Wednesday, July 15, 2015

A Cool Week so far! Reviews of Gravitas, Basking in the Spotlight!

This has been quite a week. And it's only Wednesday, Jessica Wren cast a spotlight on Gravitas and on Facebook she also mentioned the free short story! Happily basking in the light! Jessica her review began by saying:

Have you ever traveled to a foreign country? If so, do you remember how different it felt, and some of the local customs felt strange? Imagine visiting a foreign planet. In Lynne’s Murray’s novel Gravitas: Valkyrie in the Forbidden Zone, which is a science-fiction comedy with just the right amount of erotica, Val-Sybilla (better known as Sybil) finds herself in that very situation.

While making a trip to transport a shipment of “Gravitas,” a powerful aphrodisiac within the Ritual Jewelry that the powerful women of the planet Valkyries wear, she and her companions stop at a market, where, to her horror, she finds her first (and favorite) husband Josu, chained and being offered for sale. Determined to find out the truth about what happened to Josu, she enters a ritualistic meditation state to conjure up the three (very interesting and diverse) “demons” who live in her head. When her meditation is interrupted by Gelbraves, a loutish delegate from a rival planet, they both, along with Josu, fall into a portal that makes them crash-land in the Forbidden Zone (known to us as “Earth.”

The whole review is at Spotlight: Lynne Murray

Monday, a great review of Gravitas from The Reading Bud made me feel validated. We all endure the bad reviews but when someone says, "I loved the cover, I beginning/the end," it is massively encouraging, and courage is essential to live the writing life!

But enough about me. Yesterday, I was able to cast some light from a Body Impolitic blog post on Joseph P. Eckhardt's Living Large, the story of little-known silent film star, Wilna Hervey, and her life partner of 59 years Nan Mason.

I explain in the blog post how I went on a quest to find Wilna Hervey, and found the just-published biography of the woman who made many silent films as The Powerful Katrinka. The book is charming, as witness this "discovered by the moviemaker" scene--take that Lana Turner, famously "discovered" sipping a soda in a Hollywood ice cream parlor. Could she lift a trolley car?

Wilna Hervey would long remember the interview in New York that changed her life. She arrived at her agent’s office to find him engaged in conversation with another man, who was impatiently pacing up and down. As Wilna entered the room, the pacing stopped and the man looked up. “My God!” he exclaimed. “She is the original Katrinka!”Expressing his astonishment—and delight—was the noted cartoonist Fontaine Fox, creator of the Toonerville Trolley cartoons, which were then syndicated in several hundred newspapers around the country. One of the most popular of Fox’s inventions was the character of Powerful Katrinka, a massive young woman of superhuman strength, and limited mental range, who was capable of lifting the trolley off the tracks. … Properly casting this role was essential to the success of the proposed Toonerville films. The actress needed to be enormous and very strong, as not all of the feats of strength would be sight gags.

Monday, July 13, 2015

A great review of Gravitas from The Reading Bud!

This wonderful review from Heena Rathore made my day--well, okay, my week. It looks a lot more elegant on The Reading Bud site.

Rating

Story/Plot:

I loved the plot of this amazing novella. It has a really, really unique concept of having a planet where women dominate men and they undertake several husbands to look after the estate and home affairs. Lynne Murray successfully created a unique world that is both believable and marvellous. It’s uniqueness really stood out and I was longing to be able to visit this wondrous place (but only if they’ll allow a human from earth to visit their planet!)

I loved the attention she paid to all the small details. Everything sounded so beautiful and real. The concept of humans worshiping the alien visitors was hilarious and interesting, I mean what if the world in the book is really ‘real’! God, that will be amazing!

The over all structure of the book is great and it keeps you glued to the book from staring to end.

Characters:

I absolutely loved Val-Sybilla (a Valkyrian.) She is the strongest and the most independent female leads I’ve ever read. She is beautiful in her own way and I love this about her. The second character I loved in this book is Gelbrave. Initially I hated him but the author worked up her magic in showing his growth in the story. By the end I found him to be extremely humble and adorable.

Rest of the characters were also amazing and I was able to feel a connection with each one of them.

Romance:

There was a lot of romance, or should I say, Gravitas propelled lust. Sybil carried around huge amount of Gravitas with her in a ritual jewellery and it made people get attracted to her sexually. So everyone kind of wanted to take her. But, the relationship between Josu and Sybil was beautiful. It was a true-love relationship and I loved the fact that he always supported her.

Writing:

Lynne Murray’s writing is beautiful. It’s subtle and had an easy flow to it. I was lost in the story as soon as I started reading it. No complicated sentence-structures and no unnecessary tongue twisting words – just perfect.

At some points her subtle sense of humour made me laugh. It was a great experiences and for a novella, this book is amazing. Not too long, not too short, just the right length.

Beginning:

I loved the beginning, the first chapter started right in between a complex situation (as you can guess from the first line, see below) and then the author explains how they got there and then later picks up from there and tells what happens after that first scene. The structure of this books is so amazing that it’ll grip you right from the first page.

Ending:

The ending is perfect. It had the right amount of drama, action, emotions and logic. I enjoyed it and it made me smile broadly after finishing the book.

Cover Art:

I love the cover art. It’s stylish and beautiful. And the red hair girl goes well with the description on Sybil. The colors on the cover really stand out. It’s one of the two reasons I read this book.

Blurb:

The blurb is intriguing and is the second reason for me to accept this book for review.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

A Book Trailer & Preview of My Review About a Lost Powerful Film Heroine

I'm getting ready to review a biography of Living Large: Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason by Joseph P. Eckhardt. Earlier I sought out fat women in film and they are disappointingly few and far between, as I discussed on a Body Impolitic post. Nobody Loves a Fat Woman on Film.

This was so unlike the rich group of fat male character actors in film. at least there were enough big guys in film history that film critic, Dana Gioia invited them to a mythical banquet

I like to imagine these hefty heroes gathering in the afterlife. The feasting hall of their B-budget Valhalla is the original Wilshire Boulevard Brown Derby secretly rescued by Valkeries from the wrecking-ball. As they file in (to the accompaniment of Miklos Rozsa's "Bread and Circus March" from Ben Hur) for porterhouse steaks and lobsters thermador, cherries jubilee and baked Alaska...

No such banquet for the women.

And yet, and yet... By a wildly unpredictable path (which I'll describe in the review) I found out about Wilna Hervey. Seriously how could I have missed her? In a coincidence worthy of Carl Jung's synchronicity, I discovered that Wilna Hervey and her life partner Nan Mason are the subjects of a loving biography.

check out the trailer for Living Large, it got me a bit misty-eyed. More to come in my review on Body Impolitic soon!

Lovely trailer for Living Large