Monday, January 30, 2012

Book Review - Queen in Exile . . . Plus Awards & Querying

I've got a guest blogger today. Her name is Bobbie Staley, and she's one of my clerks at my day job. She's not an author or an aspiring author. She's one of those people we're all hoping to bring into our camps

She's a Reader.

All right. So am I. So are you. But you know what I mean.

She's highlighting Queen in Exile by Donna Hatch.

Isn't this a great cover?
Book Description:
Rumors of War hang over Princess Jeniah's peaceful country of Arden, a land that shuns both magic and warfare. Following a lifelong dream, Jeniah forms a telepahtic bond with a revered creature called a chayim, who is prophesied to save her kingdom. But when a Darborian knight comes upon Jeniah with her chayim, he sees only a vicious monster about to devour a maiden, and he slays the beast.

Devastated by the loss of her chayim, and fearing that her own magic is evil, Jeniah doubts her destiny. When an enemy invades Arden City, they slaughter the people, storm the castle, and execute the entire royal family except the princess. Rescued by the knight who slew her chayim, Jeniah is now heir to the throne of Arden and the only hope for freeing her people from tyranny.

On the run and hunted by enemy soldiers, Jeniah must place her life and the fate of her kingdom in the hands of this trained killer. Torn between embracing her destiny as queen af Arden, and her love for a mere knight, she must ultimately rely on her magic to save herself and her people from death and tyranny. 


What does Bobbie think?

As I began to read yet another book about magic I was skeptical since I have read a few lately.  I was pleasantly surprised to find this one caught my  attention right away with the bond that Jeniah has with her Sacred animal.

I was taken with the tale of trials and love and anger and tears and oh-my-gosh moments that kept me wanting to read till the weee hours of the night.  I love this book, and I would recommend it to all ages.  I am going to have my 13-year-old read it because I know she would love this book.


Awards

I want to acknowledge the kind ladies who gave me a couple of awards this week:
 You can check out the charmers here.

Querying

I hope you all had a great weekend. On Saturday I clicked the "send" button for the second time. It was harder in some ways because this one was unsolicited. I'm surprisingly calm about everything.

Hubby and I are going to go out to dinner every time I hit 10 rejections. I got my inspiration from author James Dashner as he mentioned in LTUE last year that that's what he did. The hard part will be those unofficial rejections because the agency has a "no reply" policy. You just tick off the time, and when you haven't heard anything just assume it's a "not interested".

*Rubs hands together*

Where shall we go out to eat?

22 comments:

  1. I like the idea of celebrating ten rejections. I do actually wish some of them would e-mail me back and say they don't want my stuff. I need to print off the letter so that I can add it to my rejection wall!

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  2. Congrats on the two awards well deserved.

    Yvonne.

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  3. Fun review. Great awards. Here's to a whole lot of home cooking.

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  4. Good luck on the querying! It hasn't been so long for me that I've forgotten what it's like.

    Here's hoping you don't have to do it for long!

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  5. That is a brilliant idea. I'm stealing it from you from stealing it from James :)

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  6. I like the set up of that novel (and the cover. so pretty).

    And best of luck on the querying. Here's hoping you don't eat out too often. :)

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  7. Nice review and sounds like a good plan for rejections, let's hope you never have to use it though.

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  8. pretty cover! sounds like a great ya fantasy.

    and i love the idea of a pick me up after # rejects/no responses, will have to think of a good reward (we eat out all the time...)

    thanks!

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  9. That is a beautiful book cover. And good luck with your queries. I'm sure you'll find the right agent who loves your work.

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  10. Queen in Exile was a fun read! I agree that it's a great fit for young girls.

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  11. Sounds like a really good book! Thanks for that!

    And good luck on the querying! Sounds like a really good idea, about going out to eat. Nice little picker upper.

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  12. Dinner every time you hit ten rejections - now that's motivation!

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  13. You have an amazing attitude about it. You are doing great--you've written a book and put so much work into every aspect of it, and you're working on getting it out there.

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  14. I love the cover of this book. That alone makes me want to read it.

    Querying is a crazy experience. I love the idea of rewarding yourself for rejections. Makes them fun somehow :)

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  15. Dinner every time you hit ten rejections? That's brilliant!

    Hmm... now I have to find someone to con into taking me to dinner for my rejections. ;)

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  16. Fun guest blogger! I won QUEEN IN EXILE and loved reading it! It's a great book and really captured my interest as well.

    Good for you on sending query #2! That is so exciting. Good luck!

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  17. What a wonderful reader review. Queen in Exile sounds like an interesting read.

    Special dinners to celebrate every 10 rejections? I don't know if that would work for me. I might actually look forward to getting and counting up my rejections lol!!!

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  18. Adding this to my Goodreads list. *sigh* It's getting quite long. I will maybe have to do a lottery to decide what I should read next.

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  19. Rad, thanks for the introduction to another read/writer:)

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  20. I hate those "no answer means no" rejections. I've heard of writers getting responses 18 months after sending the query, so who knows if that's true. And one agent who requested a full never even received my original query. A client of hers told me to resend it to her regular email, not her query email, hence the request. So again, who knows?

    Good luck with all your queries! I'm right behind you!

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  21. I love how you turn negatives into a positive--dinner after ten rejects. So smart.

    And thanks for the review of Queen in Exile.

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  22. Ohhhhh... can I come to dinner? LOL. I love it. Querying... sigh... the ultimate test of all things patience. You rock, Donna :D

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