Here are the quick facts about King’s Mill development project by Van Dyke.
The Van Dyke condo project went bankrupt in December 2023, when the building was only a few months from the closing date. Practically, our condo vaporized from under our noses. The province assigned KSV Restructuring to be the receiver for the bankruptcy. In August 2024, they sold the building to Empire Builder for 48 million dollars (see the doc Factum (DRP and CPO) - Receiver - KSV Restructruring Inc – 10-Oct-2024). There were around 230 units there; in my calculation, the down payments were less than 20 million, and adding the upgrades paid by home buyers around 20 million. That is my estimation because I did not see this value in the documents provided to us. Moreover, Aviva insured the down payments for the King’s Mill project. So, it was no problem for home buyers to get the downpayment money back.

I know greed is human nature, but justice should protect the vulnerable from big corporations getting rich and praying on regular people. So, I do not comment on the big salaries and bonuses KSV and Aviva paid themselves at the end of 2024 instead of cutting the checks to home buyers. For Aviva, there are articles about their bonuses on the Net. In February 2025, Aviva announced that the company’s profit for 2024 was more than 1.7 billion pounds (that is more than 2 billion CND):
https://www.aviva.com/newsroom/news-releases/2025/02/FY2024-results-announcement/

 I also looked for KSV, but I did not find any article about their bonuses and salaries. That is a well-kept secret, and I do not know how much money they kept for themselves from the 48 million.

But I will comment on the Honorable Supreme Court Justice Penny’s ruling allowing those companies to get rich from our money. Of course, a Supreme Judge ruling is not questionable, depending on who you ask.

In October 2024, we, the home buyers, were invited to an online meeting with Honorable Supreme Court Judge Penny. Representatives from KSV, Aviva, and Tarion were also present. We were informed that we were not allowed to record the meeting.
The question period started after KSV presented the facts about bankruptcy and the steps taken to pay the home buyers. Since the presenter did not specify numbers, I asked the Honorable Judge if the calculation included downpayment and upgrades. Judge Penny said that he did not know the answer about upgrades. Then, Tarion and Aviva’s representatives told us that only the downpayment was assured. The first question in my mind was, How come the Honorable Judge does not know about the upgrades? Was the document provided to him incomplete, or did he not read it?

Then, voices from the audience said, “Some of us paid 10,000, and others maybe 3,000 for the upgrades,” “Where did the money go?” I think KSV should have answered since they had the money, but no one answered. How could they? Most of the 48 million went to Aviva, more than they paid us, and as I mentioned, they reported billions of dollars in profit and big bonuses.

The Honorable Judge Penny said, “There is not enough money,” ignoring the 48 million I discussed at the beginning of this article. Once again, I asked myself if he read the docs before the hearings.

My heart sank at that moment. With a wave of a hand, the Honorable Judge deprived the home buyers of getting money back for what we paid for the upgrades.

And it did not stop there. Judge Penny ordered Aviva to pay the down payments with no time limit and no interest for whatever delay Aviva decided upon. That was worse than no ruling since Aviva had the contractual obligation to pay the down payment anyway, and lower courts might have established more favorable rules. And whenever I asked Aviva about when they would pay after the meeting, they took full advantage of the ruling, saying, “Judge Penny did not establish a timeline; wait.”

And by the way, for the Honorable Judge’s saying” “there is not enough money,” Tarion and Aviva later contradicted him. When I emailed Tarion asking if they still supervise the bankruptcy, they said that they act only when “there is no money to pay home buyers, but in this specific case, the money is there.” Aviva also said in emails that they have the money but need to check the documents.
 
After a while, Aviva changed the tune and said they still check the documents submitted to them. The documents submitted by the home buyers were:

• A page with the address where to send the check
• A page with an ID
• The first page of the Agreement with the Van Dyke builder
• An Agreement to terminate the deal with Van Dyke accepting to receive the down payment back, plus a formal interest Aviva calculated and let us know the interest (that, in my case, was less than the upgrades, and I will pay taxes on that interest). That simple document (where we had to input one date and 2 values) had a special design to make mistakes easily. I cannot share a screenshot since there is a disclaimer on it.

If you are slow, that was 1 minute ( let’s say 5 minutes at most, me being very generous here) to check those 4 pages and multiply that by 230 home buyers, which could be not more than 1 week of work for one clerk. It took more than 4 months to do so, and with every passing day, we lost money because of inflation and lost opportunities. I got the check for downpayment and interest in early March 2025. Even with the little (in your face) interest added to the downpayment, we lost a lot of money considering the market value of our deposit 5 years ago.

​So, let’s suppose the Honorable Superior Court Justice Penny’s decision was for political reasons or any other consideration based on the disastrous construction development status in the province. In this case, I would like to remind him that if his ruling sided with big corporations against regular people dreaming of having a home, making the rich richer at the expense of others, the result is the feeling developing in many of us that there are two tiers of justice, and that is alarming. Besides, this ruling took out of the market some of the faithful people of the province who were willing to invest at home, which increased the construction business problem in the province.

​For me, the ruling was not justice but politics. I remind the Honorable Justice of some quotes from personalities who knew justice far better than me.
“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” - Thomas Jefferson
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected will be as outraged as those who are.” – Benjamin Franklin.
 
 


 

There are authors out there who will remain in humankind’s memory forever.
But I will write about the others today.
First, I will mention some performances of my books.
I have sold over 800 copies of my five books published on Amazon (print and eBook). My best-selling is These Lives with English and Romanian versions (Aceste Vieti in Romanian).
Considering that more than 10,000 pages are read on KENP (those readers paying a monthly subscription to Amazon), I can add 30-40 more (depending on how many readers went through the book entirely).
My trilogy Fracony was initially published with Ingram Spark on many channels other than Amazon, with nearly 200 copies sold worldwide. If I add all the numbers, I will be around 1000.
But I gave up publishing on Ingram Spark and republished only on Amazon. The main reasons are that Ingram Spark asks for money to publish your book, and changing your script or cover is challenging after publication. Besides, I knew some channels where they published my book (like Barnes & Noble), but I had no clue about most other places.
It is free to publish on Amazon. My author account is easy to manage and publish, and they have tools to monitor the sales. Amazon makes money from the royalties they keep for themselves for each sale. It is very easy to change the script and republish it. I did it mainly by figuring out some mistakes or changing the narrative slightly based on the readers’ feedback. It is great to have full access to your books.
Now, here comes the tricky part with Amazon. They offer specific promotions only for books published exclusively by them. And believe me, they know if you published the book elsewhere. I wanted those promotions, another reason I gave up Ingram Spark.
Why are promotions important? Amazon pushes forward a book based on sales. If, for example, someone is looking for History in Eastern Europe, the first to show up in your research are those books in the category with the most sales and reviews.
But there are no sales after publishing. So,  how do you get there? Well, Amazon promotions or other more or less dirty ways.
Let’s talk about dirty ways. Say someone wrote a good book, and the author has a confirmation with an unbiased editorial review (it costs anything from $250 to $600 CND for one editorial review from a well-known house). The writer wants to go ahead of other good books (as everyone does), and he is rich, and writing is a hobby or a sport (seeing all this as a competition). One way is to pay librarians to buy your books. If a print book is $20, you may visit a librarian and say, “Here is $600; it will cost you $400 to buy 20 of my books, plus $50 for shipping, plus $100 for you. And everything you sell is yours.”
With a few such deals, I bet a book will be #1 on new releases (whatever the book category is) for the whole period. I know that because my book THESE LIVES was #1 in the Romanian History category as a new release, with 10 (or so) print books and 4 or 5 eBooks sold. How did I do it? I announced my book’s publication on Facebook and LinkedIn (I have hundreds of connections on both), and some colleagues, friends, and maybe a few who were interested bought it.
It is similar to reader reviews. You can pay people to buy and review your book. Amazon tries to catch all this, and it is successful sometimes. Some of my reviews are from friends. Amazon deleted 2 of them (I wonder how they figured it out) but let the other 2 be posted because the guys were honest and said something like (… I know the author, and I am impressed bla bla bla…). The Amazon algorithm used to post reviews is evolving. I had a reader who said briefly, “I really liked this item,” and gave me 5 stars (thank you). That was an unusual reader review without comments about the subject. Amazon posted it only on the US site where the reader bought my eBook. Three months later, Amazon posted it on all sites I checked, including Canada, the UK, and Australia. I bet Amazon is using AI to look into the problem, and maybe the guy bought more from Amazon, and AI assumed my book might have a role. Or, maybe that simple review had another impact in some way, and Amazon promoted the review on other sites.
I found that Amazon has more than 32.8 million books when I wrote this article. The only way people see your book is through marketing. You can do it yourself on Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X, but for most of us, sales are less than the amount spent on ads. This is the way I did it.
Also, specialized companies are doing it, and they come after you. I suspect that if you give them $2000, all they do is buy books for a few hundred dollars, and no one is reading them, and say, “See, marketing worked,” and that’s all.
Some are legitimate, doing what they are supposed to, and you must contact them. They make a selection, and you have to pay for an evaluation, which will not guarantee they will work for you. They may ask for anything between 2,000 and 20,000 or even more. But my take is that only in exceptional cases do you recoup the money from sales.
Think of someone with tons of money and wants to have fun with his books. Assuming it is a good one, spending $200,000, he may sell for $100,000 and start shouting that he has sales into 6 digits. With a few hundred good reviews, the author would be on the first page of “book search” in his category, and the sales keep coming; eventually, he will break even (marketing vs. sales) from that point on. What pisses me off is that those saying they have sales into 6 digits never mention how much they spent on marketing,
That’s the world we live in. Whoever has more money always takes a front seat, even with similar value provided.
I am an avid reader; I read a book every two or three months. I see books with 20 reviews that are not on the first page, which is better than others with 10,000 reviews and, say, have 6-digit sales.
Warning: If you randomly take a book to read, it is a good chance it is a shitty book, and you cannot go more than two pages, three pages if you are a hero, and some of them have 40-50 reviews, only 4 and 5 stars!
Maybe in one of my next posts, I will write about how I search for books I might like to read.

That is complex. It depends on how well the book performs in terms of sales and the book category.
Today, I’ll talk about regular rankings, that is, all-time to date for book performance.
My book is a memoir and history.
Everyone can check a book sales performance (if there are enough sales for Amazon to build statistics). On the page where you can buy the book, scroll down the page, and you may see something like this (Canadian Amazon site): see below. 

The Amazon algorithm considers the number of copies sold, how recently, and the sales amount. I think the rank jumps significantly after some good sales. I remember on “Amazon.ca,” I was #1 one day after just 3 sales on the Canadian Amazon site, one eBook and two prints. It was in the “Romanian History” section. Not many buy books in Canada about someone’s memoirs in Communist Romania. But still, a few days later, with no more sales,  I was #28 in the same category.

​On the American site, I was #71 in Romanian History with 436 sales (419 eBook and 17 print)
Americans seem to be more interested in European history than Canadians, even considering they are 8-9 times more people.

 
I have also attached the book on performance in the UK. It seems they are the most avid readers of the history of Romania, considering how many history books were ahead of mine (I was not on the list for Romanian history), and I had similar sales in the UK to those in Canada.

​Conclusion: if someone said they were #1 on Amazon, you should ask them the category at least. If they said it was #1 in romance (for example), it means a lot, while in a category with fewer readers, high positions could be reached fast.
Another remark: looking at rankings for many books, I observed that readers enjoy more books about sex than philosophy, history, and politics. Uffff.

​I published THESE LIVES in March 2023.
Total sales as of today: 503 copies, out of which 39 are print and 464 are eBooks.
I did not do serious marketing until about 4 months ago. I saw sales increase as a result. The best for me is Amazon ads, and I will explain how this worked for me in a new post. 

​There is another way to look at your book value on Amazon. I am talking about the pages read on Kindle Unlimited since I have my book in that store. In my calculation, Amazon pays around 1 USD for 200 pages read in Kindle Unlimited.
Those paying subscriptions can read any number of books they want from the store. They often read a few pages, dump the book, and go for another. So, how many subscribers read my whole book? I would say around half of them. Considering their habits, as described by other bloggers, I think it is an achievement.
How do I estimate how many went through my whole book? I do not talk about those who bought copies since there are no statistics, but Amazon subscribers to Kindle Unlimited.
It happens occasionally, maybe a few weeks apart, to see 10 to 50 pages read (Amazon calls it KENP). Then, I looked the following days, and if I saw that number increase like somebody was reading, and if in a few days, a week or so, the number of pages matched my book, I concluded the guy read it all. Of course, this could be misleading since another reader jumped in and read only part of it. My conclusion is that about half do read the whole book. The total pages on KENP to the day: 5910. Below is the list of Kindle Unlimited reads. Obviously, the guy from India reading only 20 pages gave up after the first 2 chapters. In Australia, if there was only one reader, he/she went through half of it. But I stick to my estimation; half of them read it all. Well, only Amazon knows the truth.

​Note: The books downloaded by subscribers do not show up in sales, there are separate statistics.
In my next post, I will go through ranking. There are many angles to look at it, and I find it fascinating.
 

  In this post, I will describe the launch of my book THESE LIVES (memoir book).
    My editor was enthusiastic about the book, and I can discern between courtesy enthusiasm and a real one. She even helped me (for free) look for an agent. It didn’t work out, but I had some replies that were very close calls, mostly saying that they do not specialize in the book genre - but had a debate within the team to consider it.
So, I decided to spend some money on launching my book because what I had was encouraging. I also paid three professional reviews (Kirkus, Indie Reader, and Reedsy Discovery), which were very encouraging.
     I remembered some bad times with a previous book when I signed up with Xlibris. I paid an initial sum for which they evaluated the book and suggested a book cover. The evaluation showed that they did not read the content, but they read a few pages here and there, and the cover design was a picture on Shutterstock. By chance, I found it on Shutterstock by looking for some keywords to match the book’s narrative. I canceled the agreement and lost the money.
So, there is no way I would fall into the trap of vanity publishers, better self-publish, and pay for services I need.
After some research, I decided on Reedsy for cover design and marketing. I am not making publicity for Reedsy; I just tell my audience what happened.
    It was expensive, about USD 1000 for marketing and £960 for cover design and formatting. I did not need the formatting, but I wanted to go full steam and not regret it later. I do not regret the payment since I reached #1 (eBook) and #3(Print) for Amazon New Releases for the Romanian History section. 

