Miles Watson's Blog: ANTAGONY: BECAUSE EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO MY OPINION - Posts Tagged "kudos"

Now that 2020 has mercifully met its end, we can begin the long process of digging out from the rubble of its unment expectations. That is at any rate what I am endeavouring to do in this newly-minted year of 2021.

If you are one of the (coughs) elite thousand or so who read this blog on a regular basis, you already know that in addition to all the other monkey wrenches 2020 chucked into my own personal gears, it managed to jam, for no less than six months, all my attempts to promote my most recent novel, Sinner's Cross. As Frank Burns said in M*A*S*H, I don't chew my cabbage twice, so don't fear a repeat of any earlier whining you may have overheard. I simply say this to let you know that I am now once again both willing and able to put the word out about what I consider the best thing I have ever written.

At the very end of that year whose name we won't mention, SC was named a finalist in the Independent Author Network Awards. It also got a very favorable notice from Writer's Digest:

"This expertly crafted historical fiction takes readers into the trenches of WWII—and into the minds of soldiers on both sides of the war. With careful attention to the psychological impact of battle, the author gives voice to men in the impossible position of carrying out orders that disregard human dignity, including their own. This book is not a comfortable read. It begs questions about who really wins when the fighting is over. While there is an ever-present sense of futility in each episode, the reader will not be left feeling he has wasted his time on a morbid retelling of history, but rather given the opportunity to ponder anew the excruciating sacrifices soldiers make during wartime, and whether they are worth it."

These accolades come on the heels of it winning the Best Indie Book Award for Historical Fiction (2019), the Book Excellence Award in the category of Action (2020), and the Literary Titan Gold Medal (2020). However, on New Year's Day, I woke up to see that it had also been reviewed by Reader's Favorite -- specifically by Grant Leishman, author of The Second Coming, Rise of the Antichrist, and The Photograph. Mr. Leishman gave the book five stars and wrote:

Sinner’s Cross: A Novel of the Second World War by Miles Watson is a no-holds-barred account of one of the lesser-known actions in Europe of the Second World War. Prior to the well-publicized and dramatized Battle of the Bulge in the Ardenne Forest, an equally violent and deadly encounter took place in the forests of Hürtgen on the German/Belgian border, from September 19, 1944, to February 10, 1045. American and German troops faced each other in the dense forests of Hürtgen as the winter of 1944-45 descended, where the flower of both country’s youth was sacrificed in a futile battle over an unknown and unwanted piece of land. The author introduces us to both sides of this titanic and bloody conflict. Half the story is dedicated to a group of American G.I.s led by the inexperienced and terrified Lieutenant Breese, facing off against one of the most formidable of Germany’s units, the Paratroopers, led by multi-decorated and seemingly fearless Major Zenger, affectionately known to his troops as Papa. The author takes us deep inside the psyche of these terrified, mud-splattered, and intensely uncomfortable men as they prepare, yet again, for a counter-offensive, which like so many of them seems rooted in both pointlessness and failure. In this maelstrom of battle, blood, and gore, each man must face up to his own personal demons, fears, and horrors and either overcome them or walk away.

"Sinner’s Cross is without a doubt one of the most powerful anti-war novels I have ever read. Miles Watson’s incredibly descriptive narrative takes us right into the infernal 'hot zone' of the battle and describes the actions and the reactions of the soldiers with sharp, incisive, and incredibly descriptive prose. It is powerful and compelling, as much as it is sickening. What I particularly liked about this book was that the author showed the battle from both sides of the fence. His description of what occurred in the mind of Major Zenger was a clear attempt to remind us that the enemy soldiers were just human beings long before they were Nazis. The German troops were just as horrified, terrified, and tired of the endless battles as the Americans. He did a wonderful job of outlining the different perceptions of war from the psychological makeup of each individual soldier, his needs, wants, and fears. No-one can possibly read this book and conclude that war is, in some way, heroic or worthy of honor. The reality is clearly displayed in the crushed, broken, dismembered, and devastated bodies that would forever lie in the forgotten forests of Hürtgen. A truly powerful novel but one that left me drained by the end of it."

Now, contrary to what you might think, since I so often use this blog for publicity, I do not actually enjoy boasting or even bringing attention to myself. That is to say, I do like attention, and am among the very few who enjoy public speaking, but certain childhood incidents have left me with an almost morbid fear of being being scrutinized by large groups of people. When I decided to put my fiction out into the mass market, where it could be exposed to criticism online, I knew I was, as the saying goes, dropping my pants in public and inviting all and sundry to judge what they saw. So far the judgments have by and large been flattering, but this doesn't mean I haven't heard my share of boos. A writer, especially an independent one, must do everything in his power to attract attention, even if the act of attracting attention is distasteful to him. And as I have recently discovered, even a rising profile in the literary world has its own pitfalls. I cannot run a search on myself without discovering a new pirate book site which features my complete works. Honest to God, I wouldn't mind the fact that people are stealing from me if only there were some way of monitoring the traffic to let me know just how many thieves there are. If I could prove, for example, that for every sale I make, 3 people (or 30, or 300) were illegally torrenting my novels, it would go a long way to establishing further credibility as an author. In the mean time, hope you will I hope forgive me if I occasionally use this platform as little more than a bully pulpit for my own propaganda.

Sinner's Cross: A Novel of the Second World War