T.A. Burke > Recent Status Updates

Well, I'm at the 50%-mark and totally invested.
Thank goodness -- I rilly rilly needed some good distraction today.

Lol here's a futuristic media feed:

@DALEDIGGER / City councilman found dead at home, AI had been attending meetings on his behalf “for months”—did it PLOT to KILL him? / TR62

I admire this author for gliding from one POV to another. I usually can't stand getting interested in a story and MC, then suddenly have a chapter jumping to a completely different character. Sometimes I just skip the alternative character altogether, maybe skim a bit, and simply read through with the MC's story.

But this book's transitions are very a smooth. After I'm done, I'll need to browse to analyze it.

Gosh I'm pleased to start-off a Saturday with an interesting story, well-written. My only tiny disappointment comes from my quirk of disliking POV shifts. To me, It's jarring because I want to get back to the initial POV character. I end up skimming.

"[Nazis]were not even in the atomic bomb race." This is incorrect. Paratroupers destroyed a Nazi Heavy Water facility (necessary for A-Bomb production) in Scandinavia. And the Germans did produce an A-Bomb which, just before Berlin fell. It was sent via U-Boat through the North Sea for Japan to fly to bomb San Francisco, San Diego, or Los Angeles, but it arrived too late, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki halted Japan.

Holy Moly, I am wow-ing at a turn of events I'd never have foreseen but which in NO WAY is a facile plot twist -- this is something that completely fits, now that it's happened.

Well, I am finding the way this is written to be so intriguing that I actually popped for the $10 purchase.

You know, I'm really liking this unusual story but I am so frustrated by the oafish plot devices employed to bring the MC's together close enough and alone enough to create opportunities for intimacy.

It's ridiculous to imagine the fMC would be allowed so much alone time with the mMC without fear of society considering her compromised. And these unlikely scenarios are written precisely to have her compromised!

Ok, now I'm disappointed and a bit shocked at how poorly THE major plot point of the story was simply plopped onto the page, de facto, au fait.

Very ungainly and unsubtle. Sort of like sending Clark Kent to report on Lex Luther's Kryptonite Exhibition.

.... alright, this is from 2009, so I purchased it not at "new release price", but rather at the "major fantasy author full price it is able to command".

Omg please please please keep being this good till the end! What wonderful drama so subtlety couched within a mature rendering of a fantasy realm. I didn't even complete the Kindle Unlimited Sample before I hopped over to purchase it, even at the (for me) steep new release price.

I can only call this writing masterful and I'm jealous AF to be able to wring such subtlety and depth from her characters' interactions. But, the final sexual consummation was wordy and not imho hot so this is the weakness, only this.

A rare glaring plot flaw in a Heyer book. Amidst somewhat rude conversations, the mMC makes bold statements of frank appreciation to the fMC. Then, she ruminates whether he is entertaining an odd courtship, then says, nonsense, he's never flirted with her.

Complete and utter -- what would she say? -- laying it on too rare and thick.

Oh. I get it. This MC's a Bitchy Bottom Too Stupid To Live. I'm glad I got the memo. I swear, the tropiest dumb mistake trope just happened because of Mr TSTL and I very nearly chucked. But I want to see what happens, so I need to put up with this BS.

I really like the MC when he's not being a snippy bitch. But we're in the part where the hate-fest sets up the inevitable love. He's supposed to be witty but he only sounds shitty. I'm forcing myself to keep reading because the story is very intriguing.

This has been really good, until about halfway through, the author suddenly considers him/herself a comedian. And now the humor is spelled too large, ridiculous, loud, and n-yuk n-yuk n-yuk

Dammit, a perfectly entertaining story and characters, but the budding romance is written with just lack of subtlety.

First, there was no reason for the resistant MC to suddenly at times lose that resistance. Gotta write a reason, or else it's non sequitur.

Then, the story goes along, with soppy flirts thrown in at intervals, again with no reason except to say, "Budding Romance" I caps.

#writing #mangledmetaphore

"...tedium gripped him in soft and cloying paws."

I'm nearly afraid to continue.

Just finished the main short story and I'm so pissed off. It was so exciting but then the author pulled a fast one for the ending, where the main mystery was meh a little disjointed and not making much sense -- but then the creature-threat was pure bollocks, just a nonsensical nothing explained away idiotically while it left the scene totally improbably. What a waste of money, all because I trusted a Redditer rave!

This whole culture has become belabored. A formula of what to say and how to say it. Not intriguing simply following the book's rules for how they're supposed to interact. At this point I don't even care anymore about the moral dilemmas they laboriously discuss.

The smoke and mirrors has cleared away and it's all just a trite set-up for a D&D adventure. Really poorly set up, because everyone ought to want to tear apart the sorcerer who let some of them get screwed over.

Now at 77% and have no idea what they're doing to do to beat the big bad. Very rarely is a book this compellingly plotted. Yay

28% in, and a really excitingly plot twist went down and I'm excited as hell to see where it goes. Heee

Dammit, this is just my type of book but a third of the way through, it goes from "awkward" to "get in bed". Way too big a jump in their relationship. Boo

Sigh, oh well -- maybe I'll finish this another day. Great start but the romance is unromantic. It's nice the MCs finally get together but there is zero heat as far as I'm concerned, which makes their sex something to skip.

Truly I could have kept reading anyway but the pretext of the drama is simplistic and stretched way past interesting, so that when the turning to the right path comes, I'm yawning.

Gee whiz, 11% in, and the writing is absolutely fascinating. I was nearing the end of the Kindle Sample and looked for what it would cost to purchase -- with dread, because I knew I would have to buy this book.

So happy, it's Kindle Unlimited. Now I simply hope this story keeps up.

Yeah, as feared: the remarkably deft slow slow burn stopped being deft once the time came for it to heat up. Oh well.

This is remarkably subtle treatment of a closeted man being awakened. But I call 'boo' when a trite turn is thrown in.