INTO THIS MIND -- Opening Chapters

I've never reviewed a POD book before, mostly because I don't hear about many of them, and because I have not yet been intrigued by the blurb. Until now.

I am still reading Auralia's Colors, but for reasons I'd rather not get into online, I'm going to try to read INTO THIS MIND by Lisa Nevin over the weekend. It's a short book and so far, it looks like it will be a quick read.

But first, I wanted to share some interesting things that I've noted about this book, the author's website and the publisher. I will place links to everything that I found. The author knows that I am doing this, and she says that she thinks I will be honest in my observations.

First of all, Preditors and Editors lists this publisher, Unlimited Publishing as "Not Recommended". I do not know if P&E had given it this designation at the time the author approached the publisher. The author's book page on the website states, "This is a limited advance release, not yet available from bookstores. It is available exclusively at this location, for a limited time only!" This makes it seem like the novel is only available in ARC form, yet there are links at the bottom of the page to Lulu, where one can order a copy for 14.99.

Traditionally, reviewers do not have to pay for ARCs. Therefore, I decided to try to get an ARC from the publisher. However, my efforts only elicited a PDF file. I regularly get unsolicited books from publishers like Tor and Bantam and because of my situation at home, it would take me months to read a book at the computer. In the end, the author rushed me a copy when I asked her for one. (She also sent scads of bookmarks!)

Curiosity drove me onward, so I looked at the author's website. After following a link deeper in the site, I found a list of fourteen independent bookstores that stock her book. She's also managed to schedule a number of book signings. Since I know it could not have been easy to get bookstores to stock a POD book, I became curiouser. I scrolled down and found an About the Cover Painting heading, so I read it. There, I discovered that the author had used a painting by her sister for her cover art.

Obviously, the author has done quite a lot of work in getting her novel out there.

After all this research, I emailed the author and asked her to have a copy sent to me. You already know that story.

And now, for the review.

The book itself is a narrow volume of 199 pages. The cover has the painting mentioned above, and on the front it doesn't look bad. However, on the back I wish the publisher had faded the image behind the text, as it is quite difficult to read. However, that's my only complaint with the book itself. The pages are crisp and thick, and the text highly readable. Unlike certain low-quality paperbacks I've read recently, the ink left no smudge marks on my fingers.

The story so far is about a young woman who explores an abandoned house and apparently slips back in time to the night of a ball. There, she watches as the newlywed May, her brother August and her sister April have a tense but unknown situation brewing, where May's husband Jeffrey is apparently at its center. Just when we are getting caught up in this story from the past, Jena, the point of view character, is yanked back to the present.

The book itself is not without its flaws, but despite them it is still highly readable. I'll go ahead and get what I perceive as flaws over with. One is that it is written in present tense. I don't believe I've ever read a novel in the present tense before, and I'm damned well-read. I went to my bookshelf and took out some of my more literary titles -- ones with unusual points of view -- to see if any of them were present tense. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce? Past Tense. Candide by Voltaire? Past tense. Moby Dick by Melville? Past tense. Allegory of the Cave by Plato (actually a dialog)? Past tense.

The closest my bookshelf comes to present tense are plays. Does anyone know of a present-tense novel, classic or otherwise?

Anyway, it actually didn't turn out to be too off-putting. And it turned out to be an advantage when she would have otherwise had to use the awkward past participle tense for relating dialog that had taken place previously. Still, I think that if she had used past tense, she would have had a much more solid book.

My other quibble is dialog. Her characters tend to speechify. It's not really bad -- I wouldn't have been able to read it if it were -- but simply somewhat stilted. I read once that a character should not say more than three sentences together unless he has a very good reason. A patient editor might have been able to help her here.

It is written in first person with a chatty, often humorous style. I had several laugh-out-loud moments. While the character walked through the abandoned house, I almost felt like I was in a role-playing game, listening to a game master describe the house, room by room. She even gave the dimensions of several rooms. This was unnecessary, in my opinion. However, it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story.

Nevin's biggest strength is her ability to build up suspense. She's doling out the mystery bit by bit, and when I thought I reached a good stopping point to go ahead and write this review, I decided to read just a bit more. This is always a good thing. Her characters are likable and I got a kick out of the "Calendar family". I was especially concerned for May, who apparently invades Jena's consciousness whenever Jena enters the house. I'm afraid that something terrible is going to happen to May (or, I suppose, has already happened) or her family.

So far, INTO THIS MIND is turning out to be an entertaining fantasy mystery.