Single Titles Reviewers’ Choice Award 2010 for “The Heir of Night”
The CataNetwork is a US-based site of “websites and communities for the lovers of romance novels.”
Hold on, you say, The Heir of Night is not a romance novel.
I agree that it is not, but it appears that the CataNetwork reviews titles across a range of genres including Fantasy and reviewed Heir on November 23—with the tagline “I was immediately immersed and mesmerized by this dark epic fantasy…” You can read the full review here.
And yesterday I received an email notifying me that:
“THE HEIR OF NIGHT has won a coveted CataNetwork Reviewers’ Choice award for 2010. CataNetwork reviewers have chosen your book as one of the best books that they have reviewed for Single Titles this year. Thank you for sharing your talent with all the readers as you entertain us with your stories.”
Needless to say I was taken by surprise–but very pleased! Thank you very much, CataNetwork. 🙂
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SFX Review:
I also received notice yesterday that The Heir of Night has been reviewed—ahead of its UK release on March 3—by SFX Magazine. And it’s a nice review, with the reviewer describing Heir’s take on the traditional epic fantasy as “refreshing” and a “well-told tale that gives several new twists to a tried-and-tested formula.” Overall, Heir is summed up as an “enjoyable read.”
I also note, given my recent guest post on “Writing Strong Women in Fantasy” on Mary Victoria’s blog, the SFX reviewer’s comment: “Also refreshing is the issue of female soldiers: there’s no discussion or worthy treatise on why women are not just equal but head the Earl’s Honor Guard — they just are.” But you’ll have to read my post to know why reading that was an “Ah, yes!” moment for me.:)
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And then there’s “Book Smugglers”:
Just to keep everything in perspective, Thea of the Book Smugglers romance & speculative fiction review site disliked pretty much everything about Heir, up until ca. page 260 when she out it down in black despair. You can read the full review here.
So it was kind of nice, as I’m sure you can imagine, having read all that to get the SFX review and notification of the CataNetwork Reviewers’ Choice Award 2010 in the post the very next morning.
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To sum up … I guess from 5-star reviews and Reviewers’ Choice Awards, through a “well-told tale” that is a “refreshing” and “enjoyable read”, to a “did not finish”—well you’d have to say that it’s a “ride” at least!
I set out my “thoughts on reviews” in this post of September 25 2010 and it probably forms my soundest overall response to “the ride” for those who wish to read it.
Congrats Helen, and well deserved!
It’s lovely when your book is ‘discovered’ by others, and they pass the message on. Long may the awards, reviews and good feedback continue… 🙂
Thank you, Mary—we all need them, don’t we, when we’re in the middle of the “loneliness of the long distance writer!”
Truer words were never spoken.
Congratulations Helen! How exciting it must be to read reviews like that 😀 Awesome!
Reading the CataNetwork & SFX reviews, and getting the award, were definitely utterly awesome! As you can imagine though, reading the Book Smugglers write up was a far from joyful experience, but I do feel that when, as writers, we put our work out there we do have to take the rough with the smooth and to a certain extent just ‘suck it up.’ I did feel that Thea was being honest (as opposed to mean/malicious) about her personal reaction to the book, so am just glad I got some extra special rations of ‘smooth’ to take the edge off that little bit of ‘rough.’ (No pun on ‘bit of rough’ intended, either. 😉 )
Yay congratulations on the good reviews, hope this means you get lots of new readers. A bit of a shame about the book smugglers reviewer not liking it, but then what one person like another doesn’t.
I hope so, too, re the new readers!
And yes, indeed, re the book smugglers’ review–but then again, I don’t like every book I read either! And so far, the ‘weight’ of review is very much in The Heir of Night’sfavour, so together with the CataNetwork Reviewers’ Choice Award, I take a great deal of comfort from that. 🙂