Want some novel reading to go along with your Olympics watching? As the women's figure skating finals come into view, read up on the world behind the scenes in Alina Adams' hilarious and entertaining mystery, Murder on Ice.
Granted, Murder on Ice is set at the world championships, but close enough. For those of us who follow figure skating once every four years, this is all a fun new experience.
Full disclosure up front: I happened to tell Alina Adams on Twitter (I think? It was awhile ago — I am anything but prompt!) that I loved her book (the paperback version) and was going to review it on my blog, and she offered to send me the multimedia Kindle version as well. So this isn't a sponsored post, but I did get a free enhanced e-book out of it!
So, this all makes me want to review Murder on Icefirst as a reader — and then as a writer. It's an inspiring book in both categories!
Reader's review
Bex Levy is a researcher for the TV series 24/7, and she's in charge of knowing everything — absolutely everything — about the figure skating competition that the famous commentators might need for their patter and that the show might need for choosing camera angles and interview opportunities.
I came across the term micro-niche, and I love it. As a reader, it means you can find something written specifically to your interests: In this case, you can enjoy a peek into the world of figure skating and the world of being a professional TV researcher, as well as enjoy a cozy mystery along the way. I suppose some readers choose interests that already align with what they know; I actually love opportunities like this, where I get to see into a life I've never led.
It's not enough just to have an intriguing setting, though — fortunately, the book comes through with a clever mystery and plenty of funny. An Italian judge is murdered — and Bex's boss decides that, as a researcher, Bex is the perfect person to find the killer in time to reveal on air at the finale! But no pressure.
Bex, underpaid and generally beleaguered, sees no choice but to agree. She does already know all the players and quickly becomes adept at nosily sussing out their secrets.
One of my favorite passages is when Bex considers the lengthy and detailed descriptive travel passages in mystery fiction. I've often wondered about the same thing.
"As a reader, Bex had assumed the technique was nothing more than filler. […] However, now that she was a sleuth herself, Bex decided to give all those poor, maligned writers the benefit of the doubt and guess that the interminable itinerary listing was actually a sensible way of organizing their thoughts in a linear fashion, the better to make sense of the knotty puzzle before them."
She decides to give it a go:
"She noted that they seemed to be driving down Nineteenth Avenue. The street was … street colored. Concrete colored. Gray.
[… ]
And, anyway, now they had left Nineteenth Avenue and were driving through Golden Gate Park, which was pretty and green, as parks are wont to be. Finally, they pulled out of the park and alongside the Pacific Ocean. It was blue and big and, presumably wet."
I came across this review in The Curator for a fantasy book, Cyndere's Midnight. The book is by Jeffrey Overstreet, and the article is by Annie Young Frisbie, titled "On Fantasy Fiction; Or, You Should Read Cyndere's Midnight."
Frisbie (or can I call her Annie? she sounds personable) talks about her history as a closet fantasy fan, her coming out, and now her advocacy for non-fans of the genre to lay aside their snarkiness and give a really good book a try. She declares: "I'm tired of seeing fantasy ghettoized. Genre was made to be transcended."
I'm one of those people who don't...quite...get fantasy. It's just not my thing. I love C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter books, and I hear true fantasy fans disparage them as bad examples of the genre, so...I guess I'm just not a fan, although this glowing review might inspire me to give it another chance. Truly, no offense intended; I think I just get tripped up by names I don't know how to pronounce.
Because in any case, I totally understand feeling marginalized for enjoying commercial fiction that's not considered prestigious, in my case romance and mystery novels, and in fact enjoying them so much that I write my own.
When Frisbie (and/or Annie) mocks people who read "to pad your Goodreads feed with Booker nominees in order to impress your Facebook friends," I remember when I signed up for Goodreads at a friend's request and then feeling twinges of...oh, no, was that embarrassment?...when I listed recent books I'd truly enjoyed but were nothing like what my other friends were sharing with the world.
I didn't and don't want to fill this blog with apologetics and justifications and rants about how I feel ashamed or victimized by my preferences. I know other people just like me are out there, in large numbers, and I choose not to dwell on the naysayers' snootiness.
But I don't mind bringing it up once in awhile, just to discuss the phenomenon of creating a divide between "literary" and "commercial" fiction. (Isn't that a funny distinction all in itself? Literary meaning it's like literature, and commercial meaning it sells -- shouldn't both strive to be both? Kind of reminds me of "Republican" and "Democrat" -- shouldn't all Americans embrace the basics of both those words?)
I've been skulking agent blogs and writer forums whenever I need a break from revising my WIP (work in progress to those who don't skulk -- I've discovered all new terminology from all this procrastinating), and I found this uplifting A from a Q & A by the Evil Editor:
Authors don't get to declare what kind of prose they write. ... That's a job for critics, agents, and the people who make up the lies that go on the backs of books. Apparently you're unhappy with calling your book literary fiction. Don't be. Literary doesn't mean it's literature; it just means it's boring. My advice: add some sharks and a wolfman, and call it commercial fiction.
That made me laugh. I love that we have professional advocates out there to override any sneering voices.
I'll end with a great quote from Annie (I'm going for it -- I just read her bio and she loves LLL and cloth diapers [just like me, swoon]. Seriously, read her article; it's great, and here's a similar blog post she wrote):
Don’t let signs at Barnes and Noble or tags on Amazon.com tell you what kind of books you like to read. You’ll miss out on countless worlds of beauty.
Enjoy novels that tell a story! Enjoy characters you'd want to be friends with! Enjoy an adventure you'd like to go on! Embrace your chosen genre, and be happy.
I'm Lauren Wayne, career writer, author of mystery & romance novels, professional blogger, and natural parent. Follow along with my tips for writing, publishing, and blogging.
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I came across 
. The book is by Jeffrey Overstreet, and the article is by Annie Young Frisbie, titled "On Fantasy Fiction; Or, You Should Read Cyndere's Midnight."
and the 
, and I hear true fantasy fans disparage them as bad examples of the genre, so...I guess I'm just not a fan, although this glowing review might inspire me to give it another chance. Truly, no offense intended; I think I just get tripped up by names I don't know how to pronounce.
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