Would you BUY or PASS (8)?

My weekly contribution to Rosie Amber's Friday Five Challenge ~ if you know what it's all about, please go down to the line of red stars to see my choice for this week.  If not, please read on!

The Friday Five Challenge is an interesting exercise for writers ~ it shows the little things that can put potential readers off that click-buy.  We click on a book because the cover appeals to us, but can be put off a purchase by the blurb, the price, or the reviews.

Anyone with a blog can join in ~ here's what you do:

IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….

1) Go to any online book supplier

2) Randomly choose a category

3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which instantly appeals

4) Read the book bio/description, and any other details

5) If there are reviews, check out a couple

6) Make an instant decision: would you BUY or PASS?

 
You can check out others' contributions on the #FridayFiveChallenge hashtag on Twitter, or see links at the end of this page.

********* 

This week, as it is holiday season and nearly August (which also means BIRTHDAY for me and fellow Leos!) I put the word AUGUST into the Amazon search, and the first cover that appealed to me was that of Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen

Analysis

Cover
Isn't it great?  It's the colours, the simplicity, the angles, the unusual arty feel ~ my eye was drawn to it straight away.

Price
The Kindle copy is £4.31 for 320 pages - on the pricey side for a Kindle book, but it's a decent length, and if I really, really wanted to read it I'd still buy at under a fiver.  Not available on Kindle Unlimited.

Blurb
Everyone needs a place like Hopewell Cottage – a romantic holiday rental on a small, sunny island.
For Rose and Lottie, it’s a refuge from the frenzy of the school gates.
For Beverly, it’s a chance to say goodbye to two lost loves.
And for disgraced movie star Caroline, it offers the anonymity she craves.
But on tiny Little Lost Island, with its cocktail parties, tennis matches and Ladies’ Association for Beautification, will they really find the answers to their very modern problems? 

Well, I don't know about you, but I think that sounds fab, just the sort of thing I'd like to take on holiday ~ a nice, easy, self-indulgent sort of book!

Reviews
I learned from the reviews that it's a retelling of a book called Enchanted April that came out in 1922.  Only two on Amazon UK, both 3*.  There are 55 on Amazon.com, but a fair few 2 and 3*, and most of them say that the characters are weak.

Would I BUY or PASS?
Alas, it's ended up as a PASS.  Even for £4.31, I was considering it.  It was the reviews that put me off - in any novel, for me, the characters are the most important thing, because if I don't care about them I don't care about the setting or the plot.  Shame - it looked promising!

Friday Five Challenge posts by others:

Rosie Amber visits the Jazz Age HERE
Between The Lines chooses a domestic travel memoir HERE
Shelley Wilson does scary wolves HERE 
Lost in a Book gets dead in Cornwall HERE

Roll on October.....

Yes, some blogging subjects get done and done over and over again; there are some that make me go 'oh no not this again' every time I see them*.  I was just starting to write this when I realised that the anti-summer moan is probably a bit overdone now, too.  I am sure there are many who think, "I love summer, and I don't want to see another blog post moaning about flies and not being able to sleep at night."

Fair enough.  So I'll just stick my bit in quietly and hope it will only be read by those who agree with me!

