Saved By The Bell: A Review of The Night Porter

Just when you are about to pack up your box of sparkly trinkets and disappear into the sunset, along comes a review like this.

5.0 out of 5 stars

 Such a great tale!, October 26, 2014

By 

Kristin A. Scearce (Ashburn, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night Porter (Kindle Edition)

Disclaimer: I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.

This was an excellent book, and I've already recommended it to several of my author friends. It paints a picture of a profession which many of us don't get to see: that of the author vying for an award, pitted against their rivals in a world moving quickly toward digital media over the printed word. And to top it off, this award season has allowed the inclusion of a (gasp) e-book writer! Not only is THAT a point of contention for all those involved, but the main author nominated is not that great a person to begin with. He, along with three others up for Arkwright awards, are registered guests at The Saladin Hotel, and we get our "insider scoop" from the night porter of the hotel himself.

I loved this book, and I couldn't bear to put it down. It had the perfect amount of wit, intrigue, and interesting facts about the writing world, in general, and it help my interest from the first word until the last. I would definitely recommend it to all those involved in any form of the writing profession, as well as those who enjoy reading, as it gives a little extra perspective into those minds which provide us with the material we so love and crave.

5 stars (wish I could give it more)

Thank you, Kristin. You do not know how timely that review was.

Cover design by Dark Dawn Creations

Amazon UK: Buy The Night Porter Here for 77p on Kindle and £5.50 Paperback

Amazon.com  Buy The Night Porter for 99c on Kindle and $9.86 on paperback

A favour: If you are a US reader/friend of mine, and have read TNP (or plan to), would you review for me? I need ten US reviews to qualify for ENT distribution. I am currently on 9. Even if you didn't like the book, I would still meet the average (though I hope that is not the case :D). Happy to return any favour. 

Or favor, if I'm going native.
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If that hasn't convinced you, here's a nice review from one of Britain's top e-authors - and new friend of mine - Terry Tyler.

My new hero!, 25 May 2014

By 

Terry Tyler, author - See all my reviews

Verified Purchase(What is this?)

This review is from: The Night Porter (Paperback)

I mean the night porter himself! What a sweetie. A brilliantly drawn character, who remains something of an enigma....

THE NIGHT PORTER is about fortnight in the life of a hotel in a fictional town in the midlands, which is hosting a quartet of authors there to prepare for a literary award ceremony. The strength of this book is in the turns of phrase, the characterisation, the dialogue. I didn't guess the 'secret' until just before it was revealed, and I was delighted to discover another twist after it, too - and a marvellously satisfying ending!

I think this is a must read for any self published writers, or those published by an 'indie' press. I loved the cynical, bitter character of Julian, the talented, self-published author of literary fiction with a drink and rage problem who is driven to despair by the success of the popular writers with their formulaic offerings. There are many insights into the publishing industry throughout the book, but not to the extent that they would exclude anyone not interested in it.

I bought the paperback, which I would recommend as it's beautifully presented, and includes many footnotes. I have to confess that I didn't read them all as I wanted to get on with the main story, and I felt that some of them could have been included in the main body of the text, but they certainly add to the book. The best one of all was the last one. You know when the credits of a film go up, and lots of funny little outtakes, or other amusing looks at 'what went on afterwards' are shown? Footnote number 81 reminded me of that!

To sum up - very well written, amusing, sweet, interesting, surprising - oh, and the character of yobbo bar manager Martin Sixsmith is a masterpiece!

(Terry Tyler, top UK contemporary dramatist, blogger and voracious reader)

and...

#amreading THE NIGHT PORTER by Mark Barry 
@GreenWizard62 Shortlisted for the best indie book I've ever read!!

(Terry again, from Twitter)

I will probably write a full story on the writing - and (mostly) marketing of The Night Porter over the winter, as an instructional guide for my Creative Writing courses and a demonstration of how difficult it is to break a Self-Published non-romance novel. I will namecheck anyone who contributes to the discussion.

If you are a friend of mine already, particularly if you featured in the Independent Paperback Scrapbook, your book will be mentioned in The Night Porter, btw.

Thanks, Mark.

Original Review of Mary Ann Bernal's Concordia

Originally featured here: 20/01/13

http://independentpaperbacks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/concordia-by-mary-ann-bernal.html

The Sunday Review

Three years ago, Indie stalwart Mary Ann Bernal, an ex-Pat New Yorker living in Nebraska, sat down in her garret and began to write The Briton and the Dane. 

This is a trilogy of historical fiction books focusing on the reign of King Alfred the Great in Ninth Century England, known as the "Dark Ages". Not because it was darker then than now, but because it is an era about which we know so little. 

