Review of A Love by Any Measure by Killian McRae

 A Love by Any Measure

Killian McRae

As you all know, I got started in this Twifandom stuff three years ago reviewing fic. I had been reading fic for about six months before starting this blog. I remember when I had just started reading fic. I was wandering the boards over at Twilighted knowing that there was this fic going to start that intrigued me. It was called; Twice as Long as Yesterday. I remember the blinkie very well.  It was a beautiful thing. 

Now before I bore you with too much talk on fan fic. Let me say these few things so you understand where I am coming from.
I love historical fiction.
I love historical romance.

I loved this story as a fic for a long time. It was my "go to fic" to rec to people. Well, pretty much until it was pulled. What I like about how this particular P2P (pulled to publish) was handled. It is that roughly a month before she was pulling her story, she let everyone know. She said go ahead grab a copy ,share with your friends. It was her intent to rewrite the story, make it tighter, neater, and cleaner for the self publishing she did.

NOW.......
How did I get to the point of reviewing this P2P?  I follow Killian on twitter. It is because anytime I see her tweet about a contest to win this book, I go enter it. Sure enough, Killian tweeted "does anyone with a book review blog want to read my book and give me an honest review".
"Hey, we have done a few books here and there." I tweeted her and here we are.

I promised an honest review. So I am going to give it.

Reading a pulled to publish book is an odd experience for me. This is the second one I have read.

The story feels familiar.  You know you have read most of it before ,but there are things slightly different.
Now it has been a long time since I have read this particular fic. (Even though I do have a copy of the fic.)
I also warned Killian that I would not go easy on her book. I am treating this as though I bought it. It is because I want to let you know if this is something you should spend your money on.
The story is as I remembered it.  It was an easy fast read to me. It felt a little tighter because writing an episode at a time means you can have more stuff  in the story. to me the extra stuff seems to have been removed (again it has been a while since I have read the fic version)
It had the excitement and the mystery.
WHY did this English lord want this girl ? What was so spectacular about her?
It had twists and turns. In some places felt like a soap opera.
ALL in all, a good escape for a days read.

In this story we have the English Lord who comes to Ireland. This Lord gives the poor tennant a chance to keep her families cottage.
The deal? She has to come  and spend time with him. Every time they meet, the time doubles.
This is a detailed story with people being stupid people, to be honest.  By that, I mean they are doing the best they can with what they have. They are not omniscient. They do not know or see the things we do. 

WHO should buy this book IMO?
If you like a romance that feels like a good escape. One where you can just bury yourself in another world and suspend your reality for a day.
If you like historical romance and adventure.

what I liked,
the romance between these two is one of those sweeping classical kind
the mystery in the story even having read the basic plot before in fic form I still took great enjoyment from that
I like the female lead she makes mistakes she screws up but she is still plugging along.
I like he writing style I just like the way Killian writes there is something about it that makes me comfortable I really cannot describe it any better than that 

Now for the problems........

The editing was terrible. I found several errors. That took a great deal away from the enjoyment of the story. I am usually not that picky about it, but when I find as many as I did, it started to get distracting. Also, know that since I am not good at editing myself, I do not usually see those kinds of errors. The errors I tend to find are continuity errors. Or words that are not correct such as; "he" instead of "the".

So, if that kind of thing does not bother you, you would probably enjoy the book more than I did.
All in all, on an amazon rating scale, I would give it 3 stars. Only because they do not allow for half stars I would give it 3 1/2 here. (please note that I RARELY give 5 stars to anything I usually give 4 to things I find excellent)

A good story. A good read. A nice escape. A good romance with some great hot sexual tension and very good love scenes. It felt like reading an old friend.
Thanks Killian for the opportunity to read this book. I still love the story. It is one that has stayed with me for years. Now I think of them with their book names.

Okay, this is Sarah. This is my review of a Love By Any Measure By Killian McRae.

                                  ***WARNING......I have a potty mouth***

  I would like to start with a DAMN!!! Was I supposed to give a very detaled description in my review. I do not know. I feel as if my review has been trumped by my Aunts. I guess next time I will tell a bit more about the story in more of a graceful summery. Now on with my review.......

