Fins – Interview with Ashley Knight

Time for a review of Fins, by the lovely Ashley Knight The gorgeous cover is by Ken Koberlein.

Mermaids. I love mermaids.

In this young adult novel, Morgan discovers that her parents have been keeping secrets from her. Morgan’s mother has a new husband. And a new baby. And an ancient curse. Oh, and by the way, honey — you’re a mermaid!

Thanks for the head’s up, mom!

This is a fun, frothy novel, with likable characters and a gorgeous mer hero, Thayde. I happen to think that male swimmers have the finest bodies in the world. I fancied the hero probably looked like Matthew Mitcham:

Yum.

While Morgan is still trying to deal with her new family, Akin, a snotty bastard from a rival family, assaults and tries to rape her. Akin’s half-brother, the gorgeous Thayde, rescues her and beats back Akin. However, Thayde’s own family cast judgement on him, and, because he is honorable, he lets them strip him and tie him to a pole. One by one, they take turns torturing him….

It is now up to Morgan to rescue him.

This was my favorite scene in the book. I love torture scenes! What does that tell you about me? Let’s not dwell on that. Moving on….

Different kinds of mermaids have different colored tails (I love that!) and different powers. Because Morgan is a half-human, her powers should be weak, if she can even phase to mer form at all… yet not only can she phase, she has extremely strong powers.

Unfortunately, even if she can rescue Thayde from his own family, there is still a sea witch type character lurking in the background, who’s curse means that Morgan and Thayde might be forced to relive the same tragedy that once separated her mother from her true love.

***

Ashley was also kind enough to answer some of my questions.

Is this your first book? Tell us a little about what inspired it, how long it took you to write and what your writing process is like.

This is my first published book. I’ve had my poetry published before. I’ve loved mermaids ever since I saw “Splash!” in the early 80’s – Thom Shouse did such a remarkable job with Darryl Hannah’s tail that I knew they were real! I’ve written about them ever since. The last few years though, I’ve been more focused on my family & the bills than writing. In October of last year, I came across a picture of a mermaid & merman locked in a passionate kiss & it made me remember how much I loved them. I began writing that same day. I wrote from October to April.

My writing process is strange – I get an idea & I have to write or I lose it. Sometimes hours will fly by & I’ve written three chapters. Then there are days I’ll go for weeks with nothing. I never know where the story will go. I write & everything falls into place.

I loved her tail in that movie too! You have a toddler, am I right? How do you balance the demands of family and writing?

I have a six year old, Emma & an 18 month old, Belle.

I have to write when an idea hits – even if I’m cooking eggs with Belle on my hip while doing the laundry & making sure Emma’s doing her homework. Suddenly I’ll grab a pen & paper & write the idea down. When the kids are down for their nap or asleep at night, that’s when I finish up. My hubby’s been neglected as of late, the poor guy!

I can understand that. I have three kids of my own, all below the age of four. Whew! How did you connect with Chalet? Can you talk about the advantages of working with a small press?

I grew up on a ranch in New Meadows, Idaho & our neighbors were John & Karen Brees. Karen’s a published author & when we connected on Facebook, I asked her how she did it. She kindly introduced me to the Chalet Family.
I’ve not had my novels published before & I’ve only worked with Chalet. But I have both of my publishers home phone & cell phone numbers! I call them at all hours & they always answer. I doubt that happens very much with the larger publishers. I’m the type of person that doesn’t like anything to be sugar coated, & I love that they give me their honest, candid opinion. It means that when they say it’s good, they are telling the truth. Both of my publishers are kind, caring, thoughtful people & I just love them.

Thank you for stopping by, Ashley! Check out her website, where you can read the first chapters and find the book at Chalet Publishers.

Fins

Time for a review of Fins, by the lovely Ashley Knight

Mermaids. I love mermaids.

In this young adult novel, Morgan discovers that her parents have been keeping secrets from her. Elan’s mother has a new husband. And a new baby. And an ancient curse. Oh, and by the way, honey — you’re a mermaid!

Thanks for the head’s up, mom!

This is a fun, frothy novel, with likable characters and a gorgeous mer hero, Thayde. I happen to think that male swimmers have the finest bodies in the world. I fancied the hero probably looked like Matthew Mitcham:

Yum.

While Morgan is still trying to deal with her new family, Akin, a snotty bastard from a rival family, assaults and tries to rape her. Akin’s half-brother, the gorgeous Thayde, rescues her and beats back Akin. However, Thayde’s on family cast judgement on him, and, because he is honorable, he lets them strip him and tie him to a pole. One by one, they take turns torturing him….

It is now up to Elan to rescue him.

