While some of the tips are dated, it's a solid guide to crafting characters and a story. Lots of helpful practices. ( )

My belief system is there is no such thing as a bad how-to write book. Anything that will get an aspiring moving in a positive direction is good. To back this belief system up, I have a shelf full of them. I even had Vanessa Grant’s previous addition to this book on my shelf until a year or so ago. Remember the red one? I was curious to see how much had been added and the answer is quite a lot.

If you’ve read books by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, Ph. D., Jordan E. Rosenfeld, and Karen S. Wiesner, this one might not impress you. The character worksheet and other templates are lacking compared to the books mentioned by two of the authors above. What it will do is give a beginner a place to start, and that is very important. Many of the how-to books out now are for intermediates. This one puts you at the starting gate. The book will assist in setting up your story, show you how to build dimensional characters, and explain the subgenres.

If you are starting out and writing romance is what you’d like to do, this would make a great first book. There’s plenty of meat and very little fact, but don’t stop with just this one book. Build a library of how-tos and learn from others.

My copy will be raffled off. Details found on the right sidebar at http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/ ( )