Nick Bryan

blog tour

Traitor’s Hope by Virginia McClain – Review

by

This is part of the blog tour for Traitor’s Hope, the new book from Virginia McClain. Much like myself, Virginia is a Jukepop Serials alumni who spun her webserial from that site off into a series of self-published novels.

She’s good people, always very supportive of the Hobson & Choi series and her books are reliably fun (here’s my Goodreads review of the first one if you like context) so I jumped at the chance to get involved with the sequel’s release. Let’s do this.

Traitor’s Hope – a short essay

Here, then, we return to the pseudo-Japanese world of Gensokai, where lifelong friends Taka and Mishi – the heroes from the first book – are discovering that keeping the peace might be almost as hard as winning the war. Like many second-books-in-series, there’s a greater focus on character-building here, a little willingness to let the people breathe and talk to each other rather than rushing headlong into the story.

It also provides a chance for more world-building and a greater sense of the wider universe, which helps contextualise some of the more out-there fantasy elements. The magic system remains one of the best parts, well integrated into the world, story and combat. But perhaps most importantly of all, it gives the author the chance to describe really cool stuff. One element that’s definitely remained consistent between books is McClain’s gift for a visceral action scene.

The characters other than Taka and Mishi also benefit a lot from the extra space, and supporting cast member Kusuko in particular gets a lot of interesting development – she’s probably the break-out character of the series, at this stage. Certainly, I know seeing what happens next to her is probably my biggest incentive to come back for the next one.

This second-book task of expanding on the world means the plot isn’t quite as propulsive as the first one, but I think that’s expected. It means that when the faeces hits the fan again – and it definitely will – we care all the more about what happens to the cast. Mishi’s worries over her violent nature become a little laboured over the course of the whole book, but if I had genuine reason to believe I might flip out and kill my friends at any moment, I’d probably worry about it a lot too.

In short – a strong continuation to a good series. Builds upon the strength of Blade’s Edge, makes the world of Gensokai deeper and more interesting and keeps the characters moving forward. I’ll definitely be back for book three.

Hot Chunky Information

Want to know more about the book and/or blog tour? Here’s all the words you could possibly need, or click here to go to the website of the company running it.

About the Book:

Title: TRAITOR’S HOPE (Blade’s Edge #2)
Author: Virginia McClain
Pub. Date: October 14, 2017
Publisher: Artemis Dingo Productions
Pages: 284
Formats: Paperback eBook
Find it: Amazon, Buy The Paperback, Goodreads

Traitors lurk around every bend. Mishi’s mind is betraying her, and she fears her kisō and katana will betray her next. Taka’s heart abandons her for a person she cannot possibly trust. Now that the two friends are obliged to help re-establish peace in the land of Gensokai, the only question is where the next betrayal will come from and if Mishi and Taka will have the strength to survive it.

About Virginia:

Virginia thinks dangling from the tops of hundred foot cliffs is a good time. She also enjoys hauling a fifty pound backpack all over the Grand Canyon and sleeping under the stars. Sometimes she likes running for miles through the desert, mountains, or wooded flatlands, and she always loves getting lost in new places where she may or may not speak the language.

From surviving earthquakes in Japan, to putting out a small forest fire in Montana, Virginia has been collecting stories from a very young age. She works hard to make her fiction as adventurous as her life and her life as adventurous as her fiction. Both take a lot of imagination.

She recently moved to Winnipeg with her husband (a Manitoba native) and their dog.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Tour Schedule

Week One:
10/9/2017- Two Chicks on Books– Interview
10/9/2017- Blushing Bibliophile– Review
10/10/2017- Arvenig.it– Guest Post
10/10/2017- Bibliobakes– Review
10/11/2017- Kati’s Bookaholic Rambling Reviews– Excerpt
10/11/2017- Ashley M. Delgado– Review
10/12/2017- A Dream Within A Dream– Excerpt
10/12/2017- Don’t Judge, Read– Spotlight
10/13/2017- BookHounds YA– Guest Post
10/13/2017- Adventures Thru Wonderland– Review

Week Two:
10/16/2017- Novel Novice– Excerpt
10/16/2017- Nick Bryan Dot Com– Review
10/17/2017- Books at Dawn– Guest Post
10/17/2017- YA and Wine– Excerpt
10/18/2017- Fire and Ice– Spotlight
10/18/2017- A Gingerly Review– Review
10/19/2017- My Nook, Books & More– Excerpt
10/19/2017- Jena Brown Writes– Review
10/20/2017- Seeing Double In Neverland– Interview
10/20/2017- Ramblings From An Alternate Reality– Review

Hobson & Choi Blog Tour – WEEK TWO

by

It’s all over! Emotions were high, the pace was frantic, but the H&C Blog Tour is at an end. After two weeks of relentless H&C content written by myself and others, the whole damn enterprise is finally at an end. I thought I’d get the retrospective post out there, rather than squeezing it out in a few days, just so you can all feel like it’s really over and move on.

