Author: cherylmahoney

I'm a book review blogger and writer. I have published four novels, The Wanderers; The Storyteller and Her Sisters; and The People the Fairies Forget; and The Lioness and the Spellspinners. All can be found on Amazon as an ebook and paperback. In my day job, I'm a Marketing Specialist. Find me on Twitter (@MarvelousTales) and GoodReads (MarvelousTales).

Cover Designing – and a Request

On By cherylmahoneyIn Novel News25 Comments

Last week I announced that in November I’m publishing my YA Fantasy novel, The Wanderers.  I also promised to share the fun parts of the process!  So far, I’ve been having lots of fun playing with images to create my cover.  I’m almost done–but I want some opinions.  I’ve already run some versions past my writing group for very helpful feedback, and now I also want to hear what you lovely readers think.

Here are my two (admittedly similar) cover images:

Wanderers 4Wanderers 5Thoughts on your preferred font?  On your preferred placement for the cat?  On anything else?  Opinions greatly appreciated!  And keep an eye on the Novel News page, where I’ll be posting the finalized cover soon.

Thieving Through a Mythical Landscape

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult14 Comments

ThiefI’ve read The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner at least four or five times–and I feel like I see something new every time.

The story is about Eugenides (Gen for short), who claims to be the greatest thief in the world.  It appears there is only one thing he can’t steal–himself, out of the king’s prison.  He finds his opportunity, though, when the king’s advisor, the Magus, selects Gen for a mysterious quest, with something to steal at the end.  Joined by the Magus’ two apprentices and a body guard, the party travels through three countries and a landscape rich in mythology.

Gen is a splendid protagonist, apparently a crude thief but with undertones of thoughtfulness and depth.  He also has considerable pride in his art and a healthy belief in himself.  He’s in some ways an unlikely hero–small, apt to laze and complain, and with few indications of the nobility and honor you might expect from a fantasy hero.  But as I said…there’s depth!

I don’t want to give too much away here–but Gen is also an absolutely brilliant unreliable narrator.  He doesn’t lie so much as he omits…and sometimes he tells very revealing truths, but in such a way that the reader will most likely misread them and not learn anything after all.  It’s so well-done that I’m not too worried about spoiling it, because I doubt even someone watching for it will be able to spot what’s really being said!

The Magus also develops increased depth as a character, as he and Gen come to a wary–but by no means certain–respect for one another.  I have less to say about the rest of the traveling party, but suffice to say we get them to know them all as well, and there’s generally unexpected depth going on all around…

Apart from Gen and the secret twists of the book, the best aspect is the setting–something I rarely say about a novel!  The three countries of Sounis, Eddis and Attolia are clear and distinct.  The book manages to paint the economic and trade situation for the three countries, and situate it in the picture of the larger world…none of which are things I would expect to find interesting, yet here are plot-important and easy to understand.

There’s also the mythological landscape, which adds an extra layer.  Gen and the Magis tell a few mythological stories along the journey–and eventually the gods come to have a very active role in the current story as well.  The mythology is loosely based on Greek, but not in a one-to-one kind of way.  For one thing, the head of the pantheon of gods is female!  Despite the all-male traveling party we’re with most of the book, there are some strong women in here too, goddesses and humans.

The Thief is actually the first book in a larger series…which is something I try to forget.  I know there are people who love the rest of the series just as fiercely, but I simply don’t.  I really, really tried–I read the second book TWICE.  Unfortunately, I just can’t wrap my head around some of what happens to the characters later on–and especially some choices Gen makes.  So far, I haven’t been able to bring myself to read the following books.

However–I love the first book.  Read it.  Then go get some other opinions and decide whether to read the rest.

Author’s Site: http://meganwhalenturner.org/

Other reviews:
The Flyleaf Review
Christina Reads YA
Caught Between the Pages
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Thief

Entangled on Sunset Boulevard

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews13 Comments

I’ve been meaning to rewatch Sunset Boulevard for literally years.  What with watching The Emperor’s New Groove recently (I’m convinced Yzma is based on Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard) and the beginning of Readers Imbibing Peril, now seemed like the time!

You see, Sunset Boulevard is very possibly the creepiest movie I’ve ever seen.  Not the scariest, not the most horrifying, but the creepiest–with all the old subtlety and art of the 1940s classics.  It’s not Hitchcock, but it feels like it could have been.

The movie opens with the main character, Joe (William Holden), floating dead in a swimming pool.  And that’s not the creepy part!  We immediately flash back in time, with Joe as the voice-over narrator.  We learn about his life as a struggling Hollywood writer, dreaming of success but unable to make his car payments.  By chance and circumstance, he meets Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), star of the silent film era–and she has never forgotten it.  She’s obsessed with her own stardom, and adamantly refuses to believe that her time has passed.  She lives in an insanely-over-the-top mausoleum of a mansion, alone except for her butler, Max, who is equally unbalanced.  Norma draws Joe into her web, and try as he might, he cannot find his way out again…

To quote The Emperor’s New Groove, Norma is pretty much “scary beyond all reason.”  Unlike Yzma, she’s not actually an unattractive woman–but she has these crazy eyes and dramatic hand movements and wildly creepy smile.  And she is SO emotional and SO desperately clinging to her past–and, as the movie goes on, to Joe.  It would be easy to write off Norma as simply insane, but the movie gives us little moments of sympathy and insight for her.  It’s not a movie about a madwoman–it’s a movie about a woman driven mad by fame, and the need to always be the perfect star she was on the screen.