   
I am a self-published author. Now, because I am retired, I have more time for marketing. I tried companies offering to help at a reasonable price (a few hundred), then ads on Facebook, X, and Amazon. For me, the best results were with Amazon Ads in the Sponsored Products program. It makes sense since they have all the necessary statistics.

   If your book is in Kindle Unlimited, then Amazon knows how many books are downloaded and how many pages are read. Amazon knows if there are many downloads for a book, but the reader only goes a few pages or a few chapters and then jumps to the end to find the conclusion - the book has a good presentation (cover design, an appealing summary or synopsis) but poor content. If there are few downloads for other books, but most readers go through it all, it is the other way around - a poor presentation but good content. I talked about Kindle Unlimited since those paying subscriptions are picky but the best barometer to judge a book’s quality. Besides, the author can find those statistics by watching the KENP frequently on his/her Amazon Author pages, not with Amazon’s precision, but still might have a clue.

    It is similar to eBooks, but those buying it read the book, and their potential reviews might indicate their assessment. Of course, reviews from friends and most paid “readers reviews” should not count for an honest evaluation if an author wants to be truthful to himself.

    What follows are my best guesses about how Amazon works.

    Amazon wants to make money from selling books. And if they advertise good books, the fan base increases. But they want to take advertising money from all authors paying for ads. I think it is different from how Amazon treats excellent and bad authors.

    But how does Amazon evaluate a book? I already explained the statistics they have on eBooks. Reviews always matter; Amazon tries to discern between honest and “friendly” reviews. I am not sure how successful it is with this, but those with tons of reviews stand forward. My take is that a few reviews (and all good) do not matter much.
    
    The beginning is hard for an author, but Amazon gives you a chance until it places your book on the right shelf, from outstanding books down to disastrous ones. The Amazon “New Releases” program might help authors start well. I will not make any recommendations here since many articles about the process exist. I would only mention that I had no clue how to do it, so I paid Reedsy to help me, and it was a good choice. 
​
    Is it fair that Amazon became such a powerhouse that anybody else is dwarfed? Well, they have the chance to regulate a Wild West book market.

    I will explain more about my experience as an author in the next post.

I am the author of “The Village: The sleep of reason produces monsters.” It is a dystopia about religion.
I paid 3 editorial review shops to evaluate my book.
I had very good and bad editorial reviews… what to make of it?
I start with the good one.
 
*********
Below is the review from Reedsy Discovery.
 
Loved it
 
Villagers blind faith in a puritanical religious leader and distrust of the outside world lead to violence and a potential catastrophe.
SYNOPSIS
A small, isolated community with limited access to technology and the outside world had a heavenly life, at least on the surface. This environment could be a fertile ground for a manipulative and puritanical religious figure. Is Father Quinn taking advantage of the community’s vulnerability? Or will his intentions, sooner or later, conflict with elements of progress? Or will his determination to keep the community from dangerous temptation bring happiness?

The arrival of a rebellious teenage girl, Anna, could trigger a fight between secular and religious concepts. Freedom in its recalcitrant form and the desire for redemption will clash, and the result might have no winner since no one will abide by the other side’s perception of right and wrong or how this life should be lived.

What could change a struggle between reasoning versus faith, liberty versus accepting the well-known thousands of years old solid teaching of Christian scriptures?

A danger looming over the community could bring them together or split them further apart.
Teenager Mike lives with his family in Orinsland, a small, farming community with limited access to technology and the outside world. It seems a peaceful and happy place but Mike dreams of more than the simple life, and is devoted to the television, the only window on the outside world he knows. An old teacher, Mr Trent, has always ensured that the technology works but now he is old and tired and Father Quinn, a manipulative and puritanical religious figure, believes that it is a temptation to the villagers and will undermine his authority. When rebellious teenager Anna, to whom Mike is attracted, and her family move into Orinsland it brings things to a head and it becomes a fight between blind faith and the elements of progress. Quinn’s determination to keep the village from temptation becomes dangerous when a natural disaster threatens and he encourages his follower Colt to cut off the community’s link to the outside world. The fight is then no longer hypothetical but real as it brings the village is to the brink of disaster.
  
The plot is simple and character driven, based on the war between secular and religious concepts, Anna, her family and Mr Trent on the side of progress and Quinn and those who follow him blindly on the other. Many of the characters seem to be mere ciphers for one side of the argument or the other but the main characters stand out well. Mike is conflicted, as he is in love with Anna but wants to stay true to his family’s beliefs. Trent is admirable but old and tired and no match for Quinn who by the end is totally delusional, although he, also, has his doubts and has suffered in the past. I was not convinced that simple god-fearing folk like Colt, Quinn’s acolyte, would be prepared to go to the lengths they do - such as trashing the television station and worse - although sadly the power exerted by leaders of some religious cults has indeed proved deadly.  The book’s climax is all it should be with the believers hoping for divine deliverance from the storm but not taking the action required.
 
