Monday, September 10, 2012

Guardian and ponderings about reviews

Guardian 
is a military romance tale by Catherine Mann that continues her 'Dark Ops' series and pits a JAG lawyer, Major Sophie Campbell, against Major David Berg whose unit was involved in a serious injury to a child.  Their search for the truth necessarily brings them into close proximity and their hostility gradually morphs into something warmer.  This was another of the author's exciting tales and although there were a few odd editing problems (one of which was a magically morphing ice cream bowl, lol) it was an entertaining read.  

My Amazon review is at this link.  I always appreciate a 'yes, this was helpful' vote.


I hadn't been paying close attention to the furor that is going on about reviews lately.  It seems that someone admitted to making quite a nice salary selling reviews and the scandal seems to be growing exponentially.  It must be nice to make money reading and reviewing books!  I think the problem became that, as the business grew, fewer of the submitted books were actually being read and the reviews were all glowing.  This is the link to the NY Times article.  There is also a thought-provoking blogpost by author Jo Eberhardt at this link.

Now, I have a terrible hunger for books (see title of blog, lol) and enter tons of contests to win books and initially started reviewing for Night Owl Reviews as a way of getting more books than I was able to obtain through my local libraries (yes, I patronize two libraries).  Well, the saying is always, 'be careful what you wish for...' and I have certainly found that to be true as sometimes I have about 30 titles waiting to be read and reviewed.  I used to write very casual two line reviews on my Goodreads shelf which tended to hold the library books that I was reading at the time rather than my 'official' reviews but eventually learned that authors LOVE to be cross-promoted (as long as it is positive) so eventually I started posting on Amazon and Goodreads as well as submitting the review to Night Owl.  Of course it takes time to write a decent review and that cuts into my reading time...and then of course there is the problem that I get distracted visiting blogs and entering contests (to win even more books, lol).

Unfortunately, it almost seems to take me less time to read the actual book itself than to sit down and write the review and at this moment I have read but not yet reviewed the following:  Savage Hunger by Terry Spear, Echoes at Dawn by Maya Banks,  Phoenix Rising by Corrina Lawson, Tyler and Dylan by C.H. Admirand, Hush by Cherry Adair, His Every Desire by Shiloh Walker, Warrior's Apprentice by Alysha Ellis and a couple of others that I am torn about reviewing because I didn't really like them.  Anyway, my point is...I do actually read the books that I review...and no, I don't get paid (except for receiving the book itself sometimes...unless it is through Netgalley or Edelweiss...and we are only loaned the manuscript for a limited amount of time from those sites) and shame on those who are writing positive reviews without even reading the book itself, I think it does a disservice to readers who actually want to receive an honest opinion!
   
   
           







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