Book Review: Forgiven by Rachel Morgan

Author Rachel Morgan contacted me recently and asked if I'd like to review her new novella, Forgiven. Of course I wanted to because the book is clean New Adult! Something that seems to be missing a lot of the time in the book industry.

 

Forgiven

by Rachel Morgan

Reading Grade: New Adult (novella)

Genre: Contemporary (clean)

My Rating: 4/5 stars.

Finally, some New Adult fiction clean enough for me to read! I’m very happy about that. It’s not like I feel the need to read all that much contemporary NA, but I like that an author went out of her way to be different from the rest of the NA writing crowd.

I don’t think I qualify as the best person to review contemporary realism because I usually like my stories to have a supernatural or science fiction element to them. For me, there is always this feeling like something is missing when I read a book that only uses the real world for what it is capable of doing. But, I tried my best to weigh this book against what I know makes a good piece of fiction, and I think it comes out very good.

The plot is very interesting and doesn’t have a lot going on in it, but it really shouldn’t, anyway. It’s pretty much perfect for this type of story and considering that it is a novella, you don’t have room for a detailed plot. But, what this story does excel at is a little something called suspense. This is when you have to keep reading because you want to know so badly how everything will turn out in the end. In this case, I wanted to know so badly why Julia suddenly ran away from home without warning, ten months earlier, and why she suddenly decided to go back home for a two week vacation.

Why did she not even communicate with anyone, not even her mother and father while she was gone? Even when Julia does return home to Durban, South Africa from London, she refuses to explain why she left in the first place. It is very serious stuff. The suspense is literally devised to kill you—and for that, I think this story deserves most of its praise. This is one of the best parts about any kind of storytelling and it made me all the more excited to keep reading.

The only drawback I can think of is that it is too short to accomplish what a story like this needs to accomplish, which is character and relationship development. I think these stories do better in a slightly longer format for this reason, mainly, and this story exemplifies why that is. Everything it has going for it, otherwise, is really great—we even have a few great characters, like Nan and little Sophie. But, we don’t get to spend enough time with any of them to satisfy. That’s where I say I’d like to have seen this at least double in length.

I know that this story is only meant to be a prequel novella to a series of novels, so I probably will get my wish. It does succeed as being a great appetizer for the future novels that will have more room for the character and relationship exploration factor. With that done well, these books will be the best clean NA out there. By itself, Forgiven is a great read, but it’s even better knowing there is much more to come after this.

It's also FREE, so go grabby-hands a copy of this puppy..... 

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes

Week in Review (#5)

WEEK IN REVIEW

Ah... It's time to review my writing/reading week. Let's do this thing, shall we?


Past Writing

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel when it concerns finishing my novella WIP, Pink Knight. I only need to write roughly 4,000 more words and I'll be done. Yay! I met my word count goal for this week, again, of 3,000 words, by racking up 3,356 words. This brings me to a total word count, so far, of 21,150 words.

Past Reading

I didn't read any published books this week, but rather worked on a critique for my writing friend, Camille Picott. She has written a really awesome novella with a heavy Chinese mythological influence. It's definitely something up my alley, not to mention her characters are the shiz. Love them! I still need to finish writing up my critique and email it off to her.

This Week

Again, I plan on writing another 3,000 words of Pink Knight, which won't finish it, but will get me really close. Looks like I'll have this WIP done before October 20th, which is my self-imposed deadline. But, that's good because I don't think, when setting goals, we should set difficult to meet deadlines. I'm allowing myself a few extra days just in case I need them and will still be able to finish by my deadline. 

All I need to do is write the climactic scene and the denouement of the story and it will be finished. Although, both plot points entail a lot of scenes, so there's a lot left to do. But, it's all the really awesome stuff that I can't wait to write! I have it all planned out already and it's going to be so good. Writing should always be this fun, shouldn't it?

I also plan on reading my ARC of Velveteen by Daniel Marks, a YA horror/paranormal novel debut. I've been following Danny's progress with Velveteen, even watching his video when he first announced that he had sold it to his publisher. I remember when he made vlogs about fixing it for his agent to go out on submission. Really cool to see that book go from manuscript to published literature and so motivating for the unpublished. 

