The Garden on Sunset

Author: Martin Turnbull
Genre: Historical Fiction
How long it's been on sale: Jan 2012
Current price: $4.99
Marketing: Website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads
Total sold so far: 117
Link to book on Amazon: The Garden on Sunset (The Garden of Allah novels)

Product Description:

HOLLYWOOD…as seen through the eyes of its most infamous garden.

When Marcus Adler’s father runs him out of Pennsylvania, he can think of only one place to go: 8152 Sunset Boulevard, the home of luminous silent screen star Alla Nazimova, who visited him on his sickbed when he was a child. But when Marcus gets to Hollywood, Madame Nazimova’s home has been converted to a hotel. Marcus checks into The Garden of Allah and starts his new life. He soon finds friends in Kathryn Massey, who ran away from her overbearing stage mother to become a journalist, and Gwendolyn Brick, a hopeful actress from the Other Hollywood—Hollywood, Florida—who wants to try her luck in Glitter City. The three naïve hopefuls band together to tread water against a tidal wave of threadbare casting couches, nervous bootleggers, human billboards, round-the-world zeppelins, sinking gambling boats, waiters in blackface, William Randolph Hearst, the Long Beach earthquake, starlets, harlots, Harlows and Garbos. But how will they get their feet inside Hollywood’s golden door?

THE GARDEN ON SUNSET is the first in a series of novels following Marcus, Kathryn and Gwendolyn as they leap and lurch, win and lose their way through Hollywood’s golden years. If you love Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City books, you’ll want to get lost in The Garden of Allah.

First 300 Words:

When the Hollywood Red Car lurched to a stop, Marcus Adler pulled open his eyes to find a wheezing old conductor staring right at him.

Marcus looked around. He was the only passenger left. “Where are we?”

The conductor jerked his head towards the door. “End of the line.”

“Don’t suppose you know where 8152 Sunset Boulevard is?”

“What do I look like? A street map?”

Marcus took that for a no, picked up his cardboard suitcase, and climbed down to the street. A line of rickety stores huddled on the south side of Sunset Boulevard up to where the asphalt ended; a sign near the curb read Los Angeles City Limit. Past the sign, west of Crescent Heights Boulevard, Sunset disintegrated into a wandering dirt road. A knot of horses stood in the shade of a tree with thin, dusty leaves Marcus had never seen back in Pennsylvania. One of the horses raised its head to study him for a moment, then returned to grazing.

“Hey!” The conductor hung from the streetcar’s doorway. “8152 Sunset? Try thataway.” He pointed towards the horses.

Eighty-one fifty-two Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California. It was an address Marcus had repeated over and over to himself since that time when he was eleven years old, swollen grotesquely with diphtheria in the hospital. His parents had written Madame Alla Nazimova a letter at his request, never thinking that a motion picture star so unspeakably exotic, so stupefyingly glamorous would respond. But she did. And she came to call on him, a diaphanous vision in lavender tulle. How kind she was, and so humble. Surely she would remember him. How many bedside visits had she made to children inflated with diphtheria in the middle of Pennsylvania? How many did she look in the eye and say, “If you ever come to Hollywood, I want you to come visit me. My house is very large, and I have plenty of room for you. I live at 8152 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California.”

Comments: First of all, let me say that selling 117 in the first three months (this was submitted to me the end of March) is pretty decent. I'm guessing the book just needs time to get going, but I'll look at things anyway.

The cover is good, but the Hollywood kind of throws me off. It looks like it should be part of the title, or sub title, and I feel like I would like it better without it. Having said that, I do like the feeling of the cover, I think it nails the genre and the time period.

The description needs work, in my opinion. The first part is fine, but the end where it lists things the characters face should be cut. It felt like a laundry list to me, and didn't make me want to read the book. I would pick the main conflict and expand on that. Who is the antagonist? Maybe introduce them in the blurb. Or maybe just stick with the main conflict.

The beginning of the novel is good, in my opinion. (I would cut 'right' out of the first sentence, I think it's redundant, but other than that I don't have any nit-picks about the writing.) The premise is kind of interesting, and it's well written. I would continue reading if I had picked this up.

I feel like the main issue with this book is the blurb. I would rework it, get some outside help from other writers, and that should help the book sell better.

