As a writer, any time someone says something nice about your work, you get a little glow. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the game, there are always inner insecurities and a little bit of external validation adds a welcome handful of kindling to the campfire of self belief and pushes the darkness and doubt back for a while.
Much of the time reviews are short, to the point, a few paragraphs focusing on what the reviewer (hopefully) liked about the book. In depth reviews where the reviewer takes time to go into detail, make comparisons and connections, and perhaps include some wider commentary are much rarer.
Which was why it was super lovely this morning to discover this incredibly positive review of Charlie Says by Rowan Lee (I love that name!) on her Folk Horror blog, The Harvest Maid’s Revenge. Since Charlie Says marks my first foray into writing folk horror, I was a little nervous about getting it right. Thanks to Rowan’s meticulously thoughtful and wide ranging review, I’m feeling pretty okay about that now.
If you’re into Folk Horror or interested in learning more about the genre, The Harvest Maid’s Revenge is an awesome trove of opinion and recommendations.
Of course, it’s unbelievably helpful to get reviews in the run up to a book’s release date. Sometimes you get them some time after the fact too. Peter Tennant, legendary book reviewer for Black Static, runs The Late, Late Review in which he reviews books he’s had on his pile for a while. Today, Peter posted a super detailed story-by-story review of my first collection, The Ephemera, and it was very cool seeing those stories get some love after all these years. Not only that but I discovered that he very kindly gave Secret Language the same treatment last year.
I know reviewers do what they do because they are invested and engaged in the critical side of fields they enjoy, and I love when you can feel their passion for their subject bubbling off the screen. And when they shine their light over here, I’m always gobsmacked by the amount of time and effort they put into thinking about my work.
So, yeah. The bonfire is well stoked right now. Thanks, folks.
And… on with the new!
ayeahmur 