First a little update and then the actual point of this post! –

I had to pull myself away from that contemporary WIP when I remembered I had a blog post I need to write! I’ve been working away at it the latter half of last week and all weekend. It’s been a lot of writing, trashing, scraping, rewriting, but finally I * think * I have the beginning of the story right.

Now my struggling is trying to not speed my way through the story since I’m so into it. I keep reminding myself to SLOW DOWN and tell the story, rather than just rush ahead to the parts I’m dying to write.

(I can write out of order, but I really hate doing it. It throws me off big time.)

Also, I saw Shakira in concert last night #ShakiraDC for her El Dorado Tour, and it was fantastic! I had about a million clips on my Insta and Snap Stories, but sadly they are gone now. Here’s the link to my post on Insta though, with a glimpse at her awesomeness. https://www.instagram.com/p/BmZfVr2FGEG/?taken-by=chazzychuckles

She definitely knows how to put on an amazing show!

Here are just a few photos.

Now that, that is out of the way, I can actually get to what this post is actually about – Facebook Ads. More specifically, Facebook Ads for books – we’ve all seen them, we’ve all clicked on them (some of them are regretful) but you all know what I’m talking about.

I thought I’d share the books (there aren’t that many) that have been advertised to me, that I have loved and the ones that just fell flat and left a lot to be desired. I’m sure like any other book lover out there, you’ve gotten ads for books that look and sound utterly amazing, and then you click through to * usually * the Amazon link and have been disappointed. Other times, it’s like a present has been dropped right into your lap.

I’m happy to report that the majority of the books I’ve been advertised I’ve actually enjoyed and liked. Some of them haven’t been purchased yet, and they are sitting in a wish list, just because I’d have to be a billionaire to buy all the books that are advertised to me and are actually ones I want to own physical copies of.

Though, lately I’ve been pretty unlucky in the Ads department – I don’t know what I clicked on or when, but all the ads I get right now (that aren’t author paid for and promoted) are for reverse harem books – and while I have nothing against them, they aren’t books I usually gravitate towards on a daily basis. So, I’m just going to count those out of the running for this post.

I’m going to focus on books I’ve actually purchased.

**Oh let me put this in here as well – I also get BookBub ads and Booksy – and have gotten a lot of Kindle books that way, but I want to focus on Facebook sponsored ads.

I’m going to start with Air Awakens by Elise Kova. It’s because of Facebook that I found one of my all-time favorite fantasy series. I loved every book, and every book Elise Kova has written since. I was ordering the next book in the series before I was even done the whichever one I was reading at the time. Facebook hit the nail on the head with the Air Awakens Series and now Elise is working on more books – I’m just going to sit here impatiently until they are done. This was definitely a HIT!

Next up on this short list is The Starlight Saga by D. N. Hoxa. I remember reading the first book Assassin and loving it enough to immediately buy the second – Villian, but (and I feel bad for saying this) after rereading the synopsis for it, I can’t remember anything about it. That sounds so bad – but also not uncommon for me. More often than not I don’t retain books that aren’t absolute favorites for more than a few weeks at most; and the majority of what’s on my Kindle – (that would be a fun and hellishly long post) – are books that I can sit down, speed through, and just enjoy in the moment. I also read this back in December/early January and have read plenty since then. So, I’m going to give this a HIT based on my remembered reaction to it.

Next up – this book was marketed as Cinderella meets Vampires in a twist on the classic. Not going to lie, it sold me so hard, that I went and spent the .99 on it, and could not wait to start reading. I was sitting in a bit of a reading rut and figured that this would be the perfect kind of smutty book I wanted, and who can say no to Cinderella meets Vampires.

I wanted to like it, I tried so hard. But I could not get past the writing. I almost don’t want to name the book, but here I go – Vampire King by Joanna Mazurkiewicz. There was so much extra fluff and stuff going on in the writing, and I personally couldn’t get past it, plus the repetitiveness of certain words and phrases…on a single page. I don’t know if the other books in the series are written the same way, and I really wish I could get past my issues with the writing style, because it really does sound like something I’d devour in a day, but I couldn’t. I tried though. I tried for days to look past the style and focus on the story, but it was too distracting. Unfortunately this was a MISS.

Okay, looking at my Kindle, I’m going to have to eat my words about reverse harems. Apparently there was one that caught my eye enough that I spent money on it. Dragon’s Gift by Jasmine Walt and May Sage. Do I remember anything about this book, vaguely? Three dragons who are also humans…I think? And one girl, and they all fight over her, because she is The Chosen One. I think I enjoyed this…even though my Kindle only says 87% done, so maybe I got bored? Let’s chalk this one up to a HIT since I’m almost done it, and I spent $4 on it.

I’m always down for a Peter Pan retelling/adaptation but this next book I couldn’t get into. Not only was it Peter Pan but also The Little Mermaid in a dystopian/SF setting. NeverSea by Jenetta Penner & David R. Bernstein didn’t hit the mark for me. I got about half way through the book and DNF’d it. I can’t remember my exact reasons, but I do remember hating the fact that too many liberties were taken with the story, and it lost that magical element that is Peter Pan and I found that I couldn’t stand the characters or their choices. It just fell short.

The final book (for this round and this post) is Possessing Beauty by Madison Faye. This was an indulgent read. I wanted fairy tales, I wanted sexy times, and this delivered. Actually, if it were a movie, you probably wouldn’t want to watch it with your parents. I read the crap out of this book. Just a heads up, this book is actually more like a series bind up of the * 5 * books in the series, with it being book 5…not really sure how that works, but all the books are in this, so…

Anyways, it made for a quick steamy read. It was a HIT.

Now, I know I’ll be advertised many more books on Facebook and I wouldn’t be opposed to doing another one of these posts. I can also do a “What’s on my Kindle” but be warned, it’s basically a bunch of New Adult and Fantasy that I’ve mostly picked up for free. Let me know down in the comments if that’s something you’d be interested in reading about!

Have you read any of these books? What are some of the books that Facebook has advertised to you? Were they hits or were they misses?