Somewhere Over the Sun

Hello :)

I finished “The Calvin Sky” two weeks ago and loved every single story in it. I tend to get lonely on my lunch hour(s) at school; your book on my Kindle turned out to be more than enough company. “Kevin Plays Pai Gow” made me cry and the excerpt of Bright and Blue made me look forward to the release of your second novel. I liked how every story and every character was different; some were darker than others. Some made me laugh out loud to myself in the middle of the cafeteria. Also, as I think I’ve said before, not only does your fiction motivate me to write something of my own, it also helps me open my eyes to be inspired by the most seemingly ordinary things. Although the writing I’ve been doing lately is more on the non-fiction side, I’m reminded again of the magical, transformative power of fiction when I read about your characters. Thank you.

-essmussein

I couldn’t help but copy-paste this and share it with all you lovely readers/potential future readers. I want to sell copies of my short story collection, but I also want people to be lovely and tell people whose work you appreciate that you appreciate it. I just sent a similar message to author Jennifer Egan, and it feels great from both ends of things.

Here’s the link to The Calvin Sky.

Lyrical and beautiful expression of love between a father and a son. Perfectly captures my sentiments of words, and feeling a natural calling, a pull to words, experienced by writers and editors and others who work with and toy with language as a way of life. 

The storyline is witty, smart, funny, entertaining, warm, deep, and heartfelt. It is completely accessible, and the story is told effortlessly, transitioning with flashbacks and from one point of view to another with characters’ voices distinct and clear. This is rare for any book, but especially for a new writer, I think. 

By page 5, I was hooked. By Chapter 3, I was in love. By the end, I had decided to recommend the book to every reader I knew.

-Stefanie Siefert, 5-star review via Amazon

Somewhere Over the Sun sales figures are almost the same as all Stieg Larsson novels combined, give or take 27 million copies.

As you may know, I’ve been on a small virtual book tour trying to get some exposure for this site and for myself for the sake of the book’s success. My latest stop is over at YA Bookshelf where I acted as a guest reviewer for the book Stolen by Lucy Christopher. Please read my review and then do a little exploring on the site which was so kind enough to have me.

This Friday, I’ll have a guest post up on The Literary Wife on ways to market  children’s literature in order to get today’s youth to read classic books like Charlotte’s Web. It was a fun post to write, not unlike my guest post on the “chick lit” genre at Crazy for Books. I should also have an interview being posted soon at Reads, Reviews, Recommends.

Any effort you put forth in helping me promote my book, even if it’s just visiting these other sites, is greatly appreciated. If you want to do a little more, you can recommend me to other Tumblr users, find and ‘like’ me on Facebook, and then just tell everyone about my site and my upcoming book. Thank you and I wish you all a lovely day.