Book Review: The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

I feel the need to preface this review with a discussion on genre. The assignment of a genre to a book is little more than a marketing strategy whose purpose is to place the book in the section of the bookstore where it will sell the most copies. There are those who live and die by their chosen book genres. Some book snobs wouldn’t deign to read young adult novels, thinking those books are for kids and kids alone. But the truth is, a book can be many different things to many different people. A fantasy novel can also be a literary novel, and a YA novel can also be for adults. This is one of those rare novels that – in my opinion – is for everyone.

I first discovered The Girl Who Drank the Moon on one of the many literary blogs I troll for book recommendations. I added it to my Goodreads Want-To-Read list without realizing it is a children’s book. I then placed an online hold on the book, still unaware that my local library houses this particular text in the juvenile books section.

Book Review: When the English Fall by David Williams

I just finished When the English Fall by David Williams, and wow! This is a great read for anyone who is into apocalypse scenarios.

Book Review | Canine: A #werewolf story with a twist

I recently did a book swap with author Kaitlin Bergfield at the Bloomington Public Library’s local author fair, where we were both featured authors.

The book summary for Bergfield’s novel, Canine, piqued my interest right away. The premise was really unique, and that’s hard to find! Werewolves are everywhere in fiction these days, but this story comes with a twist (a few of them, actually!) In most of these stories, the average werewolf character is a human who happens to turn into a dog sometimes, usually around the full moon. But the protagonist of this story chooses to live life as a dog. And not just any dog, but as a pet dog!

Book Review: Pimp in the Pulpit and Pimp in the Pulpit II

Pimp in the Pulpit and Pimp in the Pulpit II by Thomas Leslie McRae are two episodic novellas that would make for some great television—not network television due to the strong language, but Netflix or Hulu could turn these stories into a first-rate original series.

My favorite thing about these two novellas is the conversational tone that feels like you’re sitting at a cookout next to your gossipy old aunt who always keeps you caught up on family dramas. But this old aunt isn’t just gossipy, she’s hilarious, and she doesn’t mind repeating every foul word that flew during each new altercation! The insults were one of the most creative parts of these stories, and they had me laughing and shaking my head from page one.

Valley of the Bees Book Blog Tour: Stop #1

Author T. S. Dickerson

The With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 book blog tour has officially begun! My first stop is taking place today (right now!) over at author T. S. Dickerson’s blog, where she has posted a book review of my latest novel, which will release on September 1, 2016.

Go check out this book review now, and then check back here later to find out where the With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 book blog tour will be stopping next.

Do you want to be a part of this blog tour? Contact Me for details!

Buy The Book

• iTunes
• Kindle
• Nook
• Kobo
• Smashwords
• Blio (eBook or Adobe ePub) Search for “Amanda L Webster”

For a limited time, With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 is available for only 99 cents. Pre-order your copy today before the book returns to its regular price of $3.99!

Now available for pre-order: With Envy Stung | Valley of the Bees #1

It’s official! I just set up my novel, With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 for pre-order on Smashwords! I completed the first draft of the third and final book of this trilogy, and I finally feel confident that Book One will be ready for publication by its September 1^st release date!

With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 is now available for download on iTunes and Kobo. It will soon be available on your Nook as well! See the links within this blog post for more info.

This is such a huge milestone for me. I have been working on this trilogy for about three years now. With Envy Stung has been critiqued and revised until I can’t imagine what else I might possibly do to make it shine any brighter. That is, until I sit down to read through it again and find a few more lines that I could write *just a little bit better.*

Update: I now have direct links where you can pre-order your copy of With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 from the retailer of your choice:

• Order from iTunes.
• Order from Kobo.
• Order from Barnes & Noble.
• Order from Kindle.

As with any work in progress, I will probably always be able to find something else that I could tweak a bit more. But, as with any other work in progress, the time always comes when it’s time for the author to let it go as it is. I feel confident that With Envy Stung has reached that stage in the writing process. The time has finally come to complete my final line edits and format the book for publishing!

How to help a fellow #indie author by reading her books for #free

“Rain at Three” is now available at Smashwords for FREE.

I just finished reading the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide in an effort to find more ways to market my books. One of the topics this book discusses is how reviews help improve a book’s discoverability. Additionally, when an author offers at least one of his or her titles for free, it increases the likelihood that readers will 1) discover that book, 2) review that book, thus improving its discoverability, and 3) purchase another book from the same author (if the reader enjoyed the free book). The guide also stresses the point that we, as indie authors, have to help each other out with this.

Anyone who has browsed the free books at Smashwords and other book distributors will know that there are a lot of garbage eBooks out there. However, if you browse long enough, you are bound to strike gold eventually. Most of the time, I know whether or not I want to read a book after reviewing the first page or two. Personally, I wouldn’t mind being the person who discovered the next big author. I definitely wouldn’t mind being discovered in this same way!

Having mulled over this information for the past two days, I have come up with a plan that I think will help both me and other as-of-yet undiscovered authors.

8 best books of 2015

It’s that time of year again! Time to make our “top however many of whatever of the year” lists and post them on our blogs. As a writer, I am of course obligated to post my top books of 2015. I read a lot of books this year, but only eight of them really stood out for me.

Book Review: Spinster by Kate Bolick

In this fascinating memoir, Kate Bolick turns the history of women and marriage in America as I learned it completely on its head. According to Bolick, much of what has been spouted as truth by the  mainstream these past few decades  turns out to be false. Not just false, but one bald-faced lie after another.

This text so resonated with me, I could not put it down. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way about a book, and I have to wonder what has changed in me since my early 20s that I now find it so hard to relate to the characters in the books I read the way I used to. Why is no one writing about strong women whose lives do not revolve around “the question of when to marry and who?”

Mother’s Day Special: Free download of “Loosely Collected”

This weekend only, download the Kindle version of Loosely Collected: A Book of Poems FOR FREE for your favorite mother (including yourself!) This offer is good May 7 – 11, 2015.

Get your free download May 7 – 11, 2015!