Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

The Magic of Living by Betty Neels

Until I picked up this book, I’d never read a Betty Neels book, and I was not disappointed in the least. And in list format, here are are 6 Important Facts I learned about this novel:

1. Hot Dutch doctors, especially the wealthy ones, are incredibly generous and once in the hot throes of lovin’ say things like, “Oh, my darling, my darling!” And I have a hard time imagining Dutch doctors going into raptures of romantic expression by saying, “Oh, my darling! My darling!” However, I can imagine them saying, “But sit and fart in the duck!” Wait, no. I can’t.

2. If you get in a wreck in Holland, and are a British nurse, you and your bus full o’ spastic children (nice vintage terminology!) will end up at a hospital, one which will happily arrange to pay you as if you were one of their staff while you tirelessly and selflessly care for the children. Yeah. But what about retirement?!

3. The heroine is so relentlessly selfless it’s astonishing that she can stand upright. She’s got… read more »

A Smart Bitch Interview with Paul Tolmé

After an article in Newsweek, a weekend of coverage on NPR, and a lot of email requesting pictures with his shirt off, preferably holding a ferret, journalist Paul Tolmé agreed to an interview with Smart Bitches. I’d sent a request for questions to our readers using our top-secret email list of Bitchery members, and using those questions, Paul and I chatted for nearly an hour about plagiarism, ferrets, the environment, romance and writing. 
Any reader-submitted questions are notated with the author’s name in parenthesis; otherwise the question is one that either multiple people asked, or I made up. He also answered my request for a picture - one we haven’t seen before. He obliged with the one on the left, wherein he sports long hair. Try to keep from fainting, ladies.

First, and obvious question: when you found out, were you pissed off? What has the attention meant for you?

Paul: No, I wasn’t pissed off. I was miffed, but I also found it absurd, and I think that… read more »

Happy Birthday Candy

According to my web research, the 30th anniversary gift is traditionally pearls or diamonds. But here at Smart Bitch headquarters, the traditional gift to mark the passing of the big 3-0 is something very very different.

The 30th birthday at Smart Bitches: the year of the Mantitty Mullet. And here to pay tribute to Candy on her 30th birthday are some of the finest mantitty mullet men ever to walk the earth - and remember, I grew up in Pittsburgh during the years of Jaromir Jagr and Mario Lemieux, so I know whereof I mullet. Only the finest mulleted mantitty shall express their luuuuurveâ„¢ for Candy’s 30th. Read on. 

On Books That Make You Dumb, and Reading Pornographically

My friend Peter sent me a rather interesting link a few days ago: Books That Make You Dumb. The methodology is rather simple: Go to Facebook, download the top ten most popular books by college, look up the average SAT/ACT score for the various colleges, and plot the data on a chart. (The creator of the chart acknowledges that correlation != causation.)

Some of the trends are rather interesting.

1. The Holy Bible scores about 150 points lower than regular-flavor Bible, and 180 points lower than the Book of Mormon. I have ideas on why colleges in which the top-ranked books include The Holy Bible would indicate a lower average SAT score than colleges that list The Bible, but The Book of Mormon? I have no theories on that. I’m just intrigued.

2. A Time to Kill scores about 60 points lower than John Grisham in general, which is very amusing.

3. Books classified as Science Fiction and Classics dominate as the average SAT score goes up. This didn’t surprise me—white nerds, who are more likely to apply to top-tier colleges, are more likely to be exposed to and to love SF/F and Old White Dude fiction. I’m… read more »

Dara Joy Releases New Book, Candy Expires from Joy

Candy, it is often mentioned here, usually by Candy herself, is a big Dara Joy fan. I personally have never read Joy’s books, but Candy, she’ll wank on for hours about them. They are among her guilty pleasures.

So imagine the, well, joy when, just in time for Candy’s birthday, Dara Joy announces she has a new ebook for sale on her newly designed website. Pity I already sent Candy her gift, because I’d be hard-pressed to beat a present entitled Death by Ploot Ploot.

