It’s been twelve days since The Book of Secrets has been released in e-book form, and sales have been decent so far. The book hit an overall sales ranking of 29,300 on Amazon, and #22 on the YA Coming of Age Top 100 and #75 in the Top 100 Sci-Fi and Fantasy list, and was featured as a Hot New Release for a week.
Since that time the book has hovered between #20-30 on the Coming of Age Top 100 list, and is still at #29. Sales continue to trickle in.
Two reviews have been posted, one solid and one not-so-good.
The positive review was rather glowing. “A tightly plotted and well paced fantasy adventure … a page-turner with a particularly satisfying ending… the pacing is expert. I really enjoyed this book.”
Why do I bring up the negative review? Well, because the woman who wrote it was honest. Like with the positive review, she is expressing her opinion and that’s always a good thing. I prefer honesty over false praise any day. But I also bring it up because it is also a glowing review, albeit not in the way you might expect.
She thought the book was to “familiar,” too much like Harry Potter in particular. But she also says “he has a brilliant ability of storytelling… the story is good well written and keeps you interested till the last page.”
So there you have it. Even the negative review says that the book is exciting and keeps your attention to the very end. Even though she didn’t end up liking it for the reason mentioned, she couldn’t put it down.
In a way, that is high praise. I’m grateful to her for expressing her opinion and being honest, both about what she thought was good and bad.