The Saturday Morning Post ( No. 69)

 

This week we have another of those books written by women, mostly for women, I suppose, that I enjoy, liking both small scale stories, and period pieces. This one dates back to 1938 and it can be seen as a retelling of the Cinderella story. I read it in one day. My wife, who was between books, also liked it.

At the moment, these posts are running more than two months behind my actual reading. I like to have a backlog to ensure a weekly post, but the lag is getting a bit long, and reading a book in a day, does tend to increase that backlog. I may have to go back to posting the review of two books to catch up or just slot a couple into my Wednesday blog slot when I have nothing to say, instead of  just saying nothing. We'll see.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson  A-

This is a story about a penniless governess, Miss Guinevere Pettigrew, who at the start of the story, is at an employment agency and is given an address of a person wanting a governess. Standing before the block of flats, she prayed silently; 'Oh Lord! If I've ever doubted your benevolence in the past, forgive me and help me now.' She added a rider to her prayer, with the first candid confession she had ever made to her conscious mind. 'It's my last chance. You know it. I know it.'

The listing seems to be a mistake, because when she is met at the door by the lady of the flat, who was obviously dragged out of bed at 10:00 by the ringing of the doorbell, there is no child present in the flat - but there is a man, and not the lady's husband. But never mind... she's invited in, and is drawn into the hectic life of a stage actress and her bright young friends, and lives a new and wonderful life for a day.

Being lazy, I have links to two more complete reviews, if you want to know more about the story:

Strange at Ecbantan 

The Next 50

The entire story takes place within a single day. The pace is cheerfully breakneck, the characters charming, the situations, one after another, are little vignettes of the freewheeling life of young, theater people in pre-WWII London.

Winifred Watson wrote six novels, three were rural romances set in the previous century, and three were contemporary novels like this one. Henrietta Twycross-Martin wrote, in the introduction to the book;

"...they deal with the development and resolution of sexual and family tensions in ways that may flout convention and the law, but that allow women to survive and ultimately flourish." 

And she adds, having met the author when she was 93; "She said to me 'I have lived a very happy life'. And in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day she wrote a very happy novel."  It is.

A bomb in the London Blitz drove her out of her house and into her mother-in-law's house where she lived for six years, until they could get their own again. She said that she needed to be alone to write, and by the time she and her husband move into their own home, it seems like the urge to write had passed, and with the exception of a half finished, and lost ms of another novel, she didn't write again.

New Kobo Policy - $.99 Series Starters - Apple Audio Solution?

Some business housekeeping news this week.

I recently tried to find my books on Kobo's ebook website, and neither putting in my name, nor entering a title of a book, would bring up any of my books, despite the fact that they are distributed to Kobo from Draft2Digital. Moreover, if I went to  the "My Book" page on D2D's site, clicked on a book and then on the Kobo logo below the listing, it would take me to a Kobo page, or should I say an alleged Kobo page, for that book. Now this is probably a Kobo issue, however, I decided to take the opportunity to delist my books with Kobo via D2D in favor of uploading them myself to Kobo.

I debated about listing them at the same price as they are listed at Amazon. Kobo does not report the sale of free books to Draft2 Digital, so I don't know how many I've sold for free on Kobo. It's a case of "if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?" sort of thing. Which is to say, not knowing how many, or if any, books I sell on Kobo, it is easy to give up those unrecorded free sales. I doubt I've sold very many, judging from the number of reviews they received. Once upon a time, I did list my books on Kobo myself, and in that case they did report how many free books you sold. It wasn't many, not worth keeping a separate account, so I went back to distributing them via Smashwords. This time around, I'm thinking that if I don' sell more than a couple free books a month, it wouldn't make a difference if I put a non-free price on from a sales point of view. They might be not only more visible with a price, but more attractive in Kobo's version of Kindle Unlimited lending library, so adding a non-zero price may be a plus

But on further consideration, I decided to see just how many I sell at free, and then make a final decision at the end of the year. If I can't give them away on Kobo, I might as well not sell them.

In another bit of news, I've lowered the prices of my series starting ebooks, which is to say, The Captain of the Lost Star, Sailing to Redoubt, and The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon to $.99, which is typical for a series starter, if not for free. I could try to make them perma-free, but The Captain of the Lost Star is exclusively Amazon at present, though I'm thinking that I will use that six book format for Kobo as well, but I don't  think it's worth messing with Amazon at present. I have two free books on Amazon.com and maybe a free book in some of the other stores, so I have free sample books covered already.  I'll just let that sleeping dog lay.

And finally I contacted D2D about the three books of mine that had not been converted to Apple audiobooks. I received a very quick response from Tara, who discovered that the problem was likely that the books in question did not have complete tables of contents. I never paid much attention to tables of content before, but now, I guess I better. In any event, I reworked the manuscripts so that their conversion process found all the chapters and reuploaded them. Hopefully this will fix the problem. We'll see. At least I received an explanation as to what may be holding them up.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 68)

 

This week we go back to the source. Last week I reviewed Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog.  Her story was a nod to Jerome K Jerome's most famous novel, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) That novel being available on Gutenberg, I downloaded it... And so once more we are on a small boat on the Thames. This time making our way up it from London.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)  by Jerome K Jerome  B

Though described as a novel, it is more of a fictional travelogue with a great many humorous anecdotes hung on the incidental narrative of a boating trip. The story, such as it is, describes a boating expedition up the Thames River in the late 1880's undertaken by three men, and a dog. The actual journey it is loosely based on the author's honeymoon, with his bride being replaced by George and Harris in the fictional journey. He wrote it right after they returned from their honeymoon. How much of the voyage outside of the actual river is authentic I don't know. What I do know is that many, many years ago I collected books on London, and I picked up a two volume set called The Thames Highway by Fred S Thacker, more or less under the impression that it would deal with the Thames of London to the sea. However it covered the entire length of the Thames - with maps. I never read it, as it was rather dry reading, mostly a list of this sites in great detail, but reading Three Men in a Boat allowed me to put it into use, tracing their progress on a series of maps of the river. You never know... Which is why you should never throw anything out.