Well, slap me silly and call me Susan…but tie me up first

In honor of our third birthday, Sarah looked up what the typical third anniversary gift is…and it turns out it’s *drumroll* LEATHER.

And you know what that means for our cover snark.

Oh yes. BDSM romance covers. Cover your eyes and head for the hills. Or, y’know, don’t, because you’re a masochistic fool and have a strong hankering for 3-D man-titty.

Dark Obsession by Amanda Stevens

I’m categorizing all my category (har!) reviews under the heading “1001 Ways to Eat Crow” because I’m reading a monster truck shitload of category romance right now, averaging about 75% of a book per day. I read fast. And I’m enjoying them. For the most part. This is an exception. But either way, I’m reading quickly enough that my usual monster session of navel-gazing in a review will have to be trimmed by a good bit for the category binge I’m on now. Avast - here begin ye shorte reviews!

In a word, this book was Yawntastic. It has such a great setup,  but the plot and the characterization were so limply executed. A horror writer’s sister is murdered, and a vampire hero has to save her, protect her from potentially risen sister, and eradicate the bad guy vampire dude what’s doing the killing. The heroine writes books that scare even the hero, yet in the course of the story she’s firmly a wuss on the border of TSTL. I was repeatedly told she authored some scary, chilling books but saw no evidence… read more »

Friday Videos: Medieval Tech Support

I got this from the mystery writer group blog First Offenders:

Having worked in tech support, I can so, so relate.

Amazon definitively determines the most romantic city.

Several different readers e-mailed to tell us about this: Amazon.com unveiled a list of the 20 Most Romantic Cities in the United States. Did they calculate the rankings based on marriage rates vs. divorce rates, popularity as honeymoon destinations, historical reputations, the amount the population invested in sex toys? No, the algorithm they used was even more comprehensive and complicated:

They tallied up how many romance novels, relationship books and sex manuals they’d shipped out to various cities and divided it by the total population.

Because books with titles like “If It’s Tuesday, There Must Be Dildoes,” “Tantric Sex for Dummies” and “The Ultimate Man’s Guide to Internet Dating” are the epitome of what “romantic” means to us as a culture.

Sarah: The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I have at last found my dream job. I am for all intents and purposes a complete and utter epic fail at math. I can’t remember numbers much less hold them in my mind for 2 seconds so that I can do sexy things to them like divide or multiply or even add. I work in a city that’s designated with about 90% numerical… read more »

Help a Bitch Out: No, You Be Stealin’ my Jewels!

Bitchery reader Joopiter writes:

I’m a new reader to your site (thank you StumbleUpon) and going through your archives has inspired me to go find some of the old historicals that I devoured during my teenage years. There’s one that I’m blanking on and I’m hoping you or your loyal readers can help me identify it. I think I read this during high school (‘90-95) or possibly earlier. What I remember

  * The hero was in possession of a stolen jewel which cursed his family and maybe led to the murder of his fiancée/wife. I’m pretty sure his name was Saxon.
  * The heroine was rescued from an attack on her family’s ship when she was a child and was adopted into the family of a sultan (I think) who possesses the other cursed jewels. She is tasked with getting the other jewel back and meets the hero when she dances for him when he’s a guest of the sultan. And she has a rose tattoo on her forearm that covers a scar she got during the initial attack.
  * There may be a tiger involved somewhere. I have a vague recollection of the… read more »

Romantic Times Amends Conference Schedule to Include Session on Plagiarism

While the change has not yet appeared on the RT BookLovers Convention webpage, Bitchery reader Kay has forwarded me some information that Romantic Times sent out earlier today. It seems they’ve added a session with Bertrice Small on research without plagiarism:

Also new to the agenda… Bertrice Small has rounded up her fellow historical romance buddies Roberta Gellis and Jennifer Blake to present a research workshop of a different kind—How to Use Historical Facts Without Crossing the Line Into Plagiarism. Bertrice feels it’s necessary for historical romance authors to know what’s acceptable and what is not when embellishing your fiction with historical facts.

