Do You Think a Villain Has to Be the Slitheriest? No,I'm Not Talking About Voldemort.

I'd like to nominate Kay Hooper's Bishop Files novels for creating great villains. Just finished Hooper's The First Prophet, recently published in mass paperback ... a year behind the hardback. Believe me it's as good a thriller as comes off the shelves. 

What's not to like? Hooper delivers a fast-paced story line with lots of twists and turns that lures you into turning the pages as fast as you can read. Most important she delivers another great villain who's manages to keep one step away from the fleeing protagonists. Short summary: the main character, trying to avoid her new found psychic powers, is pursued by an organization who seeks to control her while Bishop's team tries to save her.

While Hooper's villains in her previous Bishop novels tend to be slimy egomaniacs, the adversaries in this book have their own point of view and show inklings of honor within their confrontations with Bishop's side. So what if they are killing psychics? This a a good read to study for presenting ambiguous villains who aren't over the top ... yet... -- Who knows what'll happen later in the series.

Five Stars -- A fast moving multi-genre tale with a stable full of well drawn characters. It even has a believable romance. Would that I could keep so many people straight in my own writing. I can't even keep real people straight in a crowd.

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Must confess. I've been goofing off ... reading blogs [and tweets and Facebook posts] instead of playing spider solitaire. Seems there's quite of bit about how not to piss agents off. Then I read Janet Reid, of the Chum Bucket and agent extraordinaire, comments about some things that must of appeared in the queries she received.

Of course, I never do dumb things like saying "fiction novel" in my queries, but I do plenty of other ding-bat stuff. Like spent most of the afternoon chasing the publication date of a sale I made back in 2010[?] -- "Night for the Gargoyles" to Spectra Magazine in Great Britain. 

Yeah, I know it's 2013, and I took my own sweet time to get my arse in gear.  Anyway: if you look up volume 5, you'll see my name on top of the author list on the cover. 

Why go look for it now? Well, I have a contract from Grumpy Dragon for "There Be Demons", the novel that grew out of that short story. Am thinking I'll put it up on my website -- for free -- since rights have reverted to me.