Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Saturday Night Live-Blog: Custom Ride by K.A. Mitchell

Head on over to DearAuthor.com tonight at 9 EST/8CST for another Saturday Night Live-Blog where Jane and I face off and simultaneously read and discuss a romance. Tonight’s book is a m/m short story - we’ve decided short stories and novellas work best for the format - Custom Ride by K.A. Mitchell.

Joining us will be two additional readers: Jane’s friend Jawk and Jace, who will also be reading along and commenting to give us an allegedly authentic gay male perspective. I presume they are actually (a) male and (b) gay, since they’ll be with Jane and I’ll be far far away. I mean, she could be making the whole thing up and Jawk and Jace are actually 4’ tall screaming purple teddy bears from the state fair won during a scurrilous battle of carnival ring toss, but for now I’ll believe her. If you can’t trust romance novel review bloggers, then for God’s sake who can you trust?

Read along with us if you like - we’ll be cracking open the book, the bottles of wine (I will anyway), and the read-along hilarity over at Jane’s place around… read more »

Buy a Contemporary, Save the World: Talk Me Down by Victoria Dahl

Here’s the deal: we dig this book. We dig this book like damn and whoa, and we think you will too. And yet, so many people say the contemporary romance is a dying breed. So, in order to spread the word and the opportunity to read it we’re doing a multi-level giveaway in tandem with our reviews of Talk Me Down.

In conjunction with the great giveaway below, Borders is offering a $1.00 coupon on any order of Talk Me Down to help “save the contemporary” but mostly to help debut contemporary writer Victoria Dahl and her book Talk Me Down. Visit Borders.com between December 15, 2008, and January 15, 2009, and you can save $1 on Talk Me Down. Simply enter promotion code HAR1222D during checkout.

Now, onto the giveaway:

Part the First: free books! Leave a comment with the preferred format (i.e., paper/ebook), and you’re automatically entered to win a copy. We each have 5 paper copies of the book plus 2 ebooks to give away, so drop a word here and at Dear Author and double your chances. Comments will be open for 48 hours starting now.

Second: Spread… read more »

Saturday Night Live-Blog

Saturday Night Live-Blog

Tune in to this here site Saturday night at 9EST/8CST for another SB&J live blog.

We agreed that the format would be much better suited to a novella, and since I am a total, total mad hatted loony fan for historical romance and for plot lines wherein a heroine makes herself fugly for whatever reason, we’re reading Annie Burrows’ Notorious Lord, Compromised Miss. I’m so looking forward to it.

Come on by and join in.

Dear Author/Smart Bitches Live Blog Read and Review

Tune in to Dear Author at 9 EST/8 CST for a live blogging read and review of Victoria Janssen’s The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover.

I think you can ask us questions while we read & review & type at the same time. So head on over and enjoy!

For Jo Leigh

Dear Author and Smart Bitches are teaming up to offer an item for the Jo Leigh auction to benefit author Jo Leigh, whose husband died of cancer on 13 June 2008 (coincidentally SB Sarah’s birthday) three years after they married, and whose medical bills are astronomical. Authors, editors, and bloggers have all donated a mess of items, from books to critiques to mentoring sessions.

Our contribution is a Winter Survival Kit, including a grab bag of 25 new Romance novels, both paper and audio, plus a $30 gift certificate to Fictionwise and a $30 gift certificate to Amazon.com. The link isn’t up yet but it will be soon.

But the total list of available items is astonishing, and we’re humbly pleased to be part of a stunning expression of generosity on the part of the romance community. Bid early, bid often.

Buy a Contemporary, Save the World: The Winner!

And the random integer generator has spoken. Over 80 people spread the word, and many a person mentioned their hope that the contemporary romance will not die but flourish happily. We certainly hope so.

Without further ado, or any ado at all, the winner is:

Margay! at http://www.myspace.com/margay1122

Congrats - please email Sarah or Jane or both, and we’ll make arrangements for a massive Amazon gift certificate to the tune of $100 to be delivered unto the inbox of your choice. Thanks for spreading the word, and stay tuned for more from Dear Author and Smart Bitches as we try to Save the Contemporary.