This was my favorite scene in the book. I love torture scenes! What does that tell you about me? Let’s not dwell on that. Moving on….

There were a few places where I felt the book kept to the shallows instead of swimming deeper. Elan’s father dies at the beginning of the story, for instance, but this hardly figures in the plot. Morgan and Thayde meet in dreams before they do in real life. I don’t mind this device in and of itself, but the danger is that it can shortchange the development of love between the hero and the heroine. It is already a given they are in love, so we are not shown how and why. I would have liked to spend more time with Thayde and Elan growing to know each other.

Different kinds of mermaids have different colored tails (I love that!) and different powers. Because Morgan is a half-human, her powers should be weak, if she can even phase to mer form at all… yet not only can she phase, she has extremely strong powers.

Unfortunately, even if she can rescue Thayde from his own family, there is still a sea witch type character lurking in the background, who’s curse means that Elan and Thayde might be forced to relive the same tragedy that once separated her mother from her true love.

I wonder if we can expect a sequel about Elan’s little sister?

Shadow Prowler – Book Trailer of the Day

Simple. Professional. Legible.

I like the smoke over the titles at the end.

Reading Revolution, Ongoing

Here’s what Lori Perkins wrote to a new horror writer who has an agent but still hasn’t been able to find a publisher:

“Print publishing is in turmoil right now. Leisure Books has effectively gone out of the print business, and B&N and Borders are having extreme financial difficulties. Mass market sales are suffering during the recession and horror is mass market. It’s also summer. So, in all likelihood nothing is happening and nothing will be happening soon. I think it’s almost impossible to place a first horror novel right now in print…. I do think epub is probably the way to go for horror right now.”

According to CJ Cherryh, it’s not just newbies, but even established writers who are hurting in this market. For those of you who don’t know, she, Lynn Abbey and Jane Fancher have an online of their own to keep their backlist available, called Closed Circle. More and more authors are doing this, and it’s one of the things I hope to talk about in this series. CJ told me:

Income from backlists has gone from handsome to practically non-existent in a handful of years, so a lot of writers are really hurting. Those of us who formed Closed Circle (which is just us!) each have different problems with today’s market, but it’s not the publishers’ fault, except that an industry that used to seal a deal with a handshake and operated on Victorian transport notions suddenly found itself in the computer age, and faced with business school graduates that view books the same as cans of tomato soup—a buyer can get a book in production killed. Literally killed. That’s what publishers are up against, and since oil companies bought up the publishing houses, nobody upstairs cares. What have you done for me lately is the theme, and publishers are book people who are agonizing over the situation as much as the writers. And you can quote that on the blog, if you like. [Thanks! – TM]

The NY houses aren’t the enemy: they’re in the same foxhole. But little houses may have to save the books the NY houses would love to publish if they could get it past the Committee. I could tell you endless stories, but they all boil down to exactly what you said: readers and writers and publishers need to grab hold of the internet and use it aggressively, to promote new books, to help sift the do-reads, and to keep bread on the table of those who give readers the good stuff. What worries me is that editorial experience is just as threatened as the good writers are.

Agreed. Most editors I know love books. Otherwise, believe me, they would have become doctors like their mothers wanted.

The Dawning of Power – Book Trailer of the Day

I promised some book trailers operating on more modest budgets, but which, I believe, still work to stir curiosity and interest in the book. This trailer uses One True Media, only a few images, and one “video” of the tornado and lightning which is done with digital animation. No use of actors or filming, which helps the pocket considerably.

The trailer has a few problems. The words go by too fast for me to read. I had to play it twice and pause on the words to catch the second sentence. The pictures are a bit dark and hard to make out. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is kickass, deep and powerful and driving. I liked the single word punches at the end. POWER. IS. BACK.

Cool.

Also, the trailer avoids the deadly mistake of dragging on too long or trying to say too much. With book trailers, less is usually more.

Overall, this worked for me. I enjoyed watching it, listening too it, and was willing to play it two or three times to make sure I caught the name of the author and the book and the publisher. So check out Brian Rathbone.

An observation. It’s considered less classy to have a trailer with the media production company right up front, but I have to say that personally, I appreciate knowing how the video was made. Video production is an art as well, and I like artists to get credit for their work. I always like to know, who did the cover art, the book design, the book trailer? It if was a production company like One True Media, I like to know that too… maybe I would like to use their services, so why should I object to them advertising themselves? I don’t!

Notice also that the publisher, White Wolf Press, is featured as prominently as the author. This comes back to what I’ve been saying about small publishers becoming a brand, a way for readers to identify good books.

http://moving-tales.com/press.html

http://www.prime-books.com/