Life in the Palace: YA fantasy series where Jews are heroes

PinkFridge

Thu, Feb 26 2015, 8:17 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

They are called the People, never Jews (that would probably alienate a lot of her reader base to be honest). But there are a lot, a lot of similarities.

Day of Connection once a week starting on Friday night with angels accompanying the men home.
Day of Accounting (I think R"H)
Dietary laws include ritually slaughtered meat and not eating bugs.
Girls wear skirts and married women cover their hair.
The men study "the Way", and those who study it all day are on a higher plane and called the Courteseans.
Etc.

One negative remark for our audience with a positive twist. For careful readers, there are a lot of allusions to premarital relations. (She has seen her boyfriend straight out of the shower, comment about spending the night in his bed). The positive part is that none of it is explicitly stated and no graphic details are given (which cannot be said of the kissing scenes)....

We need a not quite full-blown shock

emoticon for that last paragraph ;-)
And Courtesean - what an...interesting name.

ETA: I posted before reading subsequent posts. I see anon for this also noticed that.

PinkFridge

Fri, Feb 27 2015, 8:13 am

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

Um, now I am second guessing myself what they are called....I will have to check it.

BTW, I forgot to mention a huge part is the internal struggle people have with the Interloper -- I liked that name.

That tricky Interloper probably has a few aliases ;-)

tigerwife

Fri, Feb 27 2015, 8:39 am

So just wondering... When does the action start? I'm a few chapters in and all the main fantasy here is some endless romance. Not quite what I was expecting, like Harry Potter or Gerald Morris... I don't mind a romantic scene or two but this is making me a bit ill already. LOL that my initial concern was the language. I didn't read Twilight for a reason. Am I reacting too soon or is it like this throughout?

Hashem_Yaazor

Fri, Feb 27 2015, 9:08 am

Way too much of it is the relationship, which is why it can't just be cleaned up language wise for the frum market.

But the relationship is integral to the plot, so you can't just take out all the kissing scenes (way too many, and way too many descriptions of ogling his body, it is quite overboard, but I guess teens like this?) -- the whole relationship thing doesn't work for me, though. They decided they were soulmates like 3 seconds after meeting each other. There was no build up of the relationship on an intellectual or emotional level, it went from 0-60, at least as is written in the book. There are time gaps in which we are supposed to assume they developed a deeper relationship, but I'd rather see more dialogue and less physical attraction stuff.

It does pick up though, and you start understanding why a lot of the focus is on the relationship, and what is going on in the whole Palace world.

To spoil it

Hidden:

It's a good theme, and a good way of portraying it with the whole fantasy rave these days. But I just don't understand how they can see themselves as soul mates based on the 5 minutes of dialogue they had before realizing it.

Catherine Green

Sun, Mar 15 2015, 4:05 am

Hashem talks to us in all sorts of ways, and the trick is to be listening. It's one of the themes in my books, and I try to take the lesson into my life.

As I was following the discussion on this thread, besides thinking 'yes, there are proofreading mistakes, I HAVE to take care of that,' I also thought a lot about the comments on the language in the first book.

I decided it was time to listen when I was being spoken to.

I am please to say that a NEW version of Life in the Palace is now on Amazon in place of the previous version. As well as, hopefully, no proofreading mistakes, the language is now MUCH cleaner. Although the storyline is unchanged, for the people who don't mind romance but prefer clean language.

Thank you for inspiring me to do 'teshuva.'

Here's the link to the new version: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Pal.....SO8EA

bluebird

Sun, Mar 15 2015, 1:56 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

The men study "the Way", and those who study it all day are on a higher plane and called the Courteseans.

http://dictionary.reference.co.....n?s=t

Catherine Green wrote:

There are swear words in these books. Because that's how secular teenagers speak.

This is not true. Some, yes, but cursing isn't common at least where I live. I think you are underestimating your audience.

MagentaYenta

Sun, Mar 15 2015, 7:55 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

The men study "the Way", and those who study it all day are on a higher plane and called the Courteseans.

Catherine Green wrote:

There are swear words in these books. Because that's how secular teenagers speak.

bluebird wrote:

This is not true. Some, yes, but cursing isn't common at least where I live. I think you are underestimating your audience.

Most good writers read quite a bit and they also personally observe and know of what they write. I don't think this is the case with the author. Folks who read and read with variety could have picked up her poor choice of words quickly. An experienced editor could have helped. ETA: I found the stereotyping of behaviors a unneeded crutch.

Hashem_Yaazor

Sun, Mar 15 2015, 7:58 pm

So am I on the right track when I decided what everything stood for, or did I make it up:
Serfs -- secular
Footmen -- frum
Courtesans (why?!) -- charedi?

I noticed this pattern, but not sure if I made it up.

I read all the books though and found there to be a lot of good hashkafah/mussar actually. I have to figure out how to get my notes from my kindle app to a file to email over to you.