Being a writer changes a lot of things in my life, including how I read a book. I can’t read the same way I could before I started writing ‘in earnest’ for lack of a better phrase. I judge books differently too. These days when I’m finished a book and it’s time for me to assess what I thought of it I tend to ask myself questions beyond ‘Did I like it?’. Did I enjoy my time spend within its pages? Was I able to suspend my disbelief throughout its entirety? Did it make me think? Was it well-written? Were the characters real? Did they grow?

In the case of The Mermaid’s Madness the answer to those questions, for the most part, was yes.

Okay, biases out on the table, I adore Jim C. Hines. I like him as a person, a blogger and a writer. Thus far I’ve enjoyed every novel of his that I’ve read and I’ve paid (via charity auction) for him to critique my work. That’s a double-edged thing though, really, because while it means while I was pre-disposed to like The Mermaid’s Madness, I also had high expectations that could easily have been disappointed.

They weren’t though. Yay!

The Mermaid’s Madness is the second in Jim’s princess books, the first being The Stepsister Scheme. I thought this was a great book and enjoyed it more than I did the first. It had a darker feeling to it than The Stepsister Scheme, which could well be one reason I liked it better, but I think there’s more to it than that.

The characters were very real, three dimensional beings who grew and developed over the course of the story. Jim built on what he’d started in the first book and made it even better. This is where I find it difficult to really make points without giving things away…so forgive my vagueness.

One of my favorite things about this novel is that actions had consequences. The consequences from the first book weren’t simply forgotten, they carried over and touched this one. Not heavily really (except in one case…man I suck at vagueness), but they were there — just like in real life. I can’t abide stories where everything works out well in the end and everyone lives happily ever with nothing changing except for the better, blah blah blah. That is great for children’s tales…I suppose…maybe…in pre-school…occasionally… /digression . Happily, Jim doesn’t do that. Bad things happen, and they can’t just be made better by waving a magic wand or kissing the prince. I like that.

That’s not to say I think this book was perfect. In a couple places in action scenes I got a little bit lost and had to read back to re-imagine the scene and exactly what was happening, and I struggled a bit with suspending my disbelief at how quickly some people recovered from…things (stupid vagueness). Occasionally people seemed to have supernatural endurance/recovery powers that didn’t fit with what I thought probable, that sort of thing. But I wasn’t bothered enough by those things to set down the book or even slow my reading.

On a pseudo-related note, no matter how hard I’ve tried (and I have tried) the Danielle in my mind doesn’t even come close to matching the Danielle on the cover. Not. Even. Close.  I’ve given up on making the two match and I’m just going to enjoy how Danielle looks in my imagination.

Right, back on track.

The Mermaid’s Madness made me think, about lots of things. Stuff like reprecussions, character growth, real emotion and magic. Quite specifically about magic, magic systems and mechanics. I had a few revelations related to my own writing that was sparked by thoughts about The Mermaid’s Madness. This, as you can imagine, makes me happy.

I also enjoyed the ending, and the way Jim has started subtle mysteries in this novel I look forward to seeing how they develop in the next book…though waiting for it to come out may be painful. What do you suppose the chances are of my picking up an ARC of it before its release date?

After posting my last blog entry I sent an email to Ms. Fisher to make sure she’d actually received my story to critique. She hadn’t. I swear there are gremlins living in my email server. Seriously. *sigh* Anyway, the good news is I’ve sent her the first 100 pages and she says she’ll have it critiqued in good time for me to do rewrite Shadows on my retreat. Yay! This makes me very happy because I’m anxious to get it rewritten and in reader’s hands.

In other good news, my ARC of Jim C. Hines’ book The Mermaid’s Madness arrived today. *squee* I can’t wait to read it.

The only bad news I have is that I will have to wait to start reading it…because I need to write something for my critique group to, well, critique, on Monday. I’m out of un-critiqued stuff…seriously. That like, never happens to me. I’m thinking about doing the first chapter of See The Sky Again and sending that…just as soon as I figure out if my love interest is a man or a woman. Hmm…

S.G. Browne’s novel Breathers is about sentient zombies. Can you imagine being trapped in your body while it slowly rotted around you? That’s the reality for these creatures. It’s been described as a zom-rom-com (zombie romantic comedy) and is going to be made into a movie with Fox Searchlight. Pretty sweet. Intrigued? You can win an autographed copy just by leaving a comment on/in the Of Warmth, Of Dragons issue of Niteblade. Each comment will be considered an entry into the draw, and if you buy a .pdf copy that’s 5 entries. I’m making the draw on July 1st so you’ve plenty of time to wrack up (rack up?) some entries if you’re interested.

I’d also like to say a huge thank you to anyone who bought Sister Margaret through Fictionwise and rated it there. Sister Margaret is currently the highest rated title for my publisher at Fictionwise. That is very flattering and makes me incredibly happy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Still working on the psuedo-secret project, though it’s reached the waiting stage. I’m hopeful there won’t be too much waiting involved, but I guess time will tell. The collaborative projects I’m working on are still a going concern – one more than the other. Soon I’ll be able to share a little bit about it, but not quite yet. Sorry LOL Also working on a fun horror short story that I think has a lot of potential…more about that when it’s done

In my non-writing life things are a bit crazy this week. It’s the last week of my daughter’s dance stuff leading up to her year-end recital. That combined with things like vet appointments (for the dog, not me :-p), hair appointments (grey roots just keep on coming back…) and an upcoming visit from my parents have been keeping me busy. Once this weekend is over though, so is dance for the year. That will be a huge relief and cause a large increase in writing time. Time I’ll have to use to finish up this Women in Literature course I’m struggling through for school. Whee!

I won an auction through Brenda Novak’s auction for diabetes reseach this year for a critique by Jim C. Hines. The critique is of one short story or the first chapter of a novel. I -adore- Jim’s work and think he’s just a pretty awesome guy all round so I’m really looking forward to this critique…the problem is, I can’t decide what to send him. His usual genre is fantasy so I could send him the first chapter of Shadows, which is about as polished as I can make it at this point. His feedback would possibly help me polish it further and hopefully help me place it with an agent, or I could send him the first draft of the aforementioned fun horror short story so his critique could help guide my revisions on it and help it get placed. But it’s horror, which isn’t his primary genre.

What do you think? What would you do?

I have a new interview up at Niteblade. This one is with Jim C. Hines. He’s got a brand new book out today called “The Stepsister Scheme” that I think is going to be awesome. I’ve got my copy pre-ordered from Amazon and I can’t wait for it to arrive.

Anywho, you should head on over to the Niteblade News blog and check out the interview. Please?

Interview with Jim C. Hines

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim C. Hines for Niteblade. We talked a bit about goblins and a lot about princesses. Why? Well, because his brand new novel The Stepsister Scheme just got released today My copy was pre-ordered so I’m expecting it to arrive today with the mail

Please pop over to Niteblade News and take a look at the interview. Leave a comment in your wake, Jim and I would love to know you’ve been there and what you think.