Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Bitch
February 02, 2011 | Wednesday | 122 Comments
So here’s something I never expected from Bitch Magazine. Really. I’m sort of horrified and appalled and wondering if someone over there fell and hit their heads. Bitch posted their 100 YA books for the Feminist Reader list, and of course, like any thing that is (a) a list (b) adorned with the word “feminist” and (c) on the internet, there was lots of discussion. And disagreement. And expressions of disappointment. Some didn’t like that certain books were left off, and some didn’t like the books that were selected, particularly those that were sexually violent or challenging to the reader’s…
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October 22, 2010 | Friday | 23 Comments
Heads up! The Book Club Chat for our discussion of Zoe Archer’s Scoundrel will be Wednesday, 27 October at 10pm EDT/7pm PDT. Remember, you can get a digital copy from the Smart Bitch Sizzling Book Club partner All Romance eBooks with a sexy 50% rebate - just use coupon code “SBTBARE” at checkout. You can also shop at Amazon or the bookstore of your choice. The chat will take place here at the site - there will be a chat window live and hopping when the book club is in session. Zoe Archer will join us at 11pm EDT to…
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October 19, 2010 | Tuesday | 22 Comments
Dear Smart Bitch Sarah: I’ll go on and ‘fess up. I’m unlikely to be a lead character in a romance novel. I’m the friend who helps one of the main characters talk it out and see sense. But I need to check myself here. After all, I could be wrong. Because of fractal theory (aka, it never rains but it pours), Several of my friends have been involved in some manipulative relationships, including one friend actually does the manipulating. She said being irrational is a good thing, because she can “act upset and get her boyfriend to pay attention to…
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October 07, 2010 | Thursday | 142 Comments
I recently discovered three advice email messages in the spam folder - which I feel really shitty about and I apologize. This letter came in mid-August, and while it’s been almost 2 months since it was sent, I wanted to answer it and discuss here because the romance/porn accusation is unfortunately perennial. That said, I don’t know if this person is still in this relationship and I don’t have an update. Dear Smart Bitch Sarah: I have a general question for anyone who also loves romance that may be willing to help me untangle a sticky situation in my current…
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September 30, 2010 | Thursday | 8 Comments
Mind the teacakes, as we have a fiesta of coronation to accomplish! As is the tradition, anyone who guesses a HaBO (otherwise known as Help a Bitch Out) query on the first try in the first comment AND has their answer confirmed either by majority agreement or by the original asker wins a Smart Bitch Title™. As of now, we have three! For identifying the correct book for Billie Bloebaum, we invite you to kneel, Barb, and arise a member of the Peerage. For assisting in the identification of Stef Ann Holm’s Harmony, I invite you to kneel, Azure, and…
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August 30, 2010 | Monday | 241 Comments
To celebrate the release of Wicked Delights of a Bridal Bed by Tracy Anne Warren, Avon has come up with an absolutely honking enormo-gigundous awesome contest. Tell us your favorite wedding night story - touching, funny, silly, sexy, bizarre, whatever - in the comments, whether it’s your story or the story of someone you know, and we’ll pick one winner. What does that winner receive? A bed. No, really. A Bed. The winner will receive a $2000.00 US gift certificate to Tempurpedic, for use in buying your own squishy-comfy bed. Wicked delights are optional, but I trust you can work…
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August 13, 2010 | Friday | 10 Comments
It’s been awhile but it’s time to welcome another member of the Smart Bitch Peerage into our midst. Brush off your best curtsey (ZOMG I typoed “breast curtsey” which is AWESOME) as we assemble for coronation!
Amanda, for being the first to recognize Jude from Jewels of the Sun by Nora Roberts, we invite you to kneel for your title:
Welcome to the peerage - nice job!