The reasons I don't like summer

• I've just been down south for a few days, from the frozen north east where I have lived for the past 6 years.  It's always hotter down there, and we were supposed to be in the midst of a heatwave last week, were we not?  On the first evening, out with friends, I wore some of those loose patterned culotte type things that look like an above-the-knee skirt, a loose-ish top and a short sleeved shrug.  From about 7 pm onwards, I was bloody freezing.  This is my moan: you never know where you are with the weather.  If you're going out in the winter you stick on a long sleeved, not too thick top (because pubs and restaurants always have the heating on too high), a coat, and you're good to go.  In the summer, you never know how hot or cold it's going to be.  I always get it wrong.
• Those bloody late nights and early mornings.  Who really needs daylight at 10 pm?  However many sleep masks I wear, I still wake up at 5am most days.
• I can no longer wear fake tan because my husband keeps moaning about it; he says it makes the bedclothes smell horrible.  I won't sunbathe because it's a waste of time, boring, gives you skin cancer and makes you look old.  I won't use sunbeds because ditto, plus the cost.  So in summer I have to either display unsightly white limbs, or be too hot in my clothes.  Unless it's one of the cold days (see first paragraph).  This problem does not arise in the winter.  I still wince at my unsightly white limbs, but at least no-one else has to see them.  Apart from my husband, whose choice it is that they are thus.  So there.  (note from 2017: okay, I gave in.  I now have a few sunbed sessions in the summer)
• I am writing a novel, which means I need to be inside the house at my desk; I can't write in the garden (see last paragraph).  I do not want to look out of the window and feel guilty about not making the most of the weather.
• It's harder to cover your fat bits in summer clothes than in winter ones. Unless you're young and gorgeous, winter clothes are generally more flattering.
• I have very long, thick hair.  Heat makes my head sweat, which in turn makes my carefully straightened and smoothed hair look like an explosion in a mattress factory.  At the very least, it makes my fringe look silly.
• I no longer live by the sea.  I quite liked summer when I did.  Apart from the fact that I was usually at work, of course.  If I could spend summer in an idyllic sea front cottage and have nothing to do but wander aimlessly along shores and country lanes, I may like it more.
• Talking of gardens, I have to think about getting people to cut ours, something I can forget about between October and April.  Currently, the back garden is playing host to a little known jungle tribe.  Or it might be; it's so overgrown I can't tell. (Note: July 2016 ~ I have now had the whole thing gravelled.  Back and front.  Best move ever!)

Right, I think that's about it!  Feel free to add your whinges.  Or tell me I'm a moany old git and you never want to see another post complaining about summer.  For those who agree with me, please remember this:  July is much better than June.  The nights are beginning to draw in, slowly, slowly and it's another month nearer to autumn! 

*mindfulness

Would you BUY or PASS (7)?

My weekly contribution to Rosie Amber's Friday Five Challenge ~ if you know what it's all about, please go down to the line of blue stars to see my choice for this week.  If not, please read on!

The Friday Five Challenge is an interesting exercise for writers ~ it shows the little things that can put potential readers off that click-buy.  We click on a book because the cover appeals to us, but can be put off a purchase by the blurb, the price, or the reviews.

Anyone with a blog can join in ~ here's what you do:

IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….

1) Go to any online book supplier

2) Randomly choose a category

3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which instantly appeals

4) Read the book bio/description, and any other details

5) If there are reviews, check out a couple

6) Make an instant decision: would you BUY or PASS?

 
You can check out others' contributions on the #FridayFiveChallenge hashtag on Twitter, or see links at the end of this page.

*********

This week I put the word outlaws into the Amazon search.  I skimmed past several pages of covers showing naked but headless male torsos and very little else, and eventually my eyes fell on The Outlaws by Jason Vail.

Analysis

Cover
Me and my mediaeval pictures again!  Anything that looks vaguely Plantagenet makes me look twice ~ look, I promise, I really will keep off the history theme next week....

Price
£2.17 for... wait for it... 617 pages!  No-one can say he's trying to rip anyone off, anyway!

Blurb
Eustace FitzWalter, Giselle de Hafton, and Robert Attebrook could not be more different. Eustace is the bastard son of an earl, Giselle the sheltered daughter of a dotting gentry father, and Robert the son of an impoverished village carpenter.

In ordinary times, their lives would not intersect. But when Robert breaks his uncle out of Earl Roger FitzWalter’s gaol, he sets in motion a series of events that sends their lives colliding in a maelstrom of murder and revenge that drives them all outside the laws and customs of England.

Step into the tumultuous years of the Twelfth Century, and stand alongside Eustace as he schemes to inherit his father’s title, lands, and power, using every means within his grasp; Giselle as she fights to free herself from a forced marriage and to save her inheritance; and Robert as he struggles to rise above the limitations of his birth in the face of Eustace’s quest for vengeance.

A saga to rival Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, The Outlaws sweeps from serene English villages and quiet forest glens, to French battlefields, remote Welsh fortresses, and even the court of King Henry II, where nobles and clergy vie for power and wealth, and disputes are often decided with steel and blood.
 