Although the various characters fall too easily into one camp or the other this nevertheless provides a thought-provoking and intriguing read, as well as providing much excitement along the way.
REVIEWED BY
Jennifer Hill
 
Note: Congratulations! Your book The Village has been reviewed by Jennifer Hill! It will go live on May 30, 2024 and will be available from https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/the-village-eliade-moldovan.
 
**************
 
I also paid Blueink for a review. They offer some discount if you pay both Blueink and Clarion. I think the reviewer at Blueink was slightly uncomfortable with the standing in the book, but he/she tried her best to look at the story with a reviewer’s eye but blasted one way or another the characters clashing with Christian teachings.
 
Blueink Review
 
 The Village
Eliade Moldovan
Eliade Moldovan, 267 pages, 978-1-7383242-0-0
(Reviewed: March 2024)
The Village is a modern-day drama focusing on a geographically isolated agrarian religious community called Orinsland, where a morally questionable priest has assumed the role of town leader.
The story centers on Father Quinn’s relationship with his Christian congregation, some of whom support his dogmatic approach to faith and some who are unconvinced by his unbending religious values.
At the novel’s commencement, newcomers the Mulroneys arrive in Orinsland so that Peter Mulroney can work as a technician maintaining the village’s TV reception station. Peter’s 16-year-old daughter, Anna, struggles to adapt to the community. Having difficulty cultivating relationships due to her non-conformist attitude, Anna is befriended by smitten teenager Mike, delinquent youth Valery, and former town-leader-turned-teacher, Professor Trent, whose liberalism clashes with prevailing Orinsland outlooks.
Following a tragedy in the community resulting from the growing rift between Father Quinn’s acolytes and more open-minded parishioners, Anna starts to question Quinn’s autocratic teachings. Tensions quickly escalate between the two groups, culminating in a murderous vendetta and an apocalyptic final act.
Author Eliade Moldovan has crafted a philosophically challenging meditation on the perils of fundamentalism, presenting a cautionary tale of a society governed by religious intolerance, where compassion and inclusivity have been subdued by fearmongering. To ensure that the different psycho-social circumstances of community members—such as humourless zealot Colt, and vengeful father, Liam—are thoughtfully explored, Moldovan employs a balanced structure, focusing each chapter on a specific character. This avoids the potential for bias inherent in a single-character perspective.
That said, the story predominantly belongs to relatable fish-out-of-water Anna; Mike, whose romantic interest in Anna leads him into conflict with his own religious values, and Father Quinn.
Although some readers might wish for more periodic relief from the novel’s bleak tone and oppressive subject, overall, The Village is a brave novel that successfully presents its case for a more liberal society.
https://www.blueinkreview.com/book-reviews/the-village/
 
***********
 
Clarion (Forward Reviews)
I think the reviewer was a hard-core believer. She had some nice words about the story but blasted it with out-of-context remarks, giving me 2 stars. How can a reviewer blame an author for describing what is in one of the character’s mind?
I complained, and the agent told me she forwarded my email to the editor-in-chief. I offered to forward them links to other editorial reviews about my book, where I received a 4-star rating and very nice words. They ignored all this, and I had never heard about their chief editor’s reaction. They also turned off the opportunity to complain on their site. I do not mind if they are fighting to protect Christian values, but at least it should be a warning on their site that if you are on the wrong side of the fence, you’ll pay for it.
 
Clarion Review
​SCIENCE FICTION
The Village
Eliade Moldovan
Amazon KDP
(267pp)
978-1-73832-420-0
A parable about the perils of blind trust, The Village follows two teenagers through their difficulties toward possible
love.
In Eliade Moldovan’s speculative novel The Village, religious power dynamics reveal the dangers of blind faith.
Seventeen-year-old Mike experiences upheaval and turmoil when a new family arrives in Orinsland, his secluded
hometown. Murders are committed, and a hurricane threatens the entire village. His point of view is interspersed with those of other villagers, with the book lingering on Anna, a teenager from the city who takes up residence in the village with her father, its newest resident technician. And Father Quinn, the town’s priest, presides over a flock of ordinary, God-fearing individuals, among whom are farmers using equipment that is at least a century out of date. Further, there are hints of a romance between Mike and Anna, even as they work to avert a potential tragedy.
The village and its people are described in enthusiastic but limiting terms: “The landscape was breathtaking, like a
real-life painting,” Anna observes, and a scene near sunset is set in terms of the “few red-brownish clouds seen over the western mountains [that] outlined the valley’s beauty where Orinsland sat.” Anna, who’s comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, notes that her new classmates “behaved differently; they were too docile.” Here and elsewhere, people’s feelings and village sights are prioritized, but at the expense of depth; tensions are “palpable,” hearts stop to indicate surprise or danger, and stale motifs and metaphors (as with references to the full moon) appear too often. The view of Orinsland that develops is a simple one—a mere distraction from the book’s otherwise fascinating premise.
The book’s characterizations are also flat. People’s motivations seem singular, and they often act in ways that
controvert expectations—including in the midst of dire situations, where their reactions strain credulity. The effect is jarring. And there’s a limited sense of people’s lives outside of the central narrative, which is vague when it comes to backstories and personal histories. Those whose backgrounds are revealed through flashbacks are more complex; still, they too are quite single-minded. Further, while the story includes several substantial plot turns, they are foreshadowed with a heavy hand, robbing the book of surprise. And even in the book’s striking ending, the fates of many are left unresolved, preventing a final sense of satisfaction.
In the allegorical novel The Village, corruption is shown to be innate among the powerful.
CAITLIN CACCIATORE (April 4, 2024)
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to
have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a
positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
 

