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BoF sneak peek #3

I’ve been swamped with day job work. NOT what we want to hear! But I have to pay my health insurance bill, sigh.

I’m debating whether to post another sneak peek – but I think I’ll be mean and not.

I have loved Paul Bettany since I’ve been aware of him as an actor. He can be romantic and sweet (Wimbledon), silly and clever (A Knight’s Tale) and eeeeevil like the froooits of the devilllll (Firewall).

If I were queen of the world, Paul Bettany would play King Idris, the bad guy fairy, in all movie versions of the Tethers books (Give Me, Bride of Fae, and at least two more).

This is a reposting.

When I type “Jane Eyre” into the Google search window, the second auto choice kindly fills in the 2011. And that is how I will always think of this latest rendition of the classic story: Jane Eyre 2011.

I wanted so much to like this new movie, to love it. Somehow I missed it when it came out in theaters, and I finally rented it last night on that Amazon Prime streaming thing. Which is fabulous, by the way, if you have fiberoptic cable. I’m sad to report that the only thing I really enjoyed about this production was Thornfield Hall – and actually, not the house itself but the grounds.

I believed the scenery. I could smell the clean dirt and feel the mist on my face and long for the spring lilacs. Nice.

Other than that, the story was butchered, told from the inside out – starting with Jane running away from Rochester and landing at the Rivers’s cottage. Her childhood is told in flashbacks; sadly, the resultant sacrifice of early detail does not result in a fuller telling of the Rivers section of the book – which is almost always misunderstood and given short shrift.

(I used “short shrift”!)  

Everything was cut off. I didn’t believe Jane and Rochester loved each other or were even attracted to each other. I didn’t believe Aunt Reed was cruel! St. John Rivers was completely wasted as a character, despite Jamie Bell’s valiant efforts.

And while I thought it was a good choice to make Adelle’s voice offkey and her delivery painfully mediocre, the same choice for Blanche Ingram? Disaster! Blanche should be the antithesis of Jane – outwardly sublime and inwardly barren. (The same applies to Rochester and Rivers; at its core, Jane Eyre is about oppositions and contradictions.)

Using my Mr. D’Arcy voice, I will tell you that Michael Fassbender made a tolerable Rochester, but not juicy enough to tempt me. I think Samantha Morton might have saved him, but not the rushed surface playacting Mia Wasikoska brought to the task. It didn’t feel as if the rush was her fault – it seemed more like she and Fassbender both had had no chance to rehearse.

Sigh. I need to watch the Timothy Dalton version again, because my memory is that it was very good. I loved the chemistry of Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds in their attempt. If they’d had the Toby Stephens/Ruth Wilson script – ah … with a script like that, they could have ruled the world!

And with that script, Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson almost did.

Almost. I think we’re all still waiting for the perfect Jane Eyre.

So … this will be the last month of the $100 gift certificate giveaway.

In other news, Bride of Fae is soooooo close! but just not there yet. I’ve had to take more day job work, which means less time for working on fiction.

I’ve sold fewer books this month than I have any month the last two years. It doesn’t mean I’ll give up, but it does mean it will take longer to get things out.

I will, I promise, keep swimming.

And the winner is Rose – all six books below.

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Remember, the review giveaway is still happening – You could win a $100 gift card, just for telling the world what you think of an LK Rigel book!

Space Junque will remain chronically free as a lead-in to the Apocalyptos. Otherwise, I’m not making my books free anymore.

But I’ll still give them away from time to time.

A huge indie and self-publisher giveaway is starting in about an hour, and I’m participating. I’ll be giving away my two fat books, Firebird and The Loves of Leopold Singer plus a pile of some selected indie books – all to one lucky winner.

[NOTE to those who already subscribe to my blog: just put something like “I’m already cool” in the rafflecopter to get the extra 4 entries.]

I chose Firey and LOLS because I love them and they are my worst sellers (although sales of Firebird are far brisker than when it was titled Bleeder, haha). I love both these books.

Firebird is an epic adventure with wonderful characters. I want more people to discover it and love it as I do! (yes, yes. I hear some people out there telling me to get the next Apocalypto out …)

The Loves of Leopold is an odd duck. It’s an old-fashioned epic historical, a family saga that spans generations. A beach read. A winter-by-the-fire read.

Anyway, heads up! The giveaway blog hop runs from June 13 – 19, but many posts are going up in the next hour. Over 200 blogs are participating.

So though a lot of indies are putting the breaks on the freebies, there will always be contests and giveaways!

So the first (yes, first) drawing for the $100 gift card is this Friday. I was going to end it for lack of participation … but people have been participating! Yay.

We’ll roll all the entries over for another month, so if you don’t win Friday take heart – your entry will be good for next month’s drawing. And you can always review more LK Rigel books for more entries.

Incidentally, if you’ve read all three Apocalyptos, you can get extra entries if you leave a review for the Ominbus edition for Kindle, Nook, or Goodreads.

See the original post here to enter.

Go to eReading on the cheap where the winner of the giveaway will be announced.