So You Didn’t Like My Review…..

Posted on April 7, 2013

I originally reviewed this book on Goodreads and I said even though it was free, I wasn’t going to download it based on the cover.

The author responded to my review by stating the following:

“The ‘cousin’ (?) is intended as a generic love interest and is photographed in a haystack to demonstrate “The Man in a Haystack” which is a play on words, i.e. ‘searching for a needle in a haystack’? Hmmm… with respect, you’ve missed the point of the story which is probably no wonder as you confess to judging the book by its cover. The cover will be redesigned by a graphic artist to coincide with the launch of a sequel. Rating a book based on the cover alone is pretty harsh – no worries though, as it’s how you feel.”

I went back and downloaded the book, SINCE IT WAS FREE, and actually read the majority of it.  She may have been better off with my initial review. For an indie author to actually “THINK” that readers don’t make selections based on book covers is naive, silly and unrealistic.  However, I am nothing, if not fair.  So here’s to you indie author Alice Huskisson,  You will probably receive more downloads from my review, than people who saw the event listed on Goodreads.

This book was a free download by British blogger, Alice Huskisson. The cover was a turn off and initially I felt that even if it was free, that I was not going to download it. However, I was corrected by the author. The book cover is an analogy for the meaningless of trying to find a significant relationship, but this image has no real connection to the story, and if it does, I don’t feel it. If it was a half-naked hunk in a barn in the midst of ten loose bales of hay, then, yeah, Ha, very funny. The chap on the cover looks like a bad night at a country bar.

The book was written at the behest of Huskisson’s friends who enjoyed her dating exploits from her blog and encouraged her to write a book. She self published this work and it appears to be just posts from her blog. There is some flow and some connectivity in the main character, Mae’s trysts on her quest for love, and you find yourself rooting for Mae. You can almost feel the pain of her realization that the man in her bed is nothing like Mickey Rourke‘s character in 9/12 Weeks and life is not a movie.

I still am a firm believer that book cover is everything, especially when you are self published. American readers judge a book by its cover. I strongly suggest the author go back to the drawing board, and hire a graphic artist to remake the cover about an attractive metropolitan girl on a search for Mr. Right, then re-release the book.

Huskisson is no Helen Fielding and in reading Bridget Jones, you felt the cheekiness of the diary coming to life. There is little life in this story of an aging horny woman trying to capture something she feels she has lost. The book does have promise but a word of caution, get your cousin off the book cover, and I look forward to seeing the author’s growth in the sequel.

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