Being a fan of clever, witty writing, I enjoyed this book and his dry humor, though, as I say, I can't really consider it a novel. Rather it was an excuse to tell a wide variety of humorous little stories on all sorts of subject. I believe humorous stories was the type of writing Jerome had been producing before writing this book. The book proved to be so popular that it has never been out of print, and though he wrote other books and plays, none were as popular as this one.

He did however, write a similar book some years later with the same characters called Three Men on the Bummel. This time they go on a bike trip through Germany. I downloaded that one as well, and will be reporting on it in a few weeks.

This is a famous book, and something of a classic. It's a nice light read, but nothing more that a collection of humorous stories and a glimpse into life in Victorian England.

Revealing My 2025 Novel Release Date!

 

A slightly revised cover

Are you weary of long, dark, and grim fantasy epics? Tired of evil priests, ruthless kings, sinister queens, knaves, and scoundrels—intricate palace intrigues and endless wars? Are you jaded by blood-soaked tomes of battle after battle, death after death? Need a break from accounts of disembowelment, torture, rape, and murder? In short, are you looking for a different sort of fantasy? Look no further.

Chateau Clare is a leisurely paced, mundane slice-of-life fantasy novel set in a post-magic, Edwardian-era sort of world. The stakes are low, and the company pleasant. In it, Lan Teya discovers he’s the heir of a once slightly sinister and powerful Great House—a scion of a family he never knew he belonged to. With his inheritance comes the long abandoned estate of his sorcerer ancestors—Chateau Clare. As the new master of Chateau Clare, Lan Teya reluctantly sets out to renovate it. In the process, he discovers not only its secrets, but also uncovers a great injustice suffered by his immediate predecessor at the hands of the other Great Houses—a wrong he reluctantly feels he must right. But at what cost?

Chateau Clare is a slow paced novel of everyday life in an imaginary, but semi-familiar world, filled with colorful friends, little mysteries, and a hint of romance. If you’re looking for heart-thumping excitement, move along, nothing to see here. But, if you’re looking for a nice, pleasant read, Chateau Clare may be just your cup of tea.

C. Litka is the author of sixteen tales of adventure, mystery, and travel set in richly imagined worlds. In Chateau Clare, he has written a novel of everyday life and little mysteries with his usual cast of colorful, fully realized characters. If you seek to escape your everyday life, you will not find better company, nor more wonderful worlds to explore, than in the stories of C. Litka.

That, in short, is my 2025 Novel, Chateau Clare. 

The paperback version of Chateau Clare is already available on Amazon for $12.99. I saw that it is, for some reason listed under the "Supernatural mysteries" category as well as the two categories I selected. This suggests that Amazon scans the blurb of each book, since it included the word "sorcery" in the description. Interesting. 

The Amazon ebook will be released on 24 October 2024 You can preorder your ebook copy on Amazon for $3.99. The audiobook version on Amazon will follow within a day or so, also for $3.99 

All the other ebook versions of Chateau Clare will be available for my usual price of FREE. Find them on Google, Apple, B & N, Smashwords, Kobo, and a host of other European ebook stores on or shortly after 24 October 2024.

The FREE audiobook version on Google will drop shortly after 24 October 2024. The FREE Apple audiobook version will, maybe, follow, sometime. There is no telling when, or even if, Apple will release it after I submit it. I'm still waiting on three books I submitted nine months ago to appear.

Some Author Notes:

I've come to realize that Chateau Clare represents a return to my original story concept of Some Day Days and A Summer in Amber, which is to say it's a light, romantic novel, period. I set those stories in the future simply to free myself of the constrains of a known time and place and the past and future that surrounds a historical time and place. Also, it frees me of all the research setting a story in the past with any realism involves. In this case, Chateau Clare is set on a different planet in the far future, but it is just a light, slightly romantic novel with a little mystery to drive the leisurely plot along. For marketing purposes I've slotted it in as general fantasy and cozy mystery, since I'm done with science fiction. The reality is that there is a minor science fiction base, but it owes next to nothing to science fiction, and can pass as mundane, or low fantasy. More or less.

I had fun dreaming up this story last summer, and writing it this spring. I did not consider what my readers might want when I wrote it, so that if it disappoints my readers, it's on me. I also did not go back and trim 30,000+ words off of the first draft, like I should, so readers might well find it way too wordy and boring. That's also on me. So if sales and rating suffer for all that, it's also on me. But that's a price I'm more than willing to pay to write just what I want, just the way I want it written. And well, unless Amazon makes me, I don't ask any reader to pay me money for my work because I do it for fun. On the flip side, I'm not going to work for nothing. I'm only willing to have fun for nothing, and thus, I write the books I, personally, want to write. I'm more than willing to trust that they will find a few readers who also appreciate them. I hope that this doesn't sound arrogant or condescending. All I'm saying is that I approach writing as a work of art, and expression of the artist's creativity, without commercial considerations. And because of that I understand that if you don't produce an appealing product, you can't kick if it doesn't sell. I won't.

So, with Chateau Clare I've gone back to my roots as a writer. I think I'll be staying there.