Book Review: A Castle Inside

A couple weeks ago, I was the lucky winner of this book, A Castle Inside. I was at a vendor show and entered the raffle a bunch of times (can you tell I really wanted to win???). Not only did I want to win this book because my friends sister is the author, but because a little pipe dream of mine is to someday have a book published and I think by reading something that someone I know published, makes my pipe dream seem like a future possibility.

From the moment I picked up this book, I was hooked. I found myself reading at any and all opportunity I had during the day. Patricia Ann Bartlett (Pati), writes with such detail that you feel like you are right there experiencing what the characters are experiencing. And let me tell you, it’s been a long time I’ve had that type of experience when reading a book.

Here is a little blurb about the book, courtesy of Amazon.com:

This is a story of a Castle that holds many rooms filled with the lives of the people that live there. Some have secrets, some have regrets, and some are empty or full of confusion. Inside one room of this lavish Castle, a world-renowned Doctor named VALEN JOHANSSON lives his secret life. Known as a master of drug psychotherapy, he turns to the Castle for a much needed break from his life. With his betrayal, deceit, secrets, and lies he has much to hide. A sweet smelling florist, SYLVYA JENKINS, has captivated Valen’s eyes, but she has been too busy with her work to notice him. How far will he go to get her to notice him? Meeting other friendly faces inside the Castle, DOCTOR JACOB SMITE and his witty nurse SUSIE WESTON stitch up problems that arise between Valen and Sylvya. As the four of them become entwined the lies unravel as blood and tears are shed. There are many friendly faces inside the Castle. Just because they are friendly, does not mean they are a friend.

Now lets meet the author! Pati Bartlett lives in Garden City, Michigan with her husband of 13 years and their three children. She had always enjoyed writing as a teenager and finally decided to finish her novels that she started as a teenager. Her dream is to see this novel (and probably others that she publishes) on the big screen!

I asked Pati to tell us a little bit about how she went about publishing this book. As a person who is extremely interested in publishing a book sometime in the future, I found this information to be very helpful. Especially since Pati self published A Castle Inside. Here is what Pati had to say:

I self-published this novel, with no prior experience in the publishing realm. I self-published it because I wanted to see my work in print and have people read it. I wanted to share my story with anyone/everyone that would want to read it. This book, A Castle Inside, is Volume 1 of the intended series. I would expect this series to have 4 more books to follow, with endless possibilites of even more. The planning of volume II of Castle is in the early outline stages. I have a goal of having volume II completed before 2010 is over. My current work in progress, Blue Sky Exposure, has an expected completion date of March 2010. This book falls in the genre of Drama/Fiction with a splash of Murder/Mystery. With this novel, Blue Sky Exposure, I will seek a publishing agent for a pursuit in finding a publishing company.

I highly recommend www.createspace.com as they have a pretty simple format for anyone that wants to self-publish anything. From books, to music createspace can do it all. I thank www.nanowrimo.org for their encouraging month of novel writing. I wrote this novel, A Castle Inside, in 2007 during nanowrimo and successfully completed the entire book in just 30 days. The longest part of finishing the book is the editing which has taken me almost 2 years.

I am very honored to have read Pati’s book and been given the priviledge to review ACastle Inside on my blog. If you would like to purchase A Castle Inside, you can do so by going to the following links: