First, thank you to the many, many people who have shared the reaction video from Ron Charles of The Washington Post regarding EL James being named “Publishing Person of the Year” by PW.
Link!
Never have clingwrap and leggings looked so good. Well played, Mr. Charles, well played.
I'm over at Kirkus this week talking about Food in Romance and how characters feeding one another can have wonderful significance. (I was noshing on Thanksgiving leftovers, totally).
Food carries some powerful memories. There's a scene in Marie Sexton's Strawberries for Dessert wherein one of the heroes, Cole, uses his boyfriend Jon's family cookbook to make dinner for Jon and Jon's father, who is a widower. Jon is not at all sure how his father will react to Cole as Jon's new boyfriend, and is afraid that his dad's hesitation or Cole's sometimes outlandish behavior will cause a scene.
But Cole, who is a fantastic chef, uses the recipes from Jon's late mother to recreate some of the meals she used to serve her family. Jon's father takes a bite and remembers his wife, their marriage, and how much she loved her family. The scene is so touching, I teared up. It was a powerful example of how love can be communicated through food – and how love can't be defined or limited, no matter how one feels.
What are some of your favorite romances that featuring excellent food?
Amazon announced a new feature of their already-in-the-works please-soon-I've-been-waiting FreeTime parental controls. FreeTime Unlimited offers subscribers unlimited ebooks, apps and games for kids. Laura Hazard Owen writes at PaidContent:
For a set monthly price, families get unlimited access to ebooks, movies, TV shows, educational apps and games aimed at 3-to-8-year-olds. Kindle FreeTime Unlimited works only on the newest Kindle Fires as an extension to Kindle FreeTime, the parental controls feature that lets parents set time limits on kids’ various uses of the tablet.
Households that subscribe to Amazon Prime will pay $2.99 per child or $6.99 per family (up to six kids) per month; non-Prime members will pay $4.99 per child or $9.99 per family per month. Content is “pre-screened for age-appropriateness.”
I've been waiting for the FreeTime upgrade to the Kindle, especially if it limits what my kids have access to on my KindleFire. There is a FreeTime Unlimited content collection at Amazon already. I am very eager to see what this looks like – and how it works.
From Elizabeth S. comes a wonderful morning treat for each day of advent: The Hubble Space Telescope Advent calendar. One new image of deep space each day. It's a lot to take in while drinking coffee, but somehow just looking at the images of nebulae and galaxies light years away makes my brain feel very accomplished.
And finally, via Tessa Dare on Twitter, her Spindle Cove trilogy is on sale digitally!
A Night to Surrender is $2.99 digitally. This book was nominated for a 2012 RITA for Best Regency Historical, and reviewers gave it an A- and a C+.
Spindle Cove is the destination of choice for certain types of well-bred young ladies: the painfully shy, young wives disenchanted with matrimony, and young girls too enchanted with the wrong men; it is a haven for those who live there.
Victor Bramwell, the new Earl of Rycliff, knows he doesn't belong here. So far as he can tell, there's nothing in this place but spinsters . . .and sheep. But he has no choice, he has orders togather a militia. It's a simple mission, made complicated by the spirited, exquisite Susanna Finch–a woman who is determined to save her personal utopia from the invasion of Bram's makeshift army.
Susanna has no use for aggravating men; Bram has sworn off interfering women. The scene is set for an epic battle; but who can be named the winner when both have so much to lose?
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | iBooks
A Week to be Wicked is $3.99 digitally.
When a devilish lord and a bluestocking set off on the road to ruin . . . time is not on their side. Minerva Highwood, one of Spindle Cove's confirmed spinsters, needs to be in Scotland.
Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne, a rake of the first order, needs to be . . . anywhere but Spindle Cove.
These unlikely partners have one week:
- to fake an elopement
- to convince family and friends they're “in love”
- to outrun armed robbers
- to survive their worst nightmares
- to travel four hundred miles without killing each other
All while sharing a very small carriage by day and an even smaller bed by night.
What they don't have time for is their growing attraction. Much less wild passion. And heaven forbid they spend precious hours baring their hearts and souls.
Suddenly one week seems like exactly enough time to find a world of trouble. And maybe . . . just maybe . . . everlasting love.
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | iBooks
A Lady by Midnight is $2.99. I really enjoyed this book and gave it an A-. At $3, it's a good bargain, if you like “I don't want to like you, I don't want to like you, I can't stop thinking about your hair DAMMIT” romances like I do.
A temporary engagement, a lifetime in the making . . .
After years of fending for herself, Kate Taylor found friendship and acceptance in Spindle Cove—but she never stopped yearning for love. The very last place she'd look for it is in the arms of Corporal Thorne. The militia commander is as stone cold as he is brutally handsome. But when mysterious strangers come searching for Kate, Thorne steps forward as her fiancÉ. He claims to have only Kate's safety in mind. So why is there smoldering passion in his kiss?
Long ago, Samuel Thorne devoted his life to guarding Kate's happiness. He wants what's best for her, and he knows it's not marriage to a man like him. To outlast their temporary engagement, he must keep his hands off her tempting body and lock her warm smiles out of his withered heart. It's the toughest battle of this hardened warrior's life . . . and the first he seems destined to lose.
Ron Charles’ video is BRILLIANT. Thank you so much for the link.
I laughed my ass off when I watched that video. That was superb! And dammit Sarah *shakes fist at SB Sarah* Not more sales. Dude. I clicked and bought the last Spindle Cove book. *straps on the willpower* (Yeah, we’ll see how long I last)
The video link was beautiful, well, er, gut-busting!
Sadly, the Dare prices are only that low in the US: they’re about twice that in Canada.
