Authors & Reviewers discussion

Hey, y'all! My name is Grace A. Johnson (oh, wait; that's kind of obvious, isn't it?), and I'm an independently published historical romance author. To spare you the details of my writing career, I'll keep my intro short.

I've been writing for the past five years, and I have self-published two full-length novels, three short stories, and a novella--all (but one) clean historical romance geared to YA and older. My debut novel, Held Captive--which was released in March of 2019--is now available for review for FREE. I have (currently) 16 e-copies left that you can download here .

I'll leave a short summary at the end of my post for any who's interested--and, if you're not, please let your family/friends know, because anyone with a computer (or a phone, or a laptop, whatever) is able to go to Booksprout.com and download and read my book.

Reviews are due before January 1st, 2021, and I'm only requiring one on either Amazon, Goodreads, or BookBub. Do all three or take your pick. BTW, there are a great many typos/issues that I am very much aware of (I was twelve/thirteen when I wrote this book 😉), but if you notice anything apart from technical or grammatical errors, feel free to let me know. I'm taking any and all constructive criticism for a rewrite in the near future.

Thank you all in advance, and if you enjoy reading Held Captive, I'd love to put you on my list for potential ARC readers for my upcoming novel, Bound and Determined!



Captain Rina Blackstone is the most notorious female pirate to ever plunder the Seven Seas and the fiercest captain to ever sail the Atlantic. But one thing she has never been able to handle well is change. When one merchant ship raid takes a wrong turn and results in her capture, Rina has to escape before all the control she’s worked so hard to obtain falters.

I got it! Excited to try it out. But it almost sounds like what you want are late-stage beta readers, rather than reviewers?

Yay! Thank you!
In a way, yes. I do want reviews for Held Captive more so than anything else (since I have so few), but I'm trying to leave the door open for feedback, be it right here or on Booksprout. Partly because I never had betas to begin with and partly because a lot of readers have great critical things to say about a book that they won't put into a review, so... If I didn't plan to rewrite HC eventually, I'd probably just ask for reviews.