A Midwinter Fantasy in print form

Well, I now know that the Trade edition of A MIDWINTER FANTASY will tentatively be available in bookstores in October 2011. 

*sigh*

It is still available as an e-book, of course.

Playing with the website design

I'm just playing around with the website design here, thanks to Blogger and its handy dandy do-it-for-you template features.  I've added a few webpages here for the books.  I do have my own site, but I find it really hard to update.  It's a multi-step process that takes me forever to do, which is probably why it doesn't get updated much (or at all).  Maybe I'll just set the URL to have a redirect to send it here to this blog and just have that as my site. 

A Midwinter Fantasy available for the Kindle

The anthology I'm in, A MIDWINTER FANTASY, is now available as an e-book for the kindle.  You can get it on amazon.com, so yay for that at last.

I heard today that the hoped-for release date for QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS is September, 2011.  That's all I know about that one at this point.

Review

Today THE BATTLE SYLPH was listed by the Library Journal as one of the five best romance novels for all of 2010.  Woohoo!  I'm pretty happy about that.

The Library Journal

A Midwinter Fantasy release date

I've been told the new release date for "A Midwinter Fantasy" in Ebook format is 23 Nov 10.   So fingers crossed that this is the right date! 

Rerelease

More news. My books with Dorchester are going to cone out as ebooks first and then as trade. Still don't know when. That's old news. However, I have learned that the first two will be reissued as trade. No idea when or how much they'll cost.

I'm in the top five

Today I received word from Library Journal that THE BATTLE SYLPH (which Library gave a starred review to in their February 15, 2010 issue) has been chosen a one of the FIVE best romances of the year; the full list will be published in their December 2010 issue.

Yay!! I'm really happy about it.

Oh wow

I just found out today that my first three books are apparently going to be translated into German and sold in Germany.   I so want an author's copy.  :D

Hi

I don't post to this page nearly often enough. I know I'm an author, but that doesn't mean I can ever think of what to say.

I do have some news, which I've been putting off saying much about because I honestly don't know all that much yet. I guess I can't really keep doing that though.

As some of you may know, Dorchester has changed their publishing format to one where they're going to release all their books as E-books and then, after about six months, release them as trade on a print-on-demand basis. This includes THE QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS and A MIDWINTER FANTASY. Right now, I don't know how this will affect the release dates for both books, but I do know I haven't receive the edit proofs for QUEEN yet (we fire them back and forth doing editing and scene rewrites about five times). So I don't know what will happen or when anything will actually appear for people to read.

I'm not going to get into how I feel about all of this because at the moment, I honestly don't know and likely no one would be interested anyway. I think I'm just in a holding pattern waiting to see, like a lot of Dorchester's other authors.

New Interview Up

My guest interview at the Borders site is now up.  You can read it here.  http://bordersblog.com/trueromance/2010/06/14/guest-author-lj-mcdonald/  It's an interview about THE SHATTERED SYLPH, though they don't say that and they have pictures of both books up.  Still, I like some of the answers I was able to give.

Queen of the Sylphs update

For those are interested, the third book in the Sylph series has been moved so its release date is now in March 2011, instead of November 2010.  I'm not sure why the change was made, but I'm sure it's all for the good in the long run.

Also, I'm going to be doing some guest blogging in July for http://www.tor.com/.  Go give them a look.  They've got some very nice content there.  Hopefully I'll get one of my short stories up there as well.

Review-The Shattered Sylph

I got a very nice review of THE SHATTERED SYLPH by Lynn Spencer on the All About Romance website.  I have their permission to repost it here.  Go check them out.  They have a very nice site.

The Shattered Sylph

L.J. McDonald
April 2010, Fantasy Romance
Leisure Books, $7.99, 321 pages, Amazon ASIN 0843963239
Part of a series

Grade:	B+
Sensuality:	Warm

This review contains series spoilers.

