I rate this book 4 out of 5. I recently won a free copy of Creature Comforts by Trisha Ashley in a twitter competition and I’m really happy that I did.
The premise of the book draws you in and the story keeps you turning the pages. I enjoyed every aspect of it, but especially the dogs at Debo’s Desperate Dog Refuge. The characters were fun to be with and I was sad when the book came to an end. I recommend this book, but beware you won’t want to put it down.
A recent blog on fantasy-faction.com got me thinking about the length of fantasy books.
They are usually weighty tomes, which I don’t have a problem with until you start building those into trilogies and series and clocking up thousands of pages.
I believe there should be more standalone novels in fantasy. It’s always sad when a book you’ve loved comes to an end, but isn’t it good to have closure? To know that the next book you pick up will be the start a new adventure with the author. To discover new worlds and find new characters to fall in love with.
I’ve even been put off starting series because the scale of them is just too daunting (Game of Thrones as an example, though I’ve loved the TV series). As an author I’m in awe of the skills involved in holding it all together, but as a reader I just don’t have the time to invest in them.
I intend to challenge the trend by publishing my first novel, Visions of Zarua, as a standalone. At 153k it’s not exactly small, but it’ll be interesting to see what reviewers have to say.
After that, my next project is a duology. And as I begin to tackle the task of editing it, ideas for book three keep surfacing.
What is it with us fantasy authors?
Characters have always been the most important factor in fiction for me. It’s good to read a blog post that focuses on this and expresses my views.
picture from en.wikipedia.org
What do I love about writing most? Well, it’s the same things that made me such an avid reader in the first place. Books have the ability to transport us to new worlds, or periods of time that are otherwise completely locked away from us. The immersion can be so deep from a novel that we can imagine every step that any given character makes, and it is bringing those same characters to life that is the greatest joy for me as a writer.
A book needs to be well written and full of descriptive passages, as they play an essential part in setting a scene and giving the writer’s world depth. But it is the characters within that world, their hopes, wishes, loves, and desires that will make the story come to life. When constructing a character for a novel, you want to be able to…
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I’ve just added a novel extract of my fantasy novel, Visions of Zarua, to my website. I hope to self publish this later in the year and blog about the experience.
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