Magdalena Ball reviews The Grease Monkey's Tale

Magdalena Ball (author of Repulsion Thrust, Sleep Before Evening, The Art of Assessment, Quark Soup and other titles) has published a tremendous review of The Grease Monkey's Tale on Blogcritics, The Compulsive Reader, Goodreads and Amazon.com.  Magdalena also hosts a regular spot on BlogTalkRadio and has her own blog, where there's always plenty happening.

Thanks for such an insightful and finely written review, Maggie.

The Grease Monkey's Tale involved with The Reading Agency

I was excited to learn that The Grease Monkey's Tale is one of five Legend Press/PaperBooks titles that will be distributed as part of The Reading Partners initiative.  The Legend Press website describes the initiative:

Legend Press has agreed to give away up to 1,000 copies of five novels to library reading groups signed up by The Reading Agency.

The aim of the campaign is to demonstrate the power of word-of-mouth and highlight the high level of new fiction available in the UK ... The power of word-of-mouth on book sales is undisputable, the growth of reading groups phenomenal, and the value of libraries vital to the creative industries. Therefore, to bring all together into a single campaign is hugely exciting. All in publishing are, or should be aware, of the difficulty of finding room for independently published fiction on the high-street, meaning that books that would have been a huge sales success are missed. This campaign presents a very interesting new route to getting the books to the people that matter the most – the reader.

Sandeep Mahal at The Reading Agency says: “Our aim is always to work collaboratively and flexibly, whilst being committed to creativity and innovation. We’re delighted to be using our connections with libraries to promote Legend Press and to spread the pleasure reading can bring to our lives to more readers.”

The Reading Agency is an independent charity working to inspire more people to read more. It is funded by the Arts Council and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. (www.readingagency.org.uk)

Jane Turley interviews and reviews

Have been across the Bass Strait in Tasmania recently, but am back now and trying to catch up on all that's been happening.  The process has been hindered somewhat by Trend Micro's Titanium 2011 anti-virus software.  My current subscription was running out and so I purchased the new program... and it immediately killed my PC's hard drive! More effectively than any virus could.  I spent 8 hours unsuccessfully trying to boot up and even Trend Micro's technicians couldn't help.  They blamed Microsoft, but Microsoft weren't interested in  the slightest - and I'm not sure that I blame them because it was working fine before I installed the Trend Micro software.  Anyway, I've politely suggested they might like to keep their program and refund my money, and this preamble is by way of providing a Buyer Beware!

It's not all bad though.  That's a minor hiccough and there's excellent stuff happening too.  What I really want to draw attention to here is the wondeful interview that Jane Turley put together on her blog The Witty Ways of a Wayward Wife.  Jane interviewed me a couple of weeks back and has been kind enough to not only give this a big splash on her blog, but to also write a glowing review of The Grease Monkey's Tale for The View From Here literary zine.  An interview and a review on one day.  That's very generous, Mrs T.  Thanks.