What do you guys think?

The Circling Song

Author: Russell Cruse
Genre: Historical Fiction/Sci-fi
How long it's been on sale: April 1 2011
Current price: $.99
Marketing: Blog; Facebook; Author sites;
Total sold so far: 23
Link to book on Amazon: The Circling Song

Product Description:

Private Lawrence sees the world differently from those around him. Unfortunately, those around him are the British Army.

To Dr. Pennyworth, Private Henry Lawrence appears to be just another wounded soldier but slowly he begins to realise that Lawrence experiences the world in a unique and inexplicable manner.

From the chaos of The Great War, Lawrence begins to create order.

And Mathematics is struggling to keep up.

Pennyworth and a Cambridge mathematician, widowed by the war, work together to unlock the mysterious mind of Henry Lawrence and to determine how he intends to use it.

Then, they must decide whether to assist him or stop him.

The story of Henry Lawrence is told here through the correspondence, private papers and published works of those who knew him.

First 300 Words:

ITEM: 19/12/14 Henry Lawrence’s Journal

Wednesday December 19th 1914

Sir Maxwell has told me that I should keep a journal. He says it may help. I don’t think that it will. Although he is an approachable gentleman and not so stuffy as one might think, he is a doctor and although I’m sure he wants to help me, I believe that his true motive is to try to understand what is wrong with me. Wrong? When I regained consciousness, I could have cried with joy! To be alive and to be whole and to be unafraid! Only later did I realise that I might not be the same man I had been scant hours before; that he was gone forever. And that soon I would not care.

Although it is not visible, I can clearly remember everything from before; home, parents, friends, comrades. The thoughts make pictures in my mind, yet before of course, there was no “seeing” as I see now. There was no “knowing” as I know now. But there is remembering. Remembering how the patrol was caught in the open; how Armitage lay dying and how he wept for his mother. Remembering Streeter giving him water, his own and his friend’s hands entwined, clutching the flask between them. And Armitage, blinded by steel and blood and filth, drinking; talking between grateful gulps, to his best friend who was watching him die. Watching, until shrapnel took his head. Armitage, oblivious, carried on drinking and talking; tended by a headless corpse, until he drank and spoke no more.

There was the grief, the terror and the despair. Lawrence running, he knew not where. Back to our lines; towards the enemy; it didn’t matter. He just needed to be away from that place. Staggering, falling, crawling, weeping.

Gina's Comments:

First off, good job. Writing and cover design is hard work. When I saw your cover, the first thing I did was stare for a very long time trying to figure out what it was. I'm still not entirely sure, but I think I make out a woman's form, I see a note and some mathematic insignia. NO. Wait. That's a man. A soldier...I read the product description and worked it out from there. My first thought is, if I have to work that hard to figure out what the cover is, it should probably be played with. I see what you're going for though. I can also see you worked to incorporate the elements of your book. You may, in fact, be able to keep this picture collage, but the placement of the title interferes with the picture. My suggestion would be to play around with different ways to place your title and name, allowing the picture to be seen better. IF you are not attached to the picture, I'd say try to find a way to make the cover pop. The drab colors (I get it, army drab...but it's not selling and I must admit, I like and write historical fiction, it was my intended route to have a very muted cover) don't scream buy me.

The description could use some love. I think the description is one of the hardest things to write. I just did it myself and it was weeks of struggle. A friend suggested I write a hook line first and go from there. That helped me considerably. I will say, after I read it a few times, I understood. I believe we're looking at "A Beautiful Mind" situation? Or maybe a savant? Very intriguing.

Regarding the 1st 300. Again. Some editing is advised. You are writing good stuff. I liked it, but I did have to read it a couple of times, so some attention to grammar and maybe sentence structure to clear things up might help you. It was powerful. I would cut the first paragraph. That is a slow read. The excitement of the second paragraph is powerful. The 3rd paragraph threw me, as I thought the narrator was talking, but then he said "Lawrence running..." and it seemed as though someone else was describing the scene. I think clearing up who is sitting with Armitage, where Lawrence is physically, in the scheme of that scene, might be nice. Maybe incorporate the information in the first paragraph later.

Good work. I think this is worth working on. Sounds like a good story to me!