“There is love, anger, hatred and feelings of powerlessness within this story just as there is in life and for me it ticked all the boxes for a very good read.” Wendy Lipke -Queensland Reviewers Collective.
All the conventional wisdom says ‘don’t read reviews about your own stories’. How wise… How stoic… How impossible… I don’t know any writer who manages to follow that advice completely. In this internet driven age so many of our purchasing habits are driven by on-line information – star-ratings, recommendations, and reviews. Books are no exception.
Many of us who write are introverts pretending to be extroverts and we’d love nothing more than to be allowed to write our stories, drink our favourite tea/coffee/hot chocolate/wine/soft drink, and live in our imaginary world without having to deal with the outside world. But as soon as we send our stories out into the hands of readers we’ve entered the real world again. We know that some stories will resonate more than others and we can only hope that we’ve crafted our story well enough that readers will love it, will share it with their friends and families. And some of them will write reviews.
My publisher sent me a link to one of the first reviews for Return to Roseglen. I’m delighted that Wendy enjoyed the story, but I’m over the moon that it resonated with her. Here’s her review.
If you’ve read a book you like then a writer somewhere will appreciate the five minutes it takes to rate or review a book. Of course if you didn’t enjoy a story then perhaps the old adage ‘if you can’t find something good to say don’t say anything at all’ may be a kinder choice…
In just over a week Return to Roseglen will be in stores. I hope Ivy and her girls resonate with many more readers 🙂
