Bitchin' Blog Posts
: General Bitching
May 14, 2012 | Monday at 4:23 am | 11 Comments
Awhile back, I was contacted by Beth, a library science student, about doing a school project. She needed to create an annotated bibliography, and wanted to know if I'd like to be her "client" for the project: "I am taking a course called Search and Discovery, which is a fancy name for using and evaluating online research tools and databases. Our final project for the course is to compile an annotated bibliography for someone with a research need."
I fail to see how this could possibly be a bad thing. Beth has piles and piles of databases at her fingertips, and I have piles and piles of nosy questions about romance readers, research and scholarship, so why the hell not, right?
I asked Beth to define an annotated bibliography for those of you who might not be familiar with the concept:
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May 13, 2012 | Sunday at 4:14 am | 7 Comments
Books on sale, books with good reviews, and books that a lot of folks are talking about online make up our bestseller list this week - like magic, isn't it? Amazing!
The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE Bared to You (A Crossfire Novel) by Sylvia Day | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE What She Needs by Anne Calhoun | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | HQN | ARE Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | Brook Street: Thief by Ava March | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | HQN | ARE The Long Shot by Ellen Hartman | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | HQN | ARE Regency Pirates: The Pirate Next Door by Jennifer Ashley | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE Dangerous Secrets by Lisa Renee…
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May 12, 2012 | Saturday at 12:32 pm | 7 Comments
Maria is looking for a book she read a very long time ago - and this HaBO may be quite tricky:
I have the plot of a book I read ages ago stuck in my head, but I cannot remember either author or title. It is set in Australia (possibly New Zealand, but I am pretty sure it's Australia). The heroine's fiance elopes with her best friend shortly before the wedding. The best friend was also about to marry someone else, the hero. Hero and heroine decide to get married for practical reasons: he is about to land a big contract to work for a year in a tropical island-kingdom, but it is a very conservative place and they won't give him the job unless he is married, she has no job (she has left her home town and her job (as the town librarian, I think) because of the humiliation of being jilted and she needs to get away.
They marry and go to the tropical island, where the marriage becomes real, they…
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May 12, 2012 | Saturday at 12:25 am | 14 Comments
Sarina is looking for two books she read a long time ago:
The first one was a Mills & Boon or harlequin or something (the cover had been torn off) and in it the hero and the heroine are at a costume party at a historic house when they get they get transported back in time via a painting. He bets his watch at a poker game and gets them some money, then they pretend to be a married couple. They can't leave until they solve the mystery of who murdered someone in the house they got transported back in time. I read it in highschool, so it would have been published before 1998. The one thing that always stuck in my head is that they have sex in a rocking chair.
The other one I'm much fuzzier on, it was one of the first I would have read, and it was tattered when I read it, so published pre 1997 I think. It was set either in Salem or somewhere salem-ish, and all I…
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May 11, 2012 | Friday at 12:26 pm | 6 Comments
Brigid asked for a recap of the event I was part of last Wednesday night, Edgy Moms in Suburbia, so here's my wrap up of the evening - with a LOT of links to books I want to buy, so be ye warned. They're not romances, though, so at least that's something.
I drafted my essay (or entry or article or whatever it was I was trying to write) about four or five different times, trying to figure out what the hell was edgy about me (I am not edgy. I am very rounded in all my parts), and ended up making a few key realizations, which was the focus of what I read/said. (I write up notes and then end up talking to the audience and forget to look at what I wrote. Sheesh).
1. "Edgy" is something that is defined externally. If you're doing something, it's normal. People observing you would be more likely to define something you do as "edgy." I don't think I'm edgy at all either way.
1.5 If you look up "edgy" on Urban Dictionary, "to keep…
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May 11, 2012 | Friday at 7:49 am | 3 Comments
Thanks Sveta for the nudge that reminded me I'd written all this out and not posted it. MY BAD. Sorry!
The winners of a digital copy of The Long Shot are:
Sally
Nadia
Alex
AKD
riwally
Amy
Gabriel
ReadingPenguin
Carrie Gwaltney
SarahA_B
Fiona Morrigan
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May 11, 2012 | Friday at 4:19 am | 7 Comments
From Petra comes this very silly and marvelously costumed commercial from New Zealand. As Petra says, "This is the ad for DB breweries in New Zealand. Although it shamelessly encourages the stereotypical dumb male - it never fails to crack my shit up. "
Link!
Those are some of the most glorious 80s haircuts and fashions I've beheld in recent weeks - not that I see a lot of 80s fashion, though I did see a pair of stonewashed pleated jean shorts on someone in Times Square and I did a double-take. Next it's peg jeans and scrunchy socks, right?
I hope your weekend is filled with all your favorite beverages and potent potables, and, if you're into that kind of thing, majestic mullets, too!
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May 10, 2012 | Thursday at 3:35 am | 7 Comments
This review was written by Phyllis Laatsch. This novella was nominated in the "Best Romance Novella" category. 
The summary: When law secretary Nell Rose is snowbound with a handsome stranger, keeping her New Year's Resolution becomes nearly impossible. Why swear off men when a romantic weekend with a reclusive writer seems to be the ideal way to ring in the new year?
And here is Phyllis' review:
A legal secretary gets stuck in a ditch in a snowstorm on New Year's Eve, just as she's making resolutions to avoid men, go back to school, etc. She trudges up to an isolated house and is let in by a famous author, who can't figure out if she's the stalker who's been sending him crazy letters.
The sparks between the hero and heroine were amazing. They really got each other, though they didn't want the same things out of life in the beginning. They acted on the attraction awfully quickly, especially since the heroine had just sworn off men. And yet,…
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May 10, 2012 | Thursday at 1:26 am | 45 Comments
I receive many requests for review daily. This is probably not a surprise. It increases with each review we do, particularly if I review a self published romance. I've begun to notice a pattern with the requests, and so I put together this list of tips to address them.
