Bitchin' Blog Posts
: The Link-O-Lator
January 12, 2012 | Thursday at 2:54 pm | 9 Comments
Author Jim C. Hines has recreated several UF covers. This is so awesome, I don't know where to put my eyeballs first!
The insulin pump site is what makes it extra more awesome. High fives to you, sir!
I am waiting for the 'oops my ballgown is falling off my shoulders and is totally open in the back' pose. When's that coming, Jim?
What poses would you like to see Jim recreate?
In May 2011, a reader asked me about author Alison Richardson, who wrote a series of Spice Briefs. I was contacted by Ms. Richardson, who was very flattered that readers were looking for her. I have a message for you on the original entry from Ms. Richardson.
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January 10, 2012 | Tuesday at 3:28 pm | 24 Comments
From JaniceG: Hatpin! Self defense! Hatpins as self defense tools!
"When attacked from behind, she grasps a hatpin. Turning quickly, she is able to strike a fatal blow in the face."
This would be a good addition to steampunk. We don't need more googles. We need BIG ASS HATPINS holding on the fascinators, which themselves could double as ninja stars.
No, don't thank me, I'll be here all day. Me and my bottle of narcotic cough syrup.
Another link!
Somewhere in the last few days, I was tweeted this link. I have no idea where the origin is, so if it was you, you are totally awesome and made of all winsome things.
Have a look at what happens when REM song titles are made into book titles and sorted by genre. It's hilarious fun.
The "erotica" and "memoir" sections alone made me snort laugh.
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January 04, 2012 | Wednesday at 1:32 pm | 13 Comments
Big huge mazel tov to Barbara Vey, who will be published in "Chicken Soup for the Soul: Family Caregivers." Vey's story is about her role caring for her mom during her mom's terminal illness. If you've never heard Barbara speak about anything, go sit and ask her random questions because she's hilarious.
But if she talks about her mom, it'll make you teary, because her mom was one special lady - which is not a big surprise since Barbara is entirely awesome.
Congrats to Barbara on her upcoming publication!
Via Tina C. an amazing set of pictures: when you paint a room white and give kids thousands of colored stickers, art happens.
Back in October, Deirdre Donohue interviewed me for the USA Today "Life" section and the rest of the interview is online at the USAT Happy Ever After blog. Yay for not being restricted by column inches (huh huh. Inches).
So, what's up with you this week? Tired of being back after the vacation? What are you reading?
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January 01, 2012 | Sunday at 10:36 am | 3 Comments
A handful of coupons and rebates and things involving % signs!
Harlequin has eBook daily deals through 3 January. Today, for 1 January, four featured books are all 25% off with coupon code BESL25OFF at checkout. Sarah Mayberry's Best Laid Plans and Maria Snyder's Outside In are featured today.
You can also save an EXTRA 10% on all Harlequin Ebooks with coupon code SAVE10AFFO at checkout 
but I don't think you can combine that coupon code with the one above.
For those ordering print books from Harlequin, you can get free shipping with coupon code FREESHIPAFFO at checkout. Print books only - because as far as I know there's no shipping charge for ebooks. Heh.
Finally, you canget $1 Off select Kobo eBooks with coupon code Kobodollaroff
. It's not valid on everything but it should work on non-agency titles, and it expires at the end of the month.
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December 21, 2011 | Wednesday at 11:17 pm | 3 Comments
They don't have anything to do with Hanukkah per se, but There's Two Of Them, and tonight is the second night of Hanukkah. I am wild with the connections, aren't I?
First: From the charming and clever department, Brian O'Leary's holiday retelling of The Night Before Christmas, only with ebooks.
And Second: This is a cool Kickstarter project: The Monster Alphabet Board Book, created by Darren Gendron and Obsidian Abnormal, the folks behind HelloWithCheese.
Each letter of the alphabet is a different monster - and given how many of you are (a) parents of young kids and (b) total monster geeknerds, I figured you might like to know about it.
