It doesn't make a lot of sense for me to keep two blogs until I reach the point of needing one for book fans and another for other SF and fantasy readers and writers. After months of duplicate entries, I'm referring you to my other blog. You'll find stories and poetry, an easy mnemonic for a writer's platform and other "writerly" posts. I also have a ton of books I'm giving away after years of collecting them. If you like wordplay and puns, you should enjoy my posts. Thanks!

I loved a lot of things about this book once I got used to Channie's hillbilly voice which lacks commas between many clauses. Her teenage angst comes across as authentic and entertaining. The whole fish out of water angle makes her character sympathetic even when she does something that would upset normal parents. Hers are definitely not normal and abusive by most standards, which makes Channie rebel when they hide from a clan war in a non-magical environment. They make things worse by cursing her to keep her from interacting with magically disabled boys. Enter Josh. He's sympathetic from the start for his depth of caring for other people.

It's been a long time since I read a romance so I'm not sure how much time most of them spend on the "trying to get some" aspect vs. other problems blocking the lovers from connecting. I would have preferred more focus on non-sexual things like Channie trying to fit in better at school after the first fiasco and making friends with at least one girl. It threw me that the school never notified her parents of her cutting class so often, and the inevitable parent meetings could have been hilarious. In spite of those lapses, Channie's misadventures with her magical powers are entertaining. She often solves one problem by creating another, usually for Josh, who gets more beat-up as an innocent bystander than most guys who go looking for trouble. Okay, maybe he's not so innocent, or standing by. But these two teens get ample payback for trying to get past 1st base. That's the whole point of the curse.

What I like most about Enchantment is when Channie learns to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of others, but I hate preditors and its gut-wrenching when she uses poor judgement and nearly loses her life as a result. It's a good thing there are other ways to skin a possum than magic because it's hardly a spoiler to let you know that magic is going to fail at the worst possible time. More lives than Channie's are at risk. That's the price of dealing with dark magic. In the end, it's going to take a twist of fate and revealing a long kept secret to make things turn out even half-right. The author pulled off a conclusion that still makes me smile.You'll be as anxious as I am to read the next book.

Read The Sapphire Flute before starting this book. The number of people introduced in the first three chapters is mind boggling if you’re not already familiar with the story, and besides, The Armor of Light begins where The Sapphire Flute left off.  I started book 2 thinking the author would describe the continuing settings and characters and explain the backstory basics. She didn’t, so I had to go back and read the series from the beginning to get a mental picture of book 2’s beginning.  I loved book one even though it came to a stopping place as opposed to a real end. It wasn’t meant as a standalone.

I have to admit I wanted to dislike the second book for not being a standalone.  That lasted all of three chapters.  Then the author began introducing new situations and new magical phenomena as she ramped up the tension.  All the color and detail of the first book wove itself into the second tapestry.

One storyline features romance with competing suitors, heart-breaking betrayal, magical battles, death and hopelessness.  I cried through certain chapters. Evil gets its due in this book with a storyline fleshing out the antagonists and making one of them seem sympathetic—in a twisted way. The main story focuses on learning, friendship, trust and free-will in a case of nature versus nurture. When hidden evil undermines the good influences, conflicted characters must run or face-off with betrayers.

With exception of some well-deserved dread at expectation the three stories will come together in a disastrous way, little feels formulaic about evil’s bid to gain control of the magic keystones that created  Rasann. When the storylines come together with a crash, the elements combine with dark magic to rage against the magic academy that serves to protect the world. A battle ensues that could end in the death of the only person able to mend the fraying magic holding Rasann together.

As trials, joy and sorrow transform the characters in the book, so you will be transformed in the reading.  If not for the lack of adequate descriptions in the beginning, I would give The Armor of Light 5 stars. The ending resolves most of the conflicts in a way that feels satisfying to the reader even though the characters suffer great loss and face a terrible challenge, setting a difficult path for future books in the series.  I look forward to the journey.

  The Sapphire Flute is more than a magical tale—it is two tales skillfully interwoven around one world, Rasann, held together with fraying bands of magic long overdue for mending.  If the white mage doesn’t appear soon, Rasann will fall apart at the seams and S’Kotos, the destroyer, will triumph. One story thread forms the warp and the other the weft of this tapestry, one dipping where the other raises, the mark of a sure hand at storytelling.  Be warned, The Sapphire Flute is part of a series and will leave you anxious to see the complete tapestry.  Color is key, so here are a few samples of the tones.

Ember, at sixteen, feels stifled by her mother’s restrictions against magic and chafes to free herself for better reasons than teenage rebellion. Dreaming she will die at the hands of S’Kotos’ evil servant, Ember knows she must flee her home and learn magic to protect herself. Terrible dangers await if she dares step out her door, yet magic can only be learned at the Academy, and then only if Ember possesses  enough magic to survive the journey and escape  her enemies long enough to pass the entrance exams.

 Kayla, a talented young woman scorned by the aristocracy for her half-evahn heritage, is about to achieve her dreams through hard work and long practice. So beautifully does she play the flute, one might think it magic enough to win the king’s heart. Little does she know one small mistake will bring her world crashing down, endangering her life, her loved ones’ lives, and a city. Even Rasann may fall.

