Dear Author likes A LOVER'S KISS!

Here's an excellent way to start the day: Jayne at Dear Author likes A LOVER'S KISS!. She gave it a B-, which means she had a few quibbles, but overall she appreciated Juliette and Drury and thought their relationship developed well.

Whew. Whew, whew, whew.

I'll confess I go to Dear Author every day, but I've never sent in one of my books for review. Why not? 'Cause frankly, they scare me! It's not that I think their reviews are wrong or bad or anything. But they are frank, and having been the victim of some pretty snarky reviews on the web in my day, I tend to regard internet review sites with dread.

See, I remember when hard-hitting reviews first appeared on the internet, in all their blunt snarkiness. I'm well aware that extreme emotion creates interest, and I'm sure readers appreciated the blunt honesty of the reviews, but there also seemed to be a sort of malicious glee to some of them.

It's one thing to have your work criticized; it's quite another to be mocked.

I'm happy to say I think things have evened out and calmed down. Now, many of the reviews, while still bluntly honest, are more genuinely critical rather than mocking.

But still, once bitten, twice shy and all that.

So my initial reaction when somebody told me A LOVER'S KISS had been reviewed (because it wasn't there the last time I looked), was fear. I asked if it was good before I went to look. And lo, it was. B- might seem lacking to some people, but not to me. Best of all, no spoilers!

As for the reviewers' quibbles, points taken, although I will say that if she'd read the previous books, she might not be so surprised Brix would announce Fanny's pregnancy to his best friends. That's Brix. If he were alive today, he'd be the guy proposing via Jumbotron. But mea culpa nonetheless, because I never assume everybody's read the previous books in a series. I clearly didn't make Brix's personality quite clear enough in this book.

Nevertheless, I'm over the moon and relieved and inspired to work hard on Buggy's book, especially Chapters Five through Ten.