Amaleen Ison

As many of you already know, I’ve recently contracted my YA thriller, Remember Me, to Decadent Publishing’s mainstream fiction imprint, Bono Books. Today, I’m thrilled to introduce fellow Bono Books YA author, Liza O’Connor.

Thank you for letting me take over your blog, Amaleen.

You’re Welcome, Liza.

I decided to break down the Amazon ratings for my book, Saving Casey, into topic categories to determine what my readers liked most about the story.

I’ve twelve reviews in total, nine of them are 5 stars and three are 4 stars. So I created an excel table with reviewers listed on the side and catch phrases on the top. By ‘catch phrases’ I mean memorable review comments such as: Couldn’t put the Book Down, Easy Read, Fast Paced, etc.

The first thing I learned is that my readers don’t think or like the same things. They are each unique, and bring their own preferences, beliefs, and interpretation to what they read.

The result of having unique readers is that what they read may not be what I wrote. No matter how clear I think my words are, when read through the filtering system of a reader’s brain, details can and do go askew.

I blame this on all those unpredictable twists and turns I throw in my stories. It causes problem for readers who hold to a planned route for my book. It’s the price I pay for writing stories that do not follow a normal path of expectation.  Since obvious path bores me, I will always wander off on strange and unexpected trails. That’s just me.

Happily, it turns out some readers like to be surprised. Thus, Saving Casey has won over readers. While I can never be sure what people have actually read, the consensus is that they love Saving Casey and that makes me happy.

Blurb: Having been diagnosed with cancer, Cass Goldman decides to opt out of any futile medical care and end her life. While she has some thoughts on afterlife, she never expects to reincarnate into the body of a seventeen-year-old girl named Casey Davidson.

When she awakens in a hospital, Cass discovers two disturbing facts: One, she is now inside the body of a troubled teenager, and two, the former owner of this body committed suicide, but only Cass knows that. Everyone else believes Casey has survived, but suffered a complete memory loss. Cass has two choices: to take on Casey’s life and turn it around, or to confess the truth about her reincarnation and end up in a mental asylum. Given this second chance at life, Cass decides to take on the future life of Casey—the frightening ghoul-faced teen with short, black, spiky hair.

Every person around Cass has an ulterior motive and discovering the truth of Old Casey’s life is more complicated than the “new math” she is forced to learn in school. In addition, Cass has to contend with raging teenage hormones and the prior crimes of Old Casey, which she might not remember, but everyone else certainly does. However, her biggest frustration concerns her feelings for her father’s rugged security specialist who sees her only as a teenager and doesn’t want to explore the mutual attraction between them.

As determined as Cass is to turn this life around, Old Casey’s enemies are just as determined to end her life. She has no idea whom she can trust, but she knows she’ll never survive going it alone.

Bono Books     Amazon    Barnes&Noble

After hours of analysis, here are the results:

Turns out my diverse readers’ reviews do not express themselves in similar manners. There’s not even one comment that is said by most of the reviewers.

The two most common comments were:

Saving Casey was fast-paced

I highly recommended it.

Four out of twelve readers–but not the same four–had this to say about Saving Casey:

They loved it!

Couldn’t put the book down.

Liked the characters and the plot.

Thought the story unpredictable with twists and turns aplenty.

Felt the story a page-turner, full of emotion.

So putting all the commonalities into a single collaborative review, I give you the following:

I love Saving Casey!

The plot is original and clever. The well-developed characters are interesting and unique. I laughed and cried during the unpredictable twists and turns of this fast-paced story.  I could not put the book down and finished it in a single reading.

Liza O’Connor is an author to watch. Saving Casey’s a well written book, a great read, and I highly recommended it.

A Must Read!

To be clear NO ONE actually said all that, but at least four people said all key parts of it.

You can read the full reviews here.

Oh, and the reason they couldn’t put the book down is because I placed super-glue on their Kindles.

I’m so clever…

BIO:

Liza lives in Denville, NJ with her dog, Jess. They hike in fabulous woods every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow. Having an adventurous nature, she learned to fly small Cessnas in NJ, hang-glide in New Zealand, kayak in Pennsylvania, ski in New York, scuba dive with great white sharks in Australia, dig up dinosaur bones in Montana, sky dive in Indiana, and raft a class four river in Tasmania. She’s an avid gardener, amateur photographer, and dabbler in watercolors and graphic arts. Yet through her entire life, her first love has and always will be writing novels. She loves to create interesting characters, set them loose, and scribe what happens.

Liza’s Blog and Website   Facebook   Twitter

Thank you so much, Liza, for a fun and informative look at your novel, Saving Casey. Wishing you much success and many sales. Amaleen xx