At one point Joe’s narration remarks, “You know, a dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.”  I don’t think he means that negative press destroyed Norma.  I think he means the positive press.  The legend, the star persona, simply became overwhelming.  It’s a message that’s still immensely relevant; glance at the entertainment magazines some time for star after star self-destructing in magnificent ways.

Even though he narrates, I have less to say about Joe’s character.  He strikes me as essentially an Everyman, one with enough insight to tell us about the far more complicated Norma.  He does have his own story about failing to achieve Hollywood success, but I feel like the movie is really less about him than it is about how he gets caught by Norma.

I mentioned the subtlety of old movies–and the creepiness of this one.  There are some, shall we say, less subtle creepy elements.  Near the beginning, Norma is holding a funeral for her pet monkey, and Max the butler occasionally bangs away on an old pipe organ.  However, I found that what really gives the movie its creepiness is the more subtle things.  It’s Norma’s crazy eyes, or her huge empty house, overflowing with pictures of herself.

One of my favorite moments is so tiny and so quick that if you blink, you could miss it.  At one point, Joe tries to leave Norma’s house and escape back into the larger world.  As he goes out the front door, his watch chain catches on the handle, and he has to stop to untangle it.  And sure enough, Norma draws him back again…

I mentioned that the movie opens with Joe floating dead in a pool, which certainly seems like the most spoilerific of openings.  And yet, even though I know that’s how this ends–even when I’ve seen the movie before–somehow it draws me in so much moment by moment that I can’t really remember that that’s where it must be going.  I know it intellectually, but I can’t feel it.

Believe it or not, Andrew Lloyd Webber made a musical version of Sunset Boulevard (but then, I don’t know how anyone would read Leroux’s Phantom and think of doing a musical).  I’m desperately curious, mostly because of the song “As If We Never Said Goodbye.”  It makes me suspect there’s an even more sympathetic portrayal of Norma, and I really wonder how it’s handled–but alas, no filmed version, and I don’t know of anywhere it’s playing…

Until I can track down the musical, I’ll just have to recommend the movie to you–for all its subtle underplays and clever creepiness.  Norma, in her own cracked way, insists a few times that dialogue was unnecessary in the silent films because they expressed everything with their faces.  The funny thing is, she’s kind of right–most of this movie is expressed in the eyes.  Though there are some wonderful lines of dialogue too.  For instance, when Joe remarks that she used to be big, she fires back, “I AM big.  It’s the pictures that got small.”

Then, of course, there’s the famous last line…  “All right, Mr. DeMille–I’m ready for my close-up.”  And oh, how wonderfully terrifying it is, as she looks deep into the eyes of “those wonderful people out there in the dark.”

Other reviews:
The Ace Black Blog
Derek Winnert
Blogcritics
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Sunset Boulevard

Saturday Snapshot: Knitting Cables

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot9 Comments

I don’t plan to share every knitting project, but this one is particularly fun visually…  Now that I’m better at knitting and purling, I’m working on cables.  Most recently, I’ve tried knitting cable bracelets.

Knitting CablesI can still only knit rectangles, and it’s amazing what you can do with rectangles!  I watched this video for the pattern.  This is a pretty quick project, more complicated than a scarf but not TOO tough.  I have to actually keep track of rows and count a few stitches for this one, so it’s not as relaxing–but it keeps me from getting bored too!

Visit West Metro Mommy for more Saturday Snapshots.  Enjoy your weekend!

So I Wrote a Novel…

On By cherylmahoneyIn Novel News20 Comments
Part of the revision process...
Part of the revision process…

If you’ve read my bio or happened on a Fiction Friday post, then you know that I write novels.  I finished final-final revisions of my most recent novel draft over the summer–and I’ve decided that I’m going to take the plunge and self-publish.

So today I’m announcing that this November I will be publishing The Wanderers in ebook and paperback.  And now that I’ve told all of you, I really have to do it!

I’m setting my goal for November to give myself plenty of time to work out all the details–it’s a bit more complicated then hitting “Publish” for a blog post!  And, of course, it also gives everyone time to tell their friends… 😉

The Wanderers is a Young Adult Fantasy novel about a wandering adventurer, a talking cat, and a witch’s daughter.  Monsters, fairies and princes abound, with the occasional familiar fairy tale element–with a twist.  If you enjoy the kind of books I read, I like to think you’ll also enjoy the book I wrote.

Mostly this is a head’s-up, just-letting-you-know kind of post.  I’ll be sharing a bit more about the publishing process as I go along through it–but don’t worry, I’ll tell you about the fun parts like cover design, not the dull things like getting an ISBN number!  I added a new page at the top of the blog that I’ll keep updated with novel news, including the first page.

So stick around…more to come soon!