Why no commentary about A Week to Be Wicked? It was the book that made me a Tessa Dare fan and it is quite possibly my favorite romance novel. It’s witty, I want to be friends with the hero and heroine, and it restores my confidence whenever I despair about being a scholarly spinster-in-the-making who knows nothing of life. (I could say much more, but I don’t want to gush.)
Bitter I paid full price for all of these, that’s a great sale! I liked AWTBW so, SO much I bought the first one and really disliked it. Now I know I don’t like war of the sexes stuff, I think it’s demeaning for everyone. The 3rd was good but a little too dum da dum, dum, dum… about the “big secret” for me. I guess I love the nerdy types best, huh? Figures, considering I am one.
The video was terrific—thanks so much for sharing! I’ve already posted it on two FB sites…
OMG. Classic. Mr. Charles, you rock!
Quick comment on the international pricing ( lack of sale price)
I found this yesterday http://www.passwordincorrect.c…
It’s the second point that really made me think- if after a certain number of readers the international fee drops, that would explain the lack of sale overseas on these ( at least until the magic drop hits) because these books have a very odd price in australia$6.34 I think.
It also explains the recent, and very appreciated lack of international whispernet on the Loretta chase back catalogue. Especially as a couple of them remain stubbornly high.
So, in order for me, orany other international reader to get these, we need enough dedicated fans to spend the big bucks. Hmmm
Apologies for bad typos, iPad typing is terrible.
Oh, goodie. I’ve been wanting to read A Lady by Midnight for such a long time, and now I can buy it without feeling guilt.
Re: food in romance, in the last couple of years, I’ve become intensely interested in the way food interacts with literature. I wanted to focus on it for so many of the books I read for my English major, but it’s such a relatively new field of criticism that there isn’t a very large body of scholarly work on it. I mean, there’s some, but it tends to be on pretty obvious texts like Alice in Wonderland, and I had texts like Dracula in mind. Seriously, that book has some food poooorn in it (which really lends itself to all sorts of investigation—Jonathan as a cultural vampire, trying to consume the food culture of Transylvania; or the ways in which gender interacts with food—like how Jonathan gets recipes for Mina [domestic food falling strictly into the feminine sphere] even though he is the one who is so intensely interested in the food). Ahem.
Anyway, my professors were enthusiastic, but ultimately not very helpful, so I ended up going with an ecofeminist approach to most of my papers. It was still fun, but I really wanted to do the food thing.
Some day, I’m going to write a cookbook of all the recipes in my favorite literature. I just need to perfect my Paprika Chicken recipe. 🙂
Laters, baby!
Um, I dunno if this is okay or not, but I have a short foodie romance, Table For One, about a chef and a restaurant critic. But mostly about the food.
Good use of food in Bet Me by Crusie.
I loved the Spindle Cove series. I own the print copies and am quite happy. If you haven’t read them, go and do it now. 🙂
I would buy THE HELL OUT OF that cookbook. Also: I know there was some food/lit crit work done on the English and Spanish versions of “Like Water for Chocolate,” though it was sometimes spare and short examinations. I think a critical examination of the role of food in literature would be Bad. Ass.
Dagnabbit. That Buy With One Click button makes my will power go down to about 3%. And bless Mr. Charles for that video.
I have A Lady by Midnight on my To Buy list so I clicked the link to Amazon and they kindly informed me that I purchased that book back in October for $5.12. Huh. Apparently I don’t manage my Kindle very well.
The video needed to come with a warning label – I almost wet myself (and not in the good way!).
If you are interested in cooking your way through great literature, both classic and modern, you should look at “The Book Club Cookbook”. It has recipes for food mentioned in books, inspired by books, and from authors. It’s fun to look through and could be considered both literary and food porn. Hope you enjoy it.
Bad Ass indeed. I’m the type of person who actually buys book-themed cook books a la The Little House Companion Cookbook and then cooks recipes from them.
Very funny video! Did you see the video that Kristan Higgins put on her FB page advertising a cookbook called “Fifty Shades of Chicken”? Very cute! I bought it on Amazon.
When you mentioned food in romance novels it brought me back to my first romance author, Leslie Kelly. There’s a scene in Overexposed, part of the Santori set, where the Hero and Heroine do unrepeatable things with cannolis in the back of her bakery van. Afterward, Mister makes a point of calling her by an old nickname “cookie”, I think just to see her blush. It’s surprisingly endearing for such strange sexy-times.
There’s a Northern Exposure cookbook and I admit to paying an embarrassing amount for it used. The recipes aren’t bad – I particularly love Maggie’s rant about how muffins are always too big, like you could take a nap in them. HA.
http://amzn.to/VlTmie
John Corbett does ads for Walgreen’s pharmacy on the radio, and every time I hear one I totally pretend I’m listening to Chris in the Morning. I think it might be time for me to re-watch the seasons I have on DVD.
If we’re talking food and romance, we HAVE to talk about Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me. Food is practically a main character in Cal and Min’s story. It’s discussed in the “Getting Fed” part of this article (which I adore):
http://jprstudies.org/2012/04/…
Tessa Dare’s Spindle Cove series is ALL KINDS OF AWESOME. #KeeperShelf
I just read A Week to be Wicked on an airplane. It was great! The dynamic between the two of them was really fun. Now I have to go buy the other two.
There’s also a Nero Wolfe Cookbook (Archie Goodwin is my favorite character in fiction and especially in the A&E version of the books): http://www.amazon.com/The-Nero… It’s got fun stuff in it like make your own head cheese and “proper” scrambled eggs (you’ll need a double boiler and an hour)
When I think of food in romance, I always think of Bet Me first, especially Min’s attempt to make luscious food without fat and Cal’s desire to see her stop sacrificing and start enjoying.