The book is a harmonization of opposites–personalities that clash, beliefs that never bend, burdens that never ease. The novel demonstrates the remarkable ability of people to adapt to the most impossible circumstances when love is the driver. There’s no sugar-coating. We get raw, real life here, but a golden light suffuses it.
Read MoreWhat is it about Lee Child’s plots that makes his thrillers so much better than most? I think it’s that genuine, complicated problem to work out, that each of his stories promises. Compare that to other thrillers that try to disguise a thin plot with cheap tricks to keep you guessing, such as jerking the reader backward and forward in time for no good reason, or withholding important facts when narrating a scene, in hopes of creating “mystery” …
Read MoreI recently struck up a friendship with a first-time author I met in an online writers’ forum. He had written a YA novel that was soon to be published by a small publishing house. He hoped it would be the first of a trilogy …
Read MoreEvery few years I come across a client who responds to a professional edit by feeling offended. They have an emotional reaction to the criticism. The closer the story is to the author personally, the greater the chance that this will happen. Memoirists, for example, share intimate details of their lives. Having those sensitive subjects scrutinized by an editor who gives them honest feedback can, understandably, feel a bit like having a wound debrided. Even if a doctor is gentle …
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