{"id":271,"date":"2010-03-01T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chloeneill.com\/?p=271"},"modified":"2010-03-01T11:15:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T17:15:00","slug":"30000-goal-met-sacramento-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/?p=271","title":{"rendered":"30,000 Goal Met & Sacramento Book Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
Thanks to all of you for the supportive e-mails over the weekend. I met my “marathon” writing goal (30,000 words), and now I’m nudging right up against the halfway mark for completion of HEXBOUND. (FYI, the average mass market YA novel is about 70,000 words.)<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

And a reminder that hard work does have its payoffs — a huge thanks to Thea James at the Sacramento Book Review for her lovely review of FIRESPELL, which she called an “excellent YA read.” Here’s the text from her Amazon review:<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Sixteen-year old Lily Parker has just been uprooted from her New York home
and sent to a hoity-toity all-girls boarding school for the rich and
over-privileged in Chicago while her professor parents go on sabbatical in
Germany. Though Lily is unenthused about her new home, she quickly gets used to
life in St. Sophia’s – becoming best friends with roommate Scout, and avoiding
the “Brat Pack” (mean girls the caliber of the Plastics). But soon, Lily’s world
is rocked when she learns that there’s much more at stake than popularity or
bitchy classmates – there’s magic in the world, and even possibly in Lily
herself.<\/p>\n

\/\/Firespell\/\/ is yet another addition to the popular “paranormal
activity in a boarding school,” young adult, urban fantasy subgenre. Although
these books seem like they are a dime-a-dozen, \/\/Firespell\/\/ separates itself
from the pack by virtue of its strong characters, compelling universe, and
excellent plotting. Although the dichotomy between “good” and “evil” is rather
basic, Ms. Neill’s excellent writing is more than enough to make up for thematic
simplicity. \/\/Firespell’s\/\/ pages fly by, and will leave readers eagerly
counting down the days until the next book in the series. Very highly
recommended for readers of all ages. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Thanks for the review, Thea and SBR!<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

And as an editorial note, I’m a strong believer that the lines between good and evil are rarely as clean as we believe them to be. But that doesn’t mean Lily gets to discover the ambiguities during her first week at St. Sophia’s. Just keep reading. \ud83d\ude09 <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to all of you for the supportive e-mails over the weekend. I met my “marathon” writing goal (30,000 words), and now I’m nudging right up against the halfway mark for completion of HEXBOUND. (FYI, the average mass market YA novel is about 70,000 words.) And a reminder that hard work does have its payoffs[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[355,119,43,361],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-dark-elite","tag-hexbound","tag-reviews","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}