Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Remember Colin the Incubus Nymph?

Ah, Colin, the incubus nymph. You know…Colin? The incubus? In the ring? The ring that houses Colin, Invoked to be Possessed and Inhabited by an Ever Powerful, Seductive and Enchanting British Incubus Spirit Nymph?

THAT Colin?

I am sad to report, Colin is not yours. Colin is going to live with a very fortunate college student (living in a dorm, won’t that be fun?) named Emmy, who will have Colin the Incubus Spirit Nymph for her very, very own. How fab! And author Esri Rose, who asked for Colin’s, um, housing? Ensorcelment?

Whatever you call it, Esri is working on an interview with Colin the Ever Powerful Seductive and Enchanting. Word!

You Can Never Have Too Much Were

The editors at Ellora’s Cave have produced a list of the thirteen were-trends they’d love to see, inspired by our were-duck April Fool’s entry. I’m so afflicted with the giggles I can barely talk.

Well played, ladies and gents. Well played. And please do let me know when were-skunk, or better yet, were-musk-oxen romance hits the presses. Please, oh please, let it be scratch-n-sniff!

Smart Bitch Happy Hour: Teh Winnahs!

Get your top shelf ready, and make sure there’s a mattress on the floor, because if you drink all of these, you will pass out before you even know you’re falling down.

Presenting the winners in the Smart Bitch Happy Hour contest. Winning drinkmasters, please contact me with your mailing address so that I can send you your copy of Kathleen O’Reilly’s new book, Nightcap.

Thank you to Kathleen O’Reilly for judging and providing the books. And now, in no particular order, we have: the winners!

What Your Critique Partner Says About You When You Go to the Ladies’ Room

We’ve been talking a bit about critique partners here at Smart Bitches, and last Friday I had a chance to see CPs in action. I was invited to a dinner after the Novelists Inc. conference concluded with Kate Duffy from Kensington, whom I call the Julia Child of romance because it makes her roll her eyes at me, Karen who is mistress of PR and publicity at Kensington, and LaToya from Grand Central whose purse was so awesome I thought about stealing it, except I couldn’t because (a) that would be so not legal and (b) Law & Order SVU was filming outside the restaurant so there were plenty of real and faux cops who would have busted my ass for purse-theft. Her purse is still awesome and I covet it like whoa and gee whiz.

In addition, I got to meet Barbara Vey of the PW Beyond Her Book blog, who got a great picture of me having a bad hair moment in my giant puffy coat, and critique partners and happy authors Mary Stella and Beth Ciotta, who provided me with the answer to my question: “What does your critique partner say about you when you go… read more »

Chivalry and Other Romantic Behaviors

From Philippine newspaper The Inquirer comes Leica Carpo’s column about what books turned her onto reading:

I could say it was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Great Gatsby,” Dickens’ “Great Expectations” or even Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind” that turned me onto reading. But that would be a lie. I must confess that historical novels were my secret passion and I was a Barbara Cartland girl first and foremost.

Right there with you, Leica. Only instead of Fitzgerald, F. Scott or Mitchell, Margaret, it was “High, Sweet Valley” and, before that, Beverly Cleary that brought me into reading.

After ruminating on the Cartland oeuvre, Carpo states, “I no longer read Cartland novels or expect “happily ever afters,” but to this day I don’t expect chivalry — I demand it.”

And then the article ends (BOO) but with enough of a statement to make me wonder, have romance novels influenced the way I view relationships, and specifically my own marriage?

HaBO: Time Travel Book Excerpt

Bitchery reader Sarah (so many of us, how awesome!) writes:

It’s always pleasant to find people who take romance novels the same way I do—with big grains of salt all around the rim of the margarita glass.  I’ve spent the last few days going through the archives and laughing myself silly over the book cover snarks, hoping all the while that nobody in the house asked me what was so funny.  Then I discovered the Help a Bitch Out column, and knew where I could get a question answered that’s been plaguing me for years.

