Book Review: Cogling by Jordan Elizabeth

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I've previously read Escape from Witchwood Hollow by this author, so I was interested to read her newest novel.

Edna Mather lives in a world where magic is real, but only hags use it.  Humans pay hags for potions and spells, but otherwise treat hags like second-class citizens.  One night, a hag comes to Edna's house and kidnaps her brother, Harrison, leaving a cogling in his place.  A cogling is a mechanical person, enchanted with magic to appear real. The cogling looks just like Harrison, but the hag does a rush job, and the cogling's behavior is a bit off. While chastising him about his odd behavior, Edna grabs what she believes is a stolen pocket watch and lifts it over his head. The cogling immediately falls apart.

Determined to save her brother regardless of the peril, Edna reluctantly recruits the help of a thief named Ike. Together, they cross the kingdom in an attempt to free the children the hags have kidnapped. On their journey, Edna and Ike have to flee from slave traders on a train only to fall into the trap of different slave traders, escape from their subsequent enslavement, ride a blimp into the swamp where the hags live, free the kidnapped children, and convince the king of the hags' sinister plot.

Mierek's novel is filled with action from start to finish.  I felt like poor Edna never got a chance to catch her breath. The language is simple, but engaging. Her description is vivid without being cumbersome. While aspects of the plot are very predictable, I still found the book to be very enjoyable.

Four out of five stars

Cover Reveal for Princess of Tyrone

Contest time again!

While I whip my last writing project into shape, I've been entertaining my muse with workshops and contests.

I entered the beginning of my project into the 1stfivepageswritingworkshop.com. They only accept five entries a month. Mentors and the other participants read through your first five pages and offer feedback on how they could be improved. You go through two rounds of feedback and then, in the third round, a literary agent reads your pitch and pages. I walked away with invaluable feedback and a solid first five pages. The best thing about the workshop is that it's free! 10/10 would definitely try to get into this workshop again.

While i had my pages in the workshop, I also got a snippet of dialog into a critique session on misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com. This is a blog that consistently offers opportunities for writers to receive feedback on their work. Participation is usually determined by a lottery system. Most of them (other than the big agent contests) are free to enter. The only stipulation is that you have to offer feedback on at least a few of the other entries. Pretty fair exchange in my opinion.

So, after these two workshops, I had a polished intro to my book and one scene of dialog that had been thoroughly revised. I felt like it was time to enter another contest.

Michelle Hauck (michelle4laughs.blogspot.com) runs a few contests for fledgling writers every year. Her winter contest is called sun versus snow. It's free to enter, and they accept up to 200 entries, but make sure you get yours in fast. This year the entry window closed in three minutes!  After the entries are received, Michelle and a fellow judge read through the slush, narrowing it down to a fraction of those who entered (like 15-20). The perks of making the cut are working with a mentor to polish your query and the first 250 words of your novel. There is also an agent round, where lit agents read through the entries. Many of them requests pages, and sometimes the partial or full. Michelle has a list of success stories from her contests. Many of the participants find representation with an agent, either as a direct result of the contest, or shortly after due to the feedback they received. I was one of the 200 that made it through this year. The slush pile is currently being read, and I'll know soon if I progress to the next round.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine approached me to see if I would participate in a writing challenge with him and a few other writer friends. Each month we write four short stories of varying length: 300, 500, 1000, 1500. We get three days for the 300 word story, five days for 500, ten days for 1000, and fifteen days for 1500. I started late last month, but still managed all of them except for the 1500. I turned my 300 words in yesterday. I love the motivation this challenge is giving me to generate new content. After working on a novel for months, it's nice to work with new characters and plots.

As if all of this wasn't enough, I also entered the NYC Midnight Short Story Competition for the second year in a row. My prompts this year were: sci-fi, a bike messenger, and contaminated water. I think it will be a month before I find out if my story was good enough for me to progress to round 2.

It's been busy, but invigorating. Nothing like deadlines to flip that creativity switch!