Velveteen will be released this Tuesday, October 9th, so check it out if funny YA horror about the underworld sounds like it floats your boat.


That's all for me on my front. It's hard work, but getting your writing done is really satisfying. Have you been making progress on your writing projects? 
 

Week In Review (#3)

WEEK IN REVIEW

Time for another "Week in Review" post and I have happier things to report this week compared to last week.

Past Writing 

I decided to raise my word count last week from 3,600 to 4,200 because I wanted to add back in the 600 words I didn't write from the previous week. It was tiring, but I made my word count of 4,200 and my WIP's total word count now stands at 14,300 words. I'm excited I made it! Last week was so quiet and peaceful compared to the week before, which made focusing on writing ten times easier. Distractions, please keep away!

Past Reading

I didn't read any regular novels last week because I usually have to take a break from the grind every four or five months. As much as I love to read, too much of a good thing without any breaks isn't so great. I've enjoyed ignoring the books on my shelves, even if they've been looking at me like this lately, O__O, trying to figure me out.

I did, however, read a new book on the craft last week that I bought on my Kindle for only $4.99 called The Emotion Thesaurus by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman. You guys! This book is so amazing. It's self-published by the ladies who run The Bookshelf Muse blog for writing tips and such. It has a long list of different types of emotions that we all feel and descriptions on all the physical and internal symptoms for each, giving you so much more to write with. You just look up whatever emotion you want and there's the list. It's a must-have reference for writers!

This Week

Since my goal is to finish this novella by October 20th (about a month from now), I really don't have to kill myself to write it every week in order to meet this deadline. I'm going to plan on writing 3,000 words per week until it's done, so my goal for this week is to write another 3,000 words of Pink Knight. I'm still very happy with how the story is progressing and surprised I don't feel like I have no space for all the things I want to do with the story. I feel almost like I have too much room, instead.

I'll be back to reading again, as usual, and I'll finally be getting to Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel, the second book in The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein series. It's a cool historical gothic YA title with alchemy and mad scientists, or at least, a budding mad scientist who will, eventually, create that infamous monster we all know and love. 

That's it for me this week. Thanks for reading and cheering me on! I hope you all reach your writing goals this week, too, or whatever types of goals they may be.

Week in Review (#2)

WEEK IN REVIEW

It's been a week since I blogged and the last time was my most recent "Week in Review" post. This week I'll report on how things went last week concerning my word count goal on my novella WIP and other tidbits. 

Past Writing

I set a goal for myself last week to write 3,600 words every week in my YA fantasy novella, Pink Knight. Well, this week proved to be more troublesome and distracting in my real life than I expected, so I didn't quite make my word count. I hate to make excuses, but last week was a seriously BAD week, worse than usual. Still, I did write 3,000 words, making the length now at 10,100 words, so not too far below my goal. I'm happy enough with that, all things considered. Hopefully, I'll have a quieter week, adversity-wise, and be able to make my weekly word count goal.

  Past Reading

I read Camille Picott's Sulan and a children's book suggested by her called The Paper Bag Princess. Sulan is a cool cyberpunk dystopian novel that actually reads like something other than The Hunger Games! And, The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch was funny and cute. I wonder I never knew about the book when I was a kid, since it was published way back in 1980 (when I was 4). I bought it on my Kindle for $1.89, so go get it if you want to read it. Super cheap! 

I also bought Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi and Partials by Dan Wells. Both are YA dystopia and were on sale in the Kindle store for only $2.99 each. Partials still is. Check them out if you want to save on these titles. They are also the same price for now at Barnes & Noble's website. Also, I finally got my UK edition of Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, a YA fantasy title, which I'm super excited to read. Took weeks for it to get here because the post office is really slow right now. Same for my Bleach manga volume. At least they're safe with me now.

