If you've become a regular follower of my blog, I'm sure you've asked yourself, "I thought this was Food & BOOKS. Where are all the fucking book reviews?" Easy...they're in my blog archive. You see, I was writing blogs about books I've read long before I started writing about food every week. I STILL have more book reviews than food entries and I'm trying to catch up.

I also don't like rushing reviews. I don't like skimming books--I prefer to actually read them. Some passages that move me, I'll read again and again. Like one of the books that I'm reading now, A Perfect Union of Contrary Things. I can't put it down. It is very well written. The imagery is fantastic. Even though it is a biography, it has the gleaming feel of a fairy tale. I've been reading this book for over a month. Really, I'd have to check my Instagram to figure out when it was that I actually got it in the mail.

But, I digress...

I've been reading books that I want to post reviews of during conferences. I've also read a number of books that I won't review for one reason or another, like if it's a science book that I'm reading for my own personal curiosity. It's less than two months until ThrillerFest and I've got a bunch of books I'll be posting about for attending authors. I'll be doing the same thing for Show Me Your Books KC in September. In July, I'll be telling you about Never Be Alone by Paige Dearth, one of my favorite dark fiction writers. Final Girls by Riley Sager is up for an award this year--best new hardcover if I'm not mistaken. Mister Tender's Girl by Carter Wilson, who I promised to contact when I found the Easter egg in his novel. (I'm such a schmuck; I still haven't read it. But I will!) The One Man by Andrew Gross, which I also feel like a jerk for not posting about yet considering how nice he was and the cool personalized inscription I got. I'll also be posting my review of Color Blind by Sheila Sobel, who is just such a sweet person. While the others have all achieved their own levels of success, I really hope Sheila keeps writing. She debuted last year and I really wish her all the best.

For Show Me Your Books KC, I have far fewer options of what I'm posting. I have honestly never heard of any of the other authors with whom I'll be participating in this inaugural event. I did win a copy of a book by two of the authors who'll be there--one paperback and one Kindle. The Kindle book never showed up in my account, but I'll contact him to tell him once I'm actually ready to read the book.

It's not easy to be a struggling author. It's not easy to write books that no one reads or reviews. My latest novel has been out for ten months, and I've yet to garner a single review on Amazon or Goodreads. I'm done begging for reviews. I'm sick of asking, "Where the fuck are all of my book reviews?" People are buying it. I've always gotten a royalty payment every single quarter since I was first published. It's far from enough for me to live on since I only get about 40 cents per book, but they're selling and that's all that matters to me. Or, at least, that's become a mantra for me.

My favorite mantra is tattooed on my thigh. "It's not hard to fail, It's not easy to win." My tattoo artist tried to talk me out of the apostrophes. I had to explain to him that if you can turn "it's" into "it is" and still have it make sense, then it needs an apostrophe. He was doubtful but did it anyway. Needless to say, that was the first and last time Tony tattooed me. I'll stick to Dave Duly, thank you very much, the awesome guy who did my wings along with most of my other ink.

This is turning into a rambling mess, isn't it?

Shit.

To make a long rambling a bit shorter, I'll try to end this soon.

Book reviews will be erratic and will never appear on my site on a set schedule. I read at my own pace. I write at my own pace. If you really want to know what I think, search my blog archive. There's a lot there to browse through.