I wanted to send out a thank you to everyone who supported
me in my first writing contest. I
entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel award with Slow Ride (Thomas McMurray’s
story) and was one of 10,000 entries.
Tommy’s book was selected to move on in the contest which narrowed down
the entries from 10,000 to 400. Slow
Ride didn’t make it to the quarter final level of the contest which narrowed
those 400 books down to 100, but I cannot express my thanks enough to those who
encouraged me in this. In the short time
I’ve been putting all these crazy characters in my head down into book format I
would never have expected for my second one to have done as well as it did. I also want to congratulate those 100 authors
who made it to the quarter finals and wish them luck!
To celebrate what I consider a success in my first writing
contest here is the overall opinion of the contest reviewers for my submitted excerpt
of Slow Ride;
Review 1
The writing itself is really good. The
dialogue flows nicely and the pacing of the story is really good. Also, the
concept of a foster romance novel is definitely unique! I am not sure how
appealing that will be to the target audience, but mad props to the author for creativity!
I think this is definitely an original
concept for a novel. The writing is good and flows nicely, and the characters
are dynamic and engaging. Even though I was a bit iffy about the whole foster
child theme for a romance novel, the story kept me engaged from beginning to
end.
Review 2
A very different and welcome type of
storyline. The father of two daughters, one of whom will become a foster child
to the other daughter's teacher? Interesting. I look forward to reading how they become a
family of sorts and I'm sure they will because it will be very up-lifting.
Very clever hook, I want to know more.
I think it's a new twist that this woman is so selfless and self-assured. It
doesn't seem too far-fetched, she just uses common sense.
