Distracted by covers?

I've been seriously distracted. Remember that big republishing thing, with all my books retaining their old covers, all to be rereleased with a different publisher. Then came the news, via Facebook (a wonderful source of news) that book covers on Amazon might not be printing correctly. The posting was soon ammended to say that only covers that weren't formatted correctly would fail. And then I learned... yeah, half of mine weren't formatted correctly. Now we're down to only three that need reformatting, and it's not a big deal. The publisher just needs to "flatten" the pdfs and change the color profile. But, knowing how Ingram Spark refuses to accept a cover that's saved with the wrong color profile, I can't help wondering why Amazon doesn't employ a similarly simple software test. That said, I'm told they have great "human" testers who rejected some of the newly flattened covers because the text color, unchanged, wasn't different enough from the background color, also unchanged, or because the font size, unchanged, was now too big. Still, by the end of it all I'll be undistracted again and my books will be safely rereleased. Maybe I'll even be writing books instead of book reviews. Meanwhile... here are some book reviews to go with your afternoon cup of coffee. And these are seriously distracting books--great reads! They all have pretty great covers too!

First is The Measure of the World by Charles Davis, a thoroughly enticing tale of revolutionary France in the days when feet were about to be replaced by meters! Math, science, history, geography and romance--a heady blend worthy of a rich, elegant four-star coffee. Enjoy!

Another intriguingly thought-provoking read is She’s my Dad by Jonathan S. Williams. It's a true story, memoir, of a pastor, son of a pastor, who learns that his pastor father (now a grandfather) is becoming a woman. Though perhaps "becoming" is the wrong word. S/he was always a woman inside, and the reader will learn much about how science is learning to recognize where s/he comes from. It's a truly intriguing, challenging and faithful read. Enjoy with some dark, five-star coffee for its troubling themes.

For a shorter, equally intriguing read, there's Time Jump Apocalypse by Brandon Barr, a short story that starts in a Florida control room where the time-jumper hasn't returned on time and political theater has failed. Disasters are tearing the world apart. The human race is racing toward extinction. And delightfully unforced Biblical references abound. A dark tale indeed, so enjoy some more dark, five-star coffee with this one.

Summer Girl by Linda Watkins is a powerful blend of dark and light, like sunlight on island water. The novel blends the coming of age story of an island boy with a much darker tale of a wounded girl, and the result is thought-provoking, enticing, and satisfying. More dark five-star coffee perhaps.

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah is another tale of haunted lives, mystery and hope, set this time in a world of scientific survey and forest locale. There's a little girl who might be an alien, and there's love in the in-betweens. Rich and elegant, enjoy this one with some rich elegant four-star coffee.

And now I'll hope those book covers are accepted, finish reading another book, and prepare another collection of book reviews. I love books!

Comments

Glendy Vanderah said…
Sheila,
Thank you for the review of 'Where the Forest Meets the Stars' posted on the Powell's page. Beautifully written!
:)
Glendy

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