That works for me!

Reviews
17, all 4 or 5*.  Not one negative comment.  I didn't see any by people who hadn't reviewed anything else.

Would I BUY or PASS?
Totally BUY! And already have.  Don't know when I'm going to get time to read such an epic, maybe after the next novel is completed.  A great find!


Friday Five Challenge posts by others:

Rosie Amber's amusing cricket book HERE 
Between The Lines' mystery HERE
Shelley Wilson's self-help HERE 
Barb Taub's summer time boxed set HERE 

 

I can't get that song out of my head....

.....grrrr!  I'm talking ear worms, which I was unaware for ages was the recognised term for them.

This morning, mine is a song from South Park, from the brilliant send up of Game of Thrones trilogy ~ it's not for the easily offended, by the way!  I watched the episode with this in two nights ago, and have been hearing it ever since.  It's funny, and clever, but I wish it would go away.  (For anyone who doesn't watch South Park, it follows an observation that a certain part of the male anatomy is featured in the show more frequently than the plot necessitates).

Usually, though, my ear worm is a song I hate, and they're mostly random, like  some 1970s hit that I thought was total dross even at the time.  Where do they come from?  Puppy Love by Donny Osmond is a favourite (not), but I promise not to find a video from YouTube to put on here, lest you click on it by mistake and find yourself with it stuck in your head all day, too....

My most recurring one ever came about during my last job when I worked in the office of a small engineering firm.  At the end of most days I would file away the invoices for payment.  If I so much as laid eyes on one from Bookers Cash & Carry, I'd be hearing this toon for the next two days ~

Time is Tight by Booker T & the MGs ~ funny that it was never Green Onions, which I prefer, but that's ear worms for you, isn't it?!

Recently I watched all four episodes of the TV series Treme, and, thus, the theme tune was in my head on and off for several weeks.  I loved it that song, it was something I always liked hearing.  At first.....!  The theme of Treme is one of those vids that you can only watch Youtube ~ it's fab, and it's HERE, with some great bits of film, but beware.... 

I was talking about this on Twitter the other day, and discovered that my friend Judith Barrow suffers from advanced ear worm, as I do: it's not always music.  Someone else said the phrase 'spring forward, fall backwards' to illustrate the changing of the clocks, which Judith said then repeated itself in her head, over and over, all day.  However, it was not as bad as her worst one, which I'm sharing with you so you can sympathise.

What are your worst???? 

 

Before I started this self-publishing thing I used to....

• Read the papers in bed on Sunday mornings and go to the pub.
• Feel pleased when the phone rang, especially if it was a friend who would want a long chat.
• Spend more time with my husband (eventually he gave up and got an Xbox).
• Be thinner.
• Have a cleaner house.
• Keep up with friends from far away.
• Not have a permanently tense neck and shoulders - I start out sitting properly but it never lasts!
• Spend ages writing articles and other general funny stuff to amuse my friends.
• Be able to watch a television drama without analysing the plot structure and characterisation.
• Be able to read a book without picking the editing apart.

I also used to....

• Drink a bit too much, sometimes out of boredom; didn't matter if I felt a little fuzzy the next day.
• Know nothing of the joys of Twitter ~ all those people I would never have virtually met!
• Only read the books of my favourite few well known authors; when I hadn't got anyone new to read I'd just read all Douglas Kennedy/Elizabeth Jane Howard/Susan Howatch/Deborah Moggach all over again.
• Feel permanently vaguely bored and frustrated all the time because I knew I had something in me that needed doing!
• Feel bored sometimes, full stop.
• Worry that I was frittering away the autumn of my life by doing nothing in particular.
• Have a sister who did the weary commute every day instead of having her own successful proofreading business - it was me doing this that gave her the idea of starting up on her own.
• Remember when I used to write all the time, (9 novels in the 1990s) and feel a bit pissed off with myself because I didn't do it anymore.  And wonder if I still could.... 

Would you BUY or PASS (6) ?