I am the author of “The Village: The sleep of reason produces monsters.” It is a dystopia about religion.
I paid 3 editorial review shops to evaluate my book.
I had very good and bad editorial reviews… what to make of it?
I start with the bad one. I am not sure this is smart, but that’s life.

 
Clarion (Forward Reviews)
I think the reviewer was a hard-core believer. He/she had some nice words about the story but blasted it with out-of-context remarks, giving me 2 stars. How can a reviewer blame an author for describing what is in one of the character’s mind?
I complained, and the agent told me she forwarded my email to the editor-in-chief. I offered to forward them links to other editorial reviews about my book, where I received a 4-star rating and very nice words. They ignored all this, and I had never heard about their chief editor’s reaction. They also turned off the opportunity to complain on their site. I do not mind if they are fighting to protect Christian values, but at least it should be a warning on their site that if you are on the wrong side of the fence, you’ll pay for it.
 
Clarion Review SCIENCE FICTION
The Village
Eliade Moldovan
Amazon KDP
(267pp)
978-1-73832-420-0
A parable about the perils of blind trust, The Village follows two teenagers through their difficulties toward possible
love.
In Eliade Moldovan’s speculative novel The Village, religious power dynamics reveal the dangers of blind faith.
Seventeen-year-old Mike experiences upheaval and turmoil when a new family arrives in Orinsland, his secluded
hometown. Murders are committed, and a hurricane threatens the entire village. His point of view is interspersed with those of other villagers, with the book lingering on Anna, a teenager from the city who takes up residence in the village with her father, its newest resident technician. And Father Quinn, the town’s priest, presides over a flock of ordinary, God-fearing individuals, among whom are farmers using equipment that is at least a century out of date. Further, there are hints of a romance between Mike and Anna, even as they work to avert a potential tragedy.
The village and its people are described in enthusiastic but limiting terms: “The landscape was breathtaking, like a
real-life painting,” Anna observes, and a scene near sunset is set in terms of the “few red-brownish clouds seen over the western mountains [that] outlined the valley’s beauty where Orinsland sat.” Anna, who’s comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, notes that her new classmates “behaved differently; they were too docile.” Here and elsewhere, people’s feelings and village sights are prioritized, but at the expense of depth; tensions are “palpable,” hearts stop to indicate surprise or danger, and stale motifs and metaphors (as with references to the full moon) appear too often. The view of Orinsland that develops is a simple one—a mere distraction from the book’s otherwise fascinating premise.
The book’s characterizations are also flat. People’s motivations seem singular, and they often act in ways that
controvert expectations—including in the midst of dire situations, where their reactions strain credulity. The effect is jarring. And there’s a limited sense of people’s lives outside of the central narrative, which is vague when it comes to backstories and personal histories. Those whose backgrounds are revealed through flashbacks are more complex; still, they too are quite single-minded. Further, while the story includes several substantial plot turns, they are foreshadowed with a heavy hand, robbing the book of surprise. And even in the book’s striking ending, the fates of many are left unresolved, preventing a final sense of satisfaction.
In the allegorical novel The Village, corruption is shown to be innate among the powerful.
CAITLIN CACCIATORE (April 4, 2024)
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to
have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a
positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
 
Below is the review from Reedsy Discovery.
 
Loved it! 😍
Villagers blind faith in a puritanical religious leader and distrust of the outside world lead to violence and a potential catastrophe
SYNOPSIS
A small, isolated community with limited access to technology and the outside world had a heavenly life, at least on the surface. This environment could be a fertile ground for a manipulative and puritanical religious figure. Is Father Quinn taking advantage of the community’s vulnerability? Or will his intentions, sooner or later, conflict with elements of progress? Or will his determination to keep the community from dangerous temptation bring happiness?

The arrival of a rebellious teenage girl, Anna, could trigger a fight between secular and religious concepts. Freedom in its recalcitrant form and the desire for redemption will clash, and the result might have no winner since no one will abide by the other side’s perception of right and wrong or how this life should be lived.

What could change a struggle between reasoning versus faith, liberty versus accepting the well-known thousands of years old solid teaching of Christian scriptures?

