Please welcome, Belinda!!! (interview, giveaway)

Hello Everyone!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year. You may have noticed EFC’s newest reviewer, Belinda, on the blog. I am behind in officially introducing her to all of you. But here she is! You can check out the books Belinda reviewed for EFC in 2013 here. You can check out her official bio here. I also asked her a few questions so that you could all get to know her a bit better.

What genres do you enjoy reading the most? I enjoy mysteries, historical fiction, nonfiction, drama, pretty much any book that keeps the pace moving.

What are some of your favorite books? Flipping through my kindle, I find so many good books.

For fiction, I really enjoy Pat Conroy. Lords of Discipline is a powerful story that’s stuck with me over the years. For mystery, I like Michael Connelly and Karin Slaughter. But there are a lot of great mysteries out there.

Historical fiction is one of the most interesting genres I read. I could probably name over a dozen but the one that jumps out at me first is The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent.

Nonfiction’s a little tricky. There’s a lot of garbage out there. I always avoid political rants. But I enjoy everything from Raffaele Sollecito’s Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox to El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency.

I think one of the reasons I enjoy reading such variety is because I’m endlessly fascinated by peoples’ lives that are so dramatically different from my own. I just love hearing people’s stories.

What would you like our readers and authors to know about your review style? I would want authors to know that I really want to see them succeed. I’m looking for a reason to praise their books. But I’ll always give my honest opinion even if it’s not 100% positive.

The most frequent criticism I have is a lack of character development. If I don’t care about your character, I won’t care about your story. I also like it when you take me by surprise. I read a lot so I can spot a formula within a few pages. Tell a new story and tell it in a way I haven’t seen before.

I’d also say that very few reviews make it past me without poking just a little fun at the book. I see humor everywhere. I just hope it doesn’t come across as too offensive.

What was your reaction when I asked you to review a book for the blog? I figured I’d have a good excuse to get out of it so no worries. Guess it didn’t turn out that way.

What was your reaction when I asked you to be a regular reviewer? As I remember it, you never asked. I just kept sending you stuff.

I think you are correct. I always meant to ask you, but you just sent reviews and then I started sending you requests. Hee-hee. I sucked you in! Anyway … You’ve been reviewing with me for a few months now and appear regularly. What do you think of book reviewing so far? I’m always reading anyway and it takes me a short time to write reviews (thanks to some great editing) so as long as it’s working out for everyone involved, I’m enjoying it. Keeps me out of trouble  . . .  for the most part.

What are you looking forward to on this blogging adventure? I hope that my words will encourage writers to keep telling great stories. Maybe some of my criticisms will help some author to make some changes and write even better stories in the future.

To celebrate Belinda joining EFC, I am giving away a $15 gift certificate to either Barnes & Noble or Amazon (to a US follower) or a book of your choice (up to a $15 value) from The Book Depository (to an INT follower so long as TBD ships to you).

a Rafflecopter giveaway