book editor
One Step At A Time To Getting My Business Going
It seems to be taking me forever, but I have to say, the sunshine in Michigan has helped my motivation. It did go from 70 degrees during the week to snowing the next week, but I think it will be warming up for good now.
And I apologize for the blog post you all got alerts to about “When Parenthood is Not a Horror Story.” That was supposed to post to my blog, parenthoodandotherhorrorstories.com My internet connection has been well beyond shady for the past several weeks, and it is nearly impossible to do anything online.
I have my LLC license in place and filed with the State of Michigan, and found a great logo building website and created my logo. I will be changing the blog a bit in order to have a static first page, but for those of you who follow me, your alerts will take you directly to the blog.
Next up is finding a great theme to use to change this up, and hopefully nothing too difficult to maneuver while I continue to look for a better internet provider.
I should have another book review up tomorrow for a great book I finished a couple days ago, and I am reading another story and should be finished with that one in short order as well.
I am heading to Illinois Thursday morning to be a part of “The Lincoln Funeral Train”, so be prepared for a ridiculous amount of pictures and all things Abraham Lincoln very soon!
May your stories bring you smiles!
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I Wrote How Many Book Reviews?
I thought I should do a final post for 2014 of how many books I actually read, how many of those resulted in book reviews I posted, and anything else I may have thrown in.
I could really tell from my blog activity what months were the most busy for me. Or should I say, what months I was working on the toughest MBA college classes.
I did a whole lot of nothing in the summer months when it came to posting book reviews. I was really busy from September to December, and although I have every good intention of reading at least 3 more books when I finish the one I am currently on, I thought this would be a good time to do this post.
As a side note, I am off work until January 5th, and am kid free until January 4th. Which means I have a whole lot of reading-in-bed-writing-reviews-playing-with-the-cat-nap-time planned 🙂
For the year as a whole, I posted to date, 67 book reviews.
Of those 67 reviews, 18 were of books I had previously read, so for 2014 I read 49 new books. Not too shabby for being a single Mom of a whole lot of girls, working 50+ hours a week, and going to college for my MBA. The 18 on books I previously read were a combination of Halloween features, Christmas features, and books that I had read in the past that had a great impact on me.
June was the only month I did not post any book reviews, and October was my busiest month, with 12 book reviews posted. I have to add that for December I am currently at 7, and do plan on at least 5 more before the New Year, but certainly do not expect it to exceed October.
Some notables for 2014 for me:
I made the very tough decision to begin working on my MBA. After working non-stop for 2 years straight to get my BBA, I did take the entire year of 2013 off, as I promised my girls, and did not start college again until January 4th, 2014.
After many months of contemplating, searching, and debating, I became the very proud owner of Beeblebrox Bare Bottom Benjamin Blu, or Benny to me! He is a Hairless Sphynx cat and I am not ashamed to say that little ball of wrinkled-velvety-soft skin has changed my life! I like to tease my 4 girls about their “little brother’, but believe you me, that little guy has gotten me through a lot of weekends when I was wide awake all night long from being a 3rd shift worker and having the weekend off.
I made the decision to leave my Supervision position with my company and go back to a Materials Coordinator position that I had previously worked in for almost 5 years. I have worked for my company for over 18 years, and am so thankful to have such a wonderful employer.
I joined the Editorial Freelancers Association, and am currently working on getting myself set to begin editing and proofreading books for new and current authors. I have a love for books and the English language that I would probably have a very difficult time putting into words in order to get anyone to understand. (Now that is ironic, right?)
I would personally like to thank each and every single one of you for liking, following, or just commenting on a random blog post. I could not begin to tell you the excitement I have when I see that someone liked a post I made, and even better yet, left a comment, or followed my blog!
I will be setting some goals for myself for 2015, and there will be more to come on that!
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Lady Luck’s a Loser – Caryl McAdoo
I loved this story! It was a fast, easy read that drew me in from chapter one. You are dying to know right from the beginning what is really going on with W.G. Preston, and why he is running a “bachelor” style contest on his apple orchard.
More importantly, you are really concerned about Marge, what she is feeling, and what she is going to decide to do. She is being pulled between her good common sense and her growing love for a man who hired her in order to fire her, if luck was not on her side.
I again cannot give any spoilers here, but this is a clean romance novel that is fun, exciting, and full of suspense that will have you staying up late to read it to the end. It certainly did for me!
If you are unfamiliar with Caryl, please go visit her website here: http://carylmcadoo.com/
You will be glad you did!
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What To Do With That Horrible Book Review You Wrote
Oh. Hello there. I hope you were not coming here to find the answer to what you should do with a horrible book review you wrote, because I have no idea. I actually was hoping someone could tell me.
