An End-of-Year Thank you, and Quick Update from Bookcase Bizarro

MG/YA Book Reviews by a MG/YA Writer

Just a quick note to thank you for your continued support and interest in my work. It means a lot to me.

I hope you will find some time to recharge, relax and reflect during this busy time, whether or not you’re celebrating a particular holiday. (I’m usually firmly in the NOT camp, but we’ve decided to be more social this year, which is a good thing.)

I’m taking some time off between the end of December and the beginning of January, so the January edition of Bookcase Bizarro will be posted on January 17, 2026, instead of January 1.

New Bookcase Bizarro posts will be posted on the 17th of each month after that.

Next year promises to be an exciting one, with the release of Rogue Wizard: A Garrison Creek Prequel Novella. Remember, if you are a Bookcase Bizarro subscriber, a free eBook will be sent your way when the book is release-ready.

Speaking of Rogue Wizard …

I’ve just sent the manuscript off to my proofreader, arranged for a new cover design, and am wrestling with that most hellish of all marketing tasks—the book blurb. If only there were a conjurement that could deal with this!

Alas, no.

To make this hideous task more manageable, I’ve been posting various versions of the blurb to Reddit /self-publishing for human advice. I’ve also been prompting Google Gemini generative AI to write out different iterations of the blurb. I’ve been taking a beginner’s AI class, so my prompting has yielded better results than expected. So far, human writers have given me some great criticism, and generative AI has given me some good ideas (including a template to work with). I can already see how I can combine the different types of feedback together into a much stronger blurb.

The AI passages still need a lot of rewriting to edit out the overly breathless (and bad) Hollywood film trailer tone. Example: ‘One illegal wizard. One relentless rival. Zero room for error.’ (Yeah, no.) If this wasn’t reason enough for a rewrite, AI-generated material isn’t copyrightable in my neck of the woods. Verdict: using generative AI for book blurbs has been helpful, but my voice and my words will forever stay front and centre. And I do not plan to use it in my writing ever.

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The garden also thanks you for all your kind comments throughout the past year. I think it’s safe to say that I will never write at this desk again. Fine with me. I greatly prefer my armchair.

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Thirteen-year-old Ermin is a gifted mechanic and the worst student at St. Anselm’s Training School for Orphans. She’s just failed her exams for the third time—something nobody’s ever done. Worse, Ermin’s been running her own repair business for money—something that’s expressly forbidden. If the headmistress finds out, Ermin will go to prison. Her future will be over before it’s even begun.

But that’s not her only secret.

Her best friends, Colin and Georgie, are wizards in a world where magic is strictly controlled. Ermin worries that her friends will be captured, drained of their power, then banished. When Georgie’s caught aiding the Wizard’s Resistance, Ermin repairs a broken flying carpet so all three of them can escape.

Hesitant to join the Resistance because of her lack of magical power, Ermin steals an experimental device from a wizard hunter that could destroy every wizard in the Creek. She’s faced with a choice: either smash the device or convert it into a different kind of weapon—one that not only helps wizards but just might get her an apprenticeship at the prestigious Guild Academy.

Ermin’s got one chance to get it right. If she fails, she risks losing her two best friends… and her dreams.

Find Shadow Apprentice at your local library, bookstore, or favourite online retailer.

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Thanks for being a Bookcase Bizarro reader! I’ll be back next month with more author news, and more MG and YA book reviews. See you then!

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