The Rat's Derriere

Stuart W. Mirsky at the Amazon Discussion Board, Adventure Genre, POD Books Department, asked me a few questions about the operations at iUBR. After composing a somewhat detailed reply on that board, I thought I should post a variant here. The subjects of Stuart's questions should be obvious from these statements.

From its inception in July 2006 until about a year later, I don't think I refused to review a single book. (I cannot be sure my memory is correct on this issue.) As the second half of 2007 brought more and more attention to iUBR, this situation had to rapidly change, much as I had always known it would. At some point, any venture has to either grow or die, and I was soon swamped in the morass of too many books to read and review. I began keeping more accurate records of the whole procedure and made plans to slowly expand the operation. Once the announcement arrived of the impending merger with AuthorHouse, I planned to glow with the flow and expand iUBR at least to all the AH publications. The addition of many of the smaller POD firms to the submissions list was not much of a stretch once I had corralled a cadre of reviewers.

If you look at my own books and scan through the whole package of iUBR, you will see that I am not your typical genre fiction author, but the great majority of POD authors are in that group. The point of the reviews at iUBR is not to please individual genre obsessors with the rating of plotlines, but to separate the quality POD books from the junk. This idea is based more on presentation, grammar, editing, niche marketing, and, the bane of POD, proofreading, than it is storyline satisfaction for readers of particular genres. The Amazon review system is actually more foe than friend in this scenario, since most Amazon reviews are posted either by non-legitimate sources or for non-legitimate reasons; i.e., paid reviewers, authors' acquaintances, or particular genre obsessors raving about the doo-dahs they love. Few of these charlatans give a rat's derriere about editing, proofreading, or any other such boring, technical issues.

Unfortunately, most POD authors only want to be rich and famous, and they don't care how or why. That's where I come in, and yes, I have made a few authors mad at me. It's a dirty job, and somebody's got to do it, or else POD will never shake the stigma of publishing bad books by not-real authors. There are mainly two reasons why I have always in the past reviewed only iU books. The first is to write what you know and the second is that the submission pool has to be limited somehow. The number of submissions refused at iUBR has been gradually increasing, and I expect that trend to continue. When a request has been received, I have a pattern of criteria I look for in my research of the author and his or her book. I take into account the following issues, as well as many more: the age and experience of the author, many variables within the scope of the present reviews at Amazon, B&N, and other sites, the genre of the book (unusual is better), and the sales rankings (good is a demerit and bad is a plus). By encouraging all prospective submitters to read some of the more critical posts at iUBR, I feel that many of the get-famous-quick monkeys are discouraged from submitting to iUBR in the first place.

Once an author has passed the submissions screening, they are given the most personal service on the web. All authors receive an e-mail message from me at the conclusion of the review process, stating that they may use any part of the reviews in any manner they wish, allowing even a scathing review to be excerpted to the author's best advantage, making any trip to the dunking tank at least survivable. Those few authors who snap back at me like smart-mouth teenagers are the ones who ultimately prove to be butts. The ones who have professional attitudes and act like adults can at least expect to be treated with respect at iUBR in a manner they will never receive anywhere else. I don't claim to be perfect, and yes, I do tend to be harder on those who have achieved more success in the rich-and-famous manner than those who have not. I consider myself to be like a grumpy old college professor who is harder on his smart students than on his average ones. As a book critic, I want all my authors to do their very best work and be appreciated for it.

The Latest News

Big changes are on the way at iUBR! As I am sure you are aware, iUniverse officially merges with AuthorHouse on April Fool's Day of 2008. On that date, iUBR will be opening its submissions to most POD imprints, including of course, AuthorHouse. Obviously this will mean much stiffer competition for books to be accepted for review; therefore, iU authors are being offered one last call for submissions prior to the opening of the floodgates of what Dr. Al Past has so eloquently named the dunking tank. Whether you call it an impromptu bath or a thorough strip-search, we at iUBR read and review POD books as if they were simply books. The object of our game is to read and review those POD books that can hold their own while sitting next to books published by big names the old fashioned way. The only powder puff pieces found near this joint purr and meow. You won't get a glowing review from us because we know you, or we traded reviews with you, or we are offering marketing blurbs for free, or even because you paid us! The only way to receive a glowing review at iUBR is to earn it. Our reputation is at stake.

We now have six reviewers at iUBR, and all six are especially well qualified for the job. The worst level of education we have is my own. I have a BA in Psychology, but all the others have Masters and Doctorates in Education, Journalism, and other language arts. All of us have published POD books and at least something traditionally. The satellite reviewers and their professional biographies will continue to be featured in posts here at iUBR. Each of us is somewhat distinguished from the others in certain ways. We always try to post a review at iUBR, Amazon, and B&N, but other sites are often included as well. No, there may not be a lot of readers who will see your review at iUBR, but the numbers are most certainly higher at the other sites where iUBR reviewers post your reviews. iUBR will continue to be mostly a site for POD authors and future authors to learn about marketing techniques and avenues open to them, and to read true, legitimate critiques of their own works, as well as those by other novice writers. We shall continue to expand our reach into other websites open to reviews and networking options for POD authors. The more widespread our reach, the stronger our reputation grows. We want to be the premiere website for reviews of quality POD books and the most trusted source of information on marketing for POD books. We don't blow smoke up your tushy at iUBR.

High Spirits

High Spirits:  
A Tale of Ghostly Rapping and Romance by Dianne K. Salerni
(iUniverse / 0-595-42350-7 / May 2007 / 366 pages / $20.95)

Sometimes I wonder why I have spent so much time developing this stupid blog that so few people actually read! Then along comes a book like Dianne Salerni's High Spirits and I remember why: no matter what the fatheaded, disparaging naysayers say about iUniverse books, there are some iU books out there that cannot be discerned from traditionally published books. There are dedicated POD authors who have produced quality, professional products, and Ms. Salerni is certainly one of them. Although not her first book, this is her first novel. Dianne has previously published three short, academic books pertinent to the elementary school teaching profession, and both her previously, traditionally published books and her current profession have obviously influenced the professionalism of High Spirits.

The story is based on the real lives of the three young ladies known in Nineteenth Century spiritualism circles as The Fox Sisters. Maggie, Kate, and Leah Fox found themselves embroiled in controversy after they began running a small business affair in the years prior to The Civil War. The problem was that their little business of holding spirit circles for profit had become a publicly acclaimed entertainment act, and the whole idea had been borne from the two younger, teenaged sisters doing nothing more than trying to frighten a superstitious cousin by holding what later became known as a seance. This historical fiction novel traces the girls' adventure from its dubious inception until its entanglement in the love life of Maggie, the middle sister, with a celebrity Arctic explorer threatens to bring the house down.

Dianne Salerni's writing style is very fluid and polished. The minimal typos do little to diminish the power of the author's compositional and editing qualities. This is a book most readers will enjoy from the first page to the last. Who says an iUniverse author is not a real author? Get real.
See Also: Floyd M. Orr's B&N Review
Dianne K. Salerni's website
The Fox Sisters at Wikipedia

The Protected Will Never Know

The Protected Will Never Know
by Don Meyer
(iUniverse / 0-595-30406-0 / November 2003 / 174 pages / $15.95)

Reviewed by Dr. Al Past for PODBRAM
 

At first I thought the title of this book was strange, but the more pages I read the more I realized it was perfect. The author was a “grunt” during the late unpleasantness in Vietnam. No disrespect is intended by that term: the kids who did the fighting (and they were kids) had few illusions about what they were doing and precious little knowledge of why. Yet they did what they were told to do for the most part, risked their lives, all too often lost their lives or were wounded, and received little or no thanks for it from a “grateful” nation, irony intended, to this day. The protected indeed did not know much about their valor, still do not know, and, we now know, were probably not even protected, nor needed protecting. It's time for that nation to look back on the event and ponder it, high time.

The author, prompted by a post-service GI Bill English class, compiled the material from a journal he had kept at the time and letters to folks back home and created a narrative of his experiences in Vietnam. Uncertain what to do with it, he set it aside for more than 20 years. He credits his daughter for motivating him to do something with it. He published it, and we should all be thankful.

The book is a fresh and riveting account of what it was like to actually be on the front lines of that sad episode in our history, told by one who was there and in the style of one who was there at the time. This is not polished prose but it is highly readable prose. I actually hated to put it down when I had to. There is no plot. Instead, the events flow in the random, chaotic order of someone caught up in a perplexing war: periods of seemingly endless boredom interrupted abruptly by terror, mortal danger, agony and slaughter, to be followed in turn by more tedium and all that over again. That grunt, or front line soldier, had little knowledge of the historical context, the strategic situation, or the winds of politics and diplomacy. His world was right around him. His job was to do what he was told and survive, if he possibly could. That's the picture this book conveys.

We follow him from his arrival in the country, a green, just-out-of-bootcamp “cherry,” the rawest of raw recruits, to a battle-hardened bemedaled veteran soldier in less than a year. His progress is conveyed in wonderful detail, with the earthy, profane, frank cynicism characteristic of those who must inure themselves to the incomprehensible and unspeakable or go insane. We follow him on patrols with his platoon. We learn their tactics and procedures, we learn their weapons, we see their courage and that of the helicopter pilots who brought them supplies and provided fire support and evacuation when necessary. We share their endless problems, their clever adaptations, and their forms of relaxation and restoration. Nothing seems omitted. I found myself chuckling in sympathy as the all-too-common observation popped up time after time: “Will the real enemy please stand up?”

In many ways the book reminds me of other unforgettable memoirs of young men on their own for the first time, of people caught up in events over which they have no control. For that reason alone it is worth buying. But stir in the fact that the action happens in our own time and it resonates today and you not only have a fine, entertaining reading experience in your hands: you have something that could change the way you think about current events.

See Also: Don Meyer's Website
Other Books by Don Meyer - And More
Dr. Past's B&N Review - Note the special low price!
Review of Don Meyer's Winter Ghost
Review of Don Meyer's McKenzie Affair

Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird

Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird by Suellen Zima
(iUniverse / 0-595-39460-4 / June 2006 / 436 pages / $27.95)

Reviewed by Celia Hayes for iUBR

In 1983 a middle-aged divorced social worker emigrated to Israel, and began a twenty-year eccentric odyssey of travel and work; first in Israel, and then into the Far East – China mostly, with frequent ventures into Bali, South Korea, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia. She taught English, mostly – and traveled widely to all sorts of obscure corners, usually on the economy and accompanied by an assortment of friends. Throughout all this, she kept a diary and wrote letters to her family, telling them of the people and the cultures she met, and of her mostly affectionate but occasionally complicated reactions to them. She made close and dear friends among her co-workers and her students in Israel and China; so close and so dear that she regards and writes of many of them as her children, and their children as her grandchildren… and yet, as she admitted and described herself as a hummingbird; “we plant our feet firmly in mid-air, hover, drink deeply and then flit away…if someone tries to hold us, we will die. But we can fly backwards as well as forwards at will.” And so, during two tumultuous decades, she hovered in mid-air, sucking up the nectar of a particular place; never staying long enough to be firmly, finally and exclusively committed to any of them, but loving them all and being tormented by various catastrophic events which changed them and affected her friends.

This book is described as a memoir, but it is not quite that: it is her diary, letters to family, and as such, it would have value to anyone writing a social history of any of the places where Ms. Zima lit down for a brief interlude. She has a discerning eye and a gift for describing the passing scene: funky small apartments, the beauty (or lack of same) in places as far apart as Iceland and Bali, the taste in the air, oddities in methods of transportation, and interesting people such as the toothless woman working her away around the far corners of the world as a ship’s engineer. There are also heartbreaking accounts of the Israeli boarding-school director who ‘disappeared’ her pet dog, of accompanying a Chinese friend to an abortion clinic, and of the experience of walking into an American mall or grocery store after a long time living in a foreign country with rather more limited options available to the shopper and being totally freaked by the sheer lavish variety of goods and choices available. There is a wealth of observations and experiences in this book, as well as some curious omissions, notably an entry mentioning her sons’ presumably terminal illness, about which there is never another word. Since much of it is a personal diary, these entries are a day-to-day notation of experiences, of names and places with no need for explanation or background, but some of those cry out for expansion, or at least a fuller explanation. A number of long essays sprinkled in among the comparatively terse diary entries hint at the memoir that this book could have been, with a little editing of some parts and a disciplined expansion of others; something along the lines of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. Very little in this account explains why the author embarked upon this odyssey, the qualifications and other qualities she possessed which enabled her to travel so far a-field. As a memoir it is disconcertingly opaque in some aspects, while being perfectly transparent concerning others, especially the ways in which China has changed and developed over the last thirty years, and in one American woman’s reaction to those changes.
See Also: Suellen Zima's Website
Celia's Review at Blogger News Network

The Turquoise Dagger

The Turquoise Dagger
by Donald J. Carpenter
(iUniverse / 0-595-43735-1 / July 2007 / 181 pages/ $13.95)

Reviewed by Dr. Al Past for iUBR

I have always been a fan of books set in the American southwest. I grew up there, I live there, and the open skies and colorful history gracefully accommodate all types of stories. One of my favorite choices of diversion are the mysteries, police procedurals, and thrillers set in this area. For that reason alone I looked forward to reading The Turquoise Dagger, by Donald J. Carpenter.

