As a new writer, the thought of people reviewing my books was ever so slightly terrifying. I knew that not everyone would like them, but would I crumble under the criticism?
The short answer, to my surprise, was no. At my first-ever writer’s festival, my fifteen minutes with a literary agent comprised of roughly thirty seconds of her telling me the market had fallen out of fantasy and fourteen and a half minutes of her giving me a tutorial on the differences between M and N dashes. It was a useful lesson, but possibly not the one she intended.
Fast forward six months, and a very dear friend of mine insisted on reading my unedited draft of "The First Ethereal," even though fantasy was about as far away as you could get from the gory, blood and guts crime novels she usually devoured.
Had I been the sensitive type, I too might have been left (metaphorically) bleeding as she hated the book and told me so – at length! After that particular kicking, I declared myself properly okay with negative reviews. Yes, they’re a bit ouchy, but you’re never going to please everyone – and every second you waste fretting over someone else’s opinion is time you could have spent writing.
Anyway, in the spirit of sharing the good stuff, here’s a review of "Ethereal" from Viva's Head of Investigations, Lex Rigby.
