Bitchin' Blog Posts
April 26, 2012 | Thursday at 4:00 am | 43 Comments
It seems I have been looking at book covers for far, far too long. I now recognize when Ewa Da Cruz is featured on a cover, and I can almost tell the artist when I look at a picture. I'm not the only one keep track - this Pinterest board has artist and model notes, too.
But I'm beginning to think there's something seriously wrong when I can recognize the same two people from a very sexual photo shoot. Have a look - and BE YE WARNED. This is so not safe for work:
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April 26, 2012 | Thursday at 1:28 am | 26 Comments
I was intrigued by the description of this book:
When soccer star Chris Fischer moves next door to an openly gay classmate, he doesn't realize the wall between their rooms will be so thin he'll hear his neighbor's every move. But soon he and Peter become friends, and Chris is intrigued—imagining what happens on the other side of the wall.
Active on the Queer Student Council, Peter Cohen wishes he wasn't so damn hot for his straight neighbor. He can't tell if Chris is flirting or in denial or what, but Chris's innocent overtures lure Peter into flirtation that throws his world into chaos. Peter doesn't want to date a closet case, but he desperately, passionately wants Chris.
Soon Chris must choose whether to run away from his new feelings or embrace a relationship with the guy he loves. And Peter must decide if he can give his heart to a guy who hasn't yet figured it all out.
However, that summary contains things that don't appear in the book. For example, Peter isn't on the Queer Student Council in any scenes in the book, though the narration mentions it in passing, nor does he…
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April 25, 2012 | Wednesday at 11:47 am | 10 Comments
This RITA Reader Challenge review was written by Jenn. This book is nominated in the Best Historical Romance category.
The summary: Cameron Mackenzie is a man who loves only horses and women - in that order - or so his mistresses say.
Ainsley Douglas is a woman with a strong sense of justice and the desire to help others - even if that means sneaking around a rakish man's bedchamber.
Which is exactly where Cam finds her - six years after he caught her the first time. Only then, she convinced Cam she was seeking a liaison, but couldn't go through with it because of her husband. Now a widow, she's on a mission to retrieve letters that could prove embarrassing to the queen. Cam has no interest in Ainsley's subterfuge, but he vows to finish what they started those many years ago. One game, one kiss at a time, he plans to seduce her. And what starts out as a lusty diversion may…
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April 25, 2012 | Wednesday at 12:39 am | 4 Comments
This RITA Reader Challenge review is from Kristi Davis. This book is nominated in the "Best YA Romance" category for the RITAs this year.
The summary: Sarah Burke is just about perfect. She's got killer blue eyes, gorgeous blond hair, and impeccable grades. There's just one tiny-all right, enormous-flaw: her nose. But even that's not so bad. Sarah's got the best best friend and big goals for print journalism fame.
On the first day of senior year, Rock Conway walks into her journalism class and, well, rocks her world. Problem is, her best friend, Kristen, falls for him too. And when Rock and Kristen stand together, it's like Barbie and Ken come to life. So when Kristen begs Sarah to help her nab Rock, Sarah does the only thing a best friend can do-she agrees. For someone so smart, what was she thinking?
And here is Kristi's review:
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April 24, 2012 | Tuesday at 10:15 am | 22 Comments
First! A friendly reminder: the Sizzling Book Club Chat for Tamara Morgan's Love is a Battlefield is Thursday night at 9pm! Need a handy button to add that to your trusty calendar? Here you go:
I hope you'll join us! I'm trying to figure out if I can simultaneously host the chat at the SBTB Facebook page, too, so you may be able to hang out at Ye Olde Face Booke and join in from there. I have been on a serious contemporary romance kick lately, and I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I did.
Jim C. Hines rocks the cover model gig again - and it's as good as the last time.
GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELF JIM.
His poses are in response to this amazing piece of image commentary from Emily Asher-Perrin, titled "Hey, Everyone. Stop Taking This Picture. No, I Mean It."
Not to mention the Avengers Booty Ass-emble by Kevin Bolk.
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April 24, 2012 | Tuesday at 12:15 am | 487 Comments
I have a fun and funky giveaway today, so get ready!
Lynsay Sands' Argeneau series has a new book, Under a Vampire Moon ( A | BN | K | S ), and Avon has offered some very fun prizes for you.
Because Under a Vampire Moon is partly about travel to exotic locales (in this case, St. Lucia), the prize is travel and beach themed, and I think the grand prize is really spiffy.
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April 23, 2012 | Monday at 11:28 am | 17 Comments
This RITA Reader Challenge review comes from Library Addict. This book is nominated in the Romantic Suspense category.
The summary: The number-one New York Times-bestselling author J. D. Robb presents an intense and terrifying new case for New York homicide cop Eve Dallas, one that will take her all the way to the city that gave her her name-and plunge her into the nightmares of her childhood.
When a monster named Isaac McQueen-taken down by Eve back in her uniform days-escapes from Rikers, he has two things in mind. One is to pick up where he left off, abducting young victims and leaving them scarred in both mind and body. The other is to get revenge on the woman who stopped him all those years ago.
And here is Library Addict's review:
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April 23, 2012 | Monday at 10:43 am | 197 Comments
In a series of links that dropped my jaw, made me shake my head, and feel a boatload of "Oh, No," here's an eyeopening series on how to catch someone stealing your content online, which was posted today by CuddleBuggery after Katiebabs saw an anonymous link on this older post on plagarism.
The follow posts are from January 2012, and I'm not sure why the book blogging community wasn't aware of it until now.