I’m looking for a book that I only read the preview for in the back of another novel.  I thought the book I read the preview in was a reprint of “A Kingdom of Dreams” by Judith McNaught ca. 2000, but no dice.  The preview in that one is for “Night Whispers”, and what I read was paranormal/medieval.

The preview I remember had the heroine being knocked unconscious in the present day, and somehow transported back to the middle ages.  She awakes to find herself in a huge bed in a castle, with a large and threatening man looming over her.  He’s pretty pissed off… read more »

On the Road to the Final Four

If you haven’t noticed, DA and SBTB were merged in hostile friendly takeover which took the form of a book against book tournament. We slated 64 books in 8 categories which netted 8 winners. (imagine that 8 winners in 8 categories, we are like math geniuses or geni or whatever). The current leader is Cecilia T. You can see the whole slate of brackets here. We held a second chance pool and the current leader is Marci S. The entire slate of the 2nd chance brackets are here. The Elite Eight was winnowed down to the Final Four with only one number one seeding surviving: High Noon by Nora Roberts. On Saturday, April 5, SB and DA will feature the Final Four battle between dark house and thirteen seed, The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason against the Historical favorite, number 3 seed, The Serpent Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt On the other side of the bracket is a death match battle between Fairyville by Emma Holly (also a 13 seed) and the prohibitive favorite, High Noon by Nora Roberts. Since we've made it to the Final Four, we have some prizes to… read more »

From the “Scaring the Shit out of You Department”

Ahoy there, scary precedent. With my newly-minted JD, courtesy of our “hostile takeover” by Dear Author Media Network on 1 April, I am free to offer my exceptionally sharp legal analysis of this case:

In a rare defamation case over a novel, the Georgia Court of Appeals has cleared the way for a suit by an Atlanta woman who claims an alcoholic, promiscuous character in the book “The Red Hat Club” too closely resembles her.

Vickie Stewart has sued local author Haywood Smith and St. Martin’s Press over Smith’s 2003 book about five red hat-wearing, middle-aged Buckhead ladies plotting revenge against the philandering husband of one of the group’s members. The book hit No. 15 on the New York Times best-seller list.

The “Red Hat Club” in the book resembles the real-life Red Hat Society, a group of women who wear red hats and purple clothes to embrace, according to the organization’s Web site, “fun after 50.” The site claims the society has 40,000 chapters around the world.

A disclaimer in the book says it is a work of fiction that has not been endorsed by the Red Hat Society…. Stewart, the plaintiff, says that unlike the “SuSu” character… read more »

Best. Query. Ever.

A Bitchery reader forwarded me this query for what may be the best (I hope) April Fool's book search inquiry ever from the RRA listserv. Enjoy - and try not to feel the limitless bottom of despair when you are 2/3 of the way through reading it and realize, it could be a real romance you read one time.... A patron has requested help in identifying a book that she read "during the springtime in Europe on the banks of a famous river." She can't remember which river, but says it comes up frequently in crossword puzzles. (I don't suspect this part matters much anyway.) The book is the story of a young woman named something like Kate or Katherine or Karen whose normal life in the Midwest (or possibly West, but definitely not the eastern seaboard) is changed forever when her father goes missing overseas (the mother disappeared in K's childhood, although the patron cannot remember if this was because of death, or an affair, or something else). Following the lead in a mysterious note, K goes in search of her father, accompanied by her chaperone (who is a little person) and her cat. One of these companions talks,… read more »

Links in the Inbox

Bitchery readers send me the coolest links, I swear. And sometimes I get to read about things riiiight before they happen - like Earth Hour, where in at 8pm local time, you turn off the lights for an hour, and sit in the dark to send a message that you care about climate change. You can do lots of different things in the dark, according to the site.

