Angela Spencer
Paranormal Romance Author
Art by Wendi Strang-Frost
Angela Spencer has written science fiction, fantasy, nonfiction, and now paranormal romance. She lives in Seattle with five cats and her partner, Danny.
Angela was a semi-finalist in All Romance eBook's "Just One Bite" contest.
Review of The Ruins of Noe by Danika Dinsmore
This was originally written for Yahoo! Voices. You can read it either here or there.
Since reading Danika Dinsmore’s Brigitta of the White Forest a year ago, I’ve been looking forward to the sequel. When offered a chance to read and review an eARC for The Ruins of Noe, I jumped on the opportunity. The book did not disappoint. It continued the delightful tone, characters, and setting of the first book while standing apart with its own strengths and perspective.
As Brigitta continues her training to become an Elder for the village, she is drawn into a larger problem facing the White Forest. As the spirits of the dead do not pass on and children are born without destinies, Brigitta is shown a prophecy that foretold this and included her as the one who had to go out and solve it.
Tags: Danika Dinsmore, Faerie Tales from the White Forest, Fantasy, Hyrda House Books, Middle Reader, Young Adult
Review of Nearly Departed in Deadwood, by Ann Charles
(Originally published at Rise Reviews. You can read it here or there.)
In her debut novel, Nearly Departed in Deadwood, Ann Charles weaves a fun romp of humor, romance, mystery and the occult. The pages are brimming with eccentric small town characters that brought the setting to life. Though not quite as paranormal a romance/mystery as I had hoped it would be, I would gladly read more tales in herDeadwood Mystery series.
Violet Parker, the book’s protagonist, is a single mother and struggling real estate agent trying to land her first sale before getting fired. But eccentric customers, haunted houses and workplace harassment all threaten to defeat her at every turn. On top of all this, girls have been disappearing from the town of Deadwood. And the girls all bear a striking resemblance to Violet’s daughter. Afraid that her child could be next, Violet starts to play amateur sleuth to find the abductor.
I’d chosen to review this book for Rise Reviews because the author had billed it on a panel as being a blend of paranormal romance and mystery. And I could see it earning that label. But the paranormal elements seemed slow in coming and were carefully handled to seed doubt regarding whether something supernatural had actually occurred.
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Tags: Ann Charles, corvallis press, rise reviews
Review of Rigor Amortis, edited by Jaym Gates and Erika Holt
(Originally published at Rise Reviews. You can read it here or there.)
When I first mention to people Rigor Amortis, the anthology of flash zombie erotica edited by Jaym Gates and Erika Holt, it elicits laughter and looks of disbelief. Until they realize I’m serious. As I understand it, the concept was born as a joke but grew as people realized there was material to be mined. And rest assured that this anthology is not one done for laughs.
There are humorous pieces among the 30+ shorts: black humor, slapstick and grossfests can be found in these pages. But more often the tales are more serious, questioning what remains of love and sex once a body dies but the flesh continues to move?
The stories cover a broad range of undead options that could fall under the mantle of “zombie.” George Romero’s mindless flesh-eating risen dead are a common approach but not the only one. Thrown into the mix are animated corpses, bodies that have come back to fulfill a task and even technological creations. Some are more mindless than others. Above all else, the stories are often macabre in their tone. There are few stories that don’t touch upon the grotesque nature of death.
Tags: Absolute XPres, Erotica, Horror, rise reviews
Linkiness!
I’ve neglected providing actual updates here for a bit. Here’s a bit of an attempt to get back on track.
First, my “issue” of Wily Writers has gone live. You can read or listen to Christine Danse’s “Fear of Darkness” and Cassandra D’Angelo’s “Catch and Release” now!
I’ve slowed down in writing reviews for Rise Reviews, but I’m still plugging along at one a month. Be sure to check out reviews for:
- Roarke by Frances Pauli
- The Chalice of Life by Karen Anne Webb
- Brigitta of the White Forest by Danika Dinsmore
- Nearly Departed in Deadwood by Ann Charles
I also have a page on GoodReads now, where you can also follow my blog. I’ll be crossposting reviews there as well.
On the fiction front, I have sent a revised story back to an editor who’d requested a rewrite. I’m waiting with bated breath for her response.