My weekly contribution to Rosie Amber's Friday Five Challenge ~ if you know what it's all about, please go down to the line of green stars to see my choice for this week.  If not, please read on!

The Friday Five Challenge is an interesting exercise for writers ~ it shows the little things that can put potential readers off that click-buy.  We click on a book because the cover appeals to us, but can be put off a purchase by the blurb, the price, or the reviews.

Anyone with a blog can join in ~ here's what you do:

IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….

1) Go to any online book supplier

2) Randomly choose a category

3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which instantly appeals

4) Read the book bio/description, and any other details

5) If there are reviews, check out a couple

6) Make an instant decision: would you BUY or PASS?

 
You can check out others' contributions on the #FridayFiveChallenge (click to see them) hashtag on Twitter

*********

This week I put a favourite subject of mine, Plantagenet Kings, into the Amazon search.  This was the first cover that appealed to me ~ Richard II is a king I know of only through Susan Howatch's brilliant The Wheel of Fortune and the BBC series, The Plantagenets.  This was my choice ~ DEATH KEEPS HIS COURT by Anselm Audley.  Alas, I didn't notice that it was a Kindle Single (a long short story of 78 pages), but my choice was made!

 

Analysis

Cover
Sprang out at me ~ my eye always zooms in on mediaeval type drawings.  Very nicely done, I thought; I like the way the background looks like old parchment or rough sackcloth.

Price
£1.99 ~ a bit pricey for 78 pages, but not too bad.

Blurb
Richard II was young, handsome, and elegant. Last living child of the brilliant Black Prince, he came to the throne bearing the hopes of his people on his shoulders. His court glittered; his tastes were refined; his portraits shone with gold. Regal, composed, aloof, he was the very picture of majesty.
He became a murderous, capricious tyrant. His favourites plotted against his family. He rewrote the laws of England to give himself absolute power. He raised an army against his own subjects.
His subjects deposed him. Twice.

This is the story of the forgotten civil war of 1387, which saw Richard set against his brave, ill-starred uncle Thomas of Woodstock. Of how a boy’s bright promise turned deadly, provoking his nobles to fear, flight, and finally open war. Of how a humiliated King set out on a course of vengeance which would cost him his life and sow the first fatal seeds of the Wars of the Roses.

From royal banquets to battles in the mist, Death Keeps His Court tells a tale of real-life tyranny, treachery and tragedy in the age which inspired A Game of Thrones. 

Makes it sound interesting, if slightly over the top; I can't see how a story such as this could be done justice in 78 pages, and the style is a tad eccentric.  I think the tenuous tie-in to A Game of Thrones is a bit naff.


Reviews
Nine very short ones, three by people who've reviewed nothing or almost nothing else, a few mentions of it being interesting but too short.  It's selling well, ie, it's at #2061 in the overall chart and #1 in three genre charts.  This amused me: one of the 4* reviewers has given classic Victorian comic novel Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K Jerome a paltry 1*; as this is one of the most stunning pieces in the history of literature, I don't rate his opinion too highly!

Would I BUY or PASS?
PASS-ish ~ I certainly wouldn't buy it at 1.99, unless it had a lot more reviews that had something to say other than 'interesting read'.  I would, however, download it via Kindle Unlimited, and probably will do once I've given one of my current ten back, just to see if it's any good.  So it's a half and half, really!

My Writing Life

I've come across a new book blog on Twitter, called Whispering Stories.  
Click HERE to read about Stacey, who runs it.  She features promotions, reviews, competitions, a monthly poem and other stuff such as her Author of the Week section, Fun Fact Friday and her new series, My Writing Life, in which she interviews writers about just that!

This week she's featuring me ~ you can read it HERE

Thank you, Stacey, and I hope the blog becomes a great success!  Whispering Stories blog is @storywhispers on Twitter.

Would you BUY or PASS? (5)

Rosie Amber's weekly Friday Five Challenge ~ if you already know the rules, skip the next bit and go down to the row of orange stars for my choice.

(It's an interesting exercise for writers ~ it shows the little things that can put potential readers off that click-buy, and it's just quite fun anyway!)

