And I'm OK with not pleasing everyone.

First off, let me announce a couple of guest spots. Piper is guest posting at Mama Knows Best  today, and Autumn has a guest post at Anatea's Bookshelf. (the guest post is there, but down the page a ways after the book blurb and excerpt) At least both of these ladies got all the names spelled right. LOL I had one last week where "Piper" was replaced with "Pepper". But hey, it was a nice spot otherwise, so I'm not one of those people who'd ask for a correction or anything. Since I have an actual difficult last name in "real" life, I'm often amazed at how hard it is for people to get "Piper" and "Denna" correct. Even when people are applying for jobs or submitting manuscripts at Lyrical Press! I get lots of "Dena"s and "Dina"s and even a "Dinna" before. Also a "Ms. Dena Piper". LOL

Anyway. I shrug it off. Not worth getting upset over.

Last night I got a Google alert about a new review posted for All Fore Revenge. It was almost bedtime (probably past, actually), so I clicked the link and read the review on my phone. And it was a rather...unfriendly review. I'm not sure how else to term it, because the reviewer seemed more annoyed with me personally than with my book, and she (maybe a she? Blog belongs to someone with a female's identity, but overall tone of the writing sounded more like a dude) pretty much said she had no idea why she even had the book or why at one time she'd decided to read it. Which kinda leads me to believe it's not even her preferred genre. It was really strange. But the thing she seemed most irritated with me about was because the main character's name is "Shurre". Apparently this blogger has never seen the name "Shurre" and thus she found it ridiculous that I used it in the book.

Seriously? I knew that name because I had friend growing up, with it. But surely she couldn't be the only person in the world... So I did some Google searches, found a couple of Shurres. Looked it up on Facebook, found a couple. The reviewer was upset because she didn't know how to pronounce the name. It's actually like the French version, "Cherie". And I realize this spelling looks a little ebonic, a little white trash. But the character Shurre in All Fore Revenge, is pretty much white trash. So, whatever. The reviewer also didn't care for the additional story lines going on in the book, such as Shurre's abuse problem. Well, sorry. Shurre's "issues" have affected main character Ali on a deep level, ever since they were teenagers. Only Ali hasn't dealt with them--and neither has Shurre--for all these years. It ties in with Ali's discoveries about herself, her character journey, and the way she's handled sexual relationships with men all her adult life.

Some readers simply don't like side stories. They want a basic, category romance in which every page is focused solely on that one relationship. And that's fine. But my stories aren't that way, and they probably never will be. I'm okay with that. I'm also okay with the reviewer's final rating, a 3 out of 5 stars. At least if she cross-posts elsewhere, it won't bring down my star rating by much.

Anyway, happy Tuesday. Life is gradually getting back to normal now that the kids have gone back to school. :)

Piper Denna
Romance is sexy!