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July 01, 2010 | Thursday | 47 Comments
Erin asks for your help with a book featuring time travel, and fake virginity loss! I’ve been a lurker on the site for a while and have seen the ladies of SBTB help many a bitch out. I’m hoping they can help me too. The book I’m looking for is about 10 years old (published before 2001 for sure). I think its by an author who was/is fairly popular because I believe I came across the book several years after reading it and was all “wow, I didn’t know that was by!” What I remember is this.. the heroine starts…
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March 04, 2010 | Thursday | 25 Comments
Lisa writes: I’ve been looking for this book on and off for the past years - the problem is compounded by the fact that I first (and second, and third, and fourth…) read it in its translated to Swedish Harlequin incarnation, so have no idea what it might have been called in the English original. At the beginning, the woman is working as some kind of showgirl in Paris, when she meets this guy who’s been watching the show. Turns out he’s her step-brother, and he’s come to find her cause her mother, who by all accounts was a selfish…
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February 25, 2010 | Thursday | 67 Comments
From Faye, you have to read this one to believe it: Can you help a bitch out? I’m trying to track down a book with a contender for possibly the best internal dialogue of any hero I’ve read: “Sure, he loved pot roast, but he was careening completely out of control here.” Even my husband remembers this line. I believe it was published with another short book (maybe by HQN? I think?). I’m pretty sure the hero is dating his secretary, and the above brilliance occurs when he goes to her house for dinner (pot roast, of course) and realizes…
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January 19, 2010 | Tuesday | 10 Comments
Way back in the day, we used to award titles for those who won contests, from “Guess That Lonely Heart” to random acts of creativity to nailing the right answer to a Help a Bitch Out inquiry in the first comment and having that right answer confirmed. So, Anu, come on down, because it’s coronation time in honor of your immediate identification of the brooding English actor hero. Coronation? Yup - we bestow titles. Royalty titles. Slightly raunchy, utterly bizarre titles. So kneel, Anu, and I, as Her Grace, the Duchess of Cuntington, announce thy Smart Bitch Title™: Welcome to…
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December 08, 2009 | Tuesday | 82 Comments
Huffington Post invited me to submit a rebuttal to the article by Alan Elsner that I mentioned in passing late last week. Mr. Elsner took a stack of romances from the library, read them, and pronounced the entire genre as absolute crap. My response is now up over at Huffington Post’s book section: Pride and Prejudice and Pedantry. An excerpt: In response, I refer to that book he holds in such high regard, “Pride and Prejudice”, by Jane Austen: “You have insulted me in every possible method. You can now have nothing farther to say.” A shabby, patched-up survey of…
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July 15, 2009 | Wednesday | 5 Comments
A few pieces of news from RWA: - RWA registration comes with a thumb drive from Harlequin preloaded with three books: Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch by B.J. Daniels, Slow Hands by Leslie Kelly and My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent, plus the complete Heart of a Woman art exhibit. HOW COOL IS THAT?! - There’s a new session on the calendar! 4:30 on Thursday 16 July: Digital Initiatives with Malle Vallik, Rachel Chou, Rachel Vincent and moderator Sarah Wendell How are authors and publishers innovating and using technology to connect with readers? Come to this session to hear…
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July 02, 2009 | Thursday | 5 Comments
Question: are fill-in-the-blank javascripts the most funnest thing ever? Y/Y? Y! Thank you to the HOLY CRAP THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE of you who had fun with the Smart Bitch Romantic Suspense Blurbs Gone Wild! I’ll have to hang out with Mr. Java and his script to make more fun, huh? Woo! And now, a special message from Roxanne St. Claire: Two hours? Just gone. Two hours laughing my ass off at those mad libs, trying to pick winners, which was flipping impossible. I loved so many of them. Here are three that really caught me because they were either…
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June 08, 2009 | Monday | 89 Comments
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago (ok, it was January, but online that’s, like, nine years ago or some shit), DocTurtle read and blogged about his romance exploration, a readerly tour of romance 101 directed by recommendations from the Bitchery. First he read Sex, Straight Up, because he dismissed the category genre in an offhand remark and I challenged him to put his reading where is snark is. He agreed, discovered the Power of Lurrrrrrve™, and went on to read Heyer’s An Infamous Army. Then, he picked up Lord of Scoundrels, the book that drags people into…
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