I really enjoyed The Battle Sylph and as I read that book, there was one secondary character who rather haunted me. When I saw that The Shattered Sylph would be his book, I pounced on it. Though you'll need to read the first book in this series to understand what goes on in this one, both are well worth your time. In addition, if you haven't read The Battle Sylph, this review is full of spoilers for that book, so be warned!

Battle sylph Ril, our hero, is Tortured with a capital T after spending years bound unwillingly to his master Leon Petrule. Ultimately a decent man, Leon's ignorance and arrogance at the time of the binding blinded him to how this slavery ate at Ril. The two came to respect and even care for one another, though it took much for either master or sylph to admit it. However, Ril's great love has always been Leon's daughter Lizzy. Ril's love for Lizzy from the moment of her birth could easily be a creepy premise, but the author handles it well. During flashbacks to Lizzy's childhood in both books, Ril appears more protective and like an older brother to Lizzy than sexually attracted.

This book takes place six years after the preceding book. Lizzy is now an adult and Ril loves her dearly. However, the injuries he sustained years before in the action covered in The Battle Sylph weakened him severely and he believes himself unworthy of Lizzy. Even so, when Lizzy is kidnapped by slavers and taken to the distant land of Meridal, Ril joins her father on the quest to rescue her.

Lizzy's ordeals in Meridal are harrowing, and Ril himself goes through all manner of tortures there as well. It can be tough reading. Rather like the ancient Romans, the people of Meridal love their gladiatorial bouts and the battle sylphs enslaved by the Emperor provide sport for them. And to slake the battle sylphs' thirst for women, they have a harem of women available to them - a harem to which Lizzy is sold.

Ril's quest to find Lizzy and to rescue her from slavery makes for action-packed reading. There is also tender romance to be found amidst all the horrors. The novel has plenty of detail about Meridal and its society, but also has more of a romantic focus than the first. You get to see how Lizzy's love for Ril heals him and, while I would have liked to see more scenes between the two of them, the romance was strong enough to convince me of their happy ending.

At times, I almost felt like Ril and Lizzy had to face a few trials too many and some of the sylph humor was a little on the silly side for me. Still, I greatly enjoyed what I read and at times lost myself completely in this unique world the author has created. I enjoy fantasy and I enjoy romance (obviously), and this book marries the two well.

In addition to containing a page-turning fantasy story, both books in the series play with ideas involving gender and power in ways that intrigue me. The battle sylphs are as alpha a hero as anyone could wish. These guys can blast apart a room with a burst of energy and they're strong enough to provide near-complete protection for the women they cherish. However, in binding themselves to their heroines, the battle sylphs must willingly give these women a certain amount of power. The woman to whom a sylph is bound has the capacity to order the sylph to do things - and this is something that the female characters recognize and must consciously think about in terms of not abusing someone they love. The rules of this world set up a very interesting power balance between the genders and, while some of the world's rules may seem overly convenient, I did find myself thinking a lot about how relationships developed within this construct, how they could be twisted, and about how power was allocated.

If you enjoy fantasy romance and strong world-building, The Shattered Sylph should definitely go on your list. You'll need to read The Battle Sylph first, but since both are fantastic books, that's hardly a sacrifice.

-- Lynn Spencer

Upcoming stuff

On 14 June, I'll have a blog on the Borders site.  They were nice enough to ask me a bunch of questions that I've tried to answer.  I'll be answering questions in the blog comments that day as well, so hopefully people are interested enough to go and visit their site.

In other news, I'm now doing the first revision of my upcoming novella "The Worth of a Sylph".  It'll be featured in the upcoming anthology A MIDWINTER FANTASY, coming out for Christmas.  This is where my editor has had his first comments/revision and I get to answer back with my changes, based on things he's suggested.  Chris is really good at suggesting things that strengthen a story, so I'm having fun tweaking.  Still has a few more back and forths to go though. 

