Red light, blue light

I found the reviewer who left that very cool review of my first book. (She said she hated the main character's politics but enjoyed the book anyhow, giving me five stars.)

So I could go on about history being intrinsically political, but instead, this was a much better review that I could have gotten from a red state, Trump supporter (who doesn't appear to have drunk all the Kool-aid, though.) I also got a four-star from someone who writes quick-read erotica with a very slight sheen of F&SF. Not even sure why she chose to review.

The thing about Goodreads is that it is a more in-depth, more direct reader-to-reader (and sometimes reader-to-author) dialogue and thus they tend to be more critical. Amazon reviewers generally understand the Kiss of Death of the five-star system; that five stars is "Average," and anything less than four stars is, "caught fire then exploded."

Anyhow, I'm finally moving into outlining the Paris book and some of the other characters are American. That's putting me perilously close to some class warfare, red-state/blue-state, and Ugly American stuff. I'm going to try to keep that out of the book as much as possible. Still, the main bad guy is basically a spoiled frat boy and it is going to be hard.

So right now, I would be trying a couple of scenes out. But I am having trouble picturing Paris well enough, despite the "hub" location of the story being the same street corner in Montmartre where I'd breakfast each day when I was in Paris.