Book Review: Red Dragon

This post is long over due. And for that, I'm sorry.
With all the recent Hannibal talk there's been, the new show certainly giving him new attention, I've found myself somewhat pulled down the rabbit hole, thanks to tumblr and have been curious about it. No, I've never seen the films, and no, I haven't watched the show, but I like knowing what's going by on my blog, so I gave this book a go.
I should start off by saying that Dr Lecter is not in this book. Well, when I say that, he has a few very small appearances. He's locked up in a sanatorium, and his crimes are in the past and barely mentioned, but still, we all know who he is. Who features more in this story is Will Graham, who was responsible for bringing Dr Lecter down, and still has nightmares about it.
No, the main villain of this story is the "Tooth Fairy"--excuse me, "Red Dragon", who, like all good serial killers, has an overblown sense of importance, and a tragic childhood to boot.
I've always liked books involving a good serial killer and some hero doing his (or her) best to bring him down. Ted Dekker has always been one of my favourite authors (though his novels are very hit and miss, I am very discriminatory over what I choose to read from him) who has always managed to get into the heads of killers and make them fascinating, almost inhuman, creatures. The Tooth Fairy, however, does not have that. He's normal (as normal as a man who's obsessed with murdering families and doing rather unsavoury things to their corpses can be).
The book was...surprisingly not very violent, for every image in my head I've always had of Hannibal Lecter has involved a great amount of violence. But, really, nothing worth mentioning here. Thomas Harris does a good job with his...abstract descriptions. So, if you're looking for graphic violence you are looking in the wrong place--and that goes for all graphicness. Besides a few F-bombs tossed about, this book is pretty tame.
It was a fast read, which is both good and bad, but it was also a good read, which is important. Books can be a fast read and that can often lead to bad things--as in terrible writing--but this book does not. Harris is a good writer, and that to me, is the most important thing. A book can be easily read, but if it's not well written, then it's so easy to feel one's time was wasted.
It was a satisfying story, though I would not really call it a thriller, for it wasn't, and I wouldn't call it "terrifying" as the cover says. It was a read. I wouldn't say there were any wild twists or turns, and if there was one (at the very end) it was...less than satisfying in that aspect.
But if you want to get involved with the Hannibal series, and hang out with Will Graham, his dogs, Crawford, and Hannibal writing snide letters from his padded cell, then this is a good place to start.

Some thoughts on Fanfiction (Or, why Star Wars is to blame for it all)

Fanfiction.
When you see the word it probably brings certain things to mind. And if you're not an avid reader, then you're still probably not too far off base. Yeah, you'll find smut, you'll be introduced to weird things and there will be pairings you hadn't even imagined. It's a place where people can play, where there are no rules and anything is possible. All those things you ever-so wished would happen can come true. And it's wonderful.

I honestly don't see how any writer out there didn't start without writing FF on some level or another. It's really where creativity beings, where your passion for characters and stories and relationships starts, with things you already know about. It's also, I think, one of the most tempting things to do. We can't help but ship when we watch something, or read something. And sooner or later, you have an OTP, and then you're down the rabbit hole.

I have been, and always will be, an avid Star Wars fan. I started out pretty young (about 4) and it wasn't very long after my first viewing that I was already creating stories and adventures for Luke and Darth Vader and my own characters I made up in my head. I continued writing Star Wars stories--unfortunately, none of them were "published" because AO3  and such wonderful websites didn't exist back then (and I doubt they were very good!) and when shows like The Clone Wars came out, managed to write a 100,000 word story starring Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and others. All for nothing more than the pleasure of writing it. Nothing more than wanting to spend time with those characters and play in their universe.
That's really the most fantastic thing about fanfiction. People aren't paid. They simply have a love and they want to share it with others. For free.
And writing FF is where I started to enjoy writing. It was fun creating stories, it was fun thinking out plots and getting into the heads of characters I loved so very much. Honestly, the only reason I ever started writing my own things was because of an interview with...I can't remember which Star Wars author it was, but he mentioned that you won't be able to write Star Wars books without being an author to begin with. Well! That started that. I had to become an author.
Do I ever think I'll write a SW book? Oh, probably not. But it got me started in writing, because it was a passion of mine, I wanted to have fanfiction for a career and that drove me to do other things. And that interview I will always have it to thank.