Here are a few hints on submitting for review here:
1. I don't accept every book pitched to me, nor do I guarantee a review.
1.5. We review romance fiction, with the occasional, and I mean occasional, diversion into novels with a strong romantic element, or nonfiction that might appeal to romance readers. I am partial to most sub-genres of romance with the exception of romantic suspense. Carrie S is all about fantasy and science fiction romance, and we both make the occasional foray into nonfiction. RedHeadedGirl reads the old skool classics, both awesome and crazysauce. But the majority of what we review here is romance. Not thrillers, spy comedies, books about investing, or nonfiction biographies of slain world leaders.
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May 09, 2012 | Wednesday at 12:40 pm | 41 Comments
I have a lot to say about this novella, so let's get the plot summary part done - which is not easy as a lot happens in a short space. Serena Barton was fired from her position as a governess because she was raped by the duke of Clermont, but because she didn't fight back or shout when it happened, she holds herself partially responsible. Serena is determined to be heard and seen now that she's pregnant, and decides for her own sake and the sake of the child she's now carrying, she will sit outside the duke's home and humiliate him - and cause more discord with the duke's very wealthy wife, alienating the duke from the spouse and fortune he very much needs. The longer she sits outside the duke's home in all sorts of lovely London weather, the more people will wonder, and talk, and speculate. She will cause the duke trouble by refusing to hide - especially when she begins to show.
Hugo Marshall is an employee of the duke of Clermont, known as "the Wolf of Clermont."…
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May 09, 2012 | Wednesday at 1:58 am | 61 Comments
I notice that when I read romances, I really enjoy scenes from the hero's point of view. I love the change in perspective, but more importantly, I love scenes where, because I know the character from the prose, I almost know already what he's thinking.
But then, I realized, we've known for a long time what men are thinking in romanceland. Take, for example, these marvelous examples of portraiture which are all courtesy of the amazing old skool collection of JamiSings, who scanned and sent all these images to me.
I think we've been subtly taught by these cover images what the romance hero is thinking, particularly about fashion. These heroes are here to guide us through important heroic wardrobe decisions.
Wardrobe is very important. Whether you're in the dazzling Tudor court or the sparkling Regency or the semi-carbonated Jacobean era, what you wear is crucial. See? This poor man looks miserable.
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May 08, 2012 | Tuesday at 11:19 am | 21 Comments
Be Ye Warned, HarperCollins has put an epic ton of books on sale today, including a pile of Barbara Delinsky's backlist, and some lovely books by Brenda Joyce. I'm sorry in advance.
But first, links!
I don't know how I ended up reading about women in the pornography industry, but this link came from Darien the day after I'd read for hours online about how women work in the porn industry - and not in front of the camera.
First, I read this article about women who work behind the scenes (no pun intended) including one woman who is the makeup artist for all the naked people, and another, Anna Span, who directs films:
In my teens, I was very anti-porn. I thought women were being exploited. But when I went to college to study fine art, something clicked.
Men were able to use their sexuality. Why not help women take advantage of theirs?
Now I’ve shot over 200 explicit scenes, and my films are among the most popular with UK women.
I use…
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May 08, 2012 | Tuesday at 1:23 am | 15 Comments
Some people want scientific explanations for everything in fiction. I'm not one of them. Frankly, I prefer it if we never know why the zombies walk the earth, or how the Force works, but if the author feels he or she simply must try to explain the science of what's happening, I'll usually accept it and move on. You can get away with a lot of bad science and as long as the characters are compelling, I don't care. But people, this was just too much.
The premise of The Last Night, insofar as I understood it in one reading, is that a chain of devastating earthquakes worldwide destroyed all the cities. The earthquakes, and volcanic activities, still rumble every few days. All this seismic activity churned up the soil and unleashed previously buried microbes that infected people, turning them into "ashers". Ashers have skin (and possibly internal organs - I wasn't clear on this) that has turned to stone (or a stone-like substance). They have the mindless persistence of standard zombies but they can feel fear…
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May 07, 2012 | Monday at 2:06 am | 15 Comments
This is the first in a series of four books, and I think this is a good example of decent western romances (which I promised after the Scoundrel’s Captive debacle), and an author making the effort (and succeeding!) at not writing the same book over and over and over again (Dan Brown: take notes) (I do rag on Dan Brown a lot, don’t I?) (HE DESERVES IT).
So this series is about the Jarrett siblings- Texans all (why is it always Texas?) and great lays- except for the oldest brother. Because he is the parental figure that raised the rest of ‘em and as we all know, parents do not have great sex.
….
Anyway, I read the first one back in my misspent youth, Silver Surrender, and always had this niggling feeling that there were clearly MORE, so when I started this venture, I found the rest of them. And they are my very favoritist type of bubblegum reads. Crazy, but not too crazy, likable characters, high adventure, hot sex, FANTASTIC CLOTHES.
(I’m…
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May 06, 2012 | Sunday at 4:14 am | 2 Comments
Hello there, bestseller list!
Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel by Sylvia Day | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
The Governess Affair (The Brothers Sinister) by Courtney Milan | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
Flawless by Lara Chapman | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
Regency Pirates: Pirate Next Door by Jennifer Ashley | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
Master of Crows by Grace Draven, Lora Gasway, Mel Sanders and Louisa Gallie | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo |
The Long Shot by Ellen Hartman | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | HQN | ARE
Beguiling the Beauty by Sherry Thomas | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo |
A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
Sabriel with Bonus Materials by Garth Nix | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
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