Surfing Report

This is a report of some interesting stuff I have found on the web.

1. First of all, Madeline Hunter has just posted a new excerpt from her upcoming novel Secrets of Surrender (third in the series and coming May 20th) and it’s a doozy. Click here for link. If I hadnt been already been sitting down when I read it, I would have had to afterwards.

It also seems that the cover for it has been revised since the last time I posted it on my blog. It’s now a hideous orange but supposedly the reader can see the title and author’s name better which was the reason for the change in the first place. I much prefer the yellow. You could see the words well enough and using a primary color like yellow is what you should always do from what I was taught in Art. Ever wondered why all the most famous superheroes like Wonder Woman, Superman, Spiderman are in red, blue, and gold (yellow)? Because primary colors catchs the eye better.

Also, on another page there is mention of Christian’s book, titled The Sins of Lord Easterbrook but I have no idea why it’s saying that it’s coming out this fall. As far as I know, she hasn’t even finished writing the darn book yet but who knows. Dell could rush the production of it if they wanna. I’ll certainly be a happy camper. As long as the book itself doesnt read like it’s a rush job.

2. Second, I had no idea there exists a Harriet Klausner Appreciation Society. It’s at http://harriet-rules.blogspot.com/ I found it expecting all sorts of wonderful snark and to my befuddlement, there is not an ounce of irony there. These people are serious in their profound admiration. Deranged, but serious.

3. I dont know why I never did before but I started reading the Amazon.com forums about two weeks ago and the most interesting thread there is about a customer having a negative Amazon review repeatly deleted on some Scottish medieval romance I never heard of — A Restless Knight by Deborah MacGillivray. Then others chimed in about it happening to them on the same book and MacGillivray’s previous works too. Through sheer preserverance, the customer got her review to remain after numerous deletions, upon which the author instantly sent her posse to inundate the review with numerous “unhelpful votes”. As of today, Restless Knight has a 5 Star rating on Amazon from 57 reviews of it. ALL of MacGillivaray’s books have a 5 stars rating. To put it in perspective, Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels (a book 10 yrs older and universally beloved) has a 4.5 rating from 111 reviews. Or to pick a more recent book, The Serpent Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt has a 4 star rating from 37 reviews of it.

Some people (not me!) like to believe the best in humans and maybe propose that it’s not MacGillavray behind all the shenanigans but rather some overzealous fans. In another Amazon thread on a different subject, an e-book author, Marcia James, mentioned this in passing: “An author who sees a completely negative, undeserved review can ask Amazon to remove it, but it doesn’t always happen.” Why Amazon would lend credence that an author could best judge if a review of one of her books is undeserved or not is beyond me but it’s their policy and MacGillavray & her posse are taking advantage of it.