I don't really have time to write FF anymore. The few I've written are out there, under TaylorLeighWrites, and I always hope to write more, there are so many fandoms that I'd love to play in, things to make my own, but for now those will have to stay in my head, or those few moments I have time to jot down a few sentences. Maybe it will happen. For now, I'll stick with filling up my kindle with other peoples' work and devouring it ravenously.

So, good people, go out and read, find wonderful authors--for there are many, and many of them are better than most real authors I've read--and write. Enjoy it all. And welcome to the madness.

Book Review: When the Wind Blows

All right, I hope I don't get in trouble for this, and believe me, I am sad to even be saying this. I work at a library, I shelve books every day. And one of the most popular authors I shelve is James Patterson. Everyone loves Patterson. Everyone reads Patterson. I could only assume that he must have been one of the most brilliant authors of all time.
So, I decided to give it a go. I'd been wanting a new YA book series to read, so, hey, why not Maximum Ride? Kids with wings, I can go with that. Sounds good. I'll start with the adult book: When the Wind Blows to start out and go from there. It has to be better than the kids books anyway, right?
Oh, how wrong I was.
Now, I realise all too well that I am a struggling author, and I will never *ever* be James Patterson. And so, perhaps, writing such a book review does make me a little nervous, but, what the heck, I'm going to anyway.
This book was awful.
From the very first page, I began to get a worrisome knot in my stomach of Oh, no...this is not good writing. Surely the whole book cannot be like this.
Oh, but it could, and it only got worse.
I am not going to really get into the plot. Girl who was a science experiment breaks out of some top secret lab and flies away. Some FBI agent comes looking, falls in love with a ditsy veterinarian, and they adopt the kid, stop the bad guys and all is well.
First off, the writing was just awful. I wasn't sure if it was just me, because, surely it could not be true. Yet when a few of my co-workers agreed that Patterson's work was "atrocious"  I could relax a little. The only way I can explain it is: He wrote out a rough draft. He didn't go over it any more than that. Off to the agent. Either that or he didn't actually write it at all. He is rather a puppy mill for books, and perhaps when that happens, you don't get to care too much about each sentence. But there are editors, aren't there? I could honestly say that probably a 5th grader wrote it.
Besides the writing, which was simply awful, were the characters. There was nothing to latch on to, nothing to care about. If they lived, died, fell in love, were sad, happy, none of it had the slightest impression on me. When I'm reading a book, I want to connect with the characters. I want to become friends with them. I want to remember them years from now and still smile, and perhaps want to go back and visit them. These folks? I am not even sure I could tell you their names I have forgotten them so quickly. Nothing about them left anything to be desired. They were, I must say, all idiots.
And then there's the plot itself. Flimsy, confusing. The "bad guys" behave in ways that really make no sense whatsoever. They kill without being careful about it (um, we are trying to have a secret base, aren't we?) leave huge amounts of evidence everywhere without thoughts, somehow, inexplicably, the bad guy is really(spoiler) *gasp* a good guy, but we didn't even know who the good guy was because he wasn't even in the book. WOW. GREAT.
But don't worry. No animals were harmed! He made extra, extra sure (I swear that is how these sentences were worded) that no animals got hurt! Whew!
Yeah, okay, some babies were, but whatever. (Yes, the human experiments were just about the only interesting/disturbing part of this story, and they were hardly focused on. I THOUGHT THAT WAS THE POINT?)
Anyway, it goes without saying, I will not be reading the series. Sorry folks. Perhaps I'm just picky. But it takes a lot for me to want to abandon a book, and this one came mightily close. 

Print Version Available!

Well, after much frustration and reworking and formatting, I've finally manged to mock up a print version of my first book. All in all, I'm happy with it, and if you didn't buy my book because you don't have a Kindle, or you just like having a physical copy to hold, then this should be just the thing.

 The book is about 533 pages long, but it seems just about the right size/ weight when I pick it up. Not too hefty a book, not too small.

