Thursday, July 26, 2012

Let's Start with a Work in Progress

     Today's book, A Work in Progress, was billed as literary fiction, though the blurb I received sounded more like Romance, so I just wasn't sure about it. For one thing, I often wondered what the term literary fiction meant.  I had my suspicions, mind you. After all, most of the works of fiction that win the big prizes are literary fiction so it must be miles above genre fiction. The truth is, now I see it as just another genre, especially when I realized the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo (National November Write Month) was literary fiction! If you are, like I was, searching for a definition to put in your pocket, Annie posted a good description on Write Anything. For another thing, the plot sounded a bit weak, which trust me it isn't, but it is quite subtle. I read Heir to Power by Michele Poague, and when the review time came, it was hard to put a finger on the plot, because it was as much about the growth and coming of age of the main character and others as it was about the story. The plot was, as it is in Brad Cotton's book, subtle and brought to life as we watch the characters change.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Taking DC by storm: "Smeared"


Smeared
by Mark Rogers
Publisher: CreateSpace, 2012
ISBN: 1470129604
 


It is said that Washington DC can cause people who spend a lot of time there to twist a bit, to become less than the idealists they were when they first arrived; there's even a term for it “beltway brain damage,” and Annie is pretty sure the man she lives with is being lost to the many temptations presented by power and influence. Hartford Keepe, on the other hand, is beginning to think that Annie is having trouble understanding the actual realities that have to be dealt with – he's getting really good at the machinations and head games, and has become the wonder boy Chief of