For $22 or more, donors get two copies of the book. I'm going to keep one to read to my kids, who will be totally giddy about it, and give one away here once its published. Stay tuned in the new year for funky monster options!
Question: have you ever funded a Kickstarter before? This is my first. It was fun - and very easy!
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December 16, 2011 | Friday at 11:38 am | 48 Comments
Ever wondered who your Perfect Regency Hero might be? Carolyn Jewel is here to help.
My results? The Brooding Duke, which reads in part, " chances are good he'll win you in a card game, take your virginity later that night then put you to work as his valet."
AWESOME!
Graceful curtsey to Elizabeth for the link!
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December 13, 2011 | Tuesday at 2:27 pm | 22 Comments
Courtney Milan's "Unraveled," better known as Smite's Story, is on sale now. Unveiled and Unclaimed were both book club selections, and so many readers were clamoring for Smite's story - I had to make sure you knew it was available. Otherwise someone might have smote me. [ AMZ | BN | ARe ]
Also on sale now for $1.99: Teresa Medeiros' Yours Until Dawn. [Kindle | BN & nook]
...
Via many people: Daniel Abraham's Private Letter from Genre to Mainstream - it is sharp and hilarious.
My favorite part: the reply letters in the comments.
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December 10, 2011 | Saturday at 10:55 am | 13 Comments
There's a lot going on here there and everywhere.
The winner of the Bad Sex award has been announced. The winner was David Guterson for "Ed King," a retelling of Oedipus. The winning, ahem, passage:
"In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap. After a while he shut his eyes, and Diane, wielding her fingernails now and staring at his face, helped him out with two practiced hands, one squeezing the family jewels, the other vigorous with the soap-and-warm-water treatment. It didn't take long for the beautiful and perfect Ed King to ejaculate for the fifth time in twelve hours, while looking like Roman public-bath statuary. Then they rinsed, dried, dressed, and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch."
Dude. Yawn.
I'm still taking suggestions for our bad sex 2011 award, which will be voted on shortly. Email me if you have a bad sex scene to suggest. Graceful curtsey to Deborah for the link.
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December 08, 2011 | Thursday at 12:20 am | 49 Comments
Time for a few 2011 holiday gift guides, with items selected or suggested by me, and by readers of the site. I collect links and ideas all year, so get ready. There will be a few editions of the gift guide!
First: from reader Alex, a whole STORE on Etsy of literary quote jewelry, from cuffs to earrings and necklaces. JezebelCharms has quotes from Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare - there's way too much to choose from.
This edition is full of silly and fun apparel - and some techy gifts at the end.
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December 05, 2011 | Monday at 4:17 pm | 25 Comments
Marianne Mancusi interviewed me at Galtime, talking about how romance novels are far from being horrible influences on us young impressionable women. Yay!
But wait, there's more!
Romance author Maya Rodale self-published a defense of romance novels titled Dangerous Books For Girls: The Bad Reputation Of Romance Novels Explained based in part on the research she did for her master's thesis. Apparently (I haven't read my copy yet) it has footnotes. SEXY AUDACIOUS FOOTNOTES. It's up on Amazon and should be up on BN.com shortly.
There's also a video - though the sound is uneven, so beware ye folks at work. It gets loud in a quick hurry. Don't get busted while rebelling against doing work by watching videos about rebellious reading.
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November 28, 2011 | Monday at 2:14 pm | 5 Comments
I really need some sort of feature image for the "links" post. I still like these guys though I don't know if I want to track down the rights to that image, since I don't think those are plugs when I glance at that picture.
Anyway!
From Chisai comes this link that really, and I mean it, take your breath away. In a good way. Seriously.
The Book Surgeon creates some amazing pieces of art from old books.
I looked at that page twice with my jaw hanging open and my eyes all wide, like what I was seeing wouldn't fit in them.
From Maria Popova at Brainpicker: the tragicomic truth of Male Superheroes drawn in the same style as female superheroes.
