Thursday, May 12, 2005

A curate's egg

The Lady Soldier has had its first review. And it was one of those ones where some parts were good and some were bad. The reviewer had antcipated reading it, and enjoyed the narrative and description. She thought these parts were exceptionally well written. But she did not like the dialogue, the heroine or the hero. She felt the heroine became a watering pot towards the end of the book and felt the hero ought to have been able to connect the dots between a woman he met briefly years before and a soldier who happened to resemble the dead woman's brother.
A review is a review is a review.
I do not understand why tears areconsidered a sign of weakness. Maybe it is because I am inclined at certain moments in my life to be teary. But it is a lesson to me. Keep the tears for me and have my characters use other physical attributions. Some people think they make for a weak character. For me, they are a great reliever of stress.
I am sorry that it did not live up to that reviewer's antcipations, but somewhere, some day someone will hopefully find it a good read and an enjoyable romp. It is interesting that despite not striking a chord with her, she did continue to read the book all the way through to the end.
Maybe things will get better.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any review is good news from a publicity point of view. Where was it published?

Regarding tears: I once had a heroine criticised because she fainted too much - well, she was pregnant at the time ....

Pam

Michelle Styles said...

Pam, It was published in A Romance Reader At Heart. If you click on the link, and scroll down the page you will find it.

And yes I know exactly what you mean -- sometimes, one wonders about readers.

Both kate andI liked the irony of the heroine being fearless in battle but terrified in high society.
And the real time she is weepy is after she has been injured and is in a lot of pain.

I have also read another review by this woman (about a Stephanie Laurens) where she confesses she does not really like the time period. So that might have been some of the problem.

But I have survived the first review and am still breathing. So that is a positive. You have to be tough to survive in this business.

Anonymous said...

Reviews always make me nervous. Good ones can make you feel wonderful. Not so good ones can make you feel like never writing another word. (And when someone gives you a 5-star review and then someone else comes along and gives you a lower one... it's the lower one you remember!) My solution is to go eat chocolate. Don't let it get to you.

Alex Bordessa said...

That was just one reviewer's comments, and I'm sure there'll be some rather more positive reviews to come. Regarding the tears business, at some points in history it wasn't considered a weakness to cry - unfortunately, I can't remember where I read this!