   Well, how to start? This would be my first review of a book ever. I am however, not including when I was in school either. So, lets see, I liked the book. BUT, there are some things that I would like to address.
The main characters, Maeve O' Conner and Lord August Greyson, are a cute pair. Their relationship is filled with friendship, hurt, deceit, love, distrust, and all of the above.   I would not say that it is a typical relationship. They had their ups and downs with some odd twists.

      I liked the overall storyline. The chapters tell you what year and where they are. The book also tells you about the past with some chapters. While still keeping with the present situations through others. It keeps you entertained while you read. You also get to understand different character view points with the switching of years.

    I have to say that for a historical book, I liked it very much. Now, my aunt will tell you that is a BIG compliment.  That would be because I am not one to read them. I frankly do not like them. Although, A Love By Any Measure was a good read.  Yes, it is a historical romance, but it is more than that. There is suspense, action, fighting, fires, drama, and of course SEX!!!! With lots, lots more of great things.

RANT TIME!!!!!!!

The one thing I could have done without was the typos, misuse of words, run on sentences, and just some clusterfuck of words. I can explain. I for one like the book, but I am curious about these problems. It is a published book. Why didn't the editor catch these. Editors go to school for this, yet I caught all of the mistakes. Those should have been addressed right away. I have to say that if I was the publisher, I would have fired the idiot who let these mistakes get published. The book itself would have been much better if the editor had done their job. I put no blame on the author. They are the ones that write their book the best they can. As an editor, you are to make sure that the book is grammatically (Which is WAY too may doubles in this one word...hahaha!!) correct. There was just a clusterfuck of mistakes. I for one should not have compensated for some of the sentences with my own words. All to just get past that one particular sentence at the time.  Shame on that editor. This book would be GREAT without the clusterfuck.

Okay, I am done ranting. On with my review........

If you can look past the clusterfuck of mistakes, read it. I actually recommend this book. AND this coming from someone who does not like historical books, that is good. I loved the characters, plot, storyline, and the mushy end. I liked the all of it. What I do also recommend is that this author needs a new editor. I did not go to school for it, but I know mistakes when I see them. I do not know how many stars to give it because the editor sucked fucking ass. I would have given it 5 plus stars. It was THAT good. BUT the clusterfuck of mistakes puts me off from giving all those stars. 

Thank you Killian for this opportunity to read and review your book. I absolutely enjoyed the story. I do hope in the future that you can get an amazing editor. Keep writing wonderful stories!!

 
NOW for the surprise both Sarah and I would recommend this story for you to read aside from its editing errors this is a story that we both took a great deal of enjoyment reading

WE are having a contest!

 comment below and be entered in a drawing to win an e copy of this  book

The Drawing will take place for this book on Friday at 6pm central time and that evening there will be an announcement post
So please enter the contest this book is worth the read!

Review of A Love by Any Measure by Killian McRae

That Sticky Pulled to publish thing

Ok, I would like to state MY personal opinion about pulled to publish fic.
THIS, btw, is the opinion of SUE. This is NOT the opinion of anyone else.
If my personal opinion offends or upsets you. Tough! I still have the right to my own opinion.

I have been involved in fandom for over 3 years. I was around when the first fics started getting pulled.
I also remember when fics started getting pulled left and right. OR, at least that is what it felt like for a while.
I have seen people who would JUMP at a chance to read a WIP (writing in progress). Steer clear of them until they are completed. Then they use a "fanfic downloader" to save it for fear of the story getting pulled.

I have seen writers who are dedicated to only writing fic. The ones that  never pull their fic get questioned constantly if they will be pulling to publish. I have been there for the twitter fights, the blow ups, the hurt feelings, and feelings of betrayal. Yes, some readers feel betrayed. Cheated even.


My opinion is simply this:

If you are a reader and you enjoyed the story enough to want to pay money for a copy. All to sit on your shelf, in your kindle, or nook. Then by all means, DO IT!

IF you are a reader and you enjoyed the story. Yet you do not wish to spend money on it then enter any and all contests. There are tons of them on goodreads or any number of blog hops. Just go to that writers blog page and you will find lots of them.