Anyone with a blog can join in ~ here's what you do:

IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES…. 
1) Go to any online book supplier

2) Randomly choose a category
3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which instantly appeals
4) Read the book bio/description, and any other details
5) If there are reviews, check out a couple
6) Make an instant decision: would you BUY or PASS?

You can find others' contributions on the #FridayFiveChallenge hashtag on Twitter

********

This week I put a random word, Oranges, into the Amazon search and this was the first cover that really appealed to me: The Orange Lilies by Nathan Dylan Goodwin.  It's a novella, a hundred pages long.

Analysis

Cover
Artistic, subtle, professional, with a World War 1 theme ~ love it!

Price
£2.32

Blurb
Morton Farrier has spent his entire career as a forensic genealogist solving other people’s family history secrets, all the while knowing so little of his very own family’s mysterious past. However, this poignant Christmastime novella sees Morton’s skills put to use much closer to home, as he must confront his own past, present and future through events both present-day and one hundred years ago. It seems that not every soldier saw a truce on the Western Front that 1914 Christmas… This Morton Farrier novella follows on from book two in the series - The Lost Ancestor.  

Reviews
36 - 28 of them are 5*.  The rest are all 4*.

Would I BUY or PASS?
BUY!  It's a bit expensive for a novella of 100 pages, but not excessively so.  Its only potential downside is that it follows on from a previous book, but I suspect it might read fine on its own and this only made me waver a little.  The review situation is most reassuring; if a book has 36 reviews without even a 3* 'it's okay', chances are it's pretty good.  I love the theme; the first World War and a hint of time-slip - two of my favourites!  About which I'm pleased, as I haven't found a buy since week one.

I love the Friday Five Challenge; three cheers to Rosie for thinking of it, and please do join in if you have a blog and the idea appeals to you.  Just copy and paste the instructions at the top, and stick the #hashtag on when you post it on Twitter - or tag me or Rosie in it (@rosieamber1 @TerryTyler4)

Bored? Lonely? Just log on and order up your next relationship!

*warning: contains pictures of actor Josh Holloway

So, internet dating.  Have you had any experience of it?  It's perfectly fine to admit it, these days.  It is, honestly.  Nothing to be ashamed of.  Doesn't mean you're a loser.  Everyone's done it.  Or is that a claim made only by people who have?  Ah...   

My name is Terry, and I've internet dated.  Right.  I've come out.  Now you can, too.

I decided to write a post on this subject (it was always waiting in the wings) after reading Tom Angel's about same; you can read his HERE.  Because it makes you go 'hmmph' when someone writes a good post on a subject you've been toying with, doesn't it?  Go on, admit it.  Oh, all right.  You don't want to admit to that and internet dating...

I first dipped my toe in the waters of this murky pool in the mid nineties, after the break up of a long relationship.  I just thought I'd give it a whirl, for something to take my mind off the mess that had suddenly become my life.  In those days, your only choice was Dateline (remember those adverts in magazines?), dating agencies or... the 'friendship column' in the local paper.

(Talking of Dateline, wasn't it fun to fill in the form in the name of someone you didn't like, and send it off so that they'd receive their Dateline ideal partner suggestions through the post, preferably when they were having breakfast with their husband/wife?  What?  You've never done that?  Oh ~ no, no, of course, I haven't, either, I've just heard that some people have...)

In that brief period between old fashioned Lonely Hearts columns and the popularity of match.com etc, these 'friendship' columns were quite popular.  I answered a couple of ads; you actually communicated via a PO box number.  With a letter.  How quaint is that?  A friend told me, "if they don't send a photograph straight away, they're ugly."  The first one I met did send a photograph.  He looked pretty hot.  From the side of his face from which the photo was taken.  Alas, the other side made Quasimodo look like actor Josh Holloway.  I kid you not.  The next one was a nutter, and sent me long pleading missives when I said I didn't want to see him again, apologising for getting so drunk on our first date.  It wasn't the alcohol consumption that bothered me, it was the casual revelation that he'd come out without taking his anti-psychotic medication.  Okay, I'm lying about that.  But I think I might be on the right track.

