If you are not familiar with the name of Amanda Hocking, clearly you know very little of the publishing industry as she changed things a few years ago by becoming the first notable self-published Amazon author to get picked up by a traditional publisher. Amanda Hocking wrote a couple other book series, one about vampires and another about zombies, and both languish in the $.99 bargain bin on Amazon.com. But then she wrote a series about trolls and changelings and made $2 million and got picked up by a mainstream publisher who rereleased it and made it available in print at all major bookstores. It's also been optioned for a film, though I'veheard nothing about it since, a follow-up to the trilogy is in the works now and she even got a deal for another series called Watersong about sirens that was released last year. Amanda Hocking's success was what inspired me to publish through Amazon because that is a proven track record and I'd rather take a slim chance than none at all.
For those wondering about Trylle, the series is named for a tribe of trolls who live in a hidden kingdom in Minnesota. The Trylle look like humans although they have wild messy hair, prefer to be barefoot, prefer natural, raw, organic foods finding processed foods distasteful, sometimes have greenich skin, and also have special powers. Trolls have a tradition of switching their children with the children of ordinary human families, known as the tradition of the changeling. When the trolls are grown, trackers, trolls of lower birth raised within troll society, are sent out to find the trolls and bring them home with money from their adoptive family. The human children that get swapped get a decent life, or at east the ones revealed in this story are, as they are raised by the trolls who actually take excellent care of them even though they are the bottom of troll society. The story focuses on one particular girl named Wendy who discovers at age 17 that she is not only a changeling, but actually the princess of Trylle. As the story unfold we gradually discover the secret world of trolls and Wendy is torn between the world where she is a princess and the loving family she has alwyas known. Strangely, she actually gets along quite well with everyone inher circle including Rhys, the boy she was swapped with, who despite knowing Wendy robbed him of the life he was meant to have, is nothing but cheerful and friendly towards her. That doesn't really go anywhere, at least not anywhere bad, but when Wendy tries to reconnect with Matt, the borhter she always knew, Matt and Rhys end up connecting as family too, and become a very wierd family. Matt also falls in love with Willa , the Marksinna (troll noble) who befriends Wendy, so everyone becomes tied up in the Trylle world. With everyone getting along, one would wonder what the conflict is, but then along come the Vittra, another tribe of trolls whose numbers include hobgoblins, ugly dwarves who look more like what we would expect of trolls, and mostly are strong and savage and led by...Wendy's father? Oh yeah, things just got complicated.
Watersong is...unique. According to greek mythology, the sirens were a group of women whose number varies between three and six, and were either birds or mermaids, but most definitely lured men to their deaths with their songs. According to Hocking, there were four, and they were alternately birds and mermaids depending on circumstances, and they were gorgeous. Their nature is the result of an ancient curse with rather specific rules, place on them by the goddess Demeter. The sirens were hired as guardians of Demeter's daughter Persephone and when Hades the god of Death claimed Persephone while her guardians were swimming around and singing to men, Demeter cursed them to pursue their desires for eternity but to never be able to be loved, they have powers that enable them to live their lives easier, but they also hunger for the hearts of men, literally, and hear the call of the ocean that will never let them go far from the sea. Also, since there were four to begin with, there must always be four, and if one dies, she must be replaced or else they all die. This brings us to a young girl named Gemma, who is the unfortunate mark of the Sirens when they need a replacement. The defacto leader of the Sirens is a bitch who would probably be best played by Kim Kardashian in a movie, and that says about all you need to know about what she's like. She always has to have her way and forces Gemma to join their ranks, and now the cute girl next door is a sexy Siren...who now has to eat a man's heart once every three months or her body will deteriorate. And she has to stay with the three bitches or they all die. However, Gemma has an overprotective sister named Harper, an equally overprotective boyfriend named Alex, and then there's Daniel who actually loves Harper so much that he is the only man in town who will stand up to the Sirens to protect the sisters. Over the course of the story, the girls find love despite neither beleiveing they deserve it, and confront the Sirens and find the source of the curse, which actually turns out to be a scroll that can only be destroyed one particular way, which nobody knows, but figuring it out is the key to beating the Sirens once and for all. Aside fromt he lame concept that all things supernatural stem from scrolls, the story is actually pretty cool, swinging quickly from sexy to action, to humorous, and fantastic.
One thing I have to say about these books are the sex scenes. I haven't actually read too many books that have sex scenes in them and with my own lack of firsthand knowledge, I was made uncomfortable by how relatively graphic teenagers were losing their virginity. Admittedly, the sex scenes are actually completely integral to the story. Watersong defintely accentuates the sex because it is integralto the nature of the sirens. I also have to give props to Hocking for balancing fantasy action, and family stories. If you are a fan of Twilight...these books are really nothing like that, so broaden your perspectives a little. These women appreciate their men but don't need them to fight their battles, they kick ass fine all by themselves, and so does Amanda Hocking.
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