Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Heroes
November 14, 2011 | Monday | 111 Comments
I started this post on 25 October, and put it aside because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. In mid-October, I put Heavy D’s “Now That We’ve Found Love” on my running mix and was thinking about the song and how much I liked it (and Heavy D) while I was out one day. Heavy D died unexpectedly on 8 November at age 44, and the news headline made me remember this post and that I’d never finished it. While I’m still not sure that I made every point I wanted to make (my train of thought while…
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November 12, 2011 | Saturday | 138 Comments
I have an anonymous request for a “Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid” list: Like many of us, I cope with things by reading about them, and I love finding a book about someone who has problems similar to mine and is able to thrive. I was recently diagnosed with a chronic condition that will almost certainly affect the rest of my life. It’s not fatal, and it’s not degenerative, but it is likely to lead to some level of physical disability in the future. I am thus wondering about books with heroines who are physically disabled. I know there…
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August 11, 2011 | Thursday | 90 Comments
This request comes from Louisa, who is looking for a specific type of plot device - in the back story.
I’m looking for books that might counter-balance a very specific pet peeve
of mine. I call it the “I only THOUGHT I knew what love is” syndrome.
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August 09, 2011 | Tuesday | 54 Comments
Many books establish reader sympathy for the tortured hero early in the book. Reader sympathy allows a secret and somewhat omniscient understanding of what appears to other characters to be aloof, arrogant or even cruel behavior. If the reader didn’t know the hero has a tortured, miserable past, or a turning point in his life that changed his character, he’d seem more like a shit and less like a hero. In Lord of Scoundrels, Loretta Chase establishes from the earliest pages Dain’s miserable childhood, and his feelings of distrust, abandonment, and shame. He does not fit, he does not look…
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June 17, 2011 | Friday | 18 Comments
Links are from the internet! From Megan: My Daguerreotype Boyfriend which is pretty much the best example of Why Tumblr Was Invented. Daguerreotypes of hot dudes. Real men discuss the things they love about their girlfriends and wives. Henry, age 81, is a total keeper. “Go the F*ck to Sleep” is available as read by Samuel L. Jackson for FREE from Audible for a limited time. Thanks to ShelfAwareness for the heads up. You can also listen online at Huffington Post. To quote Hubby, “It would have been criminal if anyone else had recorded the audio for this book.” Fuck…
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May 04, 2011 | Wednesday | 70 Comments
I’ve received two email messages asking for Navy SEAL romance recommendations. I WONDER WHY. So list night I asked on The Twitter if anyone would be interested in a reader-generated list of recommended SEAL and special forces romances. The response was very, very positive. AGAIN. I wonder why. (Not.) So if you’re thinking a military hero would totally rock your reading socks right now, bring it on. Lynn Raye Harris said last night that she would want to learn more about any “Special Forces romances…. Army’s Delta Force is pretty bad ass. Marine’s Force Recon aren’t slouches either.” Hell, yes.…
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April 21, 2011 | Thursday | 109 Comments
Time for another Good Shit Vs. Shit To Avoid, this time prompted by Amanda, who is searching for books with strong female friendships: I am looking for a book to read. I’ve been a little bored with the romance novel offerings and here’s why: Why doesn’t anybody ever have a friend? None of the women ever have any friends! I mean, sometimes they have a convenient “This is my friend, sometimes I see her in a park, a ballroom (if historical), or in yoga class (if contemporary). We talk for five minutes and then we don’t think about each other…
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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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January 05, 2011 | Wednesday | 172 Comments
I was shopping for a birthday present for a 5 year old and realized what an absolute bazooka buffet of Disney princess merchandise there is. It is princesstacular out there. And this made me start thinking about Disney heroes - and which princes and heroes were my favorite. I asked the question on Twitter and Facebook, and had such a response I wanted to ask here as well. On Twitter, the majority liked the Beast - in beast form - from Beauty and the Beast. I figure this is a clear case of loving the bad boy who learns to…
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September 15, 2010 | Wednesday | 95 Comments
Today on Twitter (that sounds like a really bad show on an entertainment network, doesn’t it?) I mentioned that I encounter a lot of heroes who smell “woodsy” but had no idea what that meant. Swampy? Like pine trees? Cedar? Hickory? Like firewood, pre- or post-campfire? A few people suggested cedar, or, as Maisey Yates said, “like sticking your head in the Pacific Northwest.” Having never smelled the PNW, I’ll take your word for it that this is a good smell. But this conversation got me thinking - why are there not more romance-novel tie-in products? I mean, think of…
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February 17, 2010 | Wednesday | 11 Comments
First: someone buy Claire Folkman more romance novels because OMG does she have it RIGHT. Books that “never give you a moment to yourself?” SO true. So wonderful and yet so awful - especially the “you don’t even know why you’re still reading.” Is it me, or is it when you’re at your most OMGCRAZEE busy that you find the most sticky, invasive, brain-kudzu books that won’t let you think about doing anything other than reading? In the Guardian’s recent article, An Insiders Guide to writing for Mills & Boon , Allison Flood gets schooled by Penny Jordan and Sharon…
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February 15, 2010 | Monday | 8 Comments
First: Are you in or around Connecticut? Mark 27 February at 12 noon and head on over to scenic and ebullient Fairfield, CT, for the Romance Revealed Workshop at the Fairfield Public Library. I’ll be on a panel talking about romance with Toni Andrews and Kristan Higgins. I’ll be the one trying not to squee like a fangirl. The library event does require registration. For more information you can contact the Fairfield Public Library at 203-256-3160. I hope you’ll come - library programs are awesome. If that’s too far away, I recently did an interview with Scott Farrell, a very…
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January 29, 2010 | Friday | 59 Comments
One of my college professors passed away this week. Dr. Harris Parker was a professor of religion at my alma mater, but I took a freshman orientation course from him, a course I was so convinced would be a complete waste of time. But because of Dr. Parker, it was the opposite. I applied for college during a blizzard, so I applied to schools where there would be a very small chance of snow, if even a chance at all. I ended up at Columbia College of South Carolina, a women’s college of, at the time, less than 1000 students.…
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January 09, 2010 | Saturday | 49 Comments
Sharron writes: So I read this story a whole lot of years ago. I can remember it clearly enough to know I adored it; not enough to actually remember the bloody title. Or author. Or any character names. Our hero: distant, brooding English movie actor with a secret childhood trauma. His speciality? Horror movies (including the Slasher Charlie series, Blackbeard, and Dybbuk, which was his breakout role). He plays monsters, in short. Totally gone off women because of all the women who wanted to sleep with the monster. He shagged most of them, then went off them once he realised…
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October 26, 2009 | Monday | 11 Comments
NOTE: In late August, Jenny won an ARC of Anna Campbell’s Captive of Sin from us, and we asked that she review it for us after she read it. Jenny is as thorough in her opinion as we are in ours - way to go, Jenny. What follows is her review. Lady Charis Weston, the wealthiest heiress in England, is fleeing from her wicked stepbrothers (yes, there are wicked stepbrothers in this book). She manages to escape them one night and hides in the stables at the local inn, where she’s discovered by Sir Gideon Trevithick. Charis gives him a…
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