Actor Josh Holloway.  Well, it's gotta be done...

Another friend suggested I might find a better class of lonely saddo in The Guardian.  I exchanged a few letters with a guy who said people often mistook him for Mark Knopfler.  Eventually I managed to get a photo out of him.  All he had in common with the Dire Straits front man was the receeding hairline.

 Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler.  Dig that crazy 1980s sweatband.

After these experiences I went back to my normal method of choosing romantic partners, ie, happening upon men in pubs/at parties and discovering two weeks later that I'd got myself into yet another relationship with a man whose serious emotional baggage/alcoholism/general loser-dom had not been apparent on the first night.  Oh well. 

When next I decided to give this sort of thing a go, it was 2008 (I'd just got rid of another from the emotional baggage/alchoholism/loserdom crew) and everyone was doing it.  My friend Hermione had recently met her new man through Dating Direct (she's still with him, incidentally) - like me, she was a veteran of much romantic folly and couldn't be bothered with starting all over again.  "It's so much easier like this," she said.  "You cut through all the crap; you know you're both on the site because you want a partner, full stop."

Obviously some people who advertise are after something other than a partner; newspapers and those ghastly 'my ex-con uncle got my lesbian grandmother pregnant' type magazines run many stories about lonely women who meet conmen online, or married men who just want a few bits on the side.  My experience, though, has only been of men who are looking for someone with whom to share their lives, or at least a girlfriend for 'now' if not for ever; call me naïve but I think this is still why most of them do it.  For every bigamist scam artist you read about in 'Real Life Scumbag' magazine there are 10,000 perfectly nice guys who are just a bit fed up with TV dinners for one.  

 
I went out with four men.  Three I didn't fancy; you know, you sit down with them in the pub and think, oh dear, I don't fancy you at all, so you make the best of the night and go home as soon as is politely possible.  That's after you've been through the half hour of hoping you will start to fancy them once you start talking to them (even trying to convince yourself that you do...).  One I did quite like but didn't fancy me!  Look, when he put in his 'ideal woman' list that he liked size 10 non-smokers, I did tell him that the hand of my size 14 body held a John Player menthol king size approximately 15 times per day.  He didn't say I was a disappointment in the flesh, of course, any more than I did to the ones I didn't fancy.  But I could see that lack of interest in his eyes, not to mention the lack of conviction in the phrase 'I'll call you later in the week'.  When I went to the loo, I wondered if he'd still be there when I got back.  Happily, he was...

.... unlike the chap my friend Francesca met in the Red Lion, Cromer, who left her sitting at a table.  She came to meet me for a drink afterwards and said she suddenly realised she'd been sitting there for about ten minutes... and that he'd taken his car keys...!  Or the one who arranged a date with my friend Jemima, and said after half an hour that he was afraid this meeting would only be a drink after all, not dinner as discussed, as he needed an early night.  At eight o'clock in the evening....  thank you, ladies, for these tales, I managed to work them into my novel Nobody's Fault! (Yes, that was a cheap book plug in an article that's about something entirely different.  I promise I won't do it again.)  Both women just thought it was funny.  At least it didn't waste their time.  Says to me that women are prepared to give the man they don't fancy a chance, whereas for the man it's all about the physical.  No, really??!!  Well, who would have thought it, eh?

A few months later I met the man to whom I am now married (not via Dating Direct!) and thus ended my foray into that side of online life.  Would I ever do it again?  Well, I sincerely hope I won't ever need to, but yes, I think I would.  I prefer to be in a couple than not be (yes, I can admit that!), and I reckon I'd follow Hermione's train of thought; it's so much easier than meeting people the 'normal' way, especially when you've been round the block so many times that the pavement shows the grooves of your tread.  I'd say it's a good idea as long as you have realistic expectations; you are unlikely to find romance with a capital R.  But you might find someone nice to do stuff with, if fun outings are a bit thin on the ground.