A danger looming over the community could bring them together or split them further apart.
Teenager Mike lives with his family in Orinsland, a small, farming community with limited access to technology and the outside world. It seems a peaceful and happy place but Mike dreams of more than the simple life, and is devoted to the television, the only window on the outside world he knows. An old teacher, Mr Trent, has always ensured that the technology works but now he is old and tired and Father Quinn, a manipulative and puritanical religious figure, believes that it is a temptation to the villagers and will undermine his authority. When rebellious teenager Anna, to whom Mike is attracted, and her family move into Orinsland it brings things to a head and it becomes a fight between blind faith and the elements of progress. Quinn’s determination to keep the village from temptation becomes dangerous when a natural disaster threatens and he encourages his follower Colt to cut off the community’s link to the outside world. The fight is then no longer hypothetical but real as it brings the village is to the brink of disaster.
  
The plot is simple and character driven, based on the war between secular and religious concepts, Anna, her family and Mr Trent on the side of progress and Quinn and those who follow him blindly on the other. Many of the characters seem to be mere ciphers for one side of the argument or the other but the main characters stand out well. Mike is conflicted, as he is in love with Anna but wants to stay true to his family’s beliefs. Trent is admirable but old and tired and no match for Quinn who by the end is totally delusional, although he, also, has his doubts and has suffered in the past. I was not convinced that simple god-fearing folk like Colt, Quinn’s acolyte, would be prepared to go to the lengths they do - such as trashing the television station and worse - although sadly the power exerted by leaders of some religious cults has indeed proved deadly.  The book’s climax is all it should be with the believers hoping for divine deliverance from the storm but not taking the action required.
 
Although the various characters fall too easily into one camp or the other this nevertheless provides a thought-provoking and intriguing read, as well as providing much excitement along the way.
REVIEWED BY
Jennifer Hill
 
Note: Congratulations! Your book The Village has been reviewed by Jennifer Hill! It will go live on May 30, 2024 and will be available from https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/the-village-eliade-moldovan.
 
 
I also paid Blueink for a review. They offer some discount if you pay both Blueink and Clarion. I think the reviewer was slightly uncomfortable with the standing in the book, but he/she tried her best to look at the story with a reviewer’s eye.
 

 
 The Village
Eliade Moldovan
Eliade Moldovan, 267 pages, 978-1-7383242-0-0
(Reviewed: March 2024)
The Village is a modern-day drama focusing on a geographically isolated agrarian religious community called Orinsland, where a morally questionable priest has assumed the role of town leader.
The story centers on Father Quinn’s relationship with his Christian congregation, some of whom support his dogmatic approach to faith and some who are unconvinced by his unbending religious values.
At the novel’s commencement, newcomers the Mulroneys arrive in Orinsland so that Peter Mulroney can work as a technician maintaining the village’s TV reception station. Peter’s 16-year-old daughter, Anna, struggles to adapt to the community. Having difficulty cultivating relationships due to her non-conformist attitude, Anna is befriended by smitten teenager Mike, delinquent youth Valery, and former town-leader-turned-teacher, Professor Trent, whose liberalism clashes with prevailing Orinsland outlooks.
Following a tragedy in the community resulting from the growing rift between Father Quinn’s acolytes and more open-minded parishioners, Anna starts to question Quinn’s autocratic teachings. Tensions quickly escalate between the two groups, culminating in a murderous vendetta and an apocalyptic final act.
Author Eliade Moldovan has crafted a philosophically challenging meditation on the perils of fundamentalism, presenting a cautionary tale of a society governed by religious intolerance, where compassion and inclusivity have been subdued by fearmongering. To ensure that the different psycho-social circumstances of community members—such as humourless zealot Colt, and vengeful father, Liam—are thoughtfully explored, Moldovan employs a balanced structure, focusing each chapter on a specific character. This avoids the potential for bias inherent in a single-character perspective.
That said, the story predominantly belongs to relatable fish-out-of-water Anna; Mike, whose romantic interest in Anna leads him into conflict with his own religious values, and Father Quinn.
Although some readers might wish for more periodic relief from the novel’s bleak tone and oppressive subject, overall, The Village is a brave novel that successfully presents its case for a more liberal society.
 
https://www.blueinkreview.com/book-reviews/the-village/
 
 
 
 
 

I wondered the difference between a cheap cruise and an expensive one.
Let’s start with the good news. When it comes to how good the boat looks, the entertainment, and the islands visited, there is no difference.
This time, we took a cheap 11-day cruise from New York to the Caribbean Islands (St Thomas, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Grand Turk, Bahamas).
First, why should a cruise line be cheaper? Because they want the boat to be full. The last cabins were sold only the previous few days before departure. The inside cabins (no balcony or window) sold for less than $700 per person! I am not sure it covered the food (included in the price). But, since the tips are now mandatory ($176 per person), at least they helped to pay the crew members who got their pay from tips, like the room attendance guys.
Now, here the problem starts. Most of those coming for the cheap cruise come for free food. I do not mind anyone’s pleasure, but I cannot stand the waste. And food waste is number one on my hate list.

