Sunday Salon: Hush Hush; The Writer's Mentor

I've been absent from Sunday Salon - and from this blog in general - for a long time.

I'm back.

Hush Hush


That has to be one of the most amazing book covers I've ever seen. However, it is also the cause of the major problem I had with the book. First things first - I liked this story. It was extremely easy to read, Nora is a generally likable character, Patch is a classic bad-boy-come-good-but-still-oh-so-bad-where-it-counts, and there are some good moments of tension between the two main characters.

The Major Problem: The cover gives it all away - Patch is a fallen angel. We can SEE that before we even start reading and yet nothing is actually said about fallen angels until about two thirds into the book. That's a very looooong time to wait for a pay off.

There are some minor problems too - Nora is obsessed with Patch in an almost Bella-Edward kind of way. The parallels between Hush Hush and Twilight are easy to see - *spoiler* Patch wants to kill Nora for most of the book because the only way for him to become human is to sacrifice her. He changes his mind when he falls in love with her, of course, but not before he's almost killed her on a roller coaster and thought about stabbing her with a kitchen knife. *end spoiler* Readers of Twilight might like that sort of obsession and love/hate kill/live stuff but grown up feminists like myself find it all sits a bit awkwardly to say the least.

There is a sequel - Crescendo - due out in November 2010. I'll probably read it but like the copy of Hush Hush I read, it is strictly borrowing from the library material. With all of the above in mind though, I'd recommend it.


I borrowed this book from the local library. These days I tend to request books on my To Be Read list more than I browse around looking for likely suspects to fall off the shelves and into my hands. But that's exactly what The Writer's Mentor did. I was looking for a different book (which wasn't there) and found this one. I'm really enjoying it, hence my last two blog posts being quotes from this book. I've read a lot of books about writing in the last few years - some are excellent, some are okay and some are not so great. I burned out on hearing advice about writing six months or so ago and just got stuck into the writing. Now I'm coming out of that phase and moving into editing I'm looking for some guidance.

Ian Jackman is providing that guidance. This isn't a deep book on how to plot or build character or edit. It is a book of advice from authors intended for other authors on a wide range of topics such as inspiration, style, time and space, audience and form. I'm almost half way through and I've found some great quotes that have really helped me with my edits!

Finally, I've just started Frostbitten, the fourth book in Kelley Armstrong's Elena Michaels series. I have to be done with it by Thursday so I can start on my Clear Away the Clutter Read-a-Thon, so we'll see how it goes.

Happy Sunday!