So, what posts did come in our second week? Could there have been… a change in media format?

Me, Myself & Blogging

As with last week, there were a few posts written by myself, the author, and I tried my best to provide a range of content to keep life interesting. First up, over on the K-Books site, I answered a few interview questions – this includes some thoughts on the very concept of writing advise, not to mention an answer to the ultimate self-publishing question: Why self-publish?

A couple of days later, I guest-posted on The Online Novel, with one of the most process-heavy articles of the whole tour. Want to know how I went from webserial to self-published, what I did on the way and exactly why the hell I made the decisions I did? The answers could well be in here somewhere.

Then, for some light relief, I wrote a short, jokey guest post for Nyx Book Reviews about the concept of YA Crossover and whether Hobson & Choi is that or not. I’m not sure if I actually answer that question, but I did make some great conceptual jokes about the “blog tour” idea.

Since H&C is a very serialised series, I worked out my Top Ten Book Series for Winged Reviews. I hear the internet loves lists, so why not go see if your favourite series is in there, then leave your disagreements in the comments if I left it out?

Lastly from me, another swing in mood, I did an in-character Q&A for Kirstyes’ site. Yes, this is me taking a few questions whilst pretending to be my characters from H&C. It’s a new one for me, but it was surprisingly fun, and if you’ve read the books, this does qualify as new material. (Although it does very slightly spoil a plot point in the first third of book one. Fair warning.)

Also, if you desperately want even more new material, remember you can get a free extra short story by subscribing to my mailing list.

Outer Limits Of External Thought

Meanwhile, in the strange world outside my mind, there were a few reviews. First up, Alastair of Nimbus Space penned his considered thoughts on the second book in the series. Did he like it? Did he hate it? Click and find out, I reckon.

Booktuber The Book Moo actually recorded separate videos for each H&C book, which is an impressive level of dedication. You can see her reviewing The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf here and also giving Rush Jobs the treatment here. Or, to save you having to click through and break up this wall of text, I’ll embed the first one here:

After that, there was another review from The Bookish Outsider, covering both books in the series in a single magnificent sweep.

Not to be beaten, Andrew of The Pewter Wolf did the same thing the next day, and that brings us to the end of the tour. Wow, that was a lot of blog posts.

Multimedia Mastery

Oh, and if you missed me talking about it at the time, I was on London’s arts station Resonance FM, chatting about H&C and my favourite London spots on the Daniel Ruiz Tizon Is Available show. You can see more details about that, including ways to listen back to the show, in the blog post I did about it the other day.

And that really is it, I swear. And now, playing us out, because I can, here’s The Book Moo again reviewing the second H&C book. This video includes the exciting spectacle of my face rushing towards the camera. END OF TOUR

Hobson & Choi Blog Tour – WEEK ONE

by

The first week of the Hobson & Choi Blog Tour has more or less happened! The good word of H&C spreads far and wide across half a dozen sites, with many more still to come!

In case you haven’t had time to keep track of the latest tweets and so on, I thought I’d come back with a quick summary of what’s happened in the last week. Not to mention, I wrote a few fun posts for this tour myself, and since subscribers to this website are meant to like that sort of thing, I figured it was worth calling attention to them.

Me Me Me

First up in the posts-by-me section, then, we had a good-length interview with fellow indie author and JukePop graduate Virginia McClain. Some good introductory questions about the series, plus a few more in-depth moments about process, serials and whether I would be willing to eat a guinea pig. Virginia’s own post-Jukepop action-fantasy novel Blade’s Edge just came out too, which I thoroughly recommend. More details on Goodreads, including a longer review by me.

I also had a guest post on Music, Books & Tea about how to use the internet in fiction without killing the drama, which might be of use to other writers and funny to everyone else. It’s kinda a jokey post, but I means my jokes.

Last in the all-me section, I also wrote a fairly comprehensive piece of My Influences for YA Yeah Yeah. If you ever want to know what turned me into the writer I am today, or just want some recommendations, I stand by all of those. Although some might be aimed at a quite young demographic.

The Thoughts Of Others

Even more excitingly, some other folk were kind enough to read the H&C books and offer up some thoughts for the blog tour. Writer/craft blogger and long-time friend of both me and whole H&C project Claire Rousseau wrote a review of both books on her site.

If you prefer lists (like they do on the internet, I hear), Faye of A Daydreamer’s Thoughts produced a list of ten reasons why you should read the Hobson & Choi series, and they’re all worth taking heed of, I feel. But I would say that.

Lastly for now, we have another review of both books by Chelley of Tales of Yesterday! Not only are there kind words said about the books, Chelley may also win for tour dedication with her H&C-styled site banner created for her tour date, which I’m reproducing below for posterity.

Excellent. If anyone in the second week of the tour wants to repaint their house in the style of the Hobson & Choi covers, that might be the only way to beat that.

