~ Amabel Daniels

I'm very happy to be sharing the book cover and blurb for
Amabel Daniels's debut novel, Better Than The Best,
which I had the privilege of beta-reading for her. I made
reference to my beta-reading experience with this novel
in these past blog posts:


Anyway, Amabel's book is out now, and I have my print copy ready to read again in its final, polished form! I can't wait. It's on my GoodReads "tbr" (see link below). Meanwhile, here is the cover, and the entertaining blurb:


A new beginning. Turning a leaf. All that crap.

After her divorce and the death of one of her patients, an ER nurse, Kelly Newland, searches for a fresh start in the little town of Churchston, unaware that trouble and danger has followed her. As she learns to accept her failures in life, she befriends some of the locals, except for one disgruntled man, the hero everybody loves to hate.

He could feel their stares on his back, their judgments hovering over their heads.

Will Parker suffers from PTSD, and as the black sheep of the sleepy lakeside community, he struggles to get back up on his feet. Initially, Kelly and Will mix like oil and water, but as a series of dangerous incidents strike the people closest to them, their antagonism turns from cool to hot. It is only when they realize it is impossible to resist each other that a killer closes in on them, threatening the love they've dared to find.

I really loved this book even in its rough form - it is very suspenseful, as well as romantic, and amusing. But I'll be putting up a proper review on GoodReads and so on once I've read the finished product.

Purchase links:

Friday 20 November 2015

NaNo update



See my little NaNo calender widget thing? That red square on the Thursday is a bald-faced lie! I did update on that day, but I forgot to update until it was already midnight. I honestly think that must have been Friday, because who stays up till midnight on a "school night"? Not me!

(except I did last night, but that's because I'm reading a rather gripping book...which I may well talk about during the Cephalopod Book Club next week... stay tuned)


So anyway, this where I'm at with NaNo 2015. Let's just say I'm keeping up a relatively new tradition of struggling through November. There used to be a time when I would smash out 50k easily in the first 6 - 12 days, and relax the rest of the time, all the while trying to complete a novel by November's end. That isn't my reality any longer. But at least I'm writing. And at least I'm working on getting back into all my creative interests.

I hope I don't struggle to get writing done tonight, since I have a few after-work appointments to get through before I can start.

I hope you're all having a great November.

Wednesday 4 November 2015

IWSG #16 - Enduring the usual NaNo-dialogue



It's NaNoWriMo time again, and I have had a difficult start so far - only because I have been really busy with "family stuff" and therefore have only been able to cram writing into the last hour (or two...when I stay up too late) of each day. Still, I am exceeding the daily target, so that's what matters.

In terms of insecurity this month, ummm, well I have the usual feeling I always get during NaNoWriMo:

"Wow, I am writing a bunch of crap here.
I'm not going to stop writing this bunch of crap.
Geez, I'm really rambling here!
I'll have to cut out huge chunks of this scene during revisions.
I may have to rewrite this entire scene, actually.
What's the point of writing this if it's all going to disappear during revisions?
You know ... I'm going to keep writing, because at least I'll have something to edit later!
It's only Day 4?!!"

So yeah, I guess that's the constant internal dialogue I have while doing NaNo, at least it has been for the last few years. I'm still quite happy with most of the novels I've ended up with, though, even if I still need to edit them a great deal - during some future very productive editing phase of my life!

Anyway ... I love my story even if I think what I've written so far has quite a few ups and downs in terms of mediocrity of writing quality.

Here is my little word count widget, provided by the NaNo people!


 

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year?