My grandma used to say, “Better guts cracked than food thrown away.” She used absolutely everything. Whatever was left from preparing the food or after a meal was served to the pig. One day, my father told her that growing a pig cost more than buying it right before Christmas (to be sacrificed). But my grandma preferred to lose some money rather than wasting leftovers. So the food is holy (don’t take it religiously). When I have more than I want on my plate, I eat it all, have less of the next meal, or skip it. Maybe I am too far on this, but what I see on the cruises gives me a sour taste.
Some tourists had seafood, burgers, and Chinese on their tables. They bite from everything, then eat only the dish they like - and leave. Others put on their plate much more than their stomach could ingest, and leaving half of it on the table gave them the impression that they were on the right track to eat less. 
​

​More than half go to the garbage. I saw cases much worse than in these pictures, but I did not have my cell with me.
It is useless to say that most tourists are way overweight.

​Another aspect.
Evening, people respect the efforts made by musicians and entertainment hosts and dress more formally, at least wearing long pants and a shirt. On cheap cruises, most tourists still wear shorts, sandals, and T-shirts, eventually under-shirts, in the evenings.
So, avoid cheap cruises if you want a company where people care about their appearance.

​In my next post, I will describe the life on the boat and our stops (no more talking about food).

 
I wrote in an article that I worked for 14 companies, but I didn’t mention them all because I don’t think they can be classified as jobs. I remember them, though, thinking that maybe they are readers interested in what someone plunging into the unknown goes through.
When I did that refresher course “update in computer science techniques” at College Maisonneuve in Montreal, I did “production practice” at 2 companies, where I helped them use applications that they bought but no longer had money to pay for maintenance at the manufacturer. The government was helping the companies stay afloat, and one of the methods was to get some help from college students. Students do “production practice” (unpaid) there; the students add it as practical experience in their RESUME, and the companies get some help.
Still in Montreal, another “almost” job was a small company that didn’t even have their computers out of the box. It was 1995; it would have been my first paying job. The owner told me he wants 2-3 days to test me to see if I can do what he needs. He had a secretary (I think his girlfriend) who was terribly afraid of spiders. When one appeared in a corner near the wall, she started screaming worse than in a horror movie. I wanted to show I was useful, so I picked up the spider without crushing it and threw it out the window. I was on the ground floor, so I think the bug landed without problems. I helped him take the computers out of the boxes. Then he gave me a Microsoft Office CD. I think he was afraid to install the app himself. I note that whatever buttons you press, Office installs anyway, but it’s best to choose nothing - the default settings are best. The next day, I showed the secretary how to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The secretary conscientiously wrote down everything she did in a notebook. When I finished, the man said he would call me in the next few days. He did not call. I called him, but he said that the potential client hasn’t signed yet, and it could take weeks or months to decide. All he wanted was to take advantage of me for the little things I did for him.
I mention one more from Toronto. I was between jobs, and the following interview was the weirdest I’ve ever had. It was an area with many warehouses, each with one or more offices. Someone was waiting for me in the parking lot. I went through several doors, all with a code on them. It seemed overly cautious.
The interview room was large, with a long oval table in the middle and the two who were going to interview me sat at one end. COVID came much later, so I was wondering why so much caution. I only realized when the two of them started talking in a very low tone so I wouldn’t hear. All I understood was that they were speaking in Russian. They knew I was Romanian and probably thought I could understand. The one who was the “president” did not say a word in English, only the other one, I understood that he was the director and spoke perfect English.
As I have a rich imagination, I thought they had an illegal business, such as stealing cars, disassembling them in warehouses, then sending the parts to Russia (the president spoke only Russian). Maybe drugs. Or maybe a Russian baron was doing business legally but laundering dirty money.
As a side note, I will say that there were articles at the time suggesting that the government should investigate more into the origin of business money in Canada, not just look the other way, satisfied that business is growing.
I got scared, and I told them I will think about it. They were ready to sign a contract. When they saw that I hesitated, they offered me double the salary I requested. I said that I never sign until a night of thinking had passed, saying, “The night is a good counselor.” I tried to say this quote in English, but I think it didn’t come out well; they looked at each other in wonder. It was a lie anyway, but I wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Tip: never try to translate super-specific Romanian sayings into another language. In that course at the college, I remember how another Romanian tried to explain the quote to a teacher, “We parted ways like in a train.” In Romanian, this meant that two people who don’t know each other and talk on the train say when parting ways, “We’ll talk again”, but that will never happen. How do you explain this (with poor French) to someone who has no idea about Romanian thinking and traditions? I was so ashamed that I left when the teacher’s eyes widened, and the Romanian guy tried to explain himself, deepening more and more into the mud.
Back to my interview, I didn’t call. Instead, the Russians called a few times, and I found some excuse each time. They gave up after 2-3 weeks.
 
Where my journey with jobs in Canada started,
https://www.eliademoldovan.com/blog/immigration-to-canada-episode-1
​