If you’re a writer, you know there may be nothing as pleasing and gratifying as a warm word of approval from someone whose opinion you deeply value. Well, yes, sufficient book sales to allow full-time work on the next book is also pretty cool.

I’ve been fortunate enough to experience the former, though not the latter, but what was that line from the incomparable Fran Lebowitz? Something about an author’s premature death from insufficient praise?

So today I came across a review of my novel The Obsession from a woman I greatly admire, Victoria Best, perhaps better known as the blogger Ms. litlove, whose very popular site Tales from the Reading Room offers some of the most acute, insightful and helpful reviews to be found on the web. Imagine my delight when this person with opinions I’ve come to trust and respect not only had very kind and generous words to say about my novel but also compared it favorably to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.

As you probably know, Flynn’s book is the sensation of the current season in American publishing, according to a flock of major league reviewers, an intense, page-tuning thriller with loads of literary value. A million and a half in hardcover and ebook sales and along with the “Gray” books, near the top of the the best-seller lists. Here’s some of what Ms.litlove had to say about both books:

Gone Girl has had a huge impact on the book world since it came out; whilst the other novel I read, The Obsession by T. V. LoCicero will be unknown to most people, I imagine. But both are pacy, gripping narratives about love grown monstrous and out of control…fascinating portraits of gender rancour, or the amazing ability men and women have to love and loathe each other with intensity. The Obsession is more straightforward in its premise; sexuality remains a dark and vexed region where reason holds no sway and the agony of unrequited love can provoke unstable individuals to violence…[T]his was the first self-published novel I’ve ever read, and I was properly impressed and surprised by the quality of the story and the writing. Kindle readers, take note.

You can find the whole post at Tales from the Reading Room.

Now Victoria Best is pretty remarkable, a lecturer for a decade in French lit at Cambridge, the author of a couple of books of academic criticism and now a blogger/reviewer of impeccable taste who also treats her many visitors to fascinating tales from her personal life.

Beyond the much appreciated critical assessment of my novel, I am also grateful to her for even deciding to give my book a look, since it was published by my own company, TLC Media, in the new-fangled way that skirts legacy publishing. As she mentions at the end of her piece, The Obsession was the first self-published novel she’s ever read, and the experience was a good one.

So, no, it will probably never sell enough to constitute a living wage, but, yes, very pleasing and gratifying indeed.

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