I have a new blog

I've been having trouble lately with my blog.  I don't write anything in it all that much, but I do want to be able to, and the one on my website wasn't working out.  For one, no one could comment.  For two, no one could subscribe and I haven't been able to get a mailing list that works either.

Theoretically, I should be able to post to this blog, which will hopefully tie in with my actually website, and people can comment and subscribe to it.  Whenever I have something new coming out, such as a book, I will announce it here.

I'll see how this works.  I've imported some, but not all of my original posts.  I'll copy over what I think are the more interesting ones later, once I get this all figured out.

Inspiration is a fickle b*tch

I wish I could turn inspiration on and wedge something in there so that it stays on.  My brain would probably end up overloading and explode, but it’d be nice for a while.  Actually, it’s not so much the inspiration I need as the ability to get inspiration to let me get something out onto paper with a bit more speed.

    I wrote THE BATTLE SYLPH in a month.  Mind you, I was deployed for the first half of that and on course for the second, which meant I had nothing else to do in the evening other than go to the bar.  I wrote THE SHATTERED SYLPH in a month and a half.  THE QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS took three months.  I wrote WAR OF THE SYLPHS in seven months and HUNTER OF THE SYLPHS topped them all at ten months.  

    I’d probably take less time if I spent less time being distracted.  Until such time as I have a few books on the bestsellers’ list, I work full time and my job is demanding enough that I’m usually too tired to do more than play computer games in the evening.  I also get distracted by the knitting of sweaters and socks and the reading of books.  Good thing I don’t have cable or I’d be staring at that for hours on end too.  

    Right now, I’m not writing a Sylph book.  I’m working on another trilogy in a different fantasy universe.  The first book is called THE CUCKOO and took five months to get the initial draft out.  The second is titled THE HOMUNCULUS and is currently half done and mocking me as I speak.  Book three, THE REVENANT, is a distant torment on the horizon.  The vast majority of these books have been written in the forty-five minutes or so I have between when I get to work and when I actually start my shift.  Never thought I’d be grateful to car pooling.    

    These have been some of the hardest books for me to write.  My first drafts in a new universe are usually… confused.  I’m making up the world as I go alone, refining and enriching it, and as I add bits, I end up contradicting things I said earlier.  I usually catch them all before the book even goes to the editor and if I don’t, someone else catches them before they go to print.  If someone tried to read THE CUCKOO right now, they’d probably throw it away in confusion and wonder what I was smoking.  

    My grand plan this weekend, like it is every weekend, is to ‘get some serious writing done’.  I’m up to 596 words for the day and I’m writing a blog entry instead.  A vaguely whiny blog entry….  I know where I want to go with this book, or rather, I know the highlights and the ending.  It’s the getting there that’s being a problem.

    I assume if someone’s bothering to read this, they read THE BATTLE SYLPH and possibly THE SHATTERED SYLPH.  I don’t plot my books. Not in the traditional sense.  Outlines kill inspiration for me dead, so it’s all in my head, usually in the form of flashes of specific scenes I want to see.  When I started THE BATTLE SYLPH, I had three images in my head.  One was of a man leaping off a sheer cliff and everyone screaming as he changed shape.  Another was of a cottage exploding and a bird of prey streaking past a living cloud whose teeth closed right behind his tail.  I also saw a slim bald man standing behind a throne with a king cringing in it, and the slim man was laughing without making a sound.  The whole plot of the first book was to get to those points in time.  

    I had the same sorts of things in my head for THE SHATTERED SYLPH.  Leon leaning back against a door, Ril standing almost against him and drinking his energy.  Ril high above the ground, upside down and rotating in midair above something horrible.  Lizzy dancing in a translucent dress.  Leon riding Ril in the form of a horse.  It’s like I’ve seen the trailer to a movie, which is a bit hard to deal with when you’re the one writing the movie.

