September 9, 2020
By Paul Goat Allen
Pseudonymous dark fiction writer K.P. Kulski’s debut novel Fairest Flesh is a blood-soaked fusion of the historical account of infamous 16th century Hungarian serial killer Erzsébet Báthory, a beloved German fairy tale, and profoundly powerful themes that are just as timely today as they were almost 500 years ago. And […]
August 11, 2020
I’ve reviewed a lot of books over the last 25+ years and many of those have featured formulaic, rehashed, and predictable storylines, premises, and ideas. When it comes to traditionally published titles, I get it—publishers need to make money and they only publish what books that they think are going […]
July 30, 2020
Yeah, 2020 has been a nightmare thus far—and the pandemic is just one burning bag of garbage in this blazing dumpster fire of a year. Every day seems to introduce some new horror, and—to no one’s surprise—people are turning to novels to temporarily escape all of the stress and existential […]
July 27, 2020
By Paul Goat Allen
Shelley Adina is the author of 42 novels published by Harlequin, Warner, and Hachette, as well as Moonshell Books, her own independent press. She writes steampunk and contemporary romance as Shelley Adina; writes classic Regency romance as Charlotte Henry; and as Adina Senft, writes Amish women’s fiction. She holds an […]
July 13, 2020
The path to self-publishing success is filled with minefields, any one of which—once detonated—can derail the sales of a well written novel. Bad editing, a lack of proofreading, forgettable cover art, no promotional plan, failure to understand reader expectation, the list goes on and on. But perhaps the biggest mistake […]
July 6, 2020
Fiction, at its very best, elicits a powerful emotional response—be it fear, sadness, joy, or sexual arousal. Achieving the latter, however, may be the most difficult challenge to writers. Decades ago, when I first started editing and reviewing for B&N, one of my very first interviews was with the legendary […]
June 29, 2020
Peruse any national bestselling list and I’ll bet you that somewhere near the top is a thriller of some kind—a psychological thriller, a crime thriller, a legal thriller, a medical thriller, etc. They’re everywhere! There’s an obvious reason for this—thrillers are the perfect (high-octane, fuel injected) vehicle for a few […]
June 22, 2020
A few years back I wrote an article for Writer’s Digest detailing my thoughts on the future of genre fiction: Cross Pollination: The Future is Genre-Blending. Having reviewed various genre fiction categories for the last two decades, I saw—and continue to see—this evolution firsthand. Simply put, […]
June 16, 2020
By Paul Goat Allen
Merriam-Webster defines “prolific” as marked by abundant inventiveness or productivity. The word also perfectly describes Sara Lunsford, best known perhaps for her paranormal romance series like Ambrosia Lane (Desperate Housewives of Olympus, et. al.) and After Dark (Furyous Ink, et. al.). The […]
June 8, 2020
Some people enjoy gardening in their free time. Or watching movies. I like to examine weekly bestselling lists—and watch the various mainstream fiction and genre fiction categories rise and fall in popularity. I’ve been doing it for decades—and it’s quite fascinating to try to connect the popularity of genre categories […]
