Here come the reviews
Naturally, authors never read reviews. It’s purely an accident I have a Google alert set up to tell me when anyone, anywhere writes something about Johnny Mackintosh. It would be madness to pay too much attention as there are bound to be people who don’t like a book – happily, though, this has been a sane week and people have had only lovely things to say about both Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze and also Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London.
The Bookbag has given Star Blaze a whopping five stars and said such nice things that I’m reluctant to repeat them here. Well, go on – you twisted my arm. Their reviewer, Jason Mark Curley, liked Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London except its title and made my year by saying it was “reminiscent of Rowling”, my writing idol. This one he seems to have enjoyed even more.
“it must be hard to write a sequel to a book that was so good and get it right … I enjoyed the first book so much that I didn’t want to spoil it by reading a duffer of a follow up. I really shouldn’t have worried; Star Blaze is everything that its predecessor was and a lot more besides … shades and echoes of those sci-fi novels I used to read as a kid: Asimov, Clarke, Moorcock and Dick. … great characters, action, mystery and adventure … A great read; go get it. And, more please Mr Mansfield.”
I am blushing as I type and will gladly buy anyone claiming to be Jason a beer should they approach me in a pub. Earlier in the week, the Bridgend County Council posted some user reviews of books in their libraries and the second one they showed was Johnnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London. A young reviewer by the name of Master Dylan James Morgan wrote:
“Awesome! The book cover just makes you want to pick it up straight away because it is so colorful and looks exciting. Flying around in a spaceship disguised as the London Gherkin! WOW!!! This is the first Johnny Mackintosh Book and I hope there will be more to come.”
I hope Master Morgan discovers Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze soon!
The first Star Blaze review of the week was from the lovely people at Chicklish. Even though I’d love everyone to read Spirit of London first, I’m delighted Alexandra picked up that you could read the second book independently and still enjoy it as I worked very hard on that. She’s also given a great short summary:
“In Star Blaze, Johnny becomes involved in a deadly plot against the Earth’s sun. Exploding the sun into a supernova should be impossible but intergalactic enemies have found a way. Only Johnny and his sister appear to know what’s happening. Can they save the day? … You can read this novel without having to read the first in the series. Definitely a hit for sci-fi fans.”
Chicklish is a great site run by authors Luisa Plaja and Keris Stainton.
If you like either of the Johnny Mackintosh books, it really helps spread the word if you post reviews online, with Amazon of course being particularly visible. If you hurry, you can be first up for Star Blaze!
JohnnyMackintosh.com 
January 21, 2010 at 12:39 am
congratulations, those are some great reviews!
January 21, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Thanks – I find it’s incredibly difficult to assess your own writing. Good luck with your novelling blog which looks a great way of getting feedback and creating interest.
January 22, 2010 at 10:41 am
Thanks for the mention!
You could definitely tell you’d worked hard on making Star Blaze an independent book as well as part of the series. I really liked that. Not really sure how you managed to do it so well. Maybe you should write a book on that too one day!
Alexansdra
(from Chicklish)
January 22, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Hiya – lovely to hear from you Alexan(s)dra [no s on Chicklit but twice here?]. Like you, no one used to believed I I could read so many books! For this one, I read a few examples of second titles in a series (and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets several times) and made a lot of notes about how backstory was handled. Glad you think it worked!