IF you are a reader who thinks that the writer is being a cheater. That they should not have pulled their fic to publish it. Then you know what? Speak with your wallet. Do not buy the book! It is that simple. The publishing world is VERY competitive. Anyone who thinks that a book gets popular without a TON of money poured into PR for that story is naive. Anything can be bought. Even good reviews on Amazon and goodreads. PLUS, there is tons of fic in many, many fandoms by many talented people waiting to be discovered.  This is not the first fandom to have its fic published.  It is not the first fandom to have a fic become a popular book.


NOW, to all of my various writer friends, speaking as someone who has read a GREAT deal of not just fic, but real books know this.

I am picky when it comes to books even if it is a small publisher. I am VERY picky. I can, have. and WILL find continuity errors in stories. I have done it many times even in books from big publishers. Editing a fic to publish is NOT an easy task. Not only do you have to change names of people and locations. You need to remove references to looks or to anything remotely twi like.  You have to take out a whole bunch of stuff that makes fic, fic. I'm not talking about the usual cliches ,but there is a difference in episodic writing, to a whole book.

A book needs to be tight and concise. You, as a first time writer, have a short amount of words to get your point across. Most fics, even the best of them, are LONG. Far too long for a first time book. One has to be VERY careful in what they cut to maintain that continuity and flow.

Part of the fun of fic is not just the feeling of community we have going on. It is the excitement and anticipation we get when a favorite story updates.
Think about it......remember when we were reading that BIG story? Any one of them. Then the writer would update. You would see all the comments of:

OH EM GEE ____ updated *POOF* *DUST CLOUD*

Then people would come back on twitter and you would see comments like

OH MY GAWD people!!! Read faster, I need to talk about this. Or back in the day when we would all post on the twilighted forums after reading a chapter. Some of my best memories of fandom come from moments like that. Those chats are how I got to know people and that feeling was thrilling.

A book is going to have a hard time recapturing that feeling of excitement. So for a pulled to publish book to impress me, the editing is going to have to be damn near perfect. I'm not talking comma placement. (I know many people are laughing right now!!) I am talking story content. I am talking about how I would expect it to feel familiar but still feel new. I want to be able to read the story and NOT have to have read the fic to understand the story. I want character development. You have to help me get to know these new people through their actions and words.

Many romance and smut books do not have a whole lot of character development. They rely heavily on the "oh he is handsome", "she is average", and blah blah blah thing. I have even read romances that have the guy talking about her fabulous blankity, blank name brand shoes. (And here I thought it was just a fic thing!) This is probably why people are reading a great deal of YA (young adult) books. It is because they do not have to use up their word allotment on sex scenes I guess.

SO, basically what I am saying is.....
I am on the fence. I am happy for any writer that reworks their story for publishing. However, myself, I would prefer to see them work on something completely new.

AND as always, I am around, available for reading, reviewing, anything. Ask around. I have a good eye. I can catch things others do not. I have done this for fic. I have also done this for writers of original books
 What does this mean? This means that if I have money to spend on a book; I am given the choice between buying a P2P (pulled to publish) book and a book written by a fandom friend that is an original universe they made. I am going to spend my money buying the original. I WILL NOT however, tell the person that busted their butt rewriting a fic to a book that any success they have is not earned. Promoting a book takes part luck, a good amount of work, and a whole lot of who you know.

NOW for some news........
 Our 3 year bloggiversary is coming up the last week of July
in honor of looking back over a great memorable 3 years. I actually have 3 reviews for you from me and Sarah. We will be reviewing:
*A love by Any measure by Killian McRae
*Cat o'nine tails by Patricia Lefever
*Cocktails and Dreams by Autumn Marcus

Now, WHY will there be two of us reviewing? Well my review might be clouded because;
1) I read the fic these books were based on
2) I know the people who wrote them

Sarah said this is vintage. Ummm, OK.

So, you will be getting a two sided review of 3 stories. One from a reader who has read them in their original fic form before. While the other will be reading the edited published versions. (Whom has not read them in their original fic form.)

Do you want to know what else is cool? The 3 writers have agreed to give away e-copies of their stories for a contest for the bloggiversary! Details on entering those contests will be in each post about those books. So, stay tuned!!!

SO, we have the party, YOU get the presents, and BYOC (bring your own cake you pervs)!!!
OH Sarah hon I have better porn all you had to do was ask never get your porn from google images LOL 

That Sticky Pulled to publish thing