As I have stated many times, it is not my intention to destroy anyone’s writing career, or write horrible things about their writing abilities. But when you pick up a book, and it was very poorly constructed, how do you avoid that huge problem while focusing your review on the underlying story that was actually pretty good?
If I post a review that I loved it, or even liked it, I destroy my reputation immediately. Trust me, if you saw this book and I gave it a top review and rating, you would think I was off my rocker. Now, the fact that this story had a few top ratings on Amazon also tells me that someone had their family members post reviews for their story. There were no ‘bad’ reviews for this particular story, or even reviews with much needed and deserved constructive criticism.
Book reviews are a touchy subject, especially to the writers who have no control over how the reader is going to interpret what they wrote. Did they understand the point you were trying to make? Did they misunderstand the dialect? Did they not realize the story was intentionally written like that? and on and on and on again…
One of my favorite quotes is about the fact that no two people will ever read the same story. I find it amazing that no one else read Harry Potter and got the same, identical things from it that I did. That is the beauty of books!
As a footnote, I do not want any of my recent authors who have sent me books or whose books I have purchased to panic. This post is NOT about you. I have had a couple people contact me within the last couple of days and I do not want them to think I am talking about their story 🙂 This is a story that I found on my own while I was looking for someone else’s book.
So at this point I am going to hold unto this review. This book is not a new release and I do not believe that more people will purchase this story, and that I did not prevent that from happening by holding unto this review. I want to do some more digging to see if I can find more ‘true’ reviews of this story and then go from there.
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As I Finish Up Your Stories…
…I would like to ask that if I had indeed contacted you about reading, reviewing, proofreading, and/or editing your story, and you have not heard from me, to please send me a personal email.
Those whom I am about to review are Marilyn Cohen de Villiers, “A Beautiful Family”, Kate O’Hara, “Aphrodite on the Half Shell”, the 2nd book of “The Universe of God 2: the Chronicles of Jesus”, (twestephens please email me, I am lacking contact information). Also Adan Ramie’s, “Darkness Undone”.
Mary Ellen Deleon, please send me the date of your blog post on the 3 chapters you asked me to read, I can have that done as soon as I hear from you.
CB, I left a reply on my post, please contact me via my email so I know if there are certain ones of your short stories you would like me to look at, and I need your contact information as well.
I also am in the process of reviewing 2nd stories for Caryl McAdoo and Tony Smith.
If I have not mentioned you and had contacted you previously, Please send me an email. I likely just overlooked it, as I know there are books I purchased and are on my nook that I did not list here. Some books I found from reading through your blogs, and you did not necessarily ask for a review; I just found the premise of your story interesting, and wanted to read it!
I also received a couple emails from persons unknown to me, and unless if you put “Book Edit or Review” somewhere in the subject line, I would not have opened it. I do still have them in my inbox, but please send me another email so I know you are someone who has seen my blog post and not a random email virus waiting to infect my laptop!
Thanks so much, I look forward to hearing from you, and Happy Reading!
angi.gibbs@yahoo.com
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On Hearing of My Mother’s Death Six Years After It Happened – Lori Schafer
One can only wonder what would lead someone to not know of their mother’s passing until such a long time after the fact. And then you read this story.
It touches you, and it moves you. It makes you angry, and hopeful. You do not feel sorry for the main character, you just feel sad. Sad that someone would have to go through such a difficult situation. Sad that someone was robbed of a loving mother due to an illness that affects so many, and is yet so hard for most to talk about.
The author is not looking for sympathy, or anyone to feel sorry for her. She does not have a “woe-is-me” attitude. She made the best out of a very tough situation, and persevered; succeeded; beat the odds when so many others would have given up.
Have you felt true fear? The type of fear that comes from within you and makes every nerve in your body alive as if electrified over and over again? This is the sense of fear you feel as you read about a girl whose mother went to school with her every day, convinced someone was going to harm her. And she was the only one harming her. Calm and normal one minute, angry and physically violent the next.
Running away from home, living on the streets, knowing true hunger not for days on end, but for months on end. This was still better than living at home.
This is a story of mental illness, strength, and unending determination. A story about what one young woman did to survive when she had no other choice. It is a story about a disease that is only talked about behind closed doors, with only the closest of relatives. This was a subject you did not want your friends and neighbors knowing about. But of course they did know. How could they not?
If you have ever experienced mental illness in your personal life, you do not want to pass up this story. It is an easy read, not full of medical jargon that has you reaching for a dictionary. I have been witness to this type of behavior in a loved one, and the effects can be truly devastating to a family. It is time to start talking about mental illness, and stop ignoring it. It does not go away. It will not go away.