Don’t Forget: Save the Contemporary, Save the World

Don’t forget: you have until midnight Sunday 26 October Eastern time to hook me up with news of your spreading the world to Save the Contemporary. Link early, share often!

Buy a Contemporary, Save the World: Flat Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy

Jane has mentioned before that the contemporary romances that doesn’t feature vampires, campy vampires, werewolves, immortal peril, mortal peril, suspense out the wahoo, or extraordinary extraterrestrial extraneous circumstances seem to be fewer and far between. Every now and again I hear declarations that the contemporary romance is a dying subgenre and it’s harder and harder to find, and that if you’re not an established name, you’ll never get anywhere, because fewer people want to read contemporary romance.

So when we read Flat Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy, we were both blathering to each other about how awesome it was and how refreshing to have actual conflict between people caused by realistic tension stemming from ordinary life experiences between two marvelous characters. Contemporary romance done right? More please! So, following this review, read more about a multi-level contest sponsored by Dear Author, Smart Bitches, Berkeley and Erin McCarthy, a contest we hope will be a semi-regular feature here and at Dear Author where we try to Save the Contemporary.

The Open Source Boob Project: We Finally Weigh In

Yes, we know it’s a bit late to weigh in on the Open Source Boob Project. If you don’t know what it’s about, John Scalzi has a very concise summary and a more measured take on things than most anyone else I’ve read, and you can read the posts by the originator of the idea here, though you’ll need to scroll past a bunch of confusing apologies first.

The idea in and of itself, while ill-advised in some ways, didn’t strike me as especially controversial at first—hey, if somebody wants to opt-in for some boob groping at a science fiction convention, go team Boob Grope, and may the Force be with you. The ensuing comment wars and trainwreck, however, made this into a bona fide Internet Kerfuffle, and the more I thought about it, the more problematic the idea became. Check out the link round-up on Unfunny Business, which is incredibly comprehensive. I, personally, was e-mailed several links not just by a whole bunch of Smart Bitch readers, but several personal friends of mine who were all “Holy shit, dude, check this nuttiness out.” Apparently, when boob-groping by nerds comes up, I’m one of the first people to pop… read more »

Three Blog Review Debate

As Jane mentioned on Dear Author, DA, SB moi, and the Dr. toting masterminds at Teach me Tonight will be reviewing Virgin Slave, Barbarian King by Louise Allen. In the wake of the romance = the-patriarchy-is-keeping-me-down (and also hid my bag of chips) in the Guardian last week, it seemed like the only fun and spanky thing to do. Dr. Frantz gets mad props for the idea.

Well, I’ll be reviewing, and Jane will be reviewing. The Drs. of Luuuuurveâ„¢ will be nitpicking the shit out of the book, and spoiling it every which way until it begs for more, please, sir and ma’ams, but either way - it’s going to be loads of fun.

I’ve already informed the lot of them that from now on, I wish to be known as the Barbarian Virgin.

Cross Blogging - better than cross dressing!

Candy, Jane, and I are flailing away at the topic of moderation and mediation in comments on contentious blogs - not that we know whereof we speak or anything (*koff koff*)- on this month’s Cross Blog Debate, hosted at Dear Author. Go flail! Go on, go!

“Jane, You Ignorant Slut.”

Candy: I debated with myself long and hard about writing this. On one hand, I’m not sure what went on deserves to be dignified with a response. On the other hand, remaining silent might be interpreted as indifference, cowardice, turning a blind eye, or, worst of all, tacit approval of the shit we’ve seen being slung around in recent days. I finally decided I couldn’t keep my yap shut any longer, and the reason why I’m allowing the floodgates to open is this: ultimately, it’s not just about a specific blog, or a commenter, or a group commenters. Don’t get me wrong: I’m going to pick on one blog in particular, and pick on it hard because it exemplifies much that I find distasteful. But I want to also address an issue that I’ve seen over and over in many blogs—and I’m not just talking about romance blogs, either, though that’s what I’m going to talk about here, given the focus of this site. Essentially, there’s a type of discourse that goes along the lines of “You’re really mean, so you really need to watch your mouth, you ugly whore.” Most of the time, I shrug my shoulders and go… read more »