Tags: pimping, rise reviews, Wily Writers
Review of Sins and Shadows by Lyn Benedict
(Originally published at Associated Content. You can read it here or there.)
Lyn Benedict’s Sins and Shadows is a tense romp full of unexpected twists and turns. She also approaches the subject matter in ways that I didn’t expect, which can be both good and bad depending on your point of view. Her protagonist, Sylvie Lightner, is not the sort of person who would be universally liked. There is also a lot of background to Sylvie that could warrant multiple prequel books,to the point where I felt at times like I was entering the story in the middle of the series instead of at the beginning. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, Benedict manages to write a gripping tale that manages to take seeming disparate elements and weave them into a magnificent reveal.
Sylvie Lightner, owner of Shadows Inquiries, deals with threats from the magical world. But when one of her employees is murdered in front of her, she decides to hang up her hat and close the shop. A man claiming to be the God of Justice pressgangs her into working for him to find his missing lover. She leaves her native city of Miami to visit Chicago to begin the search. Along the way, she runs afoul of Greek gods, Lilith, her ex-lover (who runs the government agency that handles the occult) and an occult catastrophe that threatens to destroy Chicago.
Tags: associated content, Lyn Benedict, Shadows Inquiries
Rise Reviews goes live!
Bart Leib emailed today to announce the launch of his new site, Rise Reviews, for which I am a contributor. He has a blog post linking to all 13 reviews that have gone live today. Or you can click straight through to my review of Rigor Amortis.
Tags: anthology, pimping, review, rise reviews
Emma Bull Delivers a Tightly Crafted Narrative with Deeply Layered Meaning in War for the Oaks
(Originally published at Associated Content. You can read it here or there.)
In War for the Oaks, Emma Bull takes a simple premise to draft a tale that unfolds the deeper you get into it. The protagonist, Eddi McCandry, is a singer and guitar player in a rock band that gets sucked into an ancient war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. By binding a mortal to the conflict, it makes both sides as mortal as a human. The stakes become much higher and the risks each side will take much steeper.
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Tags: Emma Bull
Review of Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
(Originally published at Associated Content. You can read it here or there.)
After loving the first Sookie Stackhouse novel, I had to delve deeper into Charlaine Harris’s marvelous vampire novels. The second installment in the series, Living Dead in Dallas, explores the secret world of the supernatural in greater detail. But while the writing is still engaging and the new revelations are compelling, the plot itself is not as tightly woven as the Dead Until Dark.
Tags: associated content, charlaine harris, review, sookie stackhouse
McKinley’s Vampires Are Scary and Alien, but Get Lost in Exposition
(Originally published at Associated Content as part of their Halloween flash fiction contest. You can read it here or there.)
When Neil Gaiman, author of many things that I love, proclaims a book to be, “Pretty much perfect,” it sets an expectation that is hard to live up to. And based off of reviews on Amazon, Neil Gaiman’s opinion is shared shared by many. Yet I find myself among the minority that had some frustrations with Sunshine, by Robin McKinley.
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Tags: associated content, robin mckinley
Lordy, lordy, where does the time go?
I’ve been focused most of November on NaNoWriMo and a convention I was attending, so the blog has been neglected. Toss into this the fact that I had a delightful medical emergency has not helped.Now I’m running a malware killer on my laptop, and so I’m taking some time to update here. (Note to self: back up your novel!)
I got a good chunk of writing done on the way up from Portland, but I’m still behind the curve for NaNo progress. My main hope had been to squeeze out the full novel in 30 days, some 60-80K instead of 50K. I’m feeling less optimistic about that. Hopefully I can get more cranked out tonight and have a good stretch tomorrow.
I am doing much better with my outline this year than last year. Many props go to Kij Johnson, whose novel workshoppers this last summer were kind enough to give me the 411 on her advice.
My other quasi news is that I may be writing reviews for another site besides AC. This new site, called Rise Reviews, will focus on books put out by companies that do not pay pro rates. Those publications get short shrift in other review sites, so this site hopes to provide more support for the smaller markets. I’ll post links when there are links to post.
Tags: associated content, fish tales, nanowrimo