Someone today gave The Stones of Yemen a one-star rating on Amazon. Previously all reviews have been 5-stars. They gave it such a low rating, without finishing the book, because some of the characters use profanities. I’ve been very clear. I adore reality. Non-religious people in the real world use profanities when they are stressed. For me to impose American evangelical subculture on to these fictional people would be have been extremely poor writing and biased storytelling. While I cannot remove ratings, I can dilute them, to highlight them as an outlier. If you purchased your copy from Amazon, and they’ve sold hundreds, I wanted to encourage you to do a review. If you don’t want to write anything, you have the option of simply clicking a star, 1 star = horrible, 5 stars = very good. I always welcome honest reviews and if my writing is substandard, I have enough backbone to accept that. But if the rating is simply punitive, to punish me for not living up to someone’s cultural expectations, that I find most unfortunate.

BTW, while working with Amazon today, I was able to recommend that they lower the price of the paperback to $14.99 (down from $16.99). As soon as they formally approve that price, it should appear on their website. So if you haven’t purchased a copy yet, wait 2-3 days for the best deal. The Kindle Unlimited version is still free to subscribers.

Thanks so much for your ongoing support for this project.

Mike