WIPs are Works In Progresses. I want these reviews on a different page than the Testimonials page because you can buy those products, but you can not buy the products. It also helped that I was on a ten day writing resort of sorts, and one of my target audience members has allowed me to use his reviews. When it comes to collecting reviews for these, I’ll read a scene or scenes to target audiences or other writers because all the writing is in my notebooks and reading parts of the first drafts aloud helps with basic editing. This will involve the summaries of most of the WIPs and the reviews I was able to collect. First off, Escort Recon, Music Nymphs, and Mayday are all Head Hunters’ spinoffs taking place in different parts of the U.S. after the events of Head Hunters.
Escort Recon: Our tale follows a special ops team that vows to protect all nonhumans and innocents from Head Hunters and any wannabes. On a recon mission, Skylar runs into an old high school friend. Troubled by his new views on the world she looks in on his younger brother’s current situation. Just as she suspected he’s homeless and in danger. Breaking normal protocol she checks on him, but when their boss has an issue with how she handled it her team has her back. Now until they find a better living situation for him Skylar’s his new legal guardian.
Reviews:
When I read a lengthy scene about an recon mission our team was on where Skylar had to distract and eventually fight an old high school friend, Jordan. The writer I was reading to, Marshall Chico, loved when Jordan’s friend asked Skylar if he could talk to Jordan in private after she took him down. After refusing he changed his request to could she at least get off of Jordan, and Skylar shrugged. Marshall was originally curious as to why the music was so important to the story but once I explained he was fully cool with it. He was very proud of the fight scene in the crowded bar.
Music Nymphs: Fresno, CA has more than its fair share of kidnappings for months. There is rhyme or reason to any of it, no M.O. It’s putting all citizens on edge. Then there’s recluse, Chels, a music nymph, who lives deep in the mountains above Fresno. She lives there with her two sisters who work in Fresno. One night, while Chels, her family, and their neighbors are saving a young witch from three kidnappers they find out they live suspiciously near a Head Hunters’ base. Are they just going to lie down and let the Head Hunters subject others to horrible experiments or is there a way to get this base shut down? And if so, what will the cost be? Can they get help from the people of Fresno?
Reviews:
“It was really good. I could see it playing in my head like a movie as you read it, and that’s a great thing. When I read a book and I can’t visualize it I throw the book away.” ~E.C.
Mayday: Viral videos of nonhumans protecting themselves begin to surface putting targets on the backs of many. Hope comes in the form of a job across the country. If they can get there with their families they will be safe, have free housing, and some will have brand new jobs that will make a huge impact on what happens next. Everyone believes that only nonhumans were the ones in danger, but that quickly is shown to be a lie as a human related to some nonhumans is nearly killed. Is this safehouse really as safe as it claims to be?
Project Poseidon: (This one I’m co-authoring, and we haven’t officially come up with a summary yet. I’ll share what I can.) Elyon just turned eighteen, and as if being a high school senior isn’t tough enough mysterious abilities are beginning to surface. And with mysterious abilities comes strangers coming out of the woodworks to be her “friend”.
Reviews:
Marshall Chico loved the villains’ interactions with Elyon and the fight scene with Alexx. He doesn’t pick up enough books with fight scenes.
Heart on Her Sleeve: A princess, Nikkita, comes down to meet the only commoner Oracle, Keaton in town. Based on what Nikkita has overheard about Keaton, she’s fascinated by her. Keaton overextends herself often, and where her family notices there’s not much they can do because they don’t want to come off as overbearing like their mother. Once Keaton and Nikkita meet and hang out a bit a design starts forming on Keaton’s shoulder known as an Imprint, a rare marking a Royal’s soulmate will get. But they’re already headed for rough water, and it seems like one one of them notices it. Can she fix what’s going on before it’s too late?
(I created this summary in November, and when I read it to my mom (biological) she loved it. She saw it being on a dust jacket, and more importantly she loved that it didn’t give the ending away. ? Romance is my mom’s favorite genre, so I take her opinion in high regard.)
Reviews:
I read two chapters and five scenes (four from one chapter and one from another chapter that my co-author was in love with) to Marshall Chico for this one. The first one intrigued him the most. It was cool to look back and see his eyes go wide like our main characters.
After the first chapter I read all he could say was, “growing tattoo?!” much like Keaton. I took that a high compliment. He didn’t have much to say after the second chapter, but he did like it. Then after the four scenes of another chapter things that stuck out to him were the burn Keaton got, and how does someone accidently drop a giant wad of cash and not even notice. After the last scene, he liked how I was able to share someone else’s point of view even while writing in first person point of view.
“This book has been fantastic so far!
It touches sensative topics and the struggle of being an oracle. I always saw oracles having to deal with issues since they can devine and foresee future events – most of them being tragic ones.
Nikkita is a gracious character despite her royal status.
Keaton’s want for being a social worker is a beautiful undertaking despite her powers and issues it entails that come with them. Dante is also an admirable character.
