Book Review: Daughters of Jared by H.B Moore

From the Book of Ether comes a haunting story of two royal sisters. The elder sister, Ash, will do anything to bring her father, King Jared II, back to the throne. The younger sister, Naiva, only wants to save her family from destruction. The bond of sisterhood becomes precariously fragile when one man . . . named Akish . . . falls in love with the younger sister, Naiva. Yet he chooses to marry the elder sister.

The sisters’ hearts are divided. And when Ash becomes queen, seduced by the promise of power and wealth, Naiva watches her world crumble away. She sees only one way out. But it will require forsaking all that she holds dear.

This latest novel by H.B Moore has got to be one of her best so far. I don’t think I even took a breath during the first 100 pages. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration and I most likely had to have, but only when the words started to blur and I reminded myself to do so. The tension between the heroine, Naiva, her sister, Asherah, and Akish was palatable throughout. Throw in the strong, mysterious and devoted Levi, and the emotional tension soared. The way in which Moore recounts this Book of Mormon story reminded me of Like Water for Chocolate where the culture dictated the duties of daughters according to birth order, and the unfairness of being born first, or second in Naiva’s case—only without any naked horse riding, of course.

Uh-uh! Moore’s book has plenty of romance, spine tingling kisses and love triangles, but no shenanigans atop a horse or any other surface for that matter.

So, no worries.

For those of you who like a clean historical romance mingled with intrigue, betrayal and a healthy dose of comeuppance, this is the novel for you.

Enjoy!

Whitney Award Finalist

I’m very excited to announce that Count Down to Love was chosen as a Whitney Award Finalist!

Click here to view all of the Whitney Award Finalist.

Count Down to Love was also mentioned in an article at Dawning of a Brighter Day.

Check back in May for a list of the winners. Fingers crossed Count Down to Love is among them.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly . . . and the Glorious

Back in the not-so-distant past when I was still querying and being rejected by publishers and agents
in the privacy of my own home, where said communications could be deleted and/or ripped to shreds,
I thought things were pretty rough.

Rejection, as every author knows, can be crushing to the ego, devastating to the spirit and numbing to creativity.

Once my first manuscript was accepted, I thought those rollercoaster days of excited anticipation followed by an agonizing wait that ended with a screeching halt at a patronizing, “This manuscript is good but it just isn’t for us/me,” were over.

Beyond every obstacle is another hurtle.

What I didn’t know was that getting published, in no way, meant the end of rejection. Not only are readers and reviewers free to say wonderfully glorious things about my book, but they are equally unrestrained, much to my chagrin, from being down right nasty. And to make matters worse, their opinions are published on the Internet where there is no delete button and, obviously, no shredder for me to use at my discretion. Just out there, uncensored and raw, for all interested parties to peruse.

So, I thought I would share a little of my joy, along with a pinch of my pain, with y’all by publishing some of my reviews.

Bitter/Sweet

As an unpublished author my dream during those few years between rough draft and publishing contract was to actually see my first novel in print, to share a story that was dear to my heart with the vast community of readers.

As an unpublished author what I didn’t consider was that when the time came to send my work out into the world of literature some readers just might not feel the same enthusiasm for the story that I did. While some will enjoy reading my work, others might go as far as to not like the book at all. That a few of my last-minute edits might somehow go awry on their way to the final copy. That the cover might say nothing compelling about the story. That the finished product overall might come nowhere near living up to the dream.

Submission Rejection Disorder

Recently, I received some feedback on my latest novel. First, the editor complemented me on my characters and dialog, which was nice but then she went on to categorizing me as the kind of author who tends to “tell instead of show.” Now, I will admit that I did incorporate the occasional flashback and introspective, some of which I agree needs to be reworked, but when did it become a crime to write a novel with a nice balance of dialog and narration. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t know what I was doing when I wrote the offensive telling. If my dialog was “enjoyable” then obviously I know how to “show.” I wasn’t suffering from some sort of bipolar disorder that caused my writing style to shift from showing to telling and then back again without my knowledge.

How Many Frogs?

After a year of writing in the wee hours of the morning, the darkest hours of the night and any space of time I could steal between composing and recording the song that goes with the book, working, home schooling, cooking, gardening, church and so on, I finally finished my third novel – Who I Am.

And so now it’s time to dust off my “rubber suit” and start submitting – again. After re-writing, proofreading, editing, formatting, etc, my manuscript is all spiffy and ready to be published. As I started to assemble my list of prospective publishers and agents I looked it over and wondered, how many queries will it take before I finally find the right agent and/or publisher. How many rejections will I have to endure before I stumble upon the person/publisher who will be willing to represent my work?

The Male POV

After I finished the first chapter of No Holly for Christmas I decided to take it out for a test run and enter it in some

 contests. Then, if it didn’t do well I could make some changes, or scrap the whole project before I had too much time invested.

It did surprisingly well, scoring a 9 and 9.5 out of 10 in both contests. What did the judges suggest to make it better? Well, not much except to comment that one of the main character’s (Brian) thoughts were too feminine at times.

And so I started to think. How do I—a woman—write and think like man? I had already tried to keep his thoughts concise—I know men don’t like to spend too much time analyzing things. So, what do men think about?

Duh, sex.