Prizes Prizes Prizes!

I will just mention that if you want a free copy of the first H&C book, I have recently sent five copies to the Books On The Underground scheme, which leaves copies of books around the London Underground – it seemed apt considering our cover. So if you follow me on Twitter, I’ll try and post whenever I hear the location of a copy.

Hobson & Choi Blog Tour!

by

Tomorrow, the second H&C book is released! To mark this occasion, and promote the series as a whole, Hobson & Choi is Going On Tour!Well, on Blog Tour, organised by the excellent Faye Rogers – you can see even more tour details on her site.

Basically, a range of bookish and book-related blogs (see list to right) will be featuring Hobson & Choi in some capacity, one every day for two weeks. This will include a couple of interviews with me, some guest posts where I talk about H&C-related issues, reviews of the books by the bloggers themselves, a competition, possibly a couple of surprises too.

Once we’re a few days into the tour, I might do a post here to point out the specifics, and I’ll probably retweet the tour posts on my Twitter when they happen. I’ll also keep updating the links below with the H&C-specific post on each blog when available. For now, if you just want to see the sites we will later feature upon, click away!

And don’t forget to buy both the new book and the newly cheap first one too, obviously.

Blog Tour Route – Collect ’em all!
Monday 19th January
Rain On A Summer’s Afternoon – Interview with author (i.e. me). – Tuesday 20th January
Claire Rousseau – Review of both books. – Wednesday 21st January
Music, Books and Tea – Guest post by me about using the internet in fiction without killing drama. – Thursday 22nd January
Ya Yeah Yeah – My Influences: I list stuff that inspired/drove me towards Hobson & Choi – Friday 23rd January
A Daydreamer’s Thoughts – 10 Reasons To Read Hobson & Choi (not by me!) – Saturday 24th January
Tales of Yesterday – Review of both Hobson & Choi books. – Sunday 25th January
K-Books – Short author interview. – Monday 26th January
Nimbus Space – Review of H&C v2. – Tuesday 27th January
The Online Novel – Detailed guest post on H&C publication strategy. – Wednesday 28th January
Nyx Book Reviews – Fun guest post on the concept of “YA Crossover” and whether H&C is that. – Thursday 29th January
Winged Reviews – My Top Ten Book Series – Friday 30th January
Kirstyes – Character interviews! Hobson and Choi speak! – Saturday 31st January
The Book Moo – Impressively, Mel of The Book Moo has done video reviews of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf and also Rush Jobs. Amazing stuff.Sunday 1st February
Bookish Outsider – Review of both books! – Monday 2nd February
Pewter Wolf

Hobson & Choi Blog Tour – Book Two Blurb + Launch Plans

by

It appears the launch of Rush Jobs, the second Hobson & Choi book, needs preparation. You can see an exclusive 100% real not-fake not-a-joke preview of the Case Two cover just to the right of these words. Enjoy!

But yeah, if you’re someone who dislikes making Christmas plans in mid-November, best duck and cover, because we’re about to talk late January 2015.

After The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf‘s relatively soft launch, we at H&C HQ are going bigger this time. Yes, it’s a blog tour. This means that if you, the reader, run a blog about books (or something else you can easily relate back to H&C), you can host a post around the time of the Rush Jobs launch. This could be your own review of the book or a piece I’ve written or some combination of the two. We can work something out.

However, if you wish to be involved at all, you should register your interest by filling in the form here, which does include checkboxes to determine what kind of post you might want to feature.

Get ye applying. Your blogs won’t tour themselves (because I will be doing that).

In order to get everything in order for this blog tour, we’ve also put the new book on Goodreads, so if you want to announce your formal intention to read it, you can do that too.

Oh, and to make the Goodreads page look less skeletal, I’ve released the blurb for Rush Jobs, which goes like this:

“Sometimes #crime feels like the Matrix. Or the #patriarchy or #porn. It’s everywhere, even in people you trusted, and there’s so MUCH of it.”
Angelina Choi returns for her second and final week of work experience at John Hobson’s detective agency, ready for anything after their first successful murder solve.
After all that online buzz, they’re in phenomenal demand. Can Hobson & Choi solve a kidnapping, play chicken with corporate crime, beat back gentrification, save a dog from drug dealers and head off violent backlash from their last case?
Or will grim revelations about Hobson’s past leave them floundering in the chaos?
Rush Jobs collects the second major storyline in the Hobson & Choi saga, #1 on Jukepop Serials and #2 in Dark Comedy on Amazon, adding brand new chapters and scenes to the case.
Also included: bonus story Infernal Accounting, exclusive to this book. An unfortunate accountant is terrified of his first day working for Rush Recruitment – but they’re only a temp agency, right? How bad can it be?

So there we go. The countdown has officially begun. Apply now to be a tour stop! And yes, the real new cover, from the creators of the first one, will be unveiled at some point. Exciting times.