Ratings
Overall: 9
Sensuality: 8

Realism: 10 

This is an Official Review by a Paranormal Romance Writer Official Reviewer

Review for Betrayed
Author: Jamie Leigh Hansen
Date of Review: 10/20/07
Reviewed by: Stacy Cooper

Reviewer Comments: Kalyss is content with what she’s done with her life after a brutal attack by her husband four years ago nearly left her dead. She has learned to defend herself, has helped others get away from abuse and opened a business. Everything points towards her having a quiet, peaceful life until two men enter her life bringing death and pain.

Kalyss will soon see her past and future collide. It will be up to her whether to heal or run away from the pain of the past. For not only is her future in danger, but that of all she loves and has loved, too.

Dreux has lived over nine hundred years as a statue. He has watched Kalyss die nine times, each time unable to save her. This time is different though. This time Kalyss has managed to return him to his human form and it is up to him to protect her from his brother, the man intent on killing her.

Betrayed by Jamie Leigh Hansen is the first book in a new series of good versus evil. There are dark and light angels at work in this book, both seeking redemption. There is pure love and forgiveness, as well as revenge, all vying for supremacy in Betrayed.

The action is intense. The emotions are raw. The use of flashbacks is excellent. They serve a purpose and are strategically placed to avoid confusion. The flashbacks are even explained as a piece of one of the characters.

I enjoyed this book and will be looking for the next installment from Ms. Hansen. Her writing style and plot lines are extremely engaging and I want more of them. There are many characters deserving of their own books and I’m sure that Ms. Hansen has the perfect stories line up.

Today I am blogging at Fresh Fiction about the dream that launched Betrayed.  :)  Come join me!

http://freshfiction.com/blog/

Some days writing is so rewarding and fun. Those are days when you wake up and have an epiphany about what to do next. Then you consider it more in depth and realize that all along you’ve had the seeds of this epiphany scattered throughout the work.  It’s moments like this when you think, hey!  I really haven’t been wasting time.

Which is such a hard thought to deal with. Who likes to waste time? To do work that isn’t a part of the final, finished product? And then, someone can work for years, writing pages and pages and thinking for ages, but unless that finished book, that story, is all laid out for someone to read straight through, how do you know they’re really doing anything?  It’s not like a pizza where anyone can watch as it’s slowly assembled, cooked and served. Books take time if they’re to be any good.

My dh and I discussed this again last night.  When he looks over, I am playing Sims 2 or Sudoku, highlighting in my “yellow book” or just watching TV.  Well, what I told him is “Never accuse a writer of not writing or they’ll prove you wrong”.

Which in our case, means, I’m stuck on a scene, go read the whole chapter so we can talk about it.

He hates that.  LOL  :)  He doesn’t like to read partial stories.  But it at least proves I have some of it down.  LOL

Well, for the record, my “yellow book” was Dwight V. Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer.  Now, I’ve tried to read this book 3 times over the years.  The first time I couldn’t keep at it because it was so info-dense I couldn’t grasp it well.  Later, I waited until it was due back at the library to peek at it again.  But, in July, my wonderful dh bought me a copy. Knowing I would keep it forever, (I mean, after having it recommended hundreds of times over ten years, I figured that out.) I took a highlighter to it.  Turns out, that really helps to digest bits at a time.

So, 5, 10, 20 minutes at a time, I worked my way through it and finished it last night.  And as I was reading, I was thinking and having epiphanies and enjoying everything he says in it.  And throughout that, I could only wonder, why was it so hard to go through the first time?  Probably:

1. It was a library book, so I couldn’t mark it or keep it long.

2. I didn’t mark it, so I was trying to swallow too big of chunks in one sitting.

3. I have since grown as a writer.  Yay me!

So, my “yellow book” was a writing book.  And Sudoku is good for seeing patterns. And TV is good for character arcs and Sims 2 is excellent for visualizing.

And all these things-that-don’t-look-like-working were the best exercises I could be doing for this morning’s epiphany to pop through.  :) 

It’s a good day.