Review: Waking Up in Bedlam

Waking Up in Bedlam by Mia Bishop

Synopsis: Ryder is a fake- and he knows it. He spends his days pretending to be a paranormal investigator and his nights entertaining groups of believers with his claims of communicating with the dead. Life is good and business is booming until the night a beautiful woman storms out of his seminar and a mysterious man drops an unexplainable case in his lap. Ryder finds out the world he thought was fake is actually real and even worse, he has become the paranormal world's most wanted.

Jessa wants answers and the human, Ryder, is the only one who can give them to her. She has one goal, keep him alive long enough to figure our why he has been haunting her dreams. The only problem is the more time she spends with him the more she realizes the answers she seeks are ones she isn't ready to face.

Can either one of them accept what fate has laid out for them? Or will they fight their destiny at the cost of everyone they hold dear?

Review: I loved the plot of this book. It took me away and the characters were amazing. The one thing that I have to rave about though is Mia's ability to crave dialogue. It flows well, it keeps the story moving, and it's not cheesy. That's hard to find in a PNR book.  I was privileged enough to receive and ARC of this book and I'm glad I was on the list. 

The plot has twists and turns that aren't predictable and I love the Fae lore in it. It's clear that Bishop has her own image of the Fae as well as uses elements that we are all familiar with when it comes to their world. (Light and Dark Court, back stabbing, so on so forth.) The relationship between Ryder and Jessa is clear and though Ryder isn't an instant like (don't worry, you learn to like him, that's the point!) he is a great character. Imagine this, he isn't flawless! Neither is Jessa. The sex in this book is well written and hot!  

Overall Mia did a great job at crafting her debut novel and I urge you to check it out!

5 out of 5 Stars

Heat Rating: Spicy

(mild, medium, hot, spicy, scorching) 

Buy it:

Amazon (Paper back and Kindle)

Barnes and Noble (Nook)

Smashwords (all e-formats)

Titles

Ahhh titles, I think that's the second thing I hate most (writing synopsis being the first). You have to come up with something catching, relatable to the book, and something that's not so common 20,000 other books come up with the title. It's a pain in the butt. Some recent advice I was given about titles was to keep them short 2-3 words show up best on thumb nails and you want to make sure you can see titles. The one thing I recommend is to check Google, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and even Smashwords for books with similar titles, hell give Goodreads a try!

These are the results that I get for In Black and White:

This is Amazon, there is no romance or erotica that matches the title exactly, which is good. However, I do see that black and white is used often in erotica. Good to know, that wasn't something I was aware of until I saw Amazon.

This is what I get on Google. A few articles on interracial sex, a christian novel and a Goodreads link. That's without quotes and specifying novel, if I put quotes around it, I get a ton of photography references.

My results on BN are a bit more varied, but still nothing with an exact title match. So we're still going strong, it's a unique title that is relevant to the book, and I think it's catchy.

 This is what I found on Smashwords, I have to say I was a bit surprised because Smaswords normally has a tone of smut under the strangest of names. However, only having six results (and they all belong to that same series...) I'm a happy camper.


I have to say with all of these results, I'm confident that my title will stick out. Yes there are similar titles, but nothing the exact same, as well as little-if not none- of them deal with BDSM.

So remember when you are picking a title, make it catchy, make it unique, and relevant to the story.