What little we do know, Mary Ann corraled, span, tinkered, added a cornucopia of characters and turned it all into a well respected historical yarn.

The fourth book, The Briton and the Dane: Concordia, was released at the turn of the year. 

This, by common consent is considered to be the apogee of her progression from humble first timer, chiselling, digging and sculpting each word as if it would be her last, to smooth and accomplished historical fictionist.

Whereas the first of her books could be rusty and clunky, the second less so, and the third, even less, Concordia is noticeable for how smooth it is.  That's the first thing you notice. It is seamless and honed, like stainless steel worked on a lathe. A writer can do nothing but progress and Mary Ann sails ahead at a rate of knots.

In olden times, they used to call stories like this a romp. It is a ripping yarn which covers some serious ground in its sixty thousand words. 

England, the High Seas, Muslim Hispania, the action never seems to end.

At the centre is Concordia; the type of young girl who could cause a fight in an empty room. 

Beautiful and intelligent, men are generally smitten by her within seconds. Naturally, she knows this, is fully aware of her power over the men around her and is determined not to sell her future cheaply. She has plans. 

While betrothed to her guardian and protector, the much older knight, Brantson, a brave and lauded warrior, she has wanderlust in her heart and her eyes firmly fixed on someone far more dangerous, Thayer, the sultry and exotic ambassador of Muslim Hispania sent to Court on peaceful terms. 

Naturally, were this union to be consummated, a bloody war would soon follow - something the wily Thayer attests when Concordia virtually throws herself at him one night after a court and social. 

Brantson, every inch the noble Knight, the hardy soul, the chaste and wondrous fool, knows this, can see it in her eyes, and after Thayer rejects his foolish young suitor, steps in and offers Concordia marriage and respectability. 

Concordia accepts for very clever reasons*. 

Manipulative as ever, she extracts bargain after bargain from Brantson (a couple of which I found hard to believe) and the two are married  and subsequently set off on a symbolic honeymoon; a pilgrimage to Rome.

Then, the romp begins. Their ship is attacked by Saracen pirates. Everyone bar Concordia butchered, or presumed dead. Our heroine is captured and taken by Chad, the handsome, dashing Saracen pirate captain, to Muslim Hispania as tribute. 

There, she is once again reunited with Thayer...this time facing a very different fate

It is comfortably the author's best book so far. Concordia is shorter, sharper and better written than the other three and is an ideal entry point for readers. Without the academic speculations and expositions which slowed down the first three books, readers can enter Mary Ann's dark age world of avaricious Kings, scheming Queens, lusty Vikings, impish Britons, shadow-cowled monks, cunning Saracens, marbled Courts, byzantine intrigue, unbridled passion and - always - death by blood-dipped sword.

The characters are lovingly drawn, the plot rattles along like a runaway train, with little time to think, there is very little exposition in the text (despite this being the book which turns a trilogy into a quartet) and there is a complete absence of waste in the text. Mary Ann takes a very skeletal approach to her writing, almost YA, a Weightwatchers regime creating something as slim as the abs on a celebrity. 

There is dramatic tension on every page too and some strong dialogue, cleverly updated to a modern idiom - Mary Ann clearly learning from the critical lessons of her first book.

What I enjoyed was the way that Concordia's antics can be seen in 2013 in a suburban Mall near you. 

There is a modernity in her thinking, which draws close to the quayside of allegory; the dilemmas facing Concordia, Brantson and the Court of Kings are identical to the issues faced by modern families and new millennial couples. 

The author delves into Concordia's psychology and finds a teenage girl unwilling to be tied down despite culture and protocol; a Thoroughly Modern Milly, a girl blindsided by an older man, seduced by someone exotic, to whom her rather staid and normal boyfriend can be nothing but unfavourably compared. 

Court life in England and Spain are well described, the environment is sometimes lovingly drawn and the mores of the times are accurately recounted. At times, you can almost taste the fruit from the orange groves of Corunna. 

There is intrigue at every turn and you really root for Concordia when she finds herself trapped between the vicious egos of two Saracen brothers vying for her virginal affections.

Surprises galore explode across the page toward the end of the book and there is an unexpected ending which has caused some controversy. Me? I quite liked it, but it took me a couple of weeks to get over (it is very powerful and strongly written), and I half wonder whether Mary Ann , had she read the critical reaction, might have had a rethink. 

Still, a controversial ending is better than an ending which resembles a saucer of warm milk.

