Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

The Final Four: Round One Results

Results of the Paranormal v. Historical (Round 1 of the Final Four)

Combining the results of both Dear Author and Smart Bitches’ polls, here are the results:

The winner is Colleen Gleason’s The Rest Falls Away which won by a total of 37 votes.  Over here, Colleen’s book garnered 38 more votes than Elizabeth Hoyt’s The Serpent Prince.  At DA, The Serpent Prince received one more vote than The Rest Falls Away.  Don’t forget to vote in the second of the Final Four polls:  Erotica/Erotic Romance v. Contemporary both here and at Dear Author.

Click on the links to our sponsors to let them know that you actually are paying attention to the contest. It’s for a good cause (not really, but the words “good cause” usually gets people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do).

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Nipples and gratuituous use of the word “heteronormative”

Nipples! Thanks to Bitchery reader Susanne vai Boingboing, nipples are Photoshopped off of male wrestler mantitty for billboard in Florida.

Nipples, it may be, are against the law in Florida. Not having them. Just showing them (remind me, next time I go to Florida, to bring a lined bra and leave at home a few specifically nipple-friendly t-shirts I own). Fascinating discussion of why no one takes sociology seriously anymore follows the original post—my response? Hey, romance novels and man titty aren’t either, and lemme tell you. Man Titty is serious business!

Also, I would like to officially state that “heteronormative” is my new favorite word, and I’m going to use it at least six times a day.

Calling All Pittsburghers

When I travel to conferences, I like to do a short list of restaurants that I find online that are walking distance from the hotel. It seems that will be even more important for the Romantic Times convention in Pittsburgh in 2 weeks, because the Hilton Pittsburgh is under renovation, affecting all floors, the lobby, and the restaurant.

Fortunately, I’m from the ‘burgh, and have started to sketch out a list of walkable places to eat, both pricey and essentials-only. For example, there is indeed a Starbucks in walking distance, in Market Square. So caffeine-addicted folks like me, I’ll meet you there. I’m the bleary-eyed one with the glasses.

So - what restaurants in the downtown area to you recommend? And if you want to get brave and challenge us conference folks to the adventures of PAT transit, what bus-able or trolley-able places to eat do you love? Please feel free to post in the comments or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I’ll be posting a dining guide for the RT convention in the next few days. See you in Pittsburgh.

And for the record: it fucking SUCKS that the Pirates are not in town. Screw hotel construction -that… read more »

Friday Videos: Exercise, Assault, and Breaking Up—the Japanese Way

Going with last week’s Japanese theme, this week’s Friday videos involve Japanese girls exercising their wrists while learning English phrases for breaking up.

The video on assault is even better.

Ennnn-joy.

If you search for “Zuiikin girls” on Youtube, you’ll find a fuckton of these, with an assortment of indispensable English phrases taught by Japanese girls in bitchin’ spandex and a mean twirly wrist workout.

You can thank me later.

Looking for some TV to Watch?

If you’re in the States and have a public television channel, check this out: Nature is running a two-part show about What Females Want and, in part two, What Males Will Do. It’s all about seduction in the animal kingdom, and what males of varying species go through to seduce and attract teh wimmins. Part one is on Sunday on the PBS nearest me (I think I have three different PBS stations between NYC, NJ and Long Island. And not a damn one of them is showing the BBC Coupling reruns any longer, nor The Vicar of Dibley dammit. But enough of my love for British sitcoms and Dawn French).

Back to the Animal attraction! The miniseries is totally programmed into the DVR (in HD, too, and Hubby will flip if the DVR fills up and he doesn’t get his recordings in) because it sounds incredibly interesting:

From spiders that dance and monkeys that drum in the name of love, to female geladas that seek male partners with hot, red chest patches—this program about sexual selection explores the unique behaviors and special adaptations that determine how animals pick their mates, and how these selections affect future generations. In some… read more »

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.