Review on Amazon

Just had to point you in the direction of a fabulous new review of Testament on Amazon. (Well, new to me, I try not to be an obsessive Amazon-checker.)

It's by Gareth Wilson (anybody acquainted with this v. nice man?) who also goes by the title 'drosdelnoch2' which sounds slightly Welsh to me, though I can't see an obvious translation.

I was going to put in a link, but, sod it - here's the whole review, it's not long. It comes under the thrilling (to me, obviously) heading 'Book of the Year Potential'...

Following on from the recent trend of having the book told from two different time periods this wonderful novel is a breath of fresh air into a convoluting historical fiction genre. Whilst many would wonder why they should spend their hard earned money on a new author this is a book that I really think should come with a "Remington" Guarantee from the publisher (if you don't like it your money back. LOL) Highly creative, cracking characters and above all a story that virtually sails itself through the readers imagination means that this is going to be an author that the public are going to have to watch. Top it all off with a tale that drags the reader along by not only the heartstrings but emotionally and this really is going to be a book that's hard to top by years end.

Gareth is one of Amazon's top 500 reviewers (Does anybody know what this means? Does he simply write a lot of reviews?) and has over a hundred and fifty reviews to his name; so I checked out his general reading taste. Lots of fantasy, crime, some non-fiction and some more general stuff. So, although I love crime novels and am not a total stranger to fantasy, in some ways, Testament wasn't an obvious choice for him - I didn't see reviews of any of the famous split time novels out there on his review pages, for instance. Maybe it was a recommendation from a friend. Anyway, as to his reviews, Mr Wilson is, on the whole, a very enthusiastic reviewer though he's not afraid to be more down-beat when he hasn't enjoyed something.

The whole business of being reviewed is interesting. When Testament was first published, I kind of assumed that I would be most interested in what the newspaper reviewers said, though goodness knows why as I never read national newspaper reviews. No, seriously, never, because when I used to, I found I invariably disagreed, hating the things they praised and liking the books they dissed. So why would I want them to say nice things? - because we all want to hear nice things about our work, obviously.
But I have discovered that it is much more gratifying when somebody who's not being paid to do it bothers to write a review of your book; when a reader just feels so enthusiastic about what you've written that he has to tell everybody else.

So, in case anybody knows Gareth Wilson, aka drosdelnoch2, please convey my very sincere thanks for his enthusiasm.