We all have moments of stupidity. This post is about one of mine.
Being on some writers' mailing lists brought in lots of links to new e-books on lots of different platforms.
Net Galley and Library Thing take no prisoners when book reviews are overdue, even if the e-book didn't reach the reviewer in a readable format. Net Galley gives reviewers more time to post those reviews, Library Thing gives us more time to have reviews past due, but either way, if the reviews don't go live on time the reviewers' ratings drop and we don't get copies of the most interesting books any more.
Book Sirens prods reviewers, and some Book Funnel writers prod reviewers individually. I didn't think I'd need prodding when I signed up for all those review copes. I did. It's not that I don't appreciate writers' willingness to share their books--it's that I lose track of which reviews are due when. And Google's losing the open tabs when Microsoft behaves badly has not helped. Prodding with an e-mail in the week before the review needs to go live has helped, when I've had access to my e-mail...there've been four prolonged periods of lost connection in this calendar year.
Then there's Story Origin, which has not prodded and has been so polite that I completely forgot that some Story Origin books I promised to review, back in November, were review copies due to be reviewed back in February. This is disgraceful. I admit it. All I can do about it is try to keep the Story Origin tab open and get those reviews up as soon as I can.
Today I read a book I enjoyed, and would have enjoyed reading when I was supposed to have been reading it. It's Lonely Hearts by Vida Li Sik, a definitely different romance from South Africa about a nice girl from Johannesburg who finds improbable but sweet romance while hiding from her past in Cote d'Ivoire. If you like a novel by a Christian who treats Christian themes in a completely non-denominational, accessible way, set in a place you might never have visited before even in fiction, you want this book. I gave it four stars; most Goodreads reviewers seem to have given it more. I don't know if anything like it's ever happened in real life--but it ought to have.
You can see the review of Lonely Hearts on Goodreads right now:
In order to maintain a reasonable schedule of six books per week, the "bloggy" review of Lonely Hearts should appear here at 9 a.m. on the third of November. Earlier this week I let a scheduled book review pop up for a few minutes, then put it back on the schedule...I'm not going to make a habit of that because it's likely to foul up everyone's scheduling.
You could have bought the book months ago. You can buy it now. That Goodreads link has links you can use to buy the book. For those using Bookshop as an alternative to the monster site...no US printed edition of Lonely Hearts is available, but one probably ought to be.
I will try not to do this again. Like the character in Lonely hearts, who will probably lose her temper even after marriage, I'll probably backslide again. But I'll try.
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