“Sweet Dreams”: by Kirsten Ashley
A Book Review Lost and Found
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Finally! I found this book review I wrote in 2014 on one of the three books I ordered free through Audible, via my membership then. I’ve been looking for for it for at least 6 years. Found it where hadn’t occurred to me to look until this evening — on my business website for my editing services.
I remember now I put it there to demonstrate the thoroughness with which I might review a fiction manuscript (as opposed to the dissertations I was doing back then). Tho I suspect it probably scared a lot of fiction writers away.
However, I reviewed the book as a finished, published piece, which is very different from what my approach would be to a student’s/client’s work. I’d certainly be a lot more supportive and the exasperated tone would not be there. This is a published piece by a writer who now has more than 80 books published (a bit fewer in 2014). She is no beginner (another distinction I would make in terms of my expectations). Not by a long LONG shot.
So the delicious pleasure I took in pointing out its massive flaws derives from shock at discovering she is an NYT Best Selling Romance author who’s been around quite a while. Plenty of time to get some decent feedback both from editors (which she now clearly has the ability to pay, and well).
So... WTF?
Ok, I admit it. This review is way too long and too detailed for Medium readers, and maybe even a bit too harsh — or rather, would be if the author hadn’t been writing and publishing as long as she has.
Regardless, hang on for a really wild ride.
Preface: I originally wrote this review for Amazon.com but it got rejected, no doubt because of the discussion of explicit sexual language — in a book that they have no problem selling, of course. I decided to post the review on my business blog instead, even though this book and my review are rather a bit outside my usual focus on scholarly editing.
Some of what I have to say applies to writing in general, but also, primarily, I am interested in editing quality fiction as well. And I also have a great deal to say about how this book reproduces some of the worst gender stereotypes (as well as…
