UTA: Contest is now over. Winner to be posted in the next few days. Remember, as per my blog’s rules (stated in my disclaimer page), you MUST check back to claim your prize.
We’ve got a guest blogger today…Ann Aguirre, author of the Corine Solomon books…
And I do believe she mentioned a contest….I haven’t read Hell Fire yet, but I read Blue Diablo and it was oh, so awesome. Urban fantasy, amazing. Loved it.
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I have a thing for complicated books. Larissa Ione writes them. So does Suzanne Brockmann. Ken Follett’s books are fabulously complex. What I mean by complicated is… they involve many points of view interwoven through the larger plot. And I just adore when authors can pull that off—intrigue me with multiple characters. Complicated books, done poorly, are a disaster because I wind up not caring about any of the characters. But when it’s done well, the intensity of my attachment—and my pleasure in the story—rachets up about a hundred notches. So it’s certainly a gamble.
Right now, I’m reading the Troubleshooter series by Suzanne Brockmann. Someone had recommended OUT OF CONTROL to me, so I bought it, and then I discovered it was book four in the series. I absolutely cannot start a series at book four. So I bought the first three. I’ve since devoured the first four books in two days. I’m up to book five now, which is about Mike Muldoon. I’m wondering how I’m going to feel about a passive, backward hero who is so handsome that he’s never needed to pursue a woman he wants. Interesting juxtaposition, for sure. On Twitter last night, I discovered that some people have mixed feelings about the WWII subplots that run through the series. I was astonished because those make the books for me. I am reading every bit as much for those stories as I am for the main couple. Sometimes, as with book two, I even care MORE about the WWII story than I do about the main characters.
I, myself, have less experience in writing complicated books, mainly because two of my series (Corine and Jax) are written in first person. That limits my ability to work in other points of view, although with Jax I’ve been trying to open up the world in other ways. That’s probably why I appreciate it so much when I see it done well. It never fails to arouse my admiration to see a writer weave multiple threads through the plot and then tie them all up before the end with such skill that I go, “Oh,” because I didn’t see it coming. It’s really a thing of beauty.
Who writes the complicated books that you love? Or do you prefer simplicity? What are you reading now? Winner will receive a copy of Hell Fire.
Ann Aguirre
http://www.annaguirre.com/blog/
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About Hell Fire…
I’m still a redhead. Before we left Texas, I touched up the roots, and then I had some tawny apricot highlights put in. I guessed that meant I intended to keep this color for a while. Symbolic—I’d made a commitment, at least to my hair.
As a handler, Corine Solomon can touch any object and know its history. It’s too bad she can’t seem to forget her own. With her ex-boyfriend Chance in tow—lending his particularly supernatural brand of luck—Corine journeys back home to Kilmer, Georgia, in order to discover the truth behind her mother’s death and the origins of her “gift.”
But while trying to uncover the secrets in her past, Corine and Chance find that something is rotten in the state of Georgia. Just a few miles away, no one seems to know Kilmer exists. And inside the town borders there are signs of a dark curse affecting the town and all its residents—and it can only be satisfied with death…