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Not me, Amazon…

 

Have you ever had a really bad day and then you caught sight of some loser in a crowd and thought, “Well, at least I don’t look that weird.” And then you realized that you were seeing your own reflection in a window? That’s what it felt like when I looked at Amazon’s book recommendations for this week’s Friday Five Challenge. My first thought was that they must have the wrong account. How could Amazon think I (or anyone) would need one of these books?

Well, okay, I might want that last one. But either Amazon knows nothing about me or they know way too much when they suggest I also need The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Seriously, Amazon? I need beyotch lessons, relationship repair, dress advice, cleaning tips, and cooking ideas? 

I was about to give up on the recommendations (and no, I hadn’t used up even half a minute to skip over Amazon’s attempts to make me a bitchy smartass chef with a clean house and a committed relationship) when I saw a beautiful cover gleaming up at me, whispering seductively “Hey, Barb. Screw self-improvement. What say you take me home with you for a little girl-on-book action? We can invite a couple guys I know named Ben & Jerrys, maybe pour a little white wine and put on that seventies music you’re embarrassed to play in front of your family. I’m an unabashed urban fantasy with absolutely no socially redeeming purpose. You know you want me. And you want to know the best part? This won’t be any one-night stand, because I’m just Book 1 in a series.” 

[Image credit: Cinema-Fanatic.com] http://cinema-fanatic.com/2014/10/14/movie-quote-of-the-day-bridget-jones-the-edge-of-reason-2004-dir-beeban-kidron/

[Image credit: Cinema-Fanatic.com]

Rosie Amber’s Friday Five challenge is to take ONLY FIVE MINUTES to browse an unfamiliar category and select a book based solely on the cover art.

Book blurb:

25481714Halfway Dead(Halfway Witchy Book 1) by Terry Maggert

Come for the waffles. Stay for the magic.

Carlie McEwan loves many things.

She loves being a witch. She loves her town of Halfway, NY—a tourist destination nestled on the shores of an Adirondack lake. Carlie loves her enormous familiar, Gus, who is twenty-five pounds of judgmental Maine Coon cat, and she positively worships her Grandmother, a witch of incredible power and wisdom. Carlie spends her days cooking at the finest—and only—real diner in town, and her life is a balance between magic and the mundane, just as she likes it.

When a blonde stranger sits at the diner counter and calls her by name, that balance is gone. Major Pickford asks Carlie to lead him into the deepest shadows of the forest to find a mythical circle of chestnut trees, thought lost forever to mankind. There are ghosts in the forest, and one of them cries out to Carlie across the years. Come find me.

Danger, like the shadowed pools of the forest, can run deep. The danger is real, but Carlie’s magic is born of a pure spirit. With the help of Gus, and Gran, and a rugged cop who really does want to save the world, she’ll fight to bring a ghost home, and deliver justice to a murderer who hides in the cool, mysterious green of a forest gone mad with magic.

 

BUY LINKS:

AMAZON US | AMAZON UK

My Analysis: The cover graphic and tag line—“Come for the waffles. Stay for the magic.”—stood out among all those clever titles that were aiming to fix things I don’t consider broken. Frankly, I downloaded it immediately. But in the Friday Five spirit, I guess I should tell you a little bit more, especially since I had those 4 1/2 minutes left for decision-making. I took a quick look at the reviews. Of the 9% that were below four stars, most seemed to complain about the ending losing steam. So I looked at the four and five star ratings from reviewers with large numbers of reviews listed under their name. They pretty much fell in along the lines of “…the perfect level of suspense, story, humor, and wit in this novel.” For me, Halfway Dead is a BUY. At least it has to beat beyotch lessons. 

BUY or PASS:   BUY

Here is Rosie’s Friday Five Challenge. It only took five minutes and a couple more to write up, and was a ton of fun. I hope you’ll consider joining in. All Rosie asks is that you link back to her original post here so we can all join in viewing your challenge results.

AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?

Rosie Amber's Friday Five Challenge. Get yourself a cuppa and give yourself 5 minutes.

Rosie Amber’s Friday Five Challenge. Get yourself a cuppa and give yourself 5 minutes.

My Friday Five Challenge is this….. IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….

  1. Go to any online book supplier,
  2. Randomly choose a category,
  3. Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,
  4. Read the book Bio/ Description for this book, and any other details.
  5. If there are reviews, check out a couple,
  6. Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?
  7. I’ll be back next week with another Friday Five Challenge, do feel free to join in.