The goal is the demonstrate that “by working together, each one of us can make a positive impact on this global issue.” Now, I’ll be home by myself, and I loooove to have all the lights on when I’m alone because like a 7 year old, I’m afraid of the dark. So if I do this, I’ll totally be sitting in a dark room with the dog… probably using my laptop to email people that I’m in the dark and mildly freaked out. Lest you think I’m a complete loon, I’m also afraid of heights, stairs (the kind with no backs that are just flats of wood on a big frame, omg they freak me out), and latex balloons. There. Now I’m 100% freak, right? Right.

What’s In My Bag?

I put my review copy of The Duke of Shadows in my purse this morning, so excited to read it - and hello, Ann Aguirre sent me a link to her review and homage to the book that is SO good I think I need to excuse myself from every other thing I do to go read.

Ann is running a contest to spread the love about the book - so tell, have you read it yet? Is this one of your most-anticipated titles this month?

It’s definitely one of mine. Between this title and The Spymaster’s Lady, we may be looking at a whole new bar of excellence in historical romance.

BIG NEWS

For those of you who don’t know yet, our new front page has big, big news.

Check it out.

What’s your position on Amazon?

Jane wrote a absolutely marvelous post about Amazon’s decision to no longer stock books that do not use Booksurge, Amazon’s print-on-demand service. According to Writer’s Weekly, tomorrow (1 April - April Fools?!) is the deadline by which “some POD publishers to sign the contract with Amazon/Booksurge, or risk having their buy buttons removed from Amazon.com.” (Thanks to Cheryl for the link).

Some publishers who use other POD services, such as Whiskey Creek Press, have noticed that already, prior to that signing deadline, their books are only available through resellers, or via the Kindle edition - a file type which is owned entirely by Amazon.

We here at Bitch HQ use Amazon as referral customers, and we earn about 6.5-7% of all purchases made through our Amazon referral account. We use that money (and money from our advertisers) to cover hosting, prizes, postage, and my regular stalker letter to Fabio, but you didn’t hear me say that. Amazon makes it hideously easy to build a store, build a link, host any number of popup or mouseover windows for additional information about a book, and offers a badrillion different linking options to anyone, like us nefarious bloggers, to use.

Help A Bitch Out: Category Author Sought, Please

Bitchery Reader

Talpianna

Tina! (sorry Tina!) says:

All this thinking about category romances reminded me that there was an author who wrote very unconventional category romances.  By unconventional, I mean, her heroines were not super-gorgeous, perfect creatures just waiting for the right incredibly sexy, handsome, rich stud to notice her and rush her to the alter (after a secret baby or two).  Her protagonists always seemed “real” to me, ie, people that you might actually know or be (so she probably didn’t do category for long, huh?)  I CAN NOT THINK OF HER NAME!!  I’ve tried and tried.  If someone can name the title of the one book plot that I can remember by her, it would help me find her and whatever else she’s written because she was great.

It was set in the Florida Keys, I’m almost sure.  She worked as a bartender.  She had what appeared to the hero to be dyed blond hair with a good inch or two of dark roots showing.  Meanwhile he’s a private investigator who’s getting older and getting pretty tired of following people around to prove they are liars and cheats to whomever has hired him.  He’s carrying a little extra… read more »

Smart Bitch Happy Hour: A Contest!

Contest Ahoy! Get out your minibar bottles and start mixing! Kathleen O’Reilly has sent me a fair pile of her new book, Nightcap and I’m loving my new postage scale like you have no idea. And it’s almost Friday, sort of, so let’s start the Smart Bitch Happy Hour with a contest.

Since the O’Sullivan brothers own a bar, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to create a drink recipe and name it. It doesn’t matter if the drink actually tastes good - so many mixed drinks are made with vodka, which makes me wicked ill, so don’t worry that I’m standing by with a titanium liver and a top shelf bar ready to test-drive your concoctions. Heh. “Concoctions.”

So, bang a gong, it is on. Bring in your best made-up Smart Bitch Happy Hour cocktail (Heh heh. “cocktail.”) and post it in the comments. It doesn’t have to be about sex or screwing or banging a bartender but hey, with the language of mixology, there’s plenty of room for some funny recipes. You have until 2am eastern… read more »