Review: Running From Herself by April Tompkins

When I was on the hunt for book bloggers, I only ran across a few who review books for free. I'm not philosophically opposed to giving a donation. Bloggers have to make a living, too. Still, I chafe at some of the outlandish pricing, the non-voluntary kind. An author always has to keep her bottom line in mind. Will a blogger's review draw in a lot of people or does he or she only have ten followers? Does the reviewer post his reviews on other sites besides their own?  

Out of maybe ten-fifteen bloggers I contacted, I only heard back from two. And one of those two scared me. This guy pulls no punches. I even hesitated submitting my book to him, because who needs a harsh review? I've got enough problems. Nevertheless, I submitted my epub to him.

According to his website:

My Review Philosophy

In many ways star rankings are a waste.  Look at the 1-Star reviews on Amazon for the free, public domain version of your favorite classic literature – something like “A Scarlet Letter” or “A Tale of Two Cities.”  Review those that actually discuss the book content rather than formatting issues.  Are these people wrong?  Are you wrong?  No, you just have different taste.   A good review will give a reader an idea of whether they’ll like a book or not.  How well the reviewer liked the book is secondary.  Many 1-Star reviews describe a book that sounds perfect to someone else.

However I post some of my reviews to other sites that require them.  Since I can’t skip them entirely I save the star ranking until last to de-emphasize them.  A component of assigning the star ranking is based on my personal taste, however no book will be ranked 3-star or lower based purely on taste.  Books with these rankings will have clear flaws.  The following is a rough indication of what each of the rankings mean to me.

5-star:  An excellent book.  If the description, review, and genre appeal to you don’t hesitate to buy.

4-star: A good book.  Recommended.

3-star: A decent book.  Although some people may love it, this book has significant flaws.  These could be technical (formatting, bad editing) and/or issues with the story.  What these are should be apparent from the review.

2-star: A poor book.  Serious flaws, but not without some positive qualities.

1-star: A very poor book.

His email response noted that there was no guarantee, and that I wouldn't receive any notification if my book was, in fact, reviewed. Thank you, talkwalker. Most of my talkwalker alerts either don't apply to me or are notifications of my own blog posts. Today, though, I received an unfamiliar one.

Mister Curmudgeon had reviewed my book! Uh-oh. You know how I am with reviews of my work. Try as I may, a bad or mediocre review lives in my head forever. To this day, I still bring up the Goodreads reviewer who stated that I "don't understand big words". And that review wasn't even for Running From Herself, but a novella that I've basically forgotten about. 

But I had to read it. Was there a choice, really? Here it is:

Review: Running From Herself by April Tompkins

 Genre: Coming of Age/Contemporary Fiction

Description:

“Leah Branch just wanted the noise to stop. After years of watching her band splinter, she welcomes the quiet of Chance, Wyoming. Working shifts at the local saloon, she finally finds a rhythm she can live with—steady work, honest friends, and a shared connection with a local singer named Jared. For the first time in years, she feels safe.

But music has a way of pulling you back.

When a desperate choice to save the saloon forces Leah back onto the stage, a chance encounter changes everything. Suddenly, Nashville wants her. Still reeling from her fractured romance with Jared, Leah takes the leap, viewing the contract as her escape hatch.

Instead, it becomes her cage.

The label doesn’t want Leah's raw, acoustic soul; they want a polished product they can sell. Piece by piece, they dismantle her life. They swap her boots for heels, trade her honest songs for studio-engineered pop, and strip away her actual name.

Now, standing on the edge of a stardom she never asked for, Leah is a ghost to herself. With the industry tightening its grip, she has to decide: keep playing a part that is killing her soul or risk everything to reclaim her voice and find her way home.”

Author:

“April Tompkins is a professional daydreamer, author, and musician who has been spinning tales since she was a kid roaming rural Minnesota farm roads. A former North Dakota prairie girl, she now writes contemporary fiction about complex characters that take a little coaxing to reveal their true stories. She is the author of thirteen books, including the hit Running From Herself, and is a singer-songwriter with thousands of Spotify streams. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and her delightfully chunky cat, Sasha.”

Appraisal:

A fun and engaging read with a protagonist. Leah, that was likeable and as a reader I wanted to see succeed, which kept me engaged from cover to cover. If you pay any attention to the music business and what it takes to make a living in it, the story here feels all too real as Leah struggles to make it as well as dealing with the kinds of regular life issues that complicate things for most of us from time to time. How or if things were going to work out was up in the air and constantly changing in my mind which kept me reading, pulling for Leah the whole time.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 110-115,00 words