Kristi Diehm, better known as The Story Siren, was allegedly caught lifting articles about blogging and making minimal changes to them for her site. Bloggers B from Beautifully Invisible and Vahni from Grit and Glamour found the evidence and confronted her about it. Their entire story is like a master tutorial on how to use analytics to identify who is reading a website, and when - and in this case, possibly why.
Part the first: Beautifully Invisible is plagiarized, and figures out who it is, where they came from, and what they looked at.
Part the second: Grit & Glamour explains options for dealing with similar circumstances,…
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April 23, 2012 | Monday at 4:21 am | 17 Comments
Betty Fokker wrote a guest review of Lucy March's "A Little Night Magic," and I wanted to share it with you.
must make with the confession. I am an Internet-Pal of Lucy March/Lani Diane Rich. It is like being a real-life friend, except we’ve never gotten drunk and talked each other into getting a Tramp Stamp of jumping dolphins at 3:00 AM. (Not that this has happened to me.) This means that I am not without favorable bias when I read her work.
However, my mild mannered mundane self is an academic, and I swore on a Roget’s Thesaurus that all literary reviews would contain some criticism. The penalties for “failing to critique” are harsh. You have to watch Jaws IV without commenting on the plot holes or bad special effects, and you are accused of having written a “hagiography” about an author. You’ll go to academic conferences and someone will have scrawled “hagiographer” across your place card in red marker. No one will sit with you at lunch. It gets real ugly, real fast.
A Little Night Magic is Lani Diane Rich’s first offering…
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April 22, 2012 | Sunday at 12:14 am | 18 Comments
Earls! Lots of earls. We gotta lotta earls up in here! Earls on sale!
Master of Crows by Grace Draven, Lora Gasway, Mel Sanders and Louisa Gallie | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | The Only Gold by Tamara Allen and Cory Clubb | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE I Kissed an Earl: Pennyroyal Green Series by Julie Ann Long | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE To Wed a Wicked Earl by Olivia Parker | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE The Earl of Her Dreams by Anne Mallory | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE As An Earl Desires by Lorraine Heath | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE Regency Pirates: Pirate Next Door by Jennifer Ashley | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE The Return of the Earl by Edith Layton | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE Downtime by Tamara Allen…
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April 21, 2012 | Saturday at 9:25 am | 27 Comments
Data and deals, we have!
First: Rainbow Romance Writers are doing a survey of romance readers and asked me to pass along the link to you. I enquired what the survey data was going to used for, and they told me, "we're mostly just gathering intel. It's sort of piggybacking off of the survey that RWA did recently but with a few more specific questions, with some focus on LGBT romance, although we're looking for a pretty broad range of responses. Some of what we do with what we find will depend on what the data reveals, but we may use the findings in chapter literature and in public advocacy with vendors and the media. (And responses are anonymous.)" If you're interested in participating or looking at the questions, the survey is online.
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April 21, 2012 | Saturday at 12:07 am | 26 Comments
As I'm sure you already know, there's more to romance and more to Romantic Times than man titty. Much like a romance novel, there's a lot happening on the surface of the conference, and a lot more interesting things going on behind that surface.
For example, CNBC was broadcasting live from RT, and focusing lightly on the business numbers of romance as an industry while showcasing shirtless men, women gathered, sometimes in white boas, generally conveying a rather awkward party atmosphere.
And of course, erotica, and "mommy porn" was brought up.
Of note: one of the most hilarious visual compositions is the news reporter with a giant headless pectoral bouncing along next to the her in the near-background. Floating man titty!
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April 20, 2012 | Friday at 2:50 pm | 15 Comments
Surprise, surprise, Nalini Singh was in our hotel room, so we tied her to a chair and interviewed her. She's live, not on Skype, and it's a really fun and casual conversation because we didn't plan to do this. We had the microphone and a half hour to chat. We did attempt to get real answers out of her, and were totally unsuccessful, despite threats and stares of doom.
You'll hear about how Nalini approaches her writing and her series, and we talk about heroines, reality television, reading romance, and Gwen Stefani, too.
Here are some of the books, foods, and songs we talked about in the podcast:
And, here is…
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April 20, 2012 | Friday at 11:06 am | 70 Comments
Today's Friday Video is all about sexually active senior citizens, but I had an email about it about a half hour ago that led to an interesting conversation. Meike wrote:
The desire for more mature characters in erotic romance fiction is becoming more important to me as I become one of them. It gets a little tiring to always read about these beautiful young bodies having this amazing sex. I would love to hear about the amazing sex us softer oldies are having. Sure, I read to escape, but I also like to feel a part of a story, feel like I can fully relate to the character. Hopefully authors will realize the babyboomers are ready for mature erotica.
I wrote back and asked, "Here's a question: do you like mature erotica that features older protagonists, or do you also have some interest in older heroines and younger men? Ellora's Cave did a series recently that was termed "cougar" lit - all about older women and younger men. Would that interest you, or do you want older protagonists…
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April 20, 2012 | Friday at 12:27 am | 20 Comments
Via Angela James and several email messages comes this PSA about sexually transmitted diseases among senior citizens:
Link!
While the PSA is hilarious, the facts are that STD infections and HIV infections are on the rise among senior citizens in the US, particularly in Florida, where many retirees live or spend the winter. This is a group of people who grew up without safe sex counseling, and, as the article above states, were in their 20s in the 1960s. (My favorite part of that article: "As a result of the increase in infections, Medicare is considering providing coverage for STD screening and behavioral counseling for seniors." I wonder what the political fallout of that consideration might be! *headdesk*)
I personally love when there are romance storylines for ancillary characters that are older than the romance norm, and wonder if there will be more romances featuring older couples as the primary protagonists. Do you know of any? Have you read some?
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