Oye! Oye! Oh hear this! This book is fiction at its most robust and thrilling. As I said at the beginning, I would rather read a manual on fixing toasters than historical fiction and I read this out of courtesy with a half smile on my face.

I didn't put it down. Couldn't put it down. 

This is a page turner. 

I'd buy this book if I were you and I cannot wait to have the paperback on my shelf.

Mark Barry

* You can hear Mary Ann read the chapter containing Brantson's proposal of marriage by clicking this link to Phil Naessen's Writers Showcase radio show.

http://thewritersshow.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/the-writers-showcase-podcast-e02-mary-ann-bernal/


Contact:

www.maryannbernal.com

US Readers can buy The Briton and the Dane: Concordia HERE!!

UK Readers can buy The Briton and the Dane: Concordia HERE

Green Wizard Rainy Saturday News

The Illustrated Woman is out in paperback, ladies and gentlemen.

*drum roll*

US: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_21?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+illustrated+woman+by+mark+barry&sprefix=The+Illustrated+Woman%2Cstripbooks%2C0

https://www.createspace.com/4026119

American readers - if you are interested in buying TIW in Paperback, please use Cspace! It's much better for my business and costs you nothing extra! Thank you.

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_21?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+illustrated+woman+by+mark+barry&sprefix=The+Illustrated+Woman%2Caps%2C330

So far, it has received mixed reviews. 

E

Though all the readers have found TIW to be a decent read and well written - and beautifully edited by my editor Mary Ann Bernal - the criticism has focused on the sex, which is probably a bit too hard.  

One of my biggest friends in this game couldn't finish it and, for a writer, that's the worst thing. 

My book Hollywood Shakedown was once slaughtered - I mean savaged, muntered, banjaxed and totally destroyed - by a friend of Kelly's and I didn't mind because she read every word. 

For a writer, the qualitative review doesn't matter in my opinion - its whether a piece is read or not, so when my friend wrote to me and said she couldn't finish it, I felt a failure. 

Then this happened again with another close female friend who felt the descriptions were just too hard.

Originally, I wrote this as an urban piece, like Carla, a dark romance-cum-love triangle and then decided to spice it up a bit due to dismal first quarter sales for Green Wizard. 

The spicing up, in retrospect, was probably a mistake, though I will challenge anyone who says the three chapters concerned are not well written. The collective erotica genre in Indielit is often - technically, at least - the skimpiest lode of decent writing and I know the three chapters concerned stand muster.

However, you CAN read The Illustrated Woman without reading the dirty chapters. It won't harm the experience.

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For a cleaner reading experience, Please avoid the two chapters named after Idomenus and the one named after Ajax
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Cuckolding: The Idomenus chapter is a description of the art of Cuckolding and that has also annoyed a couple of readers.

In the US, there is a fascinating and quite scary subculture of older white men who pay well endowed black men to service their wives.

I had never heard of it until I bumped into the practice on Tumbler when I was writing Carla - the chapter with Kenny undergoing Group Therapy.

On many occasions, they film the act. I'm told its an extreme form of swinging. I read about it in a state of astonishment and the notes I made form the crux of the Idomenus chapters.

If you're not interested in that stuff - as two or three of the readers have already found out - it can be a bit of an, er, awkward read.

I do think the story overall passes muster. Its 164 pages long and can be read in a morning over two cups of coffee and a doughnut. If you live in a city, you will recognise much of what goes on and the book covers age old themes. Choices. Decisions. Good guys/Bad guys. Poverty. Hopelessness. Redemption.

And tattoos.

Better still, its £5.99 in the UK and $8.99 in the US in PAPERBACK. (half those prices and less on Kindle).

Ideal Christmas stocking filler material, if you ask me! Just watch the hot stuff.

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NaNoWriMo: I'm joining in with this, even unofficially. The US National Novel Writing Month. 50k in a month. Anyone who knows me will also know that is what is known as a piece of piss. Any of the great pulp writers of the forties and fifties could do that standing on their heads - with typewriters - if they could keep off the whisky.

My working title. "Love, Nat.": A story of an English teacher who falls in love with a fifteen year old pupil.

Nothing exists so far. I'm off to watch Newmarket and then I'll have 2k tonight. I won't give a blow by blow because its too hard, but I will record the numbers.

Anyway, much more interesting stuff on the Cauldron on Tuesday.

Thanks for listening. Wizx

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An absolutely fantastic review of The Illustrated Woman by K-Trina Meador, reviewer for the Cross Plains Examiner in Texas and a great friend of the Indielit community.

http://www.examiner.com/review/the-illustrated-woman-by-mark-barry-1