As you can see, it's not a small TPB, which I am really pleased about, and looks pretty good on a shelf next to other books. My copy is a proof, and I have not yet grabbed a real copy, but so far I'm rather impressed, considering the site I used, and the amount of work that I had to go in to. (Trying to make a book cover without owning Photoshop is not easy, let me tell you!)

You can get it HERE. It's priced at $16.50 (though as I'm looking at it now, Amazon seems to have it on sale, so I'd recommend getting it now) and I'd like to hear what you think!

In other news, hoping to get the book up on other sites like Apple, B&N, and others. I'm editing the second book and that should be done within the next few months. I've commissioned art once again from the wonderful Tillieke, who is just fantastic. And I'm working on some other projects here and there, so, pretty excited about it all.

Cheers!

Book Review: Cutting for Stone

I see to be in a habit of reading "real" books these days, and after hearing all of the talk about this book, I finally had to pick it up.
I love medical stuff anyway. I've always had a fascination for technical descriptions and surgery and all of that. I am also a sucker for books about kids, especially told by the kid's pov. So, sold.
The story is from Marion Stone's perspective. He's a twin born to a nun nurse and a surgeon father, and if you want the whole description, you can certainly read it HERE on Amazon.

The two greatest things about this book were One: The plot, which was so masterfully put together, spanning years of the characters' lives to come full circle. Verghese's vast knowledge of medicine as well as his cleverness in writing worked so perfectly I was at times baffled how he'd managed to come up with it. Certain small things one doesn't notice till the end suddenly become incredibly important.
The Second thing I loved so greatly was the characters. Marion and Shiva are twins, joined at the head at birth, and their relationship throughout the book shows the love of brothers, despite circumstances that pull siblings apart (involving a girl, as always). Shiva is distant, detached, perhaps a bit on the side of Asperger's, Marion is the opposite. I'll admit, I do tend to cry on books, when the stories are good, and I grow to love the characters, and the journey that these two boys go on would have brought me to an ugly mess near the end had I not been reading it in the break room at work.

Reading Cutting for Stone, you will not be disappointed with writing or style. The slower plot points and medical scenes are written in a way that is both understandable, and interesting. It's a book about family, about estranged fathers, unrequited love, the struggle for a place in the world, and the bond of siblings that cannot be broken.
If you're into that, then you'll love this.

Book review: Fingersmith

Just finished reading the book “Fingersmith” by Sarah Waters, and I must say I was impressed. I hadn’t known what to expect with the story. I knew ahead of time that Sarah Waters tends to write Victorian books, and that several of her stories contain lesbians, so, I supposed it goes without saying that that is what this book was about.
But, oh, it was so much more than that. I have not often been so impressed with a story, especially set in this time period, that was an…engaging as this one.
The plotline, at first, seemed incredibly simple. A young thief, named Susan, is hired by a rather wicked man who calls himself Gentleman. It is his plot to steal the fortune of a young innocent named Maud.
Simple. And yet, almost immediately, the plot grows so thick and complicated I was left in shock more than once.
The relationship between Sue and Maud is believable, and very refreshing. By the time the two of them do finally begin to realise they have feelings for one another, the plot to ruin has grown too thick and the struggle the two women have from there on—both to survive and to reach each other—becomes something the readers wish for just as hard.
Not many books set in this time period really focus on women and sex (that I am aware) that aren’t those paperback romance novels with dukes who seduce women. This one was a relief in the fact that it truly did focus on sexual freedom for women and empowerment. The characters are comfortable with who they are, and (without giving away the plot) are not afraid to do things that others in the time would frown on. It is a breath of fresh air and gives readers, especially women my age, a look into what life would have been like for women who are just like us, who may not have the same conventional views. It connects us to the time in a very…intimate way, showing that our views have not changed so drastically. They have simply been more hidden in the past.
I will certainly be reading more of Sarah Water’s books in the future, starting with “Tipping the Velvet” which, in the film, has Benedict Cumberbatch. Sold.

But hey it was .99 cents!

So, for six days from today, I'm putting the book up for .99 cents. So, I suppose you could either go to a fast food restaurant and buy some chips, or you could buy a bloody big book that will entertain you for *hours* to come. I think you know what you want.
Here's the link, give it a looksee if you've got the time. X
And please leave a review, I'd be most grateful!