A reviewer finally made me cry. I’ve always heard it could happen, but I didn’t really expect it to. I’ve developed a pretty thick exterior skin about my writing. Yeah, inside I wince sometimes but outside, I appear quite stoic. Say what you will about my writing, I can take it. Immature, too much sex, not enough sex, trying to be something it’s not, never going to sell…whatever. I guarantee you whatever negative you can come up with to say about my writing is nothing worse than the negative voices I hear in my head all the time. I’ve had to ignore those inner voices, and I can ignore you, too.

So how did Dolce Amore of Booked Up Reviews finally bring tears to my eyes? Well, if you hadn’t noticed, WEEDS AND FLOWERS is pretty important to me. It was the first novel I ever wrote (and finished) and it sat unread and unappreciated on my computer until last Christmas. Then I did something I thought I never would. I self-published it, because an unread book is nothing, and I didn’t want WEEDS AND FLOWERS to be nothing. Still, sending something so dear to me out into the world was difficult. What if it’s not ready? What if the other books don’t play nice with it? What if it sits alone on the Amazon playground, unread, unwanted?

Dolce Amore, who has written very thoughtful and positive reviews of my other two books as well, set my mind at ease at last with her review, the first official review of WEEDS AND FLOWERS. The part of her review that made me cry (just a little, I swear) was this part:

It’s a wonderful story that makes you stop and think. It’s about love, loss, and life. So well written it makes you feel like you were there, seeing all with your own eyes. It’s different from the other books by Ms. Michelle Garren Flye, but no less wonderful. I love it and I rate it 5 stars.

Thank you, Dolce Amore and Booked Up Reviews!