I wanted to share this recent review of The Beacon posted on Amazon. I have left the good and the bad:
"It has been awhile since I have read a paranormal romance book. I think I was sort of exhausted with the genre. I also tend to have a lot of issues with the way relationships in these books are presented; which is usually co-dependent with one partner being far more powerful (usually the male) than the other (usually the female). In this book, both Layla and Orrin are supernatural beings and she is the stronger of the two (yay!). I haven’t read too many books with demons, or in this case daemons so this was pretty new to me. I thought a fair amount of the exposition of the daemon world was interest; however, at times was a lot to take in and could drag the story down a bit. Dotson’s writing is impressive for a new author. She has a definite tone and style suited for this story. She has definitely put a lot of thought and work putting together the mythology of this story and that is definitely one of the strongest aspects of the story.I liked Layla. She was first sort of the vanilla YA paranormal romance girl, but she did grow a backbone and evolve into a stronger person as the book went along. She was strong yet vulnerable, conflicted yet determined, and emotional yet grounded. I loved the fact that she wasn’t a waify girl like in many YA books and this was stressed many times. One thing that I really loved though was that she had a friend. I cannot think of the last YA paranormal romance where there was a friend that was present as much as Ben was in this book or wasn’t a boy that was also in love with her. That made me so happy because most people have at least one really good friend in high school that isn’t their boyfriend. I loved that Ben was understanding of Layla’s relationship but that Layla also took time to make sure she was maintaining that relationship with Ben.I found Orrin a bit problematic. At first he was awful, I mean he has his excuses for being awful, but I definitely think he went way too far with the slut shaming and all that. I get why he was being mean, but there was probably a better way to do it. It was nearly impossible for me to actually like him for the rest of the book. I grew to tolerate him and I understood why Layla liked him and I did appreciate the fact that she did stand up to him many times when she felt wronged or when he was being a jerk.Overall I liked the book. There are a few things I did not love (Orrin for example), but Dotson has written a story with a strong female character in a story with good mythology setting. I enjoyed the surprises at the end of the book, and I am looking forward to read the next book to see what happens."
Ben is my favorite character. She's coming back in book 3, just FYI....
Did anyone else find Orrin that awful? Were his earlier actions beyond forgiveness?
I have spent the summer not only writing but polishing up my two previously "finished" novels. Those of you who have read them know there are grammatical errors. I am notoriously bad at editing. When I get to this point I tend to rush, not just on my writing projects, but in life in general. I submitted The Beacon to some larger publishers last month. With the help of the amazing author, Melanie Macek, we re-edited (is that word?) The Beacon and The Porter. So when you go to purchase either of these two books in paperback, Kindle, Nook, or Kobo, or read it on Wattpad, know that I have heard all of your voices, every honest person that came to me and told me my books had errors- Thank you! I appreciate that you read them, and I value the gumption it took to tell me there were problems.
I would love to hear from you in whatever form- email, Amazon, Goodreads, or a post here.
"It has been awhile since I have read a paranormal romance book. I think I was sort of exhausted with the genre. I also tend to have a lot of issues with the way relationships in these books are presented; which is usually co-dependent with one partner being far more powerful (usually the male) than the other (usually the female). In this book, both Layla and Orrin are supernatural beings and she is the stronger of the two (yay!). I haven’t read too many books with demons, or in this case daemons so this was pretty new to me. I thought a fair amount of the exposition of the daemon world was interest; however, at times was a lot to take in and could drag the story down a bit. Dotson’s writing is impressive for a new author. She has a definite tone and style suited for this story. She has definitely put a lot of thought and work putting together the mythology of this story and that is definitely one of the strongest aspects of the story.I liked Layla. She was first sort of the vanilla YA paranormal romance girl, but she did grow a backbone and evolve into a stronger person as the book went along. She was strong yet vulnerable, conflicted yet determined, and emotional yet grounded. I loved the fact that she wasn’t a waify girl like in many YA books and this was stressed many times. One thing that I really loved though was that she had a friend. I cannot think of the last YA paranormal romance where there was a friend that was present as much as Ben was in this book or wasn’t a boy that was also in love with her. That made me so happy because most people have at least one really good friend in high school that isn’t their boyfriend. I loved that Ben was understanding of Layla’s relationship but that Layla also took time to make sure she was maintaining that relationship with Ben.I found Orrin a bit problematic. At first he was awful, I mean he has his excuses for being awful, but I definitely think he went way too far with the slut shaming and all that. I get why he was being mean, but there was probably a better way to do it. It was nearly impossible for me to actually like him for the rest of the book. I grew to tolerate him and I understood why Layla liked him and I did appreciate the fact that she did stand up to him many times when she felt wronged or when he was being a jerk.Overall I liked the book. There are a few things I did not love (Orrin for example), but Dotson has written a story with a strong female character in a story with good mythology setting. I enjoyed the surprises at the end of the book, and I am looking forward to read the next book to see what happens."
Ben is my favorite character. She's coming back in book 3, just FYI....
Did anyone else find Orrin that awful? Were his earlier actions beyond forgiveness?
I have spent the summer not only writing but polishing up my two previously "finished" novels. Those of you who have read them know there are grammatical errors. I am notoriously bad at editing. When I get to this point I tend to rush, not just on my writing projects, but in life in general. I submitted The Beacon to some larger publishers last month. With the help of the amazing author, Melanie Macek, we re-edited (is that word?) The Beacon and The Porter. So when you go to purchase either of these two books in paperback, Kindle, Nook, or Kobo, or read it on Wattpad, know that I have heard all of your voices, every honest person that came to me and told me my books had errors- Thank you! I appreciate that you read them, and I value the gumption it took to tell me there were problems.
I would love to hear from you in whatever form- email, Amazon, Goodreads, or a post here.
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