This Week

I plan to write at least 3,600 this week of Pink Knight, but I'd really like to exceed that. I'm not going to be reading any novels this week because I need a break, so I hope to have more time and energy for writing, as a result. My novella is coming along and I'm super happy with how the story is unfolding. It's turning into a story I'd definitely read if it were written by somebody else, that's for sure.

That's what my week was all about. How was yours? What are you planning for the upcoming week with your writing, or reading? 

   

Week in Review (#1)

WEEK IN REVIEW

Since I have expressed how hard it is for me to finish any writing project I start, I figured I might have need of a little thing called 'accountability.' Maybe proclaiming what I'm doing as I write a work of fiction, in this case my current YA fantasy novella, will hold my feet to the fire and get me to feel obligated to write it. As much as I hate obligatory anything, this might just work to get me to finish a WiP for once!

So, if I become transparent about what I'm doing every week, and what I plan on doing for each upcoming week, this could get me motivated to write. I need to try and see if this will work.

I'm writing a novella with a projected final word count of around 25,000 words and I have set myself a due date for it. That, too, is something I wasn't doing before and may have contributed to my problem. The self-imposed due date for the completed 1st draft is October 20th. So, I'll just report on how well I'm doing each week on nibbling away at this goal, if you don't mind.

 Past Writing

During the week last week, I managed to write up to 7,240 words of my novella, titled Pink Knight, clearing the 1st Act and starting Act 2. I even wrote 1,400 words on Thursday night. And, writing at night is really helping me a lot. I can actually get some done!  I'm going to keep doing that. Maybe I found my perfect writing time. No surprise it's late at night as I am an incurable night owl.

Past Reading 

I read a few novellas during the week, as well, namely The Assassin and the Empire (Throne of Glass, #0.4) by Sara J. Maas, Weighted by Ciara Knight, and Two Ravens and One Crow (Iron Druid Chronicles, #4.5) by Kevin Hearne. All stories were great and that's a feat in and of itself.

I'm loving the Throne of Glass prequel novellas and can't wait to read the first novel. Weighted was a review request by fellow blogger, Ciara Knight, and I love the Iron Druid Chroncles series. I hated the fourth installment, but I still intend to read future books. This novella was good and very funny. Atticus, the main character, didn't annoy me like he did in Book 4 and Oberon was his usual silly self.   

This Week

I plan to write every night for the rest of this week, with hopefully around 3,600 words completed. It's not a huge word count, but I never set myself up for big word counts since I have the tendency to not make them. So, I intend to write less so I can actually accomplish this. I'm also going to be reading Sulan by Camille Picott, a review copy I received from her for her Sulan book tour, which I'll be hosting for two days later this month on my book review blog. 

That's it for me. I'm kind of liking this feature and I might just keep it up on a weekly basis. It makes me feel organized, if anything.

MAY I Ask You Something About You? (Blog Me MAYbe #4)

Blog Me MAYbe is a writer blog meme created/hosted by the lovely Sara McClung of BabblingFlow.Blogspot.com

  Wednesday Question: MAY I Ask You Something About You?

I'll admit that I'm really curious about all the other writers who blog out there. Since I've just started my writer blog, I'm green all over with noobishness (not envy. Not yet, anyway). I see all these other writers blogging and honestly wonder what they are writing. Especially of the ones who don't have any work published yet. What kinds of novels are you guys writing, anyway?

So, I'll start by talking about one of my WIPs (we all have a few at any given time, right?). I'm currently writing a novella that doesn't have a great working title, so I won't repeat the title, but it's an adult sci-fi/urban fantasy. 

Art by sakimichan of deviantART.com

It's about a youngish scientist who is totally obsessed with growing himself a pair of bird wings that can be used for unassisted flight. Even though he succeeds, things eventually go horribly wrong for him, and, yes, his is more of an anti-hero/tragic figure. It's sort of dark material. I wish I could justify how I thought this one up, but, alas, I cannot. I'm just weird. No point in hiding it.

Anyway, this begs the question of what are all of you currently working on. What reading grade is it? What genre? Is it a novel, novella, short story, a series of novels, epic poetry? Honestly, I really want to know what you all are writing out there. Do tell!