It's a clever story, the basic village mystery transmogrified for our area's particular blend of cultures, architecture, and scenery. Derek and Camellia Collins own the mystery bookstore (of the title) in a small Arizona town, not a major city. This enables the protagonists to know personally many of their fellow citizens, law enforcement personnel, newspaper people, and so forth, and allows them to occasionally take part in their investigations and research. The "private eye against the world" that is a staple of big-city mysteries is not a factor here, and that lets the story to develop as it must. 

The story is a good one: a big-time television show that focuses on mysteries comes to town to investigate a cold case, a decade-old double homicide. A large reward is offered to help crack the case (and generate viewership) and the bookstore owner and his graphic designer wife find themselves drawn in as a publicity stunt. As those familiar with the genre would expect, fresh homicides begin piling up, everyone suspects everyone else, and only Derek, the redoubtable mystery bookstore owner, is able to sort out the confusing clues to head the case toward the solution. The story builds to a satisfying climax and concludes with the obligatory unraveling. References to existing authors and mysteries will gratify fans of the genre, though the story is not as densely textured as, for example, John Dunning's Bookman tales, which also are built around bookstores and books. Still, as an example of its type, The Turquoise Dagger is a nicely plotted tale.

It is also, unfortunately, an example of the results of relying on a spell-checker for one's editing. That's a guess, but many inappropriate homophones sneak into the text, and punctuation and stylistic stumbles abound, sometimes in bunches, on every page. Those derailed this reader time after time, making the pleasure of immersing oneself in a fine, puzzling yarn difficult at best. Other readers might sail over these, and if so, they should thoroughly enjoy The Turquoise Dagger.

See Also: Dr. Past's B&N Review

Open for Submissions

iUBR (PODBRAM) is now Open for Submissions!
Recent events and changes at iUniverse Book Reviews have allowed us to reopen submissions, effective immediately. At least for now, we still only accept paper copies of iUniverse books. Note: All self-published POD imprints (except Lulu) are accepted as of 4/1/08. Most genres will be considered; however, we do have one particular restriction for the moment. Floyd (Tabitha) cannot accept any books personally for the standard, four-part, strip-search review mode probably until sometime in April. Dr. Al Past and Ms. Celia Hayes currently have a small number of openings available. We hope to be adding more reviewers soon, but for now, the queue is limited, so get your requests in early.

Dr. Past and Ms. Hayes have considerable qualifications, so I would not let that stop you from applying for a review. In fact, you may even get a better deal from one of them than you would with me. After all, I am the official curmudgeon and the Chief of the Proofreading Police! Any reviews composed by either of our new reviewers is quite likely to be posted at other websites, especially at Amazon, B&N, and others. They may not write four separate reviews of your book, but they aren't as likely to put you through the wringer over your error count, either. Give them a chance. You'll be glad you did!

As always, review requests can be made as a comment on any post or send a message to ice9 at e-tabitha dot com. All requests will be examined, probed, and researched before acceptance, but this is usually handled quite promptly.

The Year of the Monkey

The Year of the Monkey

by William W. Lewis
(iUniverse.com / 0-595-47584-1 / January, 2008 / 286 pages / $17.95)

Reviewed by Dr. Al Past for iUBR

Full disclosure: I am a Viet Nam-era veteran (Navy), but beyond seeing Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter, I have been content to put the whole unpleasantness of that time out of my mind. Evidently, the great majority of my fellow Americans feel the same way. That's more than a shame: in view of current events, it's a tragedy. Now more than ever we need to be reminded of how important it is we know where we've been as a nation, where we've gone wrong, and, if we can only gain a few glimmerings of wisdom, where not to go in the future. Some think democracy is the great wave of the future. There's probably a better argument to be made that stupidity is the wave of the future.

That's why The Year of the Monkey, by William W. Lewis, is most timely. For me, it brings back memories long forgotten, and in sharp detail. It rings true. The story is set at the time of the Tet Offensive, when Communist forces mounted a surprise counterattack against Hue, a supposedly safe city in South Vietnam. The attack failed in the short run, but the political ramifications it caused are viewed by many historians as the beginning of the end of our ill-advised and bungled adventure in Indochina. To tell his story Lewis interweaves the lives of four characters: a Marine Sergeant, a CIA operative, a journalist, and a seemingly humble Vietnamese barber, who is really a double agent and a devoted patriot. These threads are brought together with great skill and grace in cleanly written, convincingly detailed prose. The resulting tale is one in which the reader cares for the characters, imperfect though they all are. At the end one can only shake one's head at the waste, the stupidity, and the cruelty that make savages of us all, including the ignorant and uncaring back home.

That sounds terribly somber, but the book is not, really. The editing is nearly immaculate. It's a page-turner in the good sense: fun to read despite its serious subject matter. For those with super-delicate sensibilities, I should mention that the language of most of the characters is rough indeed. It is also accurate: I know! See the first sentence, above.

The Year of the Monkey is a terrific example of an independently published book that is outside the norm, not below it! If Mr. Lewis has any more books in him, I want to hear about them.
See Also: Dr. Past's B&N Review
William W. Lewis' Website

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I want to welcome Celia Hayes to our team of honest, legitimate reviewers at PODBRAM. Some of you may recognize Celia's work from other review sites, where she is best known as Sgt. Mom. After earning a BA in English, Celia began a twenty-year career in the USAF. She has written two books, both published by Booklocker, which of course, does give her genuine POD experience. Not only do we welcome Celia to our little team, but we encourage her to cross-post any of her iUBR reviews at any of her other review sites. You can read more details about Ms. Hayes and her ample qualifications as a reviewer at her website. You will see that she is one talented and accomplished lady!

Yesterday PODdy Mouth posted a link to one hell of an article about the accountability of POD companies and, I might add, a detailed account of this accountability, as accounted wholly within the minds of many POD authors. Considering what I have learned about iUniverse, both the company and their authors, I think this story is probably quite true.

I am very pleased to announce that a brave soul has taken on the daunting task of founding a site similar to iUBR for (drum roll, please) Lulu authors and their books! This has been a long time coming and I want to wish Shannon Yarbrough the very best of luck with his new Lulu Book Review at WordPress. You can click the link in the left column of this page at any time to visit Shannon's site. If you are a Lulu author seeking a review, go to the Pick Me page on the site or click the link in The POD Ring Chart at iUBR to go directly to Shannon's review request page after reading the submission guidelines listed in the chart.

