Woo-hoo, a review

Without further ado: the first review of Slightly Peculiar Short Stories has appeared on Beattie's Book Blog.  It's a substantial, thoughtful  review by poet, novelist, and short story writer Maggie Rainey-Smith, who was trying out her new iPad. I'm grateful, too, to writer and new media savant Helen Heath for liasing between RMB, MR-S and BBB.

When The Glass Harmonica: A Sensualist's Tale was released early this year, it seemed much harder to attract reviewers for the ebook than it is now — perhaps due in part to the small numbers of ereaders about. Only six months later, I'm hearing of readers and writers who newly own a machine, or who speak of the inevitability of sooner or later obtaining one. While we've had some excellent feedback and potent reader summaries of The Glass Harmonica (check them out here), barring one, the full review has remained elusive. A copy each of The Glass Harmonica and Slightly Peculiar Love Stories (RMB's entire stock!)  are ready to fly into the hands of a reader willing to give full voice to their reading experience of TGH.

"As it plumbs the erotic life of the nineteenth century, this debut novel is filled with moments of startling insight and deep wisdom. Like the luminous music her heroine calls forth from the glass harmonica, Dorothee Kocks’s language vibrates with surprise and enchantment."
                         Teresa Jordan, author of Riding the White Horse Home and www.YearOfLivingVirtuously.com.


If you're the one, please leave a message here or on Facebook, or email me via Rosa Mira Books.

Sun's shining, snow's melting, and dog's ready for an outing.

Warm wishes to my readers.

Now that you're here …

… in case you're hunting around for weekend reading, two of our writers have posted on the release of Slightly Peculiar Short Stories. Tania Hershman of the UK has four truly peculiar and tasty short shorts in the collection, while Wellingtonian Tim Jones's 'Said Sheree' (now there's clumsy construction, made clumsier yet by this intrusion) is a sly and funny one with especial appeal to writers. Tania has a celebratory piece on her blog, and Tim gives a hurrah on his here.

Meanwhile, writer and social media maven (yes, I had to look it up: ˈmāvən — a connoisseur or expert, origin 1960s Yiddish)  Helen Heath interviews me on her site about the why and wherefore of Rosa Mira Books, and SPLS.

Smudgy crab-apple without a messsage.

Blown south

Home again, in time to miss the Auckland tornado — except that our applause went north for the brave efforts of our daughter's namesake and sister-in-law who tried valiantly to breathe life into the storm's only mortally wounded victim. Here it's degrees cooler and autumn, without a doubt, today dank, still, and grey — perfect for garden spiders to showcase their cobwebs — clock-faced, hammocked, or tattered — outlined as they are by drizzle.

It's also the perfect day for digging in at the desk. Helen has come up with a lively plan to tease the palate of our readership for Slightly Peculiar Love Stories; Christine Buess is designing the pages of what is now a single document (or will be as soon as I've completed a cheerful, enticing foreword). Sophie, alluded to above, has almost finished manipulating and photographing the funky digital cover.

I saw the film 'Potiche' last night, a French 'screwball comedy' featuring Catherine Deneuve as 'trophy wife' turning MP. Of course it was absurd but Deneuve made convincing portrayal of a woman growing into her own skin, heart, and wider vision. I like to think that Rosa Mira Books is quietly giving some of us opportunities to fill our boots and stride out — whether as writers, publishers, publicists, designers, bloggers, even readers. (I reckon The Glass Harmonica works this way in the reader's imagination, which is why I wanted to publish it; it's a story like fertiliser or taurine, only far more appetising and longer lasting.)

Talking of which, the print on demand version will be available soon (oh 'soon', that slippery little word on which I nonetheless rest one elbow, sometimes two) via Lightning Source (as soon as someone in NZ gets up and running with multiple-outlet POD, let me know, please?) and when the proof version arrives, Dorothee and I will each drink something fizzy and cheer because however nifty and versatile the digital version of a book, to hold the thing itself gives the writer (and publisher) an unparalleled thrill.