An author’s career can hinge on reviews, so we are necessarily obsessed with them. Nothing warms my lonely writer’s heart more than finding a great review for one of my books on a website.

I’ve been incredibly lucky to get fantastic reviews for my indie-pubbed mystery The Only Witness, including two wonderfully flattering ones from Chanticleer Reviews and Publishers Weekly. I haven’t collected many for my Summer Westin series, because my publisher, Berkley Prime Crime, has done nothing to advertise those books.

But you never know where you’ll find a gem. I was checking the upload of my new young adult suspense novel Race with Danger on iBooks or iTunes or whatever you call the Apple bookstore (I am obviously not a Mac user and I have to hire someone to format and upload my books there), and I found this ray of sunshine for my oldest book, Endangered.

Love it!!!! * * * * *   
by apopgirl
Love it! It has to be one of the best books I’ve read!

Thank you so much, apopgirl, whoever you are! You made this author’s day.

Most readers don’t realize how important reviews are to authors, especially new authors. The number of reviews affect rankings on bookseller sites, whether or not we can get ads for our books, and just general visibility. Without reviews (or a lot of paid advertising), readers will most likely never find a book, because they simply won’t see it.

I write reviews for all the books I finish on Goodreads.com. Note that I said “all the books I finish.” I don’t continue to read books that I don’t like or find boring, so I don’t leave reviews for those. Fiction is personal; we don’t all enjoy the same topics or characters. I’m not going to diss a book that someone else may love.

So if you want to support authors, especially indie authors and new authors, take the time to write a review on Amazon or Barnes&Noble or iBooks or Goodreads. The bestsellers don’t need your help, so if a book has thousands of reviews, there’s no need to bother. But with the rest of us, your opinion really counts!

Oh, and why did I say reviews are the “second best gift”? The first is word of mouth. I always tell my friends when I’ve discovered a new author or a great book, and I hope you do, too.