My internet dating help list:

• Be honest in your profile and post a recent photo of yourself; yes, flattering is good, but it should be what you really DO look like.
• Don't punch either wildly above or wildly below your own weight.
• The safety thing - meet in a public place, tell someone where you're going, etc etc.
• Don't expect to meet the love of your life.
• If you think someone seems as though they might be a bit dodgy, discuss your fears with a friend or two before getting involved.
• Don't give away any personal details like phone number, address or the link to your facebook page until you know him/her a bit better.
• For women ~ I know most men aren't keen on endless emailing first, but do get to know them this way as much as possible before meeting up.  My experience was that after only two or three, men would say, okay, let's meet; I suppose they just wanted to see if they were wasting their time on someone they weren't attracted to in real life!  But my extensive research (!) tells me that the meetings that turn into something more lasting are generally between two people who've taken the time to put in the groundwork, if you like.
• If you have a bad experience (like someone doing a disappearing act), see it as an anecdote with which to amuse your friends, like Francesca did (she's in a very happy relationship now, by the way!).  Remember, it's only ONE person in the whole world.

I think the reason many people are disappointed by their internet dating experiences is simply because it lacks that thrill, the glance across the room when you see someone you really fancy, that is-it-going-to-happen excitement, the mystery, the buzz of the chase.  It's a bit like going for a job interview.  I've actually contemplated handing out my romantic CV ("Reason for leaving: Felt I was in a rut and needed more of a challenge" "Reason this position terminated ~ Temporary contract only, terminated on return of permanent employee") ~ perhaps I'll save that for another post as this one is already getting too long!

I'd love to hear about any of your internet dating successes ~ or horror stories!

 

Would you BUY or PASS? (4)

Second World War for me this week - if you know all about this weekly feature already, skip to the line of red stars to start reading.

Rosie Amber's weekly Friday Five Challenge!

It's an interesting exercise for writers ~ it shows the little things that can put potential readers off that click-buy! 

Anyone with a blog can join in ~ here's what you do:

IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES…. 
1) Go to any online book supplier

2) Randomly choose a category
3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which instantly appeals
4) Read the book bio/description, and any other details
5) If there are reviews, check out a couple
6) Make an instant decision: would you BUY or PASS?

********

I actually chose this week's book from a tweet rather than Amazon, because the cover caught my eye - it's the same process, really, as I do click on books if a tweet appeals, so I hope that's okay, Rosie :)

I chose Beneath The Rock by Tommy Birk; I've got a bit of a fascination for all things Nazi and both World Wars.

Okay, here's my analysis:

Cover
Yes, it did its job - the swastika stopped me in my tracks, and I liked the font ~ it's a great cover.  Sinister, professionally done.  Leaves you in no doubt about the subject, too!

Blurb
In This Unique Novel, Tommy Birk evokes the anguish of combat veterans who leave their wars but whose wars don't leave them. He explores their helplessness to stop the strange osmotic process by which their pain passes on to their families. In this passionate and powerful story, Ernie and Gunny Balbach, who had fought on opposite sides during WW2, are now jointed by Ernie's son, Timmy – an equally damaged veteran of the still-in-progress Vietnam War – and live as outcasts at Piankashaw Rock, where they feel safe in the company of other misfits. Ernie and Gunny, sustained by the women who love them, and Timmy, in love with the beautiful but conflicted Maria, all prodded by a mystic priest with his own dark secrets, come to realize they and their families will escape the vicious circles of history and find redemption only when they take on and defeat the evil that haunts them.

Price
£3.07

Reviews
None on UK, but 9 on .com, mostly 5* ~ unfortunately, they're all from people who've never reviewed anything else, or only reviewed one other book several years before.....

Would I buy or pass?
PASS, I'm afraid.  I'm not disputing that it might be a well written and thought-provoking book, but I thought the blurb was too detailed, which led me to think that the book itself might have too much skip-reading potential.  It's at the upper end of the price scale for unknown author Kindle books, but if it had really interested me that wouldn't have mattered.   Yes - it was the description that put me off; phrases like 'strange osmotic process' are not very blurb-friendly, and I am guessing the book might be a tad long-winded; one of those that some will think utterly brilliant, but won't have a very wide appeal.

The last 3 weeks have been all passes - hope I find a 'buy' next week!