Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Victorian
April 25, 2011 | Monday | 41 Comments
A reader named Jacqueline contacted me to ask if I’ve ever read any Victorian romances - not romances set during the Victorian era, but written during the Victorian era. I had to think on it before I realized that if I had, they were in grad school syllabi gone by, and I didn’t remember much of them. Jacqueline reads some favorite Victorian authors every winter, and when I asked her for recommendations, boy howdy did she ever. Everyone has a favorite when it comes to romance novels. I tend to read mine just in the winter (when you can’t see…
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April 13, 2011 | Wednesday | 18 Comments
I know, can you imagine? HTML on the internet. What is the world coming to?! Won’t someone please think of the children? First, from the comments of the review of The Luckiest Girl: an interview with Beverly Cleary. Thank you SO MUCH to Diana for the link. Yesterday was Cleary’s 95th birthday - and she’s still writing. How awesome is that? From Rebecca: here’s a game at the McCord Museum website where you can navigate Victorian life! OH, this is so cool. You can choose to be a male or a female, and then select the location. For example, if…
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November 11, 2010 | Thursday | 140 Comments
Well. That was…unpleasant. I’m done with the 1970s-early 1980s OG Old School. That was one of the most unpleasant reading experiences I’ve ever had, and I read The Phantom of Manhattan. I finished it because I was kind of interested in where this story would end (and how much shit can be heaped upon the head of the heroine), and I have a finely developed case of trainwreck syndrome. (Also, my copy didn’t stink, so that helped.) I’m having a really hard time coming up with a Letter Grade, because I’ve read worse, and I’ve read better. I had a…
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September 08, 2010 | Wednesday | 88 Comments
[This is a guest review from reader R. who found her long-lost romance thanks to the Bitchery and a HaBO that was SO funny I laughed so hard I could barely speak. Read on for more adventure in way-back romance!] Surrender to the Night (Or that book I ran into 18 years ago when I was 13, and finally got 3 days ago, thanks to the Smart Bitches and the Bitchery) For real, guys, I can’t thank you enough. I feel like a niggling mystery from my early teenagerhood has finally been solved. I suppose it feels that way because…
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July 25, 2010 | Sunday | 8 Comments
Watch this space: 9pm EDT begins our third Sizzling Summer Book Club event! The window below will become active and bubbling with comments and polls and crazy shenanigans.
Author Sherry Thomas will be stopping by, too - hope to see you here!
Sizzling Summer Book Club Chat: His at Night by Sherry Thomas
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July 19, 2010 | Monday | 41 Comments
The next book! The next chat! A live in-person drink-a-fiesta at RWA! A whole lot of summer reading! Clearly I need to cut back on the caffeine today. If you’re just joining us (Hi there!) it’s time for the third pick of the Sizzling Summer Book Club where I pick a book, you think, “ORLY?” and I say, “YES RLY” and then we all read it and meet up online to talk about it. Prior selections were Tessa Dare’s One Dance With a Duke (I have it on good authority that the dance was in fact “Pumping Up my Bicycle”…
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April 27, 2010 | Tuesday | 17 Comments
OK, this is so cool, I had to share: Dorchester Publishing is thrilled to announce the signing of the Broadway musical option agreement for Leanna Renee Hieber’s The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, a haunting tale of love and ghosts in Victorian England. Mt. Claire Entertainment bought the novel for its musical adaptation, and Hieber, who has innate talent for invoking the Victorian era in her writing, will pen the script. Composing music and lyrics are Kenny Seymour (Broadway credits include music direction for “Memphis” and arrangements for “The Wiz”) and Nicholas Roman Lewis (creative development for “The…
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October 22, 2009 | Thursday | 36 Comments
It’s not just links, it’s an internetical experience. Ready: First: from SpiritHorse, a link to MookyChick’s list of Victorian slang sexual terms. Warning: NSFW due to very hot vintage nude photographs and daguerrotypes in the margin - gosh, remember when you saw pictures of women naked and your first thought wasn’t “Get her a sandwich, stat?!” No? Neither do I. I’m not entirely sure of the source of the MookyChick list, as I don’t see a citation - unless I missed it in my re-read. I am planning to work “green gown” and “whirligigs” into conversation as soon as possible.…
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March 07, 2009 | Saturday | 28 Comments
All hail the wondrous things about Wisconsin. There are many. And not just the Packers and cheese. Evidence: The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Library Nurse Romance Cover of the Week collection. Like nurse romance cover illustrations, with absurdly long, lithe, and monochromatic legs? This is your Mecca. I’m particularly fond of catwalking Luxury Nurse and the unnaturally-pigmented Redheaded nurse. [Thanks to Mary for the link.] Speaking of libraries, this Smithsonian magazine article about library special collections, which mentions the above Love Nurse Collection, is fascinating. (Also, I think “Tobacciana” would be a great name for a heroine set in a…
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February 01, 2009 | Sunday | 20 Comments
First: wanna watch tv online? There’s a new show (which I haven’t seen so I can’t attest to the quality) called Lie to Me starring Tim Roth.
Alert viewer Miri tells me, about 20-25 minutes into the pilot the main character gives a secondary character some grief about reading romances - and she shuts him right up.
Yay for smart women on tv reading romance! Thanks Miri!
From Tami, we have… pole dancing. In school. As part of physical fitness.
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November 07, 2008 | Friday | 11 Comments
Jess writes: This book is a little older, probably 10-15 years, as I remember reading it in high school. It was your garden variety Victorian (or possibly Regency) romance: well-bred miss marries redeemable rake. It may even have been a marriage of convenience struck between the two, but none of that matters. The only pertinent detail I remember is the hero’s business ambitions. A Birds of Paradise brothel (yay! theme whore houses!). Hubby’s plans are not without some contention on the part of the heroine, but he goes ahead with them up to the very last minute. While auditioning the…
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August 12, 2008 | Tuesday | 10 Comments
The trouble with stories wherein one party is betrothed to another is that the jilted person must either be unspeakably awful, or really wonderful but not quite right for the protagonist. It’s a tough balance. Unspeakably awful calls into question the judgment of the protagonist, and you can’t have a reader wondering if the hero or heroine is secretly a complete idiot for having chosen that turnip head in the first place. If the jilted party is pretty spiffy in his or her own right, there’s the risk that their relative spiffyness will cause the protagonist to pale in…
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