The Bearded Scribe Press—Discovering Tomorrow's Top Speculative Fiction Authors Today!

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Book Spotlight: Fever (Chemical Garden Series, Book 2) by Lauren DeStefano

Good Day, Beardies!

School’s out for summer! I love my job, but after 2 weeks of our routine being turned on its head due to state testing, I am ready for a break. I’m usually in “relaxation” mode until July; that’s when I get the itch to start planning for the fall. Until then, I plan on working in my garden (my tomatoes are doing great!), cooking and baking (I’m taking the Wilton Cake Decorating course at Michael’s), getting started on wedding planning, and reading a ton of books!

Now that I have a little extra time, I can finish my Spotlights on Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden Series. I’m sure you are anxiously wondering what has happened to Rhine. Without further ado, here is Fever, the second installment in the Chemical Garden Series.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The Skillful Quill: Royal Punctuation—or The Dashing Prince

If you already know what a dash is, chances are you use it with flourish. Not using this tool would be like having a Ferrari and leaving it in the garage or like having this little guy (to the left) at home and running for help yourself.

For those unfamiliar with this beautiful punctuation tool, let’s begin with what it is not: it isn’t a hyphen. Hyphens are half-dashes like the one I just typed and have the purpose of connecting necessary descriptors to their nouns like mother-in-law. If the word completely changes meaning without the words describing in, you need to use the hyphen. (Mother and mother-in-law are VERY different people, but that’s another story).

Monday, June 24, 2013

Book Spotlight: Wool (The Silo Saga, Part One) by Hugh Howey

Welcome back, Beardies!

In this world of self-published fiction, I am always on the lookout for something self-published that holds my interest and manages to impress me with technical and storytelling skill. Sadly, these are rare finds. Wool is one of them. Granted, because I could download the novella onto my Kindle for free, I was leery to peek inside. Even reader praise didn’t make me overly hopeful about what I would find. Finally, I gave it a shot. I marked up the first page, still skeptical, but after that, I was sold.