Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Nascar
December 28, 2011 | Wednesday | 139 Comments
As was reported in the NY Times back in 2007, the NASCAR Harlequins have some specific rules by which they must abide: no sex, no crashes, no drugs, no alcohol use in the content of the story. Back in 2007, Mark Dyer, VP of licensing for NASCAR, said in the article, “Look at our stats. Forty percent of our fans are women, and among younger fans it’s trending toward 50-50.” He added that according to Nascar surveys 72 percent of female fans enjoy reading and are more likely than nonfans to purchase books. This is particularly interesting (and somewhat…
read more »
February 18, 2010 | Thursday | 103 Comments
Grab a flask and play along: it’s time to get head-weaving drunk with “Someone Without A Clue Reviews Romance: the Drinking Game!” While multiple-mullet salutes have been found with increasing frequency, it’s still cheap and easy humor, akin to blonde jokes and snide comments about overweight people, to slap at romance novels, and of course the women who read them. So let’s see how many lame and tired points of insult Kimya Kavehkar comes up with before she runs out of column inches: Judging Romance Novels By Their Steamy Covers! Comment about the covers: DRINK! We’re going to judge the…
read more »
July 24, 2009 | Friday | 14 Comments
The deadline for the Simon Kernick is Awesome Photoshop contest is midnight tonight EST—and the entries are HILARIOUS. I’m posting them this weekend so stay tuned - voting will commence on Monday. Hubby in particular has been after me to show him the entries. They are so worth the wait, let me tell you. And, to coax you into thinking creatively, here’s a link that made me choke on the diet Coke. From AfterEllen, Harlequin novels that focus on more sports than just NASCAR. Harlequin is really onto something here: romance novels targeted at a previously untapped market. You know…
read more »
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…
read more »
February 11, 2009 | Wednesday | 13 Comments
Jen Miller of the Philadephia Inquirer wrote quite the romance-positive article on the writers behind the genre: Writing romances, without the cliches. Well done, Jen! Beth Ciotta, author of the upcoming Evie Ever After, is featured, as well as debut author Shobhan Bantwal and Ellora’s Cave author Stephanie Julian. And, well, me, the man titty media pundit: Obviously, some people are still reading the novels filled with ripping bodices and windblown hair, even if those kinds of romance novels went the way of Max Headroom, snap bracelets and Clear Pepsi. Contemporary romance novels focus on anything from NASCAR to vampires.…
read more »
January 29, 2009 | Thursday | 51 Comments
As part of Harlequin’s 60th Anniversary, they have a rather auspicious and frankly asskicking plan: to give a free e-book to every woman in America and Canada as part of their celebration. All formats are included, including PDF, and each and every one is DRM free. The books will be available for the Stanza program on the iPhone, and you can go to the eHarlequin site for all the details and info on how to pick up your free books. Plus, and this makes me really freaking giddy, these books will be free at all e-retailers, including Amazon and Sony.…
read more »
October 20, 2008 | Monday | 217 Comments
Jane has mentioned before that the contemporary romances that doesn’t feature vampires, campy vampires, werewolves, immortal peril, mortal peril, suspense out the wahoo, or extraordinary extraterrestrial extraneous circumstances seem to be fewer and far between. Every now and again I hear declarations that the contemporary romance is a dying subgenre and it’s harder and harder to find, and that if you’re not an established name, you’ll never get anywhere, because fewer people want to read contemporary romance. So when we read Flat Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy, we were both blathering to each other about how awesome it was and…
read more »
