Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Writing
October 31, 2011 | Monday | 42 Comments
This isn’t quite a HaBO request about a missing book - more like a request for guidance. T. wrote and asked: Would it be possible to ask you and/or your readers which books provide the best advice on how to write a romance novel? Or what advice authors who are writing romance would offer? I’m curious and perhaps some of your other readers are as well. There are so many how-to books out there and just a brief page through at the local B&N made it clear that some of them were too vague to be of use and others…
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May 15, 2011 | Sunday | 7 Comments
Helen writes in with a request to help her find a favorite author:
Do you ever do “what the heck happened to that awesome sauce author” posts?
I LOVED Terri Persons Psychic FBI series but can not for the life of me find out if she is ever going to have another release.
Her last book came out in 2009 and I can’t find a website for her. Can you help a bitch out???
Anyone know if Persons is writing under a new name, or has a new book coming out soon?
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May 04, 2011 | Wednesday | 27 Comments
I have a serious weakness for Laurenston’s books. They’re not the most succinct things, and this book had a few flaws that drove me batshit, but there were times I laughed out loud, and a few spare moments where I had to put the book down and guffaw. Laurenston writes some funny shit. Ahoy, ye summary, the hardest part of writing a review. Dee Ann Smith is a, by her own admission, redneck she-wolf assassin, trained by her father to be among the most lethal and frightening of the shifter killers. Ric Van Holtz is a member of the very…
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April 29, 2011 | Friday | 39 Comments
Monday I am going to speak about romance at the Connecticut Library Association conference. My session goals are to both talk about romance to librarians who may be leery or misinformed about it, and to also highlight some excellent books to have in a library collection and share ways to welcome romance readers into libraries. I’m also going to talk about what avid, rabid readers we are, and how much we love libraries with solid romance collections (I just got tingly goosebumps writing that, thinking of all the shelves of romance novels at my local library growing up). I have…
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April 27, 2011 | Wednesday | 17 Comments
Penguin’s Sekrit Projekt, headed by Molly Barton and Colleen Lindsay, launched for open beta Monday. Book Country is a community of writers online, giving feedback and posting their own work for collaborative critique and improvement. One feature I think is rather cool is the genre map, wherein writers have to plot their books based on a few factors, including genre, sub-genre, then tone and style. I rather like the idea of categorizing books visually, though this is likely easier if you’re a reader looking for books than if you are a writer categorizing your own work, I suspect. The community…
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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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April 11, 2011 | Monday | 28 Comments
I’m home from RT, I’m unpacked, and, in deference to the past 5 days I spent in heels, I’m not wearing shoes. It’s weird to go from hearing and seeing the people I talk to all day back to reading their comments online. It’s very… quiet in here. The roundtable Jane and I led focused on where and how readers discover books. Kat from the ARe Cafe has a write-up of the session. Most readers discover books they want to read online, either by recommendations or by reviews - or even seeing what people have recently bought. I said this…
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April 04, 2011 | Monday | 121 Comments
It’s not so much sizzling in northern coastal Scotland in the winter, but this book is amazing for it’s warmth, the strength of the writing, and the story-within-a-story. As I announced in the Book Club Chat last week, our April Book Club pick is Susanna Kearsley’s The Winter Sea. Previously published in Canada as ‘Sophia’s Secret,’ and a nominee for both a RITA and a RNA award, this book is emotional, historically fascinating, rich and worth savoring. Here’s the description: In the spring of 1708, an invading Jacobite fleet of French and Scottish soldiers nearly succeeded in landing the exiled…
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March 30, 2011 | Wednesday | 50 Comments
Carrie S. has been struggling with something. I’ll let her explain: When I’m not reading romance, I’m slogging through The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. Most of it is quite entertaining, but the section on embryology was just brutal. I am almost as entirely clueless about embryology as I was when I started the chapter. As a perk, however, it did provide me with several exciting new vocabulary words. Check this out: “In neurlation, as in gastrulation, invagination is much in evidence.” Invagi-what? Seriously? I’m just going to start saying that, all the time. People will either think…
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March 27, 2011 | Sunday | 235 Comments
Here’s a little something new and different. To celebrate the release of “Faking It,” by Elisa Lorello, I’ve got my totally-craving-spring hands on a giveaway for you: flower delivery service California Blooms is donating 1 dozen roses to a Smart Bitches, Trashy Books reader located in the continental U.S. The winner will also get a free copy of FAKING IT! If you win, you can have the flowers and book sent to yourself (who doesn’t want a dozen roses and hot read delivered to her door?) or someone you love. Faking It by Elisa Lorella is about Andi, a composition…
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March 21, 2011 | Monday | 150 Comments
You guys do understand that I read these primarily because I enjoy it, right? I mean, some of them were “unpleasant” (Purity’s Passion, I am looking at you), some are off the hook (Forbidden Desires? That’s you) and some are so wonderfully trashy I can’t help but adore them (Henley is my kryptonite). For the most part, I enjoy it. I think I have a very selective form of masochism. And, in general, if I truly hate it, or it’s just not interesting enough to review, I won’t review it. This book is a bit different, though. Because I did…
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March 09, 2011 | Wednesday | 64 Comments
This book came to my attention based on a reader recommendation. I’ve been trying to figure out how to approach this review since I finished the book this weekend and immediately said out loud and on Twitter, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” When I look at a small press book, I think about whether I’d buy another book from them, if the book I read is indicative of the quality of the books the press plans to produce in the future. Based upon this book, I am not impressed with the quality of the editing or the…
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February 21, 2011 | Monday | 79 Comments
Hi, sorry, sorry. This semester is kicking my ass, and all my classes are things I actually give a rat’s ass about (I’m taking law in the Ancient World, and it’s the best ever), so there’s a lot less procrastination on my plate this semester than last semester. This is also the first book I’m reviewing from my brand new Kindle, which I adore more than is reasonable. I got it for school (really) and also so people can’t judge me for the covers of what I read. Yay for eink! This book is so deliciously fucked up, you guys. …
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January 20, 2011 | Thursday | 46 Comments
First, there’s a lot of terrible stuff going on around the world as far as natural disasters. There’s floods and mudslides and all sorts of horrible things. I have heard from a few readers that Australia, Queensland specifically, faces a horrible cleanup after torrential rains caused widespread flooding. Local papers are reporting that donations have dried up (I presume the pun is intended there), and residents are finally able to go try to salvage their homes and businesses. The Romance Writers of Australia are hosting a book drive to help replenish libraries, schools and community center book collections - as…
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