    I have these flicks in time for THE CUCKOO, THE HOMUNCULUS, and THE REVENANT too.  I even have them for two more Sylph books that I’ll be writing once I have this trilogy done.  It’s just coming out so slowly.  I don’t think a reader can tell the difference between a scene it took me twenty minutes to write and one that took two weeks, but I want it to come out now.  I want to see my lead male Goose running along the top of that train I know he will be on, knowing he has to get off of it before it’s too late.  I can see the gates to Alkara and the army marching on it.  I want to get there.  

I can see what’s going to happen in the next two Sylph books too.  That little earth sylph standing in the laboratory is just waiting for me to find her.  Just as I can see a woman riding a blue-furred monster across the Shale Plains, the wind streaming her hair back.  She’s grinning at me.  That’s not going to last, given what I know will happen to her when she gets to where she’s going.

    I can’t wait to get to the scene with Thrall and the horse.

    I’ve started meeting other authors, thanks to the Ottawa Chapter of the Romance Writer’s Association.  I need to ask them how they get this stuff out of their heads when its there, and they can see it, and it just doesn’t want to come out as quickly as they need it to.  

    Maybe I need to lock myself away in a secret room somewhere with no computer games or knitting or reading or eating or internet or work to distract me.  

    Nah...  If I did that I’d probably just write more blog entries.

PS: Before anyone gets too excited, I haven’t sold any of these books yet, other than the first three Sylph books.  I’d like to, but I’d write them regardless.  Don’t ask me when they’ll be available. Until a publisher buys them and tells me, I don’t know.  You’d be better off asking them. :)

The Battle Sylph is now available in Canada!

For reasons I’m not entirely sure of, it took three weeks for my book to come out in Canada.  But it’s out now!  THE BATTLE SYLPH is now available for sale at Chapters and hopefully other fine bookstores everywhere.

As as aside, hey, Torin.  Yes, I was who I said I was.  :)

A Dude Reads PNR: Harry reads the Battle Sylph by L.J. McDonald

I found this review from The Book Smugglers website and it really made my day.  They’ve given me permission to reprint it here.

By Ana on February 25, 2010

Filed under: 8 Rated Books, A Dude Reads PNR, Book Reviews

Tags: Fantasy, Harry Markov, Paranormal Romance, Romance

This is our brand new segment in which our delightful buddy Harry, from Temple Library Reviews will be joining us once a month to review paranormal romance from a guy’s perspective. But we will let him introduce himself, please let’s give a warm welcome to Harry!

*******

Harry: I’m the newest honorary addition to the Book Smugglers team [honest to God, I smuggle books home and then lie straight to my family's face about it]. I get the chance to play here at their blog once a month and my small spot will be called ‘A Dude Reads PNR’. The idea came to be in December, when I posted my Sherilyn Kenyon review and people were interested to see the male POV about Paranormal Romance. The public demands, the attention whore (that’s me) begs, and the smugglers comply.

*******

Title: The Battle Sylph
Author: L.J. McDonald
Genre: Romantic Fantasy / PNR

Publisher: Dorchester Publishing
Publishing Date: 23.02.2010
MMP: 323 pages [in the ARC]

Stand Alone or series: First book in a new series

He is one of many: a creature of magic, unrelentingly male. He is lured through the portal by pure female beauty, a virgin sacrifice. When she is killed, he is silenced and enslaved.

Such a dark ritual is necessary, you see. Unlike their elemental cousins-those gentler sylphs of wind and fire-Battlers find no joy in everyday labor. Their magic can destroy an army or demolish a castle, and each has but one goal: find a Queen, then protect and pleasure her at all costs. What would a woman do if she were given such a servant, and what would befall any kingdom foolish enough to allow a Battler to escape?

Young Solie and the people of Eferem are about to find out.

Why did I read the book: The premise sounded intriguing. Ana sounded ecstatic and when her reader-sense is tingling, it means something good will happen. The cover is also mucho impressive with those glowing eyes and the woman sprawled below the title. Certainly a looker that one.

How did I get the book: Ana [book-pimp extraordinaire] tied it to a balloon and asked a flock of geese to deliver it to me. That is a lie, but it would have taken less than with snail mail post.

Review:

My christening review for this mighty feature has not been the funny and good-feel bang I hoped for. To be quite honest ‘Circle of Fire’ shoved me outside in a blizzard. I needed a book to turn the heat up, burn down the house and fire me up. Thankfully ‘The Battle Sylph’ is just the right novel to help you lower your heating bills and is way better than the hot-water bottle you bring to bed. Every page is soaked with either adrenaline or naughty kerosene for the nether regions… of your imagination [naturally, what did you guys think I was going to say?]

Did I hook you? I hope so. Because, there’s much to enjoy in ‘The Battle Sylph’. As the genre suggests this is romantic fantasy, so no leather boots, guns, mean SUVs and vampires or any other standard magical race. Instead, we have swords, sturdy warriors, a queen and a race of spirits, who can become corporal and incorporeal, whenever they please. While it is true that fantasy hosts a romantic subplot almost always, the way the sex scene is mandatory for every single major Hollywood, the relationship usually remains in the background and is not central for the conflict. And it is not steamy, either.

‘The Battle Sylph’ offers the best from the medieval traditional fantasy with its quests, parties of brave heroes with a noble cause and a dastardly nemesis figure, while merging it with quite the liberated sexual attitude and a central relationship, which triggered the events in the book. The balance is solid and achieved by integrating sex into the worldbuilding, which evades the hazard of this becoming a book, where sex randomly flies around and is neither relevant, nor of any use to the plot. As the reader [you, because you have to have this book] discovers, the sylphs are spirits from a different plain, which live together in hives and divide into several subspecies, according to their status and function in the hive. There are elemental sylphs. Fire, water, earth, air. There are healing sylphs and there are also battle sylphs otherwise called the battlers. Every subspecies, excluding the battle sylphs, are female. The battlers are the soldiers in the hive and exist for war and sex, since they are the only males. The sole female to receive their affections is the queen of the hive, which makes them highly competitive and aggressive towards each other. The mythos in ‘The Battle Sylph’ helps the reader identify the mutual traits and the justification behind the behavior of all the battlers in the novel such as Heyou, the youngest battler and main protagonist, Ril and Mace. The dynamics and the hierarchy are fascinating to rediscover, because sylphs in general have no known mythological and popular role attached to them and this rendition steals the show, so to say.

Because sylphs in general require a connection with a human master in order to exist in the human world, the novel is rich in diverse relationship dynamics and scenarios. Beyond the usual human-human interaction with all the classic elements and tropes, such as friendship, betrayal, loyalty, subordination and defilement, readers are also treated to mandatory master-sylph episodes, which are as diverse as the individual characters. McDonald features cold hearted masters with a sadistic streak towards their sylphs, benign masters with a liberal mind, who break some rules and grant some freedoms to their sylphs and masters, who stray away from established models and allow their sylphs to act as they wish, relying on cooperation rather than servitude.

Although Solie and Heyou are the central couple, a queen with her battle sylph, their roles and the story attached to them would ring a bell. Solie is the first woman to break a monopolized by men tradition, by being bound to a battle sylph. Heyou is the young inexperienced battler, who must stand against many a challenge. That aside, the chemistry between these two feels very much real and volatile. However, the real emotional intensity lies in the human-sylph interactions between Leon, the king’s head of security and a dirty trick man, and his battler Ril and Jasar, member of the spoiled elite with many connections and an insufferable ego, and his battler Mace. Leon and Ril walk on the path of guilt, redemption and forgiveness, after it becomes clear that the female sacrifice used in the summoning ritual was actually the reason the battlers crossed plains and her death results in madness for the sylph and hatred towards the master, who remains clueless. Leon’s devastation upon learning the truth is raw and heartfelt, while Ril’s hatred and painful denial is also powerful to read. Mace is less fortunate with his master Jasar, whom you would love to hate and kill, if you were a character in the story. Mace has to endure his master’s depravations, toxic and demanding personality and amoral orders in silence; a bond from which he cannot escape and threatens to add a horrific twist in the resolution.