This is going to be hung on the door of my room when I'm reading. (I would have posted the image but I wasn't sure if I had permission to do so.) (I confess, Tumblr still baffles me at times.)
And finally, a link I forgot about and re-remembered today: Hot Guys Reading Books.
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November 28, 2011 | Monday at 8:24 am | 5 Comments
I thought to myself several times this weekend while shopping online (what? crowds? No, thanks.) that it was a shame there weren't more ebook sales on Black Friday or Cyber Monday or whatever else the sale days are called. But then, I forgot that AllRomance (sponsor of the Sizzling Book Club and generally awesome at customer service) is offering a Cyber Monday 50% Rebate sale.
That means any title that's incentive-eligible (i.e. not agency) - conveniently marked with this symbol: 
- is eligible for a 50% rebate. That's Harlequin, Samhain, Kensington, Sourcebooks -- anyone but the Big Six. Remember when Fictionwise had all those 50-100% rebate titles and folks had the equivalent of the GNP of Luxembourg in their Fictionwise rebate accounts? It's like that. You gather enough ebook bucks at AllRomance, you go shopping with your balance for quite awhile.
The individual book pages are not marked with the "after rebate" amount. You'll see the rebate total earned in your shopping…
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November 25, 2011 | Friday at 6:59 pm | 8 Comments
The RSS feed is probably still chasing its own tail, so here, have some links and assorted pieces of fun stuff.
Among the magazine subscription deals at Amazon today: $15 for a year of Entertainment Weekly, $12 for a year of Lucky, $17 for a year of Runner's World, $5 for Cosmopolitan, and $5 for Yoga Journal.
You can get 30% off everything at Samhain's bookstore with code sixpack11.
Robert Pattinson would like to make you laugh as he does the press tour for Twilight. Thanks to Cleolinda for the link.
If you ever want to make me laugh like a loon, just say, "Your vagina is haunted." This is an older link, but I think, if you haven't read it before, you'll enjoy that -- but do not have a beverage in your mouth.
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November 22, 2011 | Tuesday at 5:14 pm | 29 Comments
Link the First!
Heads up, everyone! The Bad Sex Shortlist (hur hur) has been released. It includes a Jean Auel book, The Land of the Painted Caves.
I think, no matter what it is, nothing shall top "The Weeping Furnace of Her Sheath."
But I would love to do a 2011 edition of Bad Sex in Romance, as we did for 2010. Any suggestions? Perhaps I'll rename it the "Weeping Furnace Award for Bad Sex." Nominations, passages (hur hur) and suggestions of questionably bizarre sex scenes are most welcome. It'll be epic. You, and your furnace, will weep.
And Link the Second!
The Guardian did a pretty intense profile of Nora Roberts, which partially retold anecdotes many of us have heard already, but this one section literally blew my mind:
...she has won 19 Rita awards from the Romance Writers of America, the association's highest accolade, as well as being inducted into its hall of fame; and she's spent more than…
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October 19, 2011 | Wednesday at 2:51 pm | 25 Comments
Big news of the day: Penguin has a digital-first imprint named InterMix which will launch in January 2012 with Nora Roberts backlist books previously published by Silhouette. From the press release:
InterMix will launch in January 2012 with the release of eleven classic books from Nora Roberts—titles that have never before been available as eBooks, including such popular series as Cordina’s Royal Family and The Donovan Legacy and several novels featuring fan favorites the O’Hurleys. Additional Nora Roberts eBooks will be published throughout 2012, with the second group—including seven of Roberts’s beloved novels about the MacGregor family—available in April.
President Leslie Gelbman is also quoted saying, “we’re not ruling out the possibility that some InterMix authors will join Berkley/NAL’s vibrant print publishing program.”
InterMix will also be reviving the Signet Regency line with books that have not previously been available as ebooks.
The press release doesn’t announce any pricing figures, however.
So place your bets: what do you think the price range will be for the digital re-releases and new books?
ETA! I have confirmation from Craig Burke, Director of Publicity, that the print price for the January Nora Roberts titles will be $6.99. The complete list…
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