My advice, if you’re planning to go to RT in Pittsburgh? GO to this session. Not because plagiarism is an important issue for any and all professional writers (which it is) or because this session is timely, topical, and clearly of present issue (which it also is) but because I’ve heard Bertrice Small speak and she is a scream.

Help a Bitch Out: Pirates of Condensation

Bitchery reader Maria writes:

I have been racking my brain and beating up librarians all over town trying to locate a certain novel that I read in high school, the title and author of which of course escapes me.  So I am sure that my woes will be put to rest if you could post this, and then some smart-talking trashy-book reading bitch can give me what I need.

The book would most likely have been a Zebra *Heartfire* romance, or at least Zebra. (Hey, I loved those cool holograph stickers on the front of that line…I was in highschool, okay?)  It would not have been originally published any later than 1995, because I graduated in 1996 and believe the book was at least a few years old when I read it. I would guess at it being published somewhere between 1985 and 1993.

The book was a historical, same era as the Pirates of the Caribbean I would guess. It featured a saucy heroine with golden-blonde hair who somehow ends up on a pirate ship with a sexy, swashbuckling captain, who (of course) seduces her. She tries to escape several times, without… read more »

Our Three Year Old: Spontaneous Contesting

Three, from what I hear, is a tough age. The primitive toddler has yielded to a more independent being who wants, guess what, more independence. It’s going to be a great year with our hot pink three year old, I think. I’m all about feisty independence, so three kicks ass.

Special note to Candy: You rule - thanks for three years of Hofftastic Awesomesauce.

Special note to our readers: Thank you! Thank you, thank you!

Now - You wanna win some shit? It’s haiku time! Write us up some haiku madness (5-7-5 please) of up to four stanzas that best captures our past three years, or the general hot pink madness that is Smart Bitches. Voting will go on in the comment thread, fark-style, and top three winners of votage will get prizes, including a Smart Bitch Titleâ„¢ for the First Place winner.

And now: my haiku offering. I’m not stopping at 4 stanzas, so be warned.

Smart Bitches is THREE?!
Man-titty could knock me down-
time sure fucking flies.

Mad props to Candy!
And Hubby… read more »

Need Valentine’s Gifts?

Need gifts? I love gifts - specifically gift shopping. My favorite way to put myself to sleep is to think of different people and shop for them if I have an unlimited budget and limitless ability to acquire stuff. I know, I’m weird. But it calms my spinning brain down to try to figure out HOW I might acquire, say, a genuine piece of Packers stock, let alone freak out the recipient by giving them such a thing. By the time I work out all the budgetary and logistical crazyness, I fall asleep. I am well aware that I am weird.

Anyway, every so often on my other site that is of no interest to anyone unless you really want to read about how I watched vintage 1993 episodes of 90210 at 6:30am this weekend (Donna graduated! My GOD were those people blonde! Not in a stereotypical dumb way but in a blinding-to-look-at way) I often post links to gift ideas, mostly to aid myself when I wonder what to get someone when it’s a gift-giving occasion. But since these gifts are Teh Awesome, I’m going to inflict my Gift Guiding Goodness on y’all, only this time no velvet… read more »

Using Blogs for Promotion - And Good Deeds

Can I just say that among my top ten least favorite words, the word “blog” is waaaay up near the top of the list? I don’t know if there is a more unattractive word in the English language. It’s just ... yuck.

But there’s no way that another term will supplant what is already a cemented part of the English language, so I will attempt to make my peace with the unappealing nomenclature, and move on to discussing What Blogs And That Wild Wooly Internet Can Do by Way Of Helping You Promote Yourself. Don’t crap yourself at this one, but Jane, Candy and I submitted a proposal to RWA National about that topic, and alas we are not on the docket. I promise we had a much nicer title than that one, but either way, our discussion about how to use the internet and blogs as self-promotional tools of the wunderkind variety will not be part of the national program. Feel free to accost me in the hall and ask my opinion, though. I’m more than happy to talk. But you knew that.

And, hey, let’s talk now. There’s all kinds of innovative promotion going on right… read more »