Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Fantasy
May 22, 2012 | Tuesday | 2 Comments
This review was written by Sarah Elsewhere. This story was nominated in the Best First Book and the Best YA Romance category. The summary: Tessa doesn't believe in magic. Or Fate. But there's something weird about the dusty unicorn tapestry she discovers in a box of old books. She finds the creature woven within it compelling and frightening. After the tapestry comes into her possession, Tessa experiences dreams of the past and scenes from a brutal hunt that she herself participated in. When she accidentally pulls a thread from the tapestry, Tessa releases a terrible centuries old secret. She also…
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April 23, 2012 | Monday | 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…
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March 25, 2012 | Sunday | 6 Comments
The books on sale and discounted? They sell all of the copies. THE DEVIL YOU SAY! The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE Requiem for Ashes by David Crossman | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | Ride With Me: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance by Ruthie Knox | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE [SBTB review: B] Redwood Bend by Robyn Carr | Amazon | BN | Sony |…
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August 13, 2011 | Saturday | 10 Comments
This request for help comes from Wendy, who remembers a lot about the book, except, of course, the title. Which is why she’s here. I’ve been searching and searching for a book I read when I was much younger, at least 16 years ago, and someone recommended you guys to me in the hopes that you could help me out! I can’t remember the names of the characters, but the book was silver and it shimmered with rainbow flecks. It took place in the future and it was two opposing commanders of space fleets. The book starts out with the…
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August 03, 2011 | Wednesday | 48 Comments
This all you need to know. Hot and Steamy: Tales of Steampunk Romance is neither hot, nor steamy, nor romantic. It contains short stories that work more like sketchy idea pitches than like fully realized stories, the romances are perfunctory and either depressing or unbelievable (or, in many cases, both) and worst of all the collection is boring. I normally read one book every one to three days depending on length, content, and other commitments, and it took me almost two weeks to force myself to finish this because I. Was. Bored. I was really excited when this anthology came…
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June 14, 2011 | Tuesday | 15 Comments
Another guest review from Carrie S, who loves sci fi romance, and things steampunk as well. I love steampunk sooooo very much. Something about all those gears and goggles and mad scientists running around in improbable corsetry just enchants my very soul. So, I was very excited to read The Twisted Tale of Stormy Gale, by Christine Bell. Given the subject matter of a time traveler with a fondness for The Wizard of Oz, a character named “The Loony Duke of Leister”, and steampunk elements galore, I was hoping it would be a lot of fun. Given the brevity of…
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January 27, 2011 | Thursday | 142 Comments
A reader and graduate student named Kate emailed me this question: “Intrigued by the concept of well-written, professionally published erotica, I downloaded some of your recommendations. After sampling several I found a pattern that bothered me and yanked me out of the story. All of the male characters - and sometimes the females too - are described physically, right off the bat, as being tall, handsome, and having perfect sinewy muscular bodies that I’ve certainly never seen anywhere besides Michaelango’s David. I understand that romance and erotica are designed to be fantasies, and that the reader is assumed to be…
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December 05, 2010 | Sunday | 8 Comments
I flip my latkes in the air sometimes! Ok, I don’t. Mostly I eat them, while picking winners of our week-long contest-o-bration! The winner of Hanukkah Day Three, and a generation 2 Kindle with a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com is Z. Marquis. And the winner of Hanukkah, Day Four, and a big ol’ selection of paranormal, urban fantasy, and science fiction romance is Claudia S. Please email me your mailing address at sarahATsmartbitchestrashybooksDOTcom so I can mail your prize! The crazy prizegivery will continue through the rest of Hanukkah, so come on back for more chances to win books,…
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December 04, 2010 | Saturday | 427 Comments
Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, it’s not getting old yet, the candle lighting and the present opening and the awesome fried foods! So, let’s bring in more festival merriment to celebrate reading of both digital and paper books with yet another giveaway! I have a collection of urban fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal romance. It’s kinda huge. Huge like a sword that’s twice as long as three heroines, all wearing leather pants with just a hint of muffin top. All you have to do to win is leave a comment, and I’ll select a winner each day. These contests are open to…
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November 05, 2010 | Friday | 1 Comments
Wow. Nearly 350 comments in 24 hours. Someone wants some Gaiman Gabaldon Liu Butcher Beverly Putney Carey magic, and they wants it NOW. First, a note to clarify: I was being facetious in my entry about this contest. Of course I’ve heard of Neil Gaiman, Diana Gabaldon and Marjorie M. Liu. They’re only some seriously successful and frequently awesomepants writers. I was totally kidding, so please do not fear for my brain’s ability to familiarize itself with fiction. Now! I’ve combined the email entries with the blog comment entries and run the whole thing through a random selectinator. The winner,…
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November 03, 2010 | Wednesday | 334 Comments
In the mail this week, I received a finished copy of Songs of Love and Death, an anthology of new fiction from romance, science fiction and fantasy authors you’ve probably never heard of, like Neil Gaiman, Marjorie M. Liu, Diana Gabaldon, Jim Butcher, Jo Beverly, Mary Jo Putney, Jacqueline Carey and some other people. Gosh, it’s amazing how people with no track record of really honking excellent fiction get to assemble into an anthology AND get really slurpy-good cover art, isn’t it? Outrageous when that happens. Anyway, because (a) I have an ARC and (b) I’m not done with it…
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August 16, 2010 | Monday | 5 Comments
First, I’m working on updating a lot of the structural elements to the site, which is a big ol’ behemoth on the back end (hur hur back end) so if things look wonky, let me know and I’ll try to undo what I did, if I can remember what I did. Seriously, there is not enough diet Pepsi for work like this. I’m updating the About Us and the FAQ and other stuff, so if you’re looking for info, send up a flare and I’ll look into whatever it is you’re flaring, too. ETA: I’ve added an “edit comment” feature…
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June 30, 2010 | Wednesday | 70 Comments
Alert reader Robin N. sent me the following collection of images, asking, “I know you talk about the butt side vs the front side on covers, and the dismembered corpse. What I want to know is, what is it with this belt? Why do I see this belt on practically every UF book?”
Belt? There’s an urban fantasy belt? Oh yes, yes there is.
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May 03, 2010 | Monday | 97 Comments
First, the brainy and still making my head spin around with the ideas: Why there is no Jewish Narnia from the brand new Jewish Review of Books. The author, Michael Weingrad, examines why there is no Jewish fantasy author on par with Tolkein and Lewis, particularly given the depth and history of Jewish mysticism. His answers and ideas are so thoughtful and interesting I am still pondering, and I had to share. If you’re a fantasy or science fiction fan, this article looks at the genres from allegorical perspectives, and draws some conclusions as to why Jewish writers number very…
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March 25, 2010 | Thursday | 67 Comments
In one of those, “Wow, everyone’s thinking the same thing,” moments, Faygie Levy at RTBookReview (who is awesome) contacted me about my thoughts on the number of new romances featuring small towns and communities. Starting with the steadily growing popularity of Robyn Carr‘s Virgin River series, along with Toni Blake’s new Destiny series (which I think of as, “Why, yes. Yes, I am excited to read about Ohio”) there are a number of series and romance novel collections set in or around supremely small towns. There could be any number of reasons for this trend, and I won’t jump in…
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