Book Review: Ashwood House by L K Jay - paranormal thriller

I have a stack of brilliant books that I finished while I was on holiday that I need to review and, since I just finished this one and I have time to write a review, here it is - this is a great paranormal thriller with good characters, I couldn't put it down!

Ashwood House by L.K. Jay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. I don't think I'd have read it if there hadn't been a paranormal element to it, because the rest of the book is a pretty realistic thriller about a woman who is released from prison after serving 15 years for stabbing her abusive husband to death and the choices she had to face. However, I was surprised, I really enjoyed everything about the book, I loved Savannah, the main character, she is relatable, down to earth and she felt real. In fact this whole book felt very real, even the ghost.

The interaction between human and spirit is handled calmly, logically and pragmatically, because, above all, Savannah is a pragmatic woman. She is methodical in her choices, taking a little human companionship where she can, hoping the best for her mentee from prison, Tamsin, and deciding who to befriend in the small village where she takes up residence as housekeeper for Ashwood House.

There is spookiness to this book, despite Savannah's sensible outlook, and there are thrills too as she handles hiding from her husband's murderous family. I found myself liking Savannah a lot, rooting for her and wanting the best for her. Her character makes the book and I would like to read more about her.

Just a final note about the author and the way the book is written. There are quite a lot of typos/missing words, but I didn't care, since the text itself was so engaging. And this author knows how to write a really good story, gradually building up the tension and giving a really good finish. I am beginning to think that the last part of the story is the most important for me, the round up, after the climax, the bit that leaves me thinking about the characters and what they are going to do next. And this one's a keeper :).

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I'm pimping out the Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop. It will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

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About the blogger: Sophie Duncan is an author of genre fiction from paranormal adventure to murder mystery. For information about Sophie's books, sign up for The Wittegen Press Newsletter:

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Assassin's Blood
Natasha Duncan-Drake

Curse of a Banshee
Sophie Duncan

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The Wittegen Press Blogger Book Fair eBook Giveaway!

In honour of the 

Blogger Book Fair 

Wittegen Press

are giving away a 

Fantastic

eBook

Bundle!

For up to 6 chances to win this great prize, just check out the giveaway details below!

In the eBook Bundle, we'll be giving away:

• Sacrifice of An Angel (The Haward Mysteries #1) by Tasha and Sophie Duncan
• The End of The Journey (The Hidden War #1) by Sophie Duncan
• Death In The Family (Heritage is Deadly #1) by Sophie Duncan
• Book of Darkness: The Horror Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
• Beyond Our Horizon: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
• Supernature: Paranormal Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
• Bright Young Things: The Young Adult Speculative Fiction Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
• Cat's Call (The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman #1) by Natasha Duncan-Drake
• Cat's Creation (The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman #2) by Natasha Duncan-Drake
• Advent (Vampires: The New Age #1) by Natasha Duncan-Drake
• The Beginning (Vampires: The New Age #0.1) by Natasha Duncan-Drake

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wow, my head is spinning with html and formatting guides

Well, titles actually turned out to be not so hard in the end. Tash and I made use of Google Drive and a Google Spreadsheet and it only took a few hours over a couple of days to hash out titles we agreed on and thought fitted the anthologies. AND THERE WAS NO BLOODSHED! :D  I'd be interested to know what folks think of the titles.

So, at last, 8 anthologies - DONE! :D

On top of figuring out the titles, it only took four days of formatting and reformatting in MS Word with the Smashwords Style Guide at my fingertips at all times AND THEN formatting into html as well. MS Word has a nasty habit of sticking in hidden bookmarks when you're not looking and then has a great bug which means you have to unclick the 'hidden bookmarks' box and then reclick it to be able to see them so you can delete them! It completely messes up the Meatgrinder for Smashwords if you leave them it, so I checked and rechecked all the links and bookmarks in the documents to make sure Word hadn't managed to include some more about half a dozen times (not that I'm paranoid or anything).

Ironically, the html for Mobi Pocket Creator to create the prc for the Kindle upload was much simpler. It's precise html, rather than relying on .doc+Meatgrinder to get it right; I could control everything in the document. I may try out the new epub upload facility in Smashwords next time I do a book, because I can generate the epub from the html version, but it will be with a smaller book. There were just too many anthologies for me to try it out this time.

I'm super excited about these anthologies, they're a real cross-section of the genres Tasha and I like to write, plus some challenging genres for us (neither of us had written much horror before). We've also put into words our thoughts around the origins of the stories via author's notes at the beginning of each story, which we've never done before and they'll hopefully provide some insight into our mental processes.

Seekrit Message: We don't officially launch the books until Monday, in order to give Amazon loading a chance to happen, but just between you and me, we now have available on Smashwords all 8 variations of the stories created for The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games :). 

I think Tash has done a great job with the front covers. We wanted them all to recognisable as one collection, but also be able to have different symbolism on the covers, so we went with words creating the different pictures. Personally, my favourite is the howling wolf and moon for Supernature, the paranormal anthology.

We've also tried to put the stories together in variable collections that will appeal to different folks. It was time consuming, but we thought some folks wouldn't want erotica and ya, or they might not be interested in horror. Hence the 8 anthologies.

