For me, one of life’s best adventures lies in seeking out the industry’s newest voices. The world is filled with people who have stories to tell, but  producing a manuscript that looks as good on paper as it does in our heads turns out to be a lot harder than it sounds. You never know what you’re going to get.

With established authors – industry icons like Rowling, King, Patterson, George RR Martin, or Dan Brown – there’s so much exposure that it’s not too hard for readers to make choices. You either like the genre or you don’t, but there’s an endless amount of testimony to the quality of their work.

With debut authors… not so much. And to most people, that represents risk. We ask ourselves “Do I want to spend my money on the known or the unknown?” When we stumble across a debut author’s work, we jump onto Amazon and find maybe 5 reviews, all 5 stars, and we think “Yeah. Those are probably all friends and family lending support. That’s no help.”

We seek out book reviews, but for debut authors, those are few and far between. So we reluctantly pass.

Well, that’s part of the purpose for this Book Review blog. I’ll take the gamble for you. I’ll hunt down the unknown, debut writers, shell out the cash, read, and tell you what I think. These writers won’t be friends of mine, or family members. I’ll have no vested interest in them. They’re debut authors, so they can’t afford to pay someone to review their book, although even if they did, I don’t roll that way. I want the freedom to give my honest opinions. Accepting money for a review would be a conflict of interest.

My secondary purpose is to provide detailed critiques on style and plot. At times, I’ll probably sound harsh, but the hope is that these criticisms will be taken as constructive. No work is perfect, but many of the readers of this blog are writers, and my critiques are aimed at them. Only by reading the work of others, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses, can we ourselves progress as storytellers. 

That’s my main goal here.