 Without revealing the details of why I hated to stop reading long enough to change planes, I can only say Karen’s tale interweaves novel creatures and characters fully fleshed out with strong motives for preservation or destruction and draws them all taught. The wolfchild is like no werewolf you’ve ever seen, and I say see because you will see all Karen’s creatures and scenes as if you were there.  She dyed her story threads in all the hues of a rainbow, and I hope you don’t wait until a rainy day to enjoy its beauty.  

I decided it's a waste of effort to keep two identical blogs. From now on this blog is reserved for book reviews and contest contact forms. Everything else is at http://sherahart.blogspot.com

Are you here on campaign or perhaps to blog hop? Let's make a blog train that won't ever stop! Go to my contest, 4 blogs below, or follow this link, a shortcut you know. Please do at least a few things on the list. Each will take seconds (my hotlinks don't miss). You can win chocolate or choose a gift card. My family can't enter, and the chocolate is on guard. The more things you do, the more entries you'll get. And doing them all gives you more chances yet. Then I'll do the things that you did for me, so we'll share the whole world and some chocolate. Whoopee!

Then if you want a prize like a book, go on ths giveaway hop, take a look!

Again with the linking? Better than double thinking. More followers for me and for you if you click the link and follow through: http://sherahart.blogspot.com/2011/08/last-day-for-sparkfest-im-doomed.html

It's starting to seem silly posting the same blogs in two places, so I'm posting the link instead. Read how I decided to build my own following by following Rachel Harrie's campaign:
http://sherahart.blogspot.com/2011/08/platform-falling-i-mean-following.html

Another egg hatched into Omega Man, who cleans up crime throughout the land. With a plunger. That's some serious sit fighting, although he's a stand up guy. You know what I mean. He's even had some commercial success. You guessed it, in a commercial. Something fishy about a sushi chef advertising comics. TBS

Too bad not enough of our nest eggs hatched to keep all our chickens, I mean children, fed. Maybe its the size of those little cluckers, not so small any more, and always hungry. So we did some nest cleaning before the big storm the night of our anniversary. No, wait. That was a whole week before. However times flies, we were still tired from the stress or helping another fledgling fly the coop. Of course, seeing this fledging in front of a 7' tall door, you'll wonder how much bigger one could get. And maybe how sharp are his teeth?

I couldn’t decide at first whether to jump for joy or reign in my excitement when another writer, Dierdre Eden-Coppel, sent me her “Fantastic fantasy writer” blog award. My inner voice tells me my blogs aren’t that good, although I always try to add some wordplay fun. So with a skeptical attitude I checked out her blog athttp://astorybookworld.blogspot.com/. Now I'm a convert.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a professional writer illustrator who’s farther along the road to publishing than I am, and with a much more developed platform. She does agent and author interviews, always in demand for writers. And she really does give out attractive awards she designed to people whose blogs she enjoys, different awards for different types of blogs. Even if she does all this to publicize her own illustration talents, which are pretty impressive, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement and very clever marketing. I could learn a thing or three, maybe a few hundred things, from Dierdra. 

She even has a waiting list, in the thousands, of people signed up to read her books when they come out. She’s got more followers by sweet enticement than I’ve eaten chocolates this month. That’s a lot. Excuse me while I wipe my chin. It’s August in Florida, and even those candy coated chocolate pieces melt on my mouth, not my hands. Go figure, or eat chocolate.

Yes, I’m brown-nosing here, but let’s redefine that term to mean smelling chocolate so close up as to earn the mark of fine chocolate connoisseur. This type of brown-nosing is what every author must do to attract readers. To tempt the finicky ones, maybe my book should come with a chocolate cover instead of a chocolate moose and gummy bears inside. Brown-nosing aside, I need to heat up my platform to the melting point of chocolate until the whole world shares it.

Since my blog advertises “Care for a cause and have pun doing it”, you might as well make winning my first blog contest your cause. With visions of chocolate melting in the mail, I've added another prize offering. Now I'm giving one free $10 box of chocolates (US shipping only) or a $10 gift card (wherever shipping costs under $5), winner's choice on both, by random drawing. The contest closes at midnight US Central time September 10, 2011, so I can hold the drawing on September 11, a day I can't forget.

Here’s what to do, one entry point each:

1. Like my author page on facebook: Sher A. Hart

2. Like my website: www. sherahart.com. You only need to click the like button on one of the pages.

3. Follow this blog: http://sherahart.blogspot.com/. 

4. Share the same blog on either facebook or twitter or both (tell me your id).

5. Optional: Link to my blog from your blog or my website from your website (tell me the URL). If you're another writer who gives writing help and want your author website link included on the "Read and Write Right" page of my website, email me your info using the "Contact and Interact" page of www.sherahart.com.

6. Leave a brown-nosing comment on either blog with which things you did, your point total and email address so I can email you if you win. 

Disclaimer: This writer takes no responsibility for the use of prize chocolate. Chocolate consumption should be done in moderation. Eat responsibly and do not drive while under the influence of chocolate. This message paid for by the choco-lick book advertising council.