the quest for reviews of my upcoming paranormal fantasy THAT THE DEAD MAY REST

 Well, I've done it again -- written a novel. And again, I've branched out into a new genre, or rather a new subgenre of fantasy, namely paranormal. To the surprise, not to say shock, of people who know me, it even involves zombies -- though it takes what I fondly hope is an unusual approach to the subject, as described below.

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After a life of peril and fear, Millie has reached the peace, beauty, and security of the afterlife. But one day, when she is performing her glad duty of welcoming a new spirit, that spirit recoils from her in horror—because her body had become a zombie, and had brutally killed him.

As more spirits make the same terrible discovery, they ask themselves, and each other: is this somehow my fault? When will it end? And finally: what can we do? Is there something we can do to stop this?

And are there people among the living who can help them to do it?

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That the Dead May Rest comes out on October 17, 2025, in time for Halloween. I fancy the cover is seasonally appropriate.

Now that the book is finished and formatted, I've begun the process of telling people about it and hunting for reviewers. Besides posting on Goodreads and contacting various book bloggers (and a magazine or two), I'm trying new approaches.

One is BookSirens. This site is a paid, but modestly priced way to get reviews. Visitors to their page can find books to review, while authors and others can direct people to a particular page -- like this book's. As I write this post, no one has "joined my review team" yet, but it's early days.

The other is Revvue. The Revvue site (link goes to my book's page) rewards authors for reviewing other authors' books. Reviews earn coins, in quantities dependent on the book, and amassing sufficient coins (an amount also depending on the book) allows one to request reviews. It also requires coins to pick a book to review. The author chooses whether to accept a more limited category of review, e.g. Amazon-verified reviews only, or to be less choosy. One lovely reader has already chosen my book for review.

When my publication date gets closer, close enough that it isn't long before reviews can go live on Amazon, I'll take one more step, a bigger one. You may have heard of NetGalley, a site where a great many authors and publishers make their books available prior to publication (and afterward). It isn't cheap to put one's book there, but there are ways to make it more affordable, including joining any of several author associations. I'm a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and through AIA and an associated group called BooksGoSocial, I can get a substantial discount.

Will all this help me get more reviews for my book? Maybe, and every one helps. 

Different ways of writing villains

I read quite a bit of historical romance, most of it set in Regency England (roughly, though not precisely, the early 19th century period when George III's son, also George, acted as his regent). These novels tend to come in series based on a particular extended family, so one can easily gobble them up in sequence. There are, of course, differences in how various authors treat the historical period, the characters, their romance arc, et cetera. One such difference that has struck me lately is how two authors in particular approach villains.

The villains in Grace Burrowes' novels can be vividly nasty, but sooner or later the reader is likely to learn something about how they got that way. They can (though not all do) even end up moving in the direction of being more sympathetic characters. Such surprising shifts can give the book added depth, with the reader given the chance to leave the book with a broader, more thoughtful perspective. On the other hand,  Mary Ballogh's villains tend to be utterly and consistently despicable. (In the only Ballogh book I've read so far where a villain is eventually characterized as more foolish and shallow than wicked, his father has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.) This makes it particularly satisfying when she provides a devastating comeuppance.

I've also written a villain or two. My sci-fi thriller Playback Effect features a sociopath, and wasn't he fun to write! (What that says about me is for you to decide. . . .) As for my historical romance series -- Cowbird Creek, set in latter 19th-century Nebraska -- there's a significant villain only in the fourth one, What Wakes the Heart. The book description mentions the heroine's "traumatic encounter with the president of her teacher's college," but that understates how persistent his villainy proves. Otherwise, all you'll find is a loudmouth bully here and a self-important, narrow-minded preacher there, along with the occasional family members who do harm by not understanding their relatives better or not being flexible enough to step outside their own world views.

How do you like  your villains? Do you prefer the "love to hate" kind, or the more nuanced?