Some of you may have noticed that I have dared to put my ugly face and name more prominently on this blog and elsewhere. I am slowly phasing out the Tabitha name. My Nonfiction in a Fictional Style website will remain under the name e-tabitha.com for at least a while longer. I suppose that's what I get for purchasing the name for ten years! I originally wanted to buy a name I could share with my wife for a long time, so we chose the name of one of our cats. Little did I realize in my early days of computer naivete that the name would constantly bring up little witch actresses and porn stars through search engines forever! I have started another blog under my own name to which I can post all the miscellaneous articles and commentary not applicable to iUBR in the future. No, all this fascination with the sound of my own name has not exploded the size of my head. I am just evolving into a more traditional web presence with it all.

Changes will be coming to iUBR over the coming months, one way or the other. I have not said much about the AuthorHouse buyout. For now, I am taking a wait and see attitude. As you might imagine, the composition of four separate reviews for each book accepted has been slowly eroding my creative timeclock, not to mention the quantity of ordinary time involved. I certainly cannot expect my satellite reviewers to participate in this sort of operation, either. We shall just have to take this issue as it comes. I expect to totally remove any ties from Authors Den by the end of the year. This is not to imply any negative connotation toward AD at all. It's just that once I saw that my name in Google would pull up seven solid pages of me, I decided it was time to cut the cord. As I have stated in the past, a deft use of AD is the best way I have found to get your name out there as an author. I have been spreading myself far too thinly lately, and I have been virtually ignoring my own e-Tabitha website for the past couple of years. It's basically time for me to get my act together. I am still looking to expand the cadre of reviewers here at iUBR. Nothing would make me happier than to be so busy handling the technical, promotional, and organizational sides of iUBR that I had no time left to actually read and review books. So many quality iU books deserve my attention, but I have limited time to give. I would love to leave that to a cadre of honest, legitimate, satellite reviewers!

Exciting new developments are coming soon to iUBR! Dr. Al Past's glowing (but deservedly so) review of William W. Lewis' The Year of the Monkey, a book about Vietnam, will be the next post. I am working up an interview for Nathan Bransford, the noted San Francisco agent. This will be my first interview not with an author whose book has already been featured at iUBR. Believe me, you guys will love this interview! There are a couple of other subjects I would like to interview, but I am keeping mum as to their identities for now. I am currently reading Dianne K. Salerni's High Spirits and Dr. Past is reading The Turquoise Dagger, by Donald J. Carpenter. Three additional books previously accepted for review on The Waiting List supposedly are on the way to the three of us. Ya'll have already mailed your books haven't you?

Did I leave out something? Oh yeah, the thing ya'll probably want to know most of all: when will submissions be reopened at iUBR? I'm afraid I cannot answer that question yet, at least not precisely. Believe me when I say I would love to open the floodgates right now, but I don't want to get swamped overboard the way I was late last year. If you want to see the submissions open soon, and stay open, volunteer to become a satellite reviewer, or encourage one of your fellow authors to do so. I can guarantee you that you will learn a lot about POD books very quickly. If every POD author was required to review at least a few books before releasing their own, the whole industry would wise up in a hurry! If not a single one of you is willing to spend a little time straining your brain, then I shall say that submissions should be reopened sometime this spring, but no later than 4/30/08. Please volunteer! Let's get these floodgates ready before you Yankees thaw out this winter. All the current iUBR reviewers are probably wearing shorts now, but that's only because we are all smart enough to live in Central and South Texas. Come on! Let's make iUBR an interstate operation!

See Also: Celia's POD Experience

Second Chance

Second Chance by Joy Collins
(iUniverse.com / 0-595-45602-4 / September 2007 / 252 pages / $16.95)

Joy Collins used imaging software to create the cover of her first novel, and the meticulous attention to detail continues to the end of Second Chance. Although iUniverse labels the book as being in the romance genre, I am not sure I agree with that. The storyline is more akin to the script of one of those rare television movies made for the women's channel that are not predictable from beginning to end. Second Chance is most assuredly a book for women, although I would classify it more as a family psychodrama than a romance. There are a few tearjerker elements present, too, but these are not so overbearing that no man would enjoy the book. I certainly appreciated its tight editing, show-don't-tell writing style, and realistic plotline. All the characters and subplots are well constructed, too.

The premise of the story is that several lead characters are in the midst of turmoil over the inter-family relationships of divorced and remarried couples. Sara Weber tells the story from her viewpoint as her husband's ex-wife has wreaked emotional havoc over Sara's relationship with her husband since they married a decade earlier. The ex-wife's spiteful jealousy had long ago sent Sara and Paul packing for Arizona, leaving their previous and current families back in the Northeast, hopefully some distance in the past. The plotline grows as Sara's mom is nearing the point of no return and must be placed in a nursing care facility by Sara's sister, Angela, who has her own personal problems to present to the reader. Paul's vengeful ex-wife wants their teenaged daughter to move to Arizona and attend college there while living with Paul and Sara. The whole soap opera moves at a sharp clip, with the emotional twists and turns aptly displayed through poignant dialogue.

Joy Collins is the sort of author we seek out here at iUBR. Although Second Chance is her first novel, the maturity of plot development and compositional style is exemplary, and you'll need your special Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass to spot the few, minimal typos and technical glitches. As a nurse born a Yankee and now living in Arizona, Ms. Collins has written what and where she knows, and the appropriate details add color and legitimacy to the story. For example, she incorporates the notion of quickly emerging flash floods indigenous to the desert cities into her plot, and yes, I know it's true because I have been there and seen it for myself. It never occurs to outsiders to consider the dangerous situation that can result, and Joy includes this into her storyline. Good show, Ms. Collins! Keep up the good work!

See Also: Tabitha's B&N Review
Tabitha's Authors Den Review
The Author's Website

The Big Picture

I am not sure that I have been communicating to my readers as accurately as I would like what iUBR is all about. I have always been a big picture kind of guy. I see books as things we all read, and POD books as those things we may wish to read that maybe only a small number of other people wish to read, too. I would always hope that this small cadre of readers for a particular POD book is the only reason the major publishers are not interested in it. I am not one to seek out my entertainment within narrowly defined genres. If you ask me what kind of music I like, I might answer that the more difficult it is to classify, the better I like it. I am always looking for the new niche. I don't want to discover how much a book so closely fits within a popular genre. I'm looking for square pegs that are good because the author has created a quality package, and not because the book slips silently into a well-worn groove.

This is not a genre review site. I don't even select books for review based on genre or my personal taste in subject matter. I want everyone to know right now that I have never agreed with the concept of a reviewer of any sort of work reviewing a piece and panning it simply because he does not care for that particular genre of book, album, or movie, etc. I find that sort of review entirely despicable. Even if a highly paid, name-recognized critic has been ordered by his editor to review something he doesn't like, if he cannot duck the assignment, it is his responsibility to give it his best shot and describe the work in a manner that will be useful to his readers who do enjoy that genre. The books selected for review at iUBR are chosen because, from the result of my research of the book and the author in question, it appears that the book may deserve my attention and the attention of readers. My personal choices of non-POD reading material have very little influence on my choices of books to read and review at iUBR. I know this may seem a little wacko, but remember, I am fascinated by the big picture. In this case, the big picture is the world of POD and its new role in the larger world of publishing.

We all know that Print On Demand is an all-new animal in the jungle. This technology has allowed many thousands of writers who want the center-stage limelight shone on them to step into the light at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately, we have all met at least a few vampires who should never have been brought out into the light! There are many slap-fighters out there who love to scream at the top of their lungs that all the POD authors are vampires! According to them, if the writers cannot stand the sun, they should just go back where they came from and let only real writers stand in the spotlight. I love to speak in analogies, and here is one for you. I read certain housing bubble blogs daily, and they have a refrain they have run in the ground since the issue came to light. Most of the people who post and comment on these blogs want housing prices to crash and teach all the people who are crashing with these prices a lesson they won't forget! Do you see a similarity there to the POD slap-fighters? Neither group is actually wrong. Many of their positions on the issues are correct. The problem is simply that they are so busy insisting their correctness that they never see the many shades of grey inherent in both issues. Some foreclosures are sad stories of collateral damage, although the bulk of the problem was begun by selfish, greedy, arrogant investors. Many quality POD books have been created for a market ignored by the mega-publishers, although the technology has clearly opened the gate to the barnyard.

There are many ways in which a POD book and a traditionally published book are not synonymous. One of the most significant issues is editing and another one is proofreading. POD authors have to create or approve a cover design and write a cover blurb. Even if they do not do all this personally, they must participate considerably in the process. There are no teams of editors, proofreaders, cover designers, or marketers available to do these tasks for the authors. There is no one to say, I don't think I would do that, if I were you. There is only the author and his computer. Of course some writers have friends available for help or advice, and some writers pay certain professionals for their manuscript or cover design expertise, but the final product is mostly the result of the writer's brain and his symbiotic relationship with his computer.

I had once hoped that I would discover more active participation in this honorable, but time consuming, project called iUBR. I can personally read and review so few of the massive number of iUniverse books continually being published. I had hoped for a more organized effort from other POD review bloggers and other websites with intentions similar to mine. There are so many deserving POD authors out there who will never have a chance to connect with their readers. Hold onto your knees because here comes the part that is so difficult for many of you to swallow. Those books that do not meet iUBR standards drag us all down into the muck. We must face this fact. We cannot hide from it and hope it goes away. Believe me, it won't. I have been reading the posts of the past twenty-four hours at the IAG Yahoo Group, and yes, the subject being discussed has spurred me onward with this article. This matter is at the very heart of my first post introducing IAG to the world. There is no easy answer. I said that then and I am still saying it. I support IAG, as well as all the other websites and blogs trying to do the right thing for the good guys among the multitude of POD authors. I realize we are a herd of rabid egos on acid. I realize we are the cats when you hear how difficult it is to herd cats. The problem is that the dogs will always win if we do not organize ourselves better and defend our hard-won territory. We shall never succeed in that endeavor while participating in a never ending succession of catfights.

My assessment is that there is absolutely no correlation in the world of POD books between quality of composition and book sales. There is no correlation between awards and quality or awards and sales. There is no correlation between cover design or cover blurbs and sales. There is no correlation between editing or proofreading quality and sales. There is very little correlation between promotional effort in the form of time or money and sales. There is very little correlation between five-star reviews at Amazon and editing, proofreading, or sales.

There is a moderate correlation between book quality and the age and maturity of authors. There is a moderate correlation between the percentage of quality versus non-quality books according to the publisher; i.e., Lulu prints more trash than iU. There is a moderate correlation between the professional attitude of the authors and the age of the authors. There is a moderate correlation between the success of the authors and the authors' bad attitudes, particularly if the perceived success of the author is due to the wrong reasons; i.e., when the author's success is greater than deserved, either because of the book's length or quality or the ease with which the author has exploited a niche. There is a moderate correlation between the success of a book and its online searchability.

There is a high correlation between a book's subject matter and the quantity of obsessors for that subject matter. There is a high correlation between a book's sales and its obsessors when the title or subtitle is highly searchable. There is a high correlation between the name of any famous person, either alive or dead, and the success of a POD book about that person. Finally, there is a high correlation with the success of any POD book that has been effectively tied into a connection with some other entity. I have seen successful POD books connected with video games, movies, places, comedy acts, musical acts, journalistic columns, and probably a few things I cannot recall right now.

Here is an example of just one little clarification of the IAG dilemma. Someone at IAG has suggested reading only the first chapter or selectively reading individual pages scattered throughout the text to get a synopsis of the quality of a POD book. The problem with this is that many POD books get increasingly worse in their error count as the story progresses. I assume this is because the author is getting increasingly bored and impatient with what is surely the most tedious element of publishing. Awards and reviews have also been mentioned within the context of vetting a POD book, but this field has already been heavily compromised by many unscrupulous paid review sites and paid award scams. As you know, I can tell you a thing or two about the legitimacy of these things, too! We need to rise above these issues. We must take the high road if we truly wish to succeed in the big picture, but there are members of IAG who clearly wish to support these scams. The end does not justify the means when the barnyard starts mooing and braying, making each of us look like just another chicken looking for a worm. Welcome to the catfight.

Chewy Moon

Chewy Moon by Paige Shelton
(iUniverse.com / 0-595-44431-8 / August 2007 / 90 pages / $9.95)

Reviewed by Dr. Al Past for PODBRAM
 

Josie Abernathy is eleven and lives with her grandmother in a small house in Averine, Georgia. Josie is a tomboy, a devoted baseball player, and afraid to leave the house unless her grandmother goes with her, perhaps because she has lost her parents in an accident years earlier. One night after her grandmother has gone to sleep, she is beckoned outside by a strange, but appealing, girl her own age, oddly named Sanana. The girl is friendly, has some highly unusual powers, and gradually convinces Josie to accompany her on a series of increasingly challenging missions. As the night wears on, Josie confronts her fears, makes new friends, and comes to learn some important lessons about the adult world and her own character.

This slight novel, the author's first, reads smoothly and cleanly. My only quibble is with the cover, which, while quite appropriate to the story, is too subtle to grab the eye of the casual browser.

The back cover bears the words "Juvenile Fiction," (Ages 9-12, according to Amazon) and I agree. I would think the book would most appeal to young people perhaps ten to fifteen. That said, it was an intriguing enough a story as to keep this reader, many times that age, interested all the way to the end.

See Also: Paige Shelton's Website
Dr. Al Past's B&N Review

Bound

Bound by Amy Lane

The Third Book in the Little Goddess Series

(iUniverse.com / 0-595-42423-6 / February 2007 / 494 pages / $25.95)

Amy Lane has attained a level of success with her Little Goddess Series that few POD authors reach. She states on her website that 1100 copies of Vulnerable, her first book, have been sold. Bound is probably the best of the bunch. As with the first two Little Goddess books, the reader is required to ignore literally hundreds of typos and punctuation errors throughout the book. These have obviously not stopped Amy's horde of obsessive readers from buying her books, but a demerit is certainly in order for any author who so blatantly refuses to correctly proofread her books prior to publication. This particular issue certainly lessens the image of all POD books in the eyes of the reading public, bringing harm to all those who diligently do their editing and proofreading duties. Speaking in her favor, Amy has assured me that a professional proofreader has worked over her latest book (see link below). That said, on with the show.

Cory Kirkpatrick continues her adventures as the Queen of the Vampires who sleeps with her three boyfriends simultaneously, cusses like a sailor, and prays to The Goddess. She is just a mortal girl of twenty who was a goth-chick-loser in high school. She was just another one of those misfits lost in the ozone until the night she discovered the fact that most of the night people she met at the all-night convenience store where she worked were actually vampires, elves, and something Amy has named werekitties. Cory's life entered this brave new world in the first chapter of the first Little Goddess book, and the adventure began. Most of the magic of Bound derives from the interaction of such a lovable, wild bunch of characters. As a critic, I have always said that if an author can make me care about flawed or otherwise unappealing characters, I am usually impressed with the work. In this case, The Little Goddess series falls neatly between two of my favorite sets of characters of all time: the heterosexual, but not monogamous, young adults created by Robert Rimmer in his social science novels of The Sixties that began with The Harrad Experiment, and the more contemporary Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice.

Like the works of Rice and Rimmer, Amy Lane's books create a lovely fantasy world that is both real and unreal. The characters and storylines are made believable by the careful crafting done by the authors. In other words, the authors are really good at what they do. The supernatural, fantasy characters interact somewhat realistically with modern, human culture. Yes, Cory is married to three men, but the storyline develops in a manner in which that situation seems rational. The fictional area Ms. Lane created, which she calls Green's Hill, is unknown to the local residents, yet the setting is as real as the Sacramento and Bay Areas she describes. In Cory and Amy's world, the characters made from myth and fantasy interact with humans, yet the humans never know who or what they are dealing with from Green's Hill.

Bound and the other Little Goddess books are stuffed to the gunwales with allegory and allusion. Ms. Lane is obviously no more a fan of our country's current national, evangelical madness than I am. The reader can easily see the parallels between gay bashing, reproductive issues, and other battles with those of an authoritarian bent in Ms. Lane's entertaining plots. The creatures on Green's Hill live in a manner not unlike that of the communal hippies of The Sixties, and they have to defend their rights and abilities to do so, or face dire consequences for any lack of vigilance.

If I wanted to be brash in my analysis of Bound (and Vulnerable and Wounded) I would call The Little Goddess Series an unpopular high school girl's fantasy. There have been several other successful books and movies mining similar territory, but this series has been fully baked in its completeness of the theme. In one of my earlier reviews, I referred to Amy as a Punk Anne Rice, or something to that effect. Amy lane is a helluva writer. I'm sticking with that story.

See Also: Interview with Amy Lane
Bitter Moon I (Amy's fourth & newest book)

Texas Monthly

This informative article about the current state of reading and publishing has just appeared at Texas Monthly online. Here is the link to the comment to the article. (You could easily miss it on the page.)

John Grisham

I watched the very informative interview with John Grisham on Charlie Rose last night and I want to make a few comments. You may not know that he graduated from Mississippi State University six years after I did. Although I had already moved to Texas by the time Mr. Grisham was making a name for himself at my old alma mater, I have followed his career at a distance. He went on to earn a law degree at Ole Miss, where he still spends much of his time, and then he practiced law for a while in Southaven, MS, where he had gone to high school. Back in the Sixties, I knew Southaven as the Mississippi town where Elvis kept his horses just south of Whitehaven. Southaven was a small town back then. Now it's just South Memphis, MS.

The point of this story, though, does not concern Memphis, horses, or Elvis. It's about writing and publishing quality books, and Mr. Grisham had plenty to say about the subject. He said there are two parts of the business that he does not particularly enjoy; however, he did emphasize that at least one of them is quite brief in duration. He does not enjoy creating the complete outline of a story. Just as Danielle Steele said to Larry King a while back, it usually takes about a year to work up a complete outline. The actual composition of the book usually takes less time than the outline. The second thing he said he does not enjoy is the editing and proofreading stage, a chore that is thankfully brief. To paraphrase one of the most successful authors in American history, After you have read through the manuscript five times, you are quite tired of it, but then that part is over and you can go on to parts of the work you enjoy.

Five times, authors! Five times. Is that too much to ask of you before you put your carefully composed (but not carefully re-read, proofread, edited, proofread, and read again) book out there for the public to closely associate with your name, at least until Amazon goes out of business?

Charlie Rose asked John Grisham about his opinion of Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code. The two of them discussed how Brown has had to deal with hordes of angry Catholics and other issues, but I mention Brown and his book for quite another reason. Many of you may be wondering why my posts on this site have been sparse lately. The short answer is that not only have I been devoting a little time to some other issues, but I am about two-thirds of the way through Amy Lane's Bound, the 479-page, third installment in her Little Goddess series. You can read my review here soon, and unless the storyline turns south in the final quarter, I do not expect the review to be difficult to write. I shall not say that The Da Vinci Code is a better book. Bound is superior in compositional style. I found Dan Brown's writing style or storytelling ability to be nothing special. Yes, I did enjoy the originality of Dan Brown's earth-shattering concept, but Amy Lane can make me care about flawed characters. I am a big fan of the Robert Rimmer books about relationships, as well as Anne Rice's complex tales of vampires and The Mayfair Witches, and Amy Lane has created a similarly large cadre of lovable, but unlikely, characters with her Little Goddess books. Please don't make me eat these prematurely printed words, Amy, but in the areas of character development and writing style at least, Bound is a superior read to the multi-platinum The Da Vinci Code.

There is only one problem with all three of Amy Lane's Little Goddess books. She has not completed the shorter of John Grisham's two stated chores. Amy is far from the only iUniverse author guilty of this slacker modus operandi. I know without reading them all that there are tons of these out there for sale at Amazon, seemingly forever, and these flawed books will sit on their virtual shelves, blackening the name of POD books for all future readers. I am picking on Amy here simply because she is at the zenith of this problematic issue. Ms. Lane is a poor schoolteacher, creating her books all by herself, while Mr. Brown is stinking rich with a major publisher at his back, but that does not stop me from saying that Bound is more fun to read than The Da Vinci Code. If I give Bound five stars at Amazon, it will have been because that last quarter was so stunning that I had felt compelled to overlook Ms. Lane's rush to publication. She already has four stars. That part's easy.

New Reviewer

Dr. Al Past, retired linguistics professor and author of the celebrated Distant Cousin series, has joined me in the fight for the recognition of genuinely deserving authors at iUBR. We are cautiously taking one step at a time through this transitional process. I put out a call for volunteers to join the team and Dr. Past has graciously accepted the challenge. As I have previously indicated, iUBR has been a bit bogged down lately with the list of books awaiting review and the recent holiday period in general. In addition to this slowdown, a modest lifestyle change has had a very positive effect on me personally while simultaneously diminishing the time I have available for reading. Right now I am about one-third of the way through Amy Lane's Bound, with Joy Collins' Second Chance waiting on the shelf. There are still six books on The Waiting List, and the first of these authors has already been notified that his number is up.

Once again I welcome any further volunteers to join iUBR as reviewers. I would really like to see the whole process speeded up and the submissions reopened. Anyone with questions about this issue is welcome to contact me at ice9 at e-tabitha.com. Thank you.

The State of PODBRAM

Would anyone like to be the first to join the PODBRAM team as a satellite reviewer? I have been thinking over this concept very carefully for several weeks now, and I have concluded that this is an obviously possible option for the future state of iUBR. This would be one way that reviews could be sped up, rather than slowed down, as has recently been the case. I can personally read and review just so many books in a year. Certain issues of positive change in my personal lifestyle have also conspired to decrease the time I have available for reading and reviewing. The addition of at least one more reader/reviewer could speed up the posts at iUBR considerably, which should make both the authors and the readers happier. If anyone is interested, you can contact me at ice9 at e-tabitha.com. I shall be happy to discuss the parameters of the project with you at that time. Of course I would prefer another iU author, especially one with more than one iU book already released, but I am open to the consideration of adding anyone with the appropriate skills and interest to the team.

I am currently reading Amy Lane's Bound for the next review. Yes, the typos are, indeed, everywhere, but boy, can that Little Goddess write! So far at least, I would say that Bound may be bound to be the best of the Little Goddess series. Bound will be followed by Joy Collins' romance entitled Second Chance. Further applicants from The Waiting List will follow these two. A few interview subjects are currently being considered, but these may never actually materialize. My time constraints are limiting how much I can contribute to iUBR right now, and it is difficult to say if the situation will change soon or not.

What I would ideally like to see is the rebirth of The POD Review Ring so that many more derserving POD books could receive legitimate reviews, including those not published by iUniverse. I would like to see one or more satellite reviewers join iUBR at the same time, so that many more deserving iU authors could receive legitimate exposure, too. If I could farm out some of the reviews, I could devote more time to the composition of articles and interviews. It's always the reading and reviewing that absorbs so much time and burns out the POD bloggers. I am very much an organizational type of person. I enjoy the creation and editing of articles and posts as much or more than I do the reading and reviewing. If one or more volunteers for this project appear, maybe together we can speed up what has become a very slow process and reopen submissions soon. Otherwise, I'll still be putting my boat in the water before the last book on The Waiting List has been reviewed.

Love Divine

Love Divine:
The Life of Henry Ward Beecher
by Anya Laurence
(iUniverse / 0-595-38010-7 / February 2006 / 154 pages / $15.95)

Anya Laurence's first book, entitled Women of Notes: 1,000 Women Composers Born Before 1900, published in hardcover in early '79, is still available at Amazon! That's certainly a first for this blog. Not only is this fact somewhat remarkable, but also the professional look of Love Divine will certainly allow it to hide in a forest of traditionally published biographies. Unfortunately for this very accomplished iU author, Love Divine has been unceremoniously hidden behind another biography of Henry Ward Beecher released only a few months after Ms. Laurence's book. To add insult to injury to this exceptionally professional iUniverse author, that book took home The Pulitzer!

For those of you who flunked U.S. History, Henry Ward Beecher was a very successful abolitionist preacher during the 1800's and also the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. He was an acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln and many more legendary disciples of the anti-slavery movement. Anya Laurence offers a tautly edited biography of Henry that includes numerous details about many members of his famous family and their positions within the culture of the time.

Henry died leaving a national scandal unresolved. He was accused of having an adulterous affair with the wife of one of his close associates. The newspapers carried the story endlessly, with viewpoints of both his guilt and innocence. A lawsuit and trial ensued, but the final question of did he or didn't he was never answered. Ms. Laurence never claims to know the truth of this affair. She presents the facts as they are known. The explosion of endless gossip and news coverage of the events may remind the reader of certain modern affairs of which we never seem to hear the end. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I am always looking for iU books that can comfortably reside on a shelf with traditionally published books, and Love Divine is certainly one of them. It is the first iU book I have seen with footnotes, and these have thankfully been abbreviated, with the details exposed in the bibliography. There is an extensive index, as well as a prologue and an epilogue. Although I am not overly impressed with the front cover photo or the details of the front cover design, the back cover is excellent. The author photo has been well chosen and the blurbs provide the prospective buyer with accurate information about the text and the author. In case you were wondering, The Proofreading Police failed to make their ticket quotas. They failed quite miserably, in fact. Most of the tickets they did write were for such dinky offenses that they most certainly will be torn up in court!

What's not to like? Love Divine has only one clear weakness: its brevity forces an overall impression of dryness in the text, much of which is composed of italicized passages from the writings of Beecher and his contemporaries. The multitude of names, dates, births, deaths, and other significant facts seems to crowd out the space left for author commentary and opinion. In short, Love Divine could be a lot more fun to read. To remedy this problem, either some of the quotes or facts would have to be eliminated or the book would have to be much longer. I am sure many true-blue fans of the subject matter will love it just as it is, but I think more casual readers may wish for a little more extrapolation of detail from the author. Compared to the 560-page competitor mentioned earlier, Love Divine will certainly score as a fine quick-read for many wanting just the facts, ma'am, but I personally prefer to read a lot more detail about most subject matters. Don't take my criticism too strongly, though. The great majority of POD authors could use some lessons in professionalism taught by Anya Laurence, and Love Divine, without a doubt, credibly earns four stars.

See Also: Tabitha's B&N Review

The 2007 PODBRAM Awards

I am not an award sort of person. I never watch award shows on television. I have never entered any of my books or other writings into contests. I particularly abhor the many contests with entry fees that equal the royalties from about twenty-five book sales touted monthly by iUniverse. If you want to spend your marketing dollars that way, that's your business. I have certainly found many of my own ways in which to squander money trying to promote my books.

Anyway, everybody else seems to like awards, so here they are. Since iUBR began in July 2006, with only a handful of books reviewed that year, the books reviewed in the second half of 2006 will be included with 2007. There is officially no such thing as a 1964 Mustang, a 1983 Corvette, or a 2006 iUBR Award Winner. Here come The First (and Maybe the Last) Annual PODBRAM Book Awards for 2007!

Cover Design: The Pict by Jack Dixon

The map of the Scottish Highlands delicately etched into the foggy grey sky over the title pushed it over the top. You can just imagine The Picts living in this quiet, remote terrain. The design elements of this cover all blended well together and correctly led me to the material contained inside.

Proofreading: Mr. Touchdown by Lyda Phillips

Lyda's second book, as well as books with much higher page counts by several other authors, approached the low error quotient of Lyda's first novel, but by the sheer error count of zero, or nearly zero, as I was not keeping notes back then to accurately remember from more than a year ago, Mr. Touchdown centered the goal posts!

Daring Subject: Romance, Riches, and Restrooms by Tim Phelan

Tim Phelan's true story of love, money, and the trots gave me the opportunity to write what I think is the most fun to read review on this blog.

Original Storyline: The Milkman by Ian Healy

This little book is an explosion of originality in both its plotline and the selection of its characters. I would call its genre Science Fiction Humor. It's a jolly good time with a quick read.

Topicality: The Valley of Death by Gwynne Huntington Wales

Americans have always needed a really good red-white-and-blue counterpart to James Bond, and Mr. Wales has given us one with a character called Aardvark. I call a top-secret, nerve-gas operation in Iraq in November 2002 topical.

General Nonfiction: The iPINIONS Journal by Anthony Livingston Hall

Although several others vied for honor in this category, I have to give the nod to Mr. Hall for the sheer depth of his professionalism, from the elegant cover to the carefully composed and topical subject matter within.

Character Development: Dream Dancing by J. J. Lair

J. J. Lair has composed an ordinary little slice of everyday, American, blue-collar lifestyle. Where the author excels is the way he makes the reader care about a few sleazebuckets who may or may not be somewhat unscrupulous, and there lies the tail, revolving around a pole in a strip joint.

Dialogue: The Traitor's Wife by Susan Higginbotham

The category selected here may be somewhat misleading. Susan excels at telling a complex story through the words and actions of numerous characters, and the reader is always shown, not told.

Plotting: The Thief Maker by David H. Schleicher

Mr. Schleicher's twisted plot development is simply unparalleled. If you love plot twists and turns among seemingly unrelated characters, you'll love The Thief Maker!

Pleasurable Read: Distant Cousin by Al Past

Whatever it is that Spielberg has at the movies, Al Past has in his Distant Cousin series. Show me the magic!

Pirate Spirit

Pirate Spirit:
The Adventures of Anne Bonney

by Jeffery S. Williams

(iUniverse / 978-1-58348-467-8 / July 2007 / 240 pages / $14.95)

Jeffery Williams' Pirate Spirit is certainly one of the better books reviewed here at iUBR, particularly in the area of compositional style. Ex-journalist and current high school English teacher Williams shows off his experience with the consistent quality of his first novel. Based on the true story of Anne Bonney, a teenage girl who decides to disguise herself as a boy and join a pirate crew in the early 1700's, Pirate Spirit smoothly rolls over the warm, Caribbean waves with taut editing and articulate dialogue. The only rat on this elegant ship is the one who's been paid under the table to provide The Proofreading Police with vermin to exterminate. The two cats employed on Captain Rackham's schooner are a little overworked.

The error count, which in truth is not that bad, and mostly of a minor nature, would be a little more excusable if this was the first edition of this book, but it is not. Pirate Spirit was first released in 2006 as Anne Bonney: My Pirate Story. Like Susan Higginbotham's The Traitor's Wife and others, this is one of those iU books that sold enough copies at Amazon to qualify for a repackaging by iUniverse. The new title and cover, in my opinion, are a definite improvement, and the new version is now sold at Amazon at a discount price. My only negative comment is that both iU and the author still allowed too many typos to slip through the cracks of the pirate ship deck! This is one of the same old issues that continue to give POD books a bad reputation, and Pirate Spirit deserves better.

Let's get on with the raping, pillaging, murder and larceny on the high seas! If only more iU authors could write smooth, fluid prose like Jeffery S. Williams, my job here at iUBR would be a lot more pleasant. Mr. Williams the schoolteacher may not completely approve of what I am about to say, but I have to mention it. From the earliest pages of Pirate Spirit, which has been written in first-person-singular, present tense, I was reminded of the naughty legend, Fanny Hill, but without all the heavy breathing, of course. With appropriate input from his wife, Katherine, Jeffery has captured the very essence of a teenage girl in this historical fiction novel. Like the infamous Fanny Hill, this is a novel written by an adult man in the voice of a young girl, and the author has done an exceptional job. Credibility and realism lead the reader through every page. Quite likely all the buyers and readers of Pirate Spirit are fans of Johnny Depp, but when I was in high school, we all read Fanny Hill. Of course it was no more an officially required experience then than Pirates of the Caribbean is now, but it was certainly a lot of fun! So is Pirate Spirit.

See Also: Tabitha's Amazon Review
Tabitha's B&N Review

Tabitha's Authors Den Review

The Author's Website
Review of Who's to Blame? by Jeffery S. Williams