Look for this story on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N0WYHDQ/
Find further information on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23275192
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The Generations Series: A Little Lower Than the Angels (Book 1) – Caryl McAdoo
If you love the stories of the Bible, if you are new to reading the Bible, or a seasoned expert looking to expand on the stories surrounding the creation of the human race- this story is the perfect place to start.
This first in The Generations Series, titled A Little Lower than the Angels, takes you through the lives of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, and how the choices they each willfully made affected the rest of their lives.
You will experience Abel and his interactions in Heaven with various cherubim, his constant questioning of when the rest of his family will join him, and the biggest question of if Cain himself will be able to join him there.
Watch as Adam and Eve deal with the disobedience and sin of Cain, and his disappearance with his sister and wife, Sheriah. Adam and Eve are again left alone, Eve seemingly unable to bear the burden of her guilt that all of this tragedy her family is experiencing is due to her original sin in the Garden of Eden. Will she ever be able to repent enough and again enjoy a life on Earth with her husband? Your heart breaks right along with her as she buries her son into the ground, not quite understanding her husband’s insistence that they are from the earth, and to it they must return.
The facts in this story are true to the Bible, and come from the King James Version. The story is one interpretation of what life may have been like; what this family may have experienced as they lived through the ups and downs of their lives during this time period.
This story is a triumph for Biblical fiction: it gets everything right, while adding to the story to allow the reader to experience what the early Christians went through for and because of their faith.
I do not think Caryl McAdoo could write the remaining books of this series fast enough for me!
Be sure to visit her website for more great reads! I have another one already, and cannot wait to read it!
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The Faust Syndrome – Jaysen True Blood
Just in time for the upcoming All Hollow’s Eve, one more story to make your hair stand on end while you fight the overwhelming urge to turn on every light in your home. Yes, it’s that good. This was my first read of Jaysen True Blood’s work, and I could not have been more pleased!
We all have the basic understanding of right and wrong; correct? Good. And we all try to do good by our hearts, and what we know we should be doing.
But what if you had the ability to do whatever you wanted? Anything: right, wrong, or indifferent. Could you still do the morally correct things and follow the rules of society as society dictates? What if you could have it all? Or at least you believed you could have it all. Then what would you do?
This story looks at right and wrong, morally correct and unethical, righteously sound and corruptness by evil. Read about the lengths one man goes to in order to have it all. Ironically, he “had it all” throughout his entire childhood. Having it all would cost him his soul, but what did he need that for anyhow?
You will never look at Heaven and Hell the same, and may change your mind on what you believe to be true. There is no religious marketing scheme here to get you into a church; just the lengths a man goes to in order to have it all. He destroys anyone and everyone who gets in his way, and then he destroys some more just for the fun of it.
The ending had quite the twist for me, and it made the story that much more profound now that I knew the “whole” story. I try at all lengths to never give out spoilers, and the same holds true here. You are going to have to read it for yourself!
You still have time to get this book and have it read before Halloween this Friday, October 31st. Or at least start reading it by Halloween. You will want to make space on your scary-books-bookshelf for this one. I myself am making room for a couple more of Jaysen True Blood’s books on my bookshelves.
You can find this book here: http://www.amazon.com/Faust-Syndrome-Jaysen-True-Blood/dp/1502566079
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We Interrupt Your Friday Fun Facts…For This Special Announcement
I have a list of 15 books, that I have purchased or were sent to me free, for review. I am already through one book, halfway through the next, and expect to have at least two more finished before the weekend is over. (No, I do not feed my children, I just throw them a scrap of food when they ask!)
Some of you have asked for a review and have been in contact; some of you filled out the form and disappeared. So I just wanted to put this statement out there:
I said I will never post a review of your book without you seeing it first.
I Lied.
If I have a glowing review of your book, and it is already out to the masses, I will post it. I have been randomly finding books and reading and reviewing them, and the really bad ones, I would not name the author or title. (Yeah, I will not make this a habit: some of you that I have read over the last year just really need to stop typing and go work at the local gas station!).
I am editing and reviewing books that have not yet met their publication date: I will never post a review before you tell me you are ready. I have several of these. I will be in touch with you. I am excited to be able to publicize these great stories as you are marketing it to the masses. I could not be happier than to know I have read a story before very many others have seen it, and it will change the world (Yes, I have read those stories!)
But I am also reviewing books that are available to the masses. So for you; if I have a great review, I am not going to contact you before I post it. If I did not like it, I will certainly not post it and not tell you.
I want to be a writer. I do not have that determination, drive, energy, or time. But I do have a ridiculous knowledge of the English language, dialect based on time periods or culture, and research skills that the FBI would kill for. So I can help those of you who are writers, to write.
booksandopinions.com 