There is enough room for imagination since the setting is in a contemporary world with a hint of fantasy.” -Aubrey
The Pain of the Silenced: Jace is a happy and goofy teen who has no idea how she got the gruesome scar across her throat. Is it because of that that she has the unique ability to psychically link to traumatized kids just by touching their heads to hers? If she accidentally knocks heads with someone going through a trauma she psychically links to them meaning she’ll go through their trauma to a degree until the traumatized kid gets the help they need. And she’ll have to keep it under wraps of course, so luckily she has a team that has her back. But will an amateur reporter really blow her secret?
Reviews:
Marshall Chico gave me the best compliment with this one. He stated, “Your realism sucks.” Once he explained it turns out, that the scene chapter I read was described too well, and the subject matter was too dark for his taste. (With a review like that, I’ll definitely have to remember to put a trigger warning on the book. I’m also happy I read from the lighter content.)
I read two scenes to to Z.R., a therapist, and she thought it was very well-written and powerful. She was really proud of how you could tell I have been through some of this stuff. She said that as I read she could tell how cathartic it was for me and how powerful it was.
An Unnatural Pull to Death: Lylla’s aunt and uncle who passed away protecting her within the early years of her life are her guardian angels, and they take that job seriously. Since she can see ghosts, they made sure she was that she was never too scared or possessed as a young child. Sadly, as they can’t always protect her, so she also has a living guardian angel but when all else fails and Death almost has her maybe someone else will have to step in. What makes Lylla so attractive to Death? Do her parents know more than they’re letting on?
Reviews:
“It was really good. It also sounded familiar to me.” ~ Cheyanne B.
“Well, that’s a traumatic clip! With no context, it’s a little jarring and it’s worded a little confusingly in places. But you immediately sympathize with her. Your heart breaks, as she tries to cope with the trauma they just had.” ~Erudessa Gentain
“It’s a well-written scene where I could visualize how the character was reacting to the scene around them.” ~Kimberly Kovac
As I started reading what seemed like a light-hearted chapter to writer, Marshall Chico, he had an immediate question was the character already at the cemetery at the start of the chapter? No, they were not. The voice trying to warn them the character they were in danger threw Marshall for a loop.
In Sin Eater, history is likely to repeat as Leonardo is setting his sights on Nadia, his own daughter. The last person he set his sights on, Nadia’s mother, he successfully isolated, and then to get away from his tortuous ways they killed themselves. That was supposedly the last person he supposedly loved. He now plans to do exactly what he did to Nadia’s mother to Nadia. Can anyone help Nadia realize she’s not alone before it’s too late?
Reviews:
When I read a page of two flashbacks to Cheyanne B., she said, “It sounds really interesting.”
I read a powerful spell scene to Z.R., a therapist, where a woman saw her father after he passed away and they talked about what she ‘s going through, and she said that as I read she could tell how cathartic it was for me, how powerful it was for me, and how I’ve been through some of those events. She could just lay down and listen to me read my books.
“A interesting tale about vengeance among family, that has your attention from beginning to end. Overall good story.” -Kimmie
In Neck Bites and Risen Hairs, as Reighlyn is just getting used to her new surroundings, she’s informed that she’s not like other teens her age. That would explain her old scars and the new one that keeps appearing on her neck like the victims of the serial killer, ‘The Leech’. But Reighlyn doesn’t just have to worry about that as another danger seems to be much closer to her and know a little too much about her, and they seem to have even more sinister intent than the serial killer…
“I liked [the intermissions]. They were very world-buildy.” -Richard C.
“The intermissions alone play out like teaser trailers.” -Glen Isip
In Paying for the Past, Teagan Thwaites has been emotionally alone for years. She’s a powerful psychic who just escaped an abusive family and got her own home. But life has other plans for her when it lands her new, pushy friends who want to get to know her before the curse that her house has takes ahold of her. Within twenty-four hours she’s befriended a familiar and a powerful witch as well as a doctor who is keeping a close eye on her. Will they be able to get close to her before the curse takes effect and destroys her?
The Fierce Mermaid is loosely inspired by Disney’s 1989 animated The Little Mermaid. On land, Coaxoch Stenkjær, mother to six children wants her kids to help her make connections with other kingdoms and villages. Unfortunately for the triplets, Casmara, Driscoll, and Amelia they are not the best at socializing, so their mom does not make their lives easy for them. Another obstacle for Amelia is that thanks to her Cerebral Palsy her mom to look down upon her to the point she wrote her out of the family tree. That didn’t stop this determined princess from swimming around the town through the underground water tunnels to see what’s going on. Swimming helps her legs stay strong, and it also helps her glean village secrets that could save her siblings and other kingdoms. And with the silencing punishment that often befalls her, no one ever notices her motives. Now the question is, will her older sisters hear her out and listen to what she found out before it’s too late or not?
“It’s shaping up to be a great adventure. …” -Aiden
In Shuffling the Deck, instead of meeting her biological father, as the plan always was Tabitha is now surrounded by new siblings and her dad’s husband. All whom she’s never met or heard of until his passing, but it’s the exact same for the other side of his family. With the kids’ parents and the help from their friends will this new family unit learn to get along?