Bitchin' Blog Posts
April 09, 2008 | Wednesday at 6:28 pm | 23 Comments
Bitchery reader Vicki writes:
I was wondering if you guys know any websites that sell romance novels in Greek?
My mum is desperate for more Harlequin (or Arlekin as they are known) and other romance books. Winter is fast approaching here in Australia, and she’s threatening to go (more) insane with no books to tide her over on those long cold(ish) nights; one can only knit so many scarves.
She’s cleaned out the local libraries, and the foreign language bookshop sells those Harlequins for around 25-30 bucks each. Seeing as she reads one of these suckers a day, that just aint gonna happen.
Anyone got any ideas? And I have a question, too: do Greek language readers want to read about the Greek Tycoon’s Secret Baby or the Greek’s Virgin Mistress? Or does the nationality change? Maybe it’s The Canadian’s Frosty Virgin?
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April 09, 2008 | Wednesday at 10:44 am | 22 Comments
There are two things you need to know about this book: you like tortured, healing heroes who are genuinely good guys? Go find this book. O’Reilly’s mastery of the incredibly sexy, almost-three-dimensional man continues in this book.
Second, I was unfortunately predisposed to dislike it. I knew that Daniel is a widower whose wife died in the World Trade Center. And so when I read the first sentences:
Since the summer he turned eleven, Daniel O’Sullivan woke up every morning the same way. With an aching hard-on. After he was married, the first light of dawn became his favorite time. He’d roll over, impatient hands searching for his wife. After making love to her, he’d shower, shave, and together they’d take the subway to work. What more could any guy want?
But then one September morning seven years ago, bright sunlight mocking in the sky, that all exploded, along with two airliners, two buildings and two thousand, seven hundred and forty people—one of whom was his wife.
Gone.
For the next five years he rolled over to look for her, impatient hands searching blindly, and she wasn’t there. And so…
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April 09, 2008 | Wednesday at 3:49 am | 4 Comments
The disbursal of prize booty may take a bit longer, but graphics? We got yer graphics right here!
For Colleen Gleason, who won the tournament for her book The Rest Falls Away, a fancy shnazzy graphic proclaming you teh winnah:
For Laura D, whose pointacular bracket allowed her to gain the people’s ovation and fame forever, we have:
For Joyce D, whose equally pointactular bracket in the 2nd Chance Tourney has allowed her a sizeable portion of that ovation and fame referenced above, we have:
But wait… there’s one more! One more prize for your enjoyment!
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April 08, 2008 | Tuesday at 8:33 pm | 17 Comments
Thanks to Randi, thanks to me, and thanks to Fabio phones are ringing all over the country, as Fabio sends messages of love and support to those lucky people in my life who made the mistake of giving me their phone numbers.
This is too much fun. And Fabio. Is there such a thing as too much Fabio? Nah. Not at all.
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April 08, 2008 | Tuesday at 5:03 pm | 26 Comments
I’m assuming this is yet another site that everyone else knows about but me, but check this out: enter a book & author, and find out what books you may like next.
I’m curious about the database behind it. I entered “High Noon” by Nora Roberts, and was told I’d like a mixture of historical and contemporary romance - kind of a gamble, I think. Personally, I do like both but I know more than a few romance fans who stick almost exclusively to one or the other. My recommendations:
Brighter Than the Sun - Julia Quinn (Read it, love it, but like “The Duke and I” better). Mirror Image - Sandra Brown (Now that is a book I read a long, long time ago, and I did rather enjoy it, in a campy 80’s miniseries sense.) Heartbreaker - Julie Garwood (Never read it) You Only Love Twice - Elizabeth Thornton (See above- also, isn’t this historical?) The Barefoot Princess - Christina Dodd (meh) Fast Women - Jennifer Crusie (Not my fave Crusie but not bad by a long shot either) Dust To Dust - Tami Hoag (Never read it) Full Speed - Janet Evanovich, Charlotte Hughes (Never read…
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April 08, 2008 | Tuesday at 3:58 pm | 23 Comments
Yesterday I received the following press release from Dorchester:
I think you and your readers might really enjoy something Dorchester Publishing is doing on its web site in the weeks leading up the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention and the Mr. Romance Contest. We wanted the readers who cannot attend RT this year to be able to participate in the event in some way, so we came up with a really fun idea.
We will be featuring a contest through our site where readers can vote for their favorite Mr. Romance contestant. Each day, beginning Monday, April 7, two gorgeous men will be revealed. After four days of revealing hunky contestants readers will come back to vote for their favorite. On April 19th the winner with the most votes will be announced and will win an American Express gift card from Dorchester. Please take a look at the contest on our site and tune in on Monday to see the first two contestants!
Click here to see the contest info.
I hope you and your readers will enjoy this!
While I love an Amex Gift Card as much as the next person, beefcake really isn’t my thing. Cake, I…
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April 08, 2008 | Tuesday at 11:00 am | 34 Comments
Tear down the streamers. Deflate the balloons. The Dance is over (that’s what they call the NCAA Tournament). The winners of the first annual DA BWAHA are as follows:
Colleen Gleason’s The Rest Falls Away is our champion and is awarded
A bad ass feather quill pen with which to pen her next romantic opus
The graphic proclaiming her book the winner
A free one-month ad space on both Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and Dear Author, month and content to be determined.
Pimpage like nothing else, guaranteed.
A $50 gift certificate for irreverently awesome style from Lochers.com
The burning question was how does it feel to be the winner of the first annual DA BWAHA Tourney?
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April 08, 2008 | Tuesday at 3:55 am | 38 Comments
Christine Brashear, currently at Samhain Publishing and a 5% shareholder in Ellora’s Cave, has filed civil suit against Ellora’s Cave, Tina Engler/Jaid Black, Patricia Marks, and various affiliated individuals and companies.
To read the 19-page PDF of the civil suit filed in Summit County, Ohio, last week, you can search by Last name or you can download your own copy here. Brashear’s complaint asks for “damages and injunctions for breach of contract; breach of statutory and common law duties, breach of fiduciary duties and defamation.”
Say what now?
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April 07, 2008 | Monday at 7:57 pm | 31 Comments
Jane at DearAuthor has a post up regarding reader and writer allegations surrounding Highland Press, specifically addressing conduct by one individual:
Among other things, Highland Press [and “secret co-publisher, DeborahAnne MacGillvray”] [are] purported to do the following:
* Banning authors from author loops for speaking out against Highland Press
* Sending emails to subsequent publishers of those “problem†authors demanding that stock photography that the author purchased for the covers of her Highland Press books not be used by subsequent publishers. These stock photos can be used, as we know, by every publisher out there. I’m not sure on what basis Highland Press claims that stock photo cannot be used.
* Using MacGillivray’s position to delete reviews she has provided to these problem authors and deleting reviews of the author’s friