"Veils and Vengeance" a Book Blast Book Review

If you've read my blog at all, you know I'm trying to find my place as an author and trying different things to "build my platform".

At the LDStorymaker's conference I attended the Indie Publisher's track and at one of the panels they mentioned The Author Indie Hub. It seemed like the social network I wasn't able to establish or find on my own. So, once I got back home I signed up.

Reading the daily posts on the group, I was that Rachelle Christensen was doing a Book Blast for the launch of he newest book, "Veils and Vengeance". I signed up to participate to get an inside view of what a successful book launch looks like.

So far I've gotten more Facebook page likes for my author page, more Goodreads follows and more Twitter followers than from any other promotion I've run on my own.

But, enough about me. You are here about the book.

I figured that though the book was described as a mystery, there would also be a substantial amount of romance. I'm all for romance in the books I read. Love is a part of life and happens at the best, and worst of times. In "Veils and Vengeance" there was a continuous romantic sub-plot with the appropriate amount of tension. Knowing that the author is a member of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" I assumed the romance would be light and not heavy on sexual content. I was happily correct.

After writing my Amazon review, I read what others had written. Most described the mystery aspect of the book as "cozy". I hadn't heard this term before, but saw how it applied. There was murder, attempted murder, and mystery though not to the point that I felt uncomfortably anxious.
 
The book takes place in Hawaii. While I was reading it to write my review my wife was binge watching "Hawaii Five O" on Netflix. Sometimes when thinking about the story I tried to remember how Steve Magarret amd Dano Williams fit into the story.

Also, I lived on Oahu for three years when I was in the army. That was twenty-five years ago and I have never really wanted to go back. Reading the book showed a different side to the tourist trade than what I had seen and thought it might be nice to see one of the less visited islands.

I enjoyed reading "Veils" from beginning to end.

I've been reading "Indie" authors, trying to help out others trying to make it into the established author world and have read a lot of garbage as a result. Rachelle's writing was a breath of fresh air.

I recommend this novel to anyone who wants to read a Romance, a Mystery, a Travel Book, of just an entertaining story without having to worry about objectionable content. What follows is the review I wrote for Amazon and other sites.

With trying to give an honest review in mind, I tried to find a reason to not give this book a five star review.

Full disclosure: I received an advance reader copy a week ago, but after only a few chapters I pre-ordered it so that I could have it on my kindle and share it with my wife.

Rachelle Christensen's writing is immaculate. Told in the first person point of view of Adri, a wedding planner from Idaho who accompanies her client to a dream wedding in Kauai, her characterization is deep and consistent. The plot moves forward at a quick but comfortable pace with island descriptions and back story seamlessly tucked into the action and dialog. The occasional romantic interlude reminds us that even murder suspects have a need to love and be loved.

If five stars means I loved the story, Veils and Vengeance gets all five.

Roaches and Horrors

I've hated cockroaches for a long time.

I think I was twelve years old when we visited our cousins in Las Vegas. They had a huge backyard with a pool, garden, and a three story wooden fort. We were playing in the fort and pulled a roll of carpet from under a table. The thing swarmed with roaches, and those white ones, the ones which had just shed their skin looked like cockroach ghosts. I had see nothing scarier in my few short years of life.

Eight years later I was a missionary in South Africa, specifically, in Durban. Hot, humid, subtropical and loaded with bugs. The boarding we stayed in  was in a large room below the main house and would get so stuffy during the day that we left doors open on both sides of the room at night, to let the air blow through.

The cockroaches flew. We would hear them fly over our beds at hit the walls, I could barely stand it.

I didn't want to let these six legged demons take over my life, so I took the offensive. In the evening when we would come back to the boarding, I would grab my fly swatter and position myself in the middle of the room and give the word to turn on the lights. I would chase the little beasts around the room until, after a few weeks, there were no more waiting for me inside the boarding.

I hunted them down outside. I would hang around drain pipes and gutters with my fly swatter and flash light swatting my retribution on any unfortunate enough to get within reach.

I no longer fear them. Three years in Hawaii eased me of my last few 'willies'.

I now know more about them and their behavior than ever before. Not form up close and personal contact, but because I wrote a short story where my two main characters are cockroaches. That story is done, at about 5200 words and has been submitted to an anthology. We'll see where that goes.

Right now, before I begin my major rework of 'Fly Paper Boy', I am rewriting an old horror story I wrote for the Great Hites podcast, about four years ago. It's for the 100th episode of The Horror Addicts Podcast 100th episode. Emz has asked those of us who have participated in various ways to do a five minute recording of the scariest thing we could think of.

"The 23rd Horror" gave me the willies back when I first wrote it. I'm editing it down to just five minutes and changing the POV to First Person Past. This way the narrative move must faster than the original story and we get a stronger emotional response from the main character. You'll be able to find it at www.HorrorAddicts.net when their 100 episode is released. There you'll hear my voice and benefit from vocal emphasis that I feel when I'm writing but am unable to put into the story carry completely with written words.

Anyway, a few weeks later, I'll post the story here.