Some may want all the stories, so we have:

Myriad Imaginings: All The Stories From The Giveaway Games

2 writers, 31 days of writing madness, the result: 28 fabulously diverse stories for your reading pleasure, including horror, fantasy and science fiction, paranormal adventure, young adult and erotica. Each story was only available for one day, but now all 28 stories have been gathered here into 1 volume where you can meet: a spy who becomes a vampire; a young professor with a mental gift beyond his intellect; a zombie cat and many more enthralling characters.




Others may want to pick by author, so we made two anthologies, one of Tasha's stories and one of mine.

Half of Everything: Stories by Natasha Duncan-Drake From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

Many genres, 14 exciting stories in this anthology of shorts and novellettes by Natasha Duncan-Drake. Whether you're looking for horror, Sci-Fi or something else, you'll find what you're looking for in this collection.

The Other Half of Everything: Stories by Sophie Duncan From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

Many genres, 14 exciting stories in this anthology of shorts and novellettes by Sophie Duncan. Whether you're looking for horror, Sci-Fi or something else, you'll find what you're looking for in this collection.






Then we thought some folks might just go for one genre, so we split the stories down into the 5 genres we aimed the stories at during the games: horror, sci-fi and fantasy, paranoraml, erotic romance, or young adult.

Book Of Darkness: The Horror Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

Ghosts, zombies and haunted dolls are just a few of the disturbing creatures you will meet in this volume of short stories and novelettes.

Beyond Our Horizon: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games 

A thief discovering an affinity with dragons and a university professor being forced to confront his past are just two of the short stories and novelettes in this volume.

Supernature: Paranormal Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games 

Discover the touch of the supernatural in this volume of short stories and novelettes.

Romantics: Erotic Romance Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games 

From a police officer working undercover to a commadore on a back end of nowhere space station, these protagonists all have sexy times ahead, with a heavy side of romance in this volume of short stories and novelettes.

Bright Young Things: Young Adult Speculative Fiction Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games 
Meet a university rock band with a lupine secret and an alien with cat ears and a tail, among other young protagonists in this volume of short stories and novelettes.







Thus, all these will be available on Amazon by Monday and then hopefully Apple, B&N, Kobo, WHSmith et al in the next month, since it'll take a lot longer to reach them via Smashwords premium catalogue.

Now I'm going to go fall in a heap and wait for the automated publishing processes to finish! O.o

My GoodReads Review of Scottish Rite by Stephen Penner

Scottish Rite by Stephen Penner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hmm, well, yes, I'm torn over this book.

The overall plot isn't bad, I enjoyed the fast-paced climax and I really liked the character of Maggie Deveraux, she's believable and fiesty and has just the right amount of getting-into-trouble instincts to make her a perfect accidental sleuth.

However, there were a few things that got in the way of the plot for me, hence the not quite perfect rating.

1/ There was, from time to time, a tendency to overwrite and over explain some things - as I once read somewhere, you have to sometimes leave your reader the ability to make their own mind up about the motives of your characters. This messes with the pace a lot and the book took an awfully long time to get going.

2/ Sometimes the author slipped into omnipotent info dump, usually when describing a location, e.g. when talking about the University of Aberdeen, there was a long section on the fact that it had three campuses and where they were located around the city - a brief description from Maggie's POV would have been much better than the general information list. These info dumps were unnecessary and need editing out of the manuscript, since Stephen does a perfectly good job of describing what he needs at other times.

Both of these instincts I understand well and for me as an author, they stem from trying to make sure, really make sure your reader understands what you want them to, but sometimes we just have to trust the reader and I have an editor who is very ruthless with my text.

3/ This book is set in Aberdeen, with Aberdeen police NOT American police. There are a whole bunch of terms that are totally wrong and also facts that are questionable. E.g. we don't have patrolmen, we have Uniforms (if you're in the police), or Constables if you're not. This was but one of the things that kept making me cringe in all the police scenes and kept throwing me out of the story. There were a few things non-police related as well, mainly to do with University procedures and terms, but many, many less. I wouldn't have minded so much if the police scenes had been a/ relevant and b/ convincing, but neither was the case. The whole book with a few tweaks could have been written from Maggie's POV without the lone police bits, IMHO, and it wouldn't have mattered. I did not care about the police characters, or their investigation and neither does the plot.

So, in summary, I hope I haven't been too scathing, as I said, I enjoyed the plot and I may read the next one, but this book needs a damn good edit for pace and POV and a good Brit Pick by a Scottish Beta.

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My GoodReads Review for Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, I spent an extra 15 mins this morning finishing this off, because you can't interrupt a good Christie denouement!

I haven't read that many Christies, I pick one up every so often and make my way through it. And of the ones I have read, this comes near the top. It has good pace, economical description, giving us enough to understand the characters, but it does not dwell too long on anything - Ms Christie makes every word count.

I love her colourful characters, the Otterbournes, Cordelia, even Jacqueline de Belfour herself - the background characters have just enough to them to stop short of being caricatures and Agatha has a soft spot for the young women, because they have more depth than all the others.

I've seen several adaptations of this book on TV, one which was fairly faithful and another that was missing characters. I have to say, though, apart from the denouement, which doesn't actually happen in one go the book, I prefer the book, but I think the TV improved on the drama, if not the realism of the thing with an all in one accusation fest - let's face it, with Christie, no-one is looking for realism!

All in all, a good mystery (if I hadn't known already what had happened, I would not have got there the same time Poirot did, it is a fairly devious plot) and it is an easy read. It would make an excellent airport/flight book, easily finished during a transatlantic flight by any moderate reader (I'm not hugely fast).

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