As you see, ‘The Battle Sylph’ is the Horn of Plenty. From page one you are assaulted with so many flavors, excitement and adventures that you may need some time to adjust. This is my issue with the book. It is taking a non-stop staccato story and playing it double time. There are almost no natural pauses for the reader to rest and by the end of the journey, I was as exhausted as the characters and mind you, I never even had to raise a sword or survive almost certain annihilation. This unnatural speed to dash to the finish line coupled with the lightning quick POV changes might result in some confusion, but overall these two issues do not steal from the quality of the storytelling, prose or creative prowess.

Verdict: I wanted to be sassy, humorous and witty, but quite frankly writing this review sapped completely. There are at least a few thousand words more I wanted to say, but this is a review and not a thesis. In a few words though, ‘The Battle Sylph’ is a winner for sure. A power exercise for your brain’s endurance, but the benefits outweigh the minor inconveniences along the way.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Roving Readers is featuring me

I was contacted last week by the very nice people who run the RAVING READERS blogspot, which is apparently the place to go to get reviews of romance and paranormal novels and find recommendations.  They also have contests where people can win free books, which always strikes me as a good thing to be getting.

They’ve just started a new feature where they focus on a single author for a week, and they asked me if I wanted to join in.  I’m not a complete idiot, so for this entire week, you can go to their site and read reviews, see an interview with me,  get sneak previews of the prologues of my first three books and even a hint of other books beyond them.  Best of all, you get a chance to win one of six copies of THE BATTLE SYLPH up for grabs. 

The page that’s focused on me is located here.  The rest of the site is worth visiting though, so I certainly don’t mind plugging them one bit.  Not that they asked.  I just like them.  :)

Review

This is a review of THE BATTLE SYLPH from Amazon.com. I have permission from the author to post it. Thanks, Kellie.


Briefly, this is the first time I've written a review for a product sold by Amazon. I am not in the book industry (I still keep up a weekly romance newsletter I started while at the bookstore) though I spent a little over 21 years working for a major national bookstore chain, and during that time I was a District Romance Expert. I have been fortunate to see the Romance book genre evolve and take on new branches like Erotic Romance and Paranormal Romance (the latter sprouting the Urban Fantasy sub-genre). I've seen authors come and go and stay. All my experience in the bookselling world tells me L. J. McDonald is here to stay, so keep an eye on her, for she is an author that will not only stay but will soar.

I loved reading her debut book THE BATTLE SYLPH. The setting of the story is on an Earth-like planet inhabited by humans. There is another dimension parallel to this where the Sylphs, elemental creatures, live. There is a doorway between the two dimensions called gates. The humans have found a way to open the gates and entice a Sylph through, who then becomes a slave to the human. When a Sylph crosses the gate, it is bonded with a man--only men are allowed to bond with a Sylph, for those in power feel a woman is too weak to handle a Sylph. There are several types of Sylphs: Battle Sylphs or "warriors", Fire Sylphs, Water Sylphs, Air Sylphs and Earth Sylphs. As their name describes, they are used to fight, warm and produce light, manipulate water, air and earth. Battle Sylphs are all male. In their elemental world they are the protectors of communities called "hives" and a mate for the queens of each hive. They are naturally predisposed to hate all other males of any species, and this hatred and their supernatural strength and abilities are what are attractive to the humans.


Every Battle Sylph desires a queen and a hive of their own. The humans take advantage of this by enticing a Battle Sylph through the gate with a virgin sacrifice tied to an alter table where the gate opens. All the Battle Sylph sees is his "queen" and he cannot resist crossing the gate to her. As soon as the Battle Sylph comes through the gate, it is closed and the man who wants to bond with the Battle Sylph kills the woman and the gate closes. The Battle Sylph becomes a slave to the man who kills the girl. The man "names" the Battle Sylph and from then on the Battle Sylph has to obey him. The Battle Sylphs are told what shape to assume, a hawk, a suite of armor, a lion, etc, and they are forbidden to change or speak to anyone, including their masters and other Sylphs. Their hatred for their bonded human, the killer of their queens, is palpable, and is strong enough to physically affect anyone near them.


The king holds a ceremony to entice a Battle Sylph across the gate to bond with his son, but something goes wrong and the virgin sacrifice, a girl named Solie, doesn't get killed. Rather, it's the prince that is killed by the Battle Sylph, and Solie unwittingly names the Battle Sylph when she tries to get his attention by calling to him, "Hey, you". He is now Heyou. Solie and her Battle Sylph are on the run with the King's men and their Battle Sylphs in pursuit. Solie and Heyou find a refuge with a budding community, and life as everyone knows it is on the brink of change.


Paranormal Romance has evolved in the past few years, looking for new branches on the Paranormal tree. First there were vampires and werewolves, then other shifters, then mixtures of different creatures, then Dragons and now demons (rightly so, these guys are hot; just check out Kate Douglas' DEMONFIRE Demonfire: The Demonslayers). McDonald's innovative world in this debut book, the first in a series, is so simple yet it achieves what many authors try to reach--a back story and characters you do not see in other books--and one wonders why no one has thought of it before. Yes, elements of her Sylph world may be seen in other books and even movies, but the way McDonald treats these elements is refreshing. Her prose is fast and though not all of her characters are likable (bad guys are not meant to be liked), each one is completely fleshed out, and the ones that are the "good guys" and even some on the fence are so interesting I wish I could meet them.


Dorchester Publishing categorizes THE BATTLE SYLPH as Fantasy/Romance and RT Book Reviews has its review under Fantasy (website only). There are a few sex scenes but these are more descriptive than literal. Certainly, compared to the heat level that current romances of the day are reaching in General Romance, this book is a light weight. Personally, I'd like to see more romantic interaction between the hero and the heroine, and the sex scenes described a bit more, but that is my personal preference, and McDonald has treated the sex scenes in the book very tastefully and each one is meaningful to the story and the make up of the characters involved.


McDonald has written a solid debut book. As with any debut book there is always room for improvement, but McDonald is way ahead of the norm. Her characters and the worlds in which they live are obviously well thought out. The tantalizing glimpses of future romances and intrigues whet the reader's appetite. With this book she has made me laugh and cry. If you love Paranormal Romance and you are looking for a new branch of the sub-genre to explore, pick up THE BATTLE SYLPH. This is the type of book you dread finishing because you like the characters and their world so much you wish to live in it forever (like Avatar). McDonald with THE BATTLE SYLPH has my highest stamp of approval. I can't wait to read the next story, THE SHATTERED SYLPH (Apr. 2010)The Shattered Sylph, about Lizzie and Ril.

Review

Friday, February 19, 2010

News and Reviews

Well, it’s almost the release date for my first book. I had meant to have more blog entries in the past while, but I was having issues with my computer. It didn’t want me to save anything for this site without crashing, but the problem is fixed now.


I’ve been receiving a lot of good press about the book. Apparently, Dorchester sent out a 125 early copies to reviews and websites, and everyone seems to like it. At least everyone I’ve heard about. It’s a tremendously affirming feeling to have my work be genuinely liked. Romantic Times has given it four and a half stars, as has the Blogpushers Blog. It’s going to be talked about in a German magazine and featured at the RT Clubhouse’s Debut Corner.


The reviews themselves I’ll put on my Reviews page. I’m starting to get really excited!