NetGalley adventures: reviewing Russell Mardell’s The Knock-Knock Man

Parisian Phoenix is a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and as such, I attended a webinar yesterday on NetGalley.

NetGalley connects authors and publishers to reviewers, librarians and booksellers to increase the visibility of books.

As a reader, I recently signed up to review ARCs (advanced reader copies for review purposes) and received my first today— Russell Mardell’s horror novel The Knock Knock Man, due out tomorrow. (May 19, 2022)

I selected the novel based on the title and reaffirmed my choice with the description so let’s hope I can gnaw a chunk out of it during my doctors appointments today.

The title and concept of the Knock Knock Man has been used in movies and books, but it’s not one with which I’m familiar. In the initial pages, Mardell’s writing style has the richness that I like: lots of details about the environment and the actions of the characters. It will be interesting to see how many of these details are pertinent to the plot and how many are for atmosphere alone.

Mardell uses a lot of prepositions and cumbersome sentences, but the feel of the book from the very onset mimics what I gave grown to love about Stephen King. So, while ending sentences on prepositions may grate my nerves, and his run-on grammar has me skimming paragraphs to check for where a sentence actually ends, I forgive him because of this painstaking approach to storytelling.

The book uses a third person limited point of view, which is my favorite perspective. And the person about to solve the frightening mystery not only experienced part of it but is a cop turned investigator because of her emotional state after this precipitous event. That might be familiar, and a tad trite, but so far Mardell has me along for the ride.

The book is published by Red Door Press in the United Kingdom, so we also get some Britishisms as well. His website is https://russellmardell.wordpress.com/.

Why, as a publisher, am I reviewing other books? The current social media landscape leads writers, readers and publishers to connect on platforms like NetGalley and Goodreads. I hope others will read and review our books, and I want to keep current with what authors are doing, so acting as a reader/reviewer on NetGalley allows me to not only enjoy new books but to support authors and help their chances of gaining visibility in this saturated environment.

Eventually, as some expenses for Parisian Phoenix are alleviated, I will be exploring each of other authors and promoting their material from outside of the Parisian Phoenix universe.

It’s important to us at Parisian Phoenix to promote not only our authors but the artistic community at large.

If you are on GoodReads and/or NetGalley, feel free to look for me on both. And consider buying and reviewing our books on GoodReads, Google Books and Amazon.