Spring 2020 Love and Books

Hello Readers, and welcome to 2020 the Chinese year of the prosperous metal Rat! Being in southern Ontario the land of ever winter, I’m thrilled that the groundhogs generally predict an early spring. This is happiness here J

So, over the last several weeks I’ve had a chance to finally read Lauren Kate’s, FALLEN (book 1), which I’ve been curious about for ages. Yes – I’m pretty late to the scene on this one. And I admit it, I came across a paper copy at a thrift store and decided to pick it up in an unusual act as I rarely read paper books anymore (something about de-cluttering…).

So, I’ve been watching the movie someone (thank you) put up on YouTube here over and over because like many I discovered and have ‘fallen’ for the impossibly romantic concept of the relationship between Daniel and Luce. It was time to read the real story and here was a paper copy available to me so I grabbed it. The reviews over at Goodreads are very mixed but overall not that great with mostly the fans just being very loyal. I wanted to find out for myself why.

For me, the writing style is very middle of the road, nothing special. The movie deviates a little from the book but not substantially.  Fallen is definitely a case of a book where the story itself is so interesting and captivating (to me anyways) that I didn’t really focus so much on the writing quality. The pacing of events is very well done though and Kate threads out the story perfectly to keep you going.

So why do we love the concept of a fallen angel and a mortal falling in love over and over again for thousands of years? At first glance, wouldn’t you just get tired of the same thing, as glorious as it is, just repeating forever like some laundry dryer cycle?  Nope.  There is just something about those early intense, wow - draw me into you moments between two people that fascinate us, every time. Never mind the super-paranormal aspect of the whole scenario. I guess that’s why there are so many romance novels out there! From what I’ve read about the rest of the series, I’ll probably skip onto Rapture to finish it so I’ll be on the lookout for a copy of that.

Separately, I’m working on completing my paranormal dystopian novel,  Iron Web, as a complete book rather than a series as originally planned. IW is my new adult take on an ancient evil that has plagued the earth since the beginning and geek librarian, Bryn, is just twigging on to just how insidiously it works through existing governmental controls, even out in her quiet Welsh university town, Penrith. Iron Web (complete) will be coming out at Smashwords in late 2020 or early 2021.

I’m also working on growing my Zazzle design shop, Paperie Artemisia. If you’re searching for fresh ideas for birthday party invitations and decor and wedding suites, check out my shop. Creating my own book covers has brought me to a whole new artistic endeavour at this print on demand online resource and I’m loving it! Here's a bookplate from my KristinRavelle collection which I'll be growing over time to contain notebooks, bookmarks, and more related to the books I write.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful 2020 all!