Indie Book Club discussion

This month's Other Book of the Month (#OBOTM) is Sub Rosa, by Mia Darien.

Fairytale re-telling seems to be fairly popular, so it'll be interesting to see how this goes down.

:) Cool, I will have to get a hold of this one.

Oh dear. The pressure's on.

Well...if anyone would like a free copy, please do let me know and I'll be happy to provide one.

I'll be out of town, visiting family with my son, from the 13th to the 18th so I won't be able to take part much over that time, but will be as involved in the discussion as I can be otherwise. If anyone finds anything in my book interesting enough to discuss, of course!

Huzzah, I remembered how to put this on the front page. Which reminds me to tweet about it too.

Hope you have a nice time, Mia :)

I will be interested in a copy.:)

I started reading this today. I'm about a quarter of the way in (it's very short) and I'm still not quite sure where it's going.

Is anyone else reading this book? I've finished reading it, but don't want to post my thoughts just yet to avoid spoilers.

I haven't started, I will try and pick it up next week.

I've posted a short review. There's some nice touches, but I think more could have been made from the set-up. I won't say any more at this time if others plan to read it.

@Steph: Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm sorry it didn't quite meet up to your expectations, but I will say that your "issue" with it is shared by others. But it was a conscious choice on my part to keep it as is. (Rather than a lack of creativity, lol.)

But if you're looking for more change, you'll probably like the second book in the series better. That one will be written and released in 2014. "Bellflower" will be a much more pronounced twist and change-up on the tale of Rapunzel. :)

That is a knotty problem for just about every type of writing (and one reason I'm not a fan of the 5 star system). If someone just prefers another way of doing things (more/less description, for example) that can't be called wrong, and a difference of opinion leads to a lower rating. With a purely written review people can mention stuff like that, and a reader can decide whether the issue the reviewer had is one they're likely to share.

That is true - and one of the problems with reviews. Too much/too little of something, is all subjective in many ways.

Mia wrote: "@Steph: Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm sorry it didn't quite meet up to your expectations, but I will say that your "issue" with it is shared by others..."

Hi Mia. It wasn't so much that 'it didn't meet my expectations', but more rather that it's a genre that I think it is quite difficult to create something entirely fresh. One of my earliest attempts at a series of short stories was a Pratchett-esque retelling of the King Arthur legend, which was quite rightly rejected by numerous magazines for not being original enough. (I've since rewritten 'The Sword in the Stone' with a sci-fi slant, so as not to waste my earlier efforts!)

@Steph, fair enough and I do agree that it is difficult to create something entire fresh. Although if you're doing a retelling, you don't want it entirely fresh either. (You'd do something original were that the case.) So I think it's more the balance of the two where in the trouble lies.

But, as I said, twists on the latter stories will be more so. But because of my love for the Beauty & the Beast story, I chose not to stray too far from the original fairy tale, outside the two obvious changes. And some people have liked that more than others, which I count as entirely fair. :)

If you'd like to know more about the plans for the next two--Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty, respectively--I'd be happy to tell you a little about them.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I'm going to put up the Red Gone Bad thread now, but if you've read/are planning to read Sub Rosa do feel free to come back to this one and let us know your thoughts.

I haven't read this one yet but I will go grab it and try and get through it before I go back to work. Guess I should read the other one as I Nominated it:)

Review is up. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Overall a good, quick little read. I would have liked a wee bit more and in places it did feel a bit rushed but I did enjoy it and it is a SHORT story. I'll look out for any more.

Review copied to Amazon as well, and I'll copy to my blog later. Feel free to share the review if you want.

Thanks for the read and review. :)

I liked the switcheroo:)

As did I. :) I liked writing a more...bookish, not super alpha hero too.

hehe