My Creatively Random Life

I have a guest post for you today from my friend Steph over at  Steph in the City .  She's doing a cover reveal for her upcoming book Piper Morgan to The Rescue and stopped by to talk to us about getting your book reviewed. 5 Tips for Getting Your Book Reviewed by Stephanie Faris If you’ve ever published a book (or plan to), you may be worried about Amazon reviews. Nobody wants to be that author whose book still has zero reviews after being out for a few months. But forcing people to review your book is impossible. All you can do is put your book out into the world and hope for the best, right? Actually, there are a few things authors can do to boost our chances of getting reviews. Here are five things that can help. 1. Review others—As with anything in the crazy world of marketing, the more you give, the more you’ll receive. Unfortunately, every author whose book you review won’t return the favor and that’s okay. There are enough kind people out there ...

This may be my favourite book that I have read this year, I'm not 100% positive, there's a lot of thought that has to go into picking a number one.  However it's definitely my favourite that I am able to turn around and hand to Ace afterwords. Right from the cover with the "If you're not a monster hunter, put this book down immediately..." it grabs your attention and I assure you it does not let go.  (Ace thought that was brilliant by the way)  There was a lot of great stuff like that space through the book.  I really enjoyed that. The story was also really fun, lots of action and adventure to keep the kids tuned in.  I often find that more of the books I read would be easier to share with my daughter than my son but Ace is eager to read this one.  A major score for me because he is not a big fiction reader. You can check it out on Amazon  here. I received the product mention above through Tomoson  to facilitate this review but all ...

I like reading Young Adult books, I find that it's a genre that deals with a lot of life's not so pleasant subjects in a straight forward way.  Something happens to someone, they cope with the aftermath (well or not) and you get a resolution.  Sure there's stuff that happens around that but that's the basic gist of it. Breaking Free is a beautiful example of that, you are watching Kelsie recover from the aftermath caused by the coping mechanism she chose for dealing with her best friend's death.  As you read you learn more about the situation and the people in her life. Maybe you can relate to what she's feeling.  To what drives her to do the things that she does.  Teenagers, especially troubled ones, are driven by some pretty powerful emotions and if you have ever been there then there is a lot to relate to in this book. I received the product mentioned above for free through Tomoson  to review however all opinions are my own. 

You may have noticed that we read a lot around here, it's just something that I have always done and luckily the kids have picked up on the habit. Ace likes to read very factual stuff, he's into learning something when he reads.  That's what makes it fun for him.  Which is more than wonderful. Cat's more like her mom though, she like her reading to be full of fluff and wonder.  Dragons, princess and fairies have free reign over most of her half of their bookshelf.   This book hit both categories for them though, it was apparently informative (or at least interesting enough) for Ace as he stopped what he was doing to come join us and it kept Cat interested the whole time.  Which is not always an easy task with e-books, there's something about the e-reader that doesn't do it for her. You can find the book on Amazon at  Terry Treetop Saves The Dolphin . I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using  T...

Faith of the Fallen is when the series starts to pick up a little bit for me.  There were parts in Soul of the Fire that dragged a little bit for me and really there are parts here that drag a bit as well.  However, when the storyline starts splitting the main characters up the story gets a little more interesting. It's my lack of focus rearing it's ugly head, I just feel better with a half a dozen storylines to follow all at the same time.  It makes the story seem more exciting.  Plus it feels that much more satisfying when they all come back together at the end and it pulls together.  My favourite part of Faith of the Fallen is that is sets up perfectly for the absolute awesomeness that plays out over the next two novels. 

I received this book free in a Library Thing Member Giveaway in exchange for an honest review. The description of the book on Amazon is: ‘Wraith' is a serial killer. Not that he would call himself that. The best killer in the world. That he would agree with. He believes proper order can only be brought about in the world via chaos. Most of his kills make sense in that way. It just so happens that now someone has the nerve to bring chaos into his world by stealing money from him. After tracking down the perpetrator, James and confronting him, Wraith concludes that he is either a genius or a stupid thief who just happened to mess with the wrong man. Either way, Wraith promises himself to enjoy this kill. Wraith concludes James must die but decides to take his time and find out if this is the guy that might provide the challenging kill he has been looking for all along. He has to do all this with Detective Sweeney, the local superstar detective hot on his trail. As he gets re...

I received this book from a Library Things Member Giveaway in exchange for an honest review. The book description from author Rupert Colley's website  reads as follows: Two brothers. One woman. A nation at war. A compelling story of war, brotherly love, passion and betrayal during World War One. Vast in scope and intimate in the portrayal of three lives swept along by circumstances, ‘This Time Tomorrow’ moves from the drawing rooms of Edwardian London to the trenches of the Western Front and to the uncertainty of post-war Britain. When Guy Searight volunteers to fight with the British army in the early days of World War One, he leaves behind his girlfriend, Mary. While away fighting, Guy’s younger brother, Jack, seizes an opportunity to woo Mary for himself. Forthright and self assured, Guy has always looked out for his confident but frail brother and blithely promises his fretting mother that he’ll look out for him when Jack’s turn comes to join up. But embittered ...

My second book choice for Blogging For Books was John Moe's Dear Luke, We Need To Talk, Darth.  This sounded like such a fun book to me, I am a huge fan of written correspondence, my pen pals regularly get pages (yes pages) of me rambling about absolutely nothing.  Well almost nothing, Cat's doll preference, annoying moms at parties, cosplay plans, you know the same stuff I blog about but in more detail.  So I somehow assumed that a book about fictional pop culture correspondences would be interesting.   You know what they say about making assumptions. I just didn't love this book and I feel bad for not liking it.  If I had read it ten years ago I probably would have loved it, or at least parts of it.  There are certain parts of it I would have still felt were a waste of my time to read.   The thing that didn't work about this book for me is that I am an Internet addict, so I read a great deal of pretty witty pop culture correspondence st...

I discovered Blogging For Books  through an email from  Random House  and thought it was just my idea of the most perfect deal ever.  I could get books for free and I have to do is read them and give my honest opinion of them?  I can do that.  I am highly opinionated. So I filled out the form, answered the many, many questions and once I was approved I went off to choose my first book.  Now there was the hard part, how did I choose from all the books there were available to read?  Luckily for me (or not so luckily depending on how you look at it) I injured my knee a few months ago and I have recently been informed that I need to keep my weight at or below what it is now while dealing with the recovery process.  So naturally the cover for Snack Girl To The Rescue! caught my eye. Lisa Cain is the mastermind behind the popular  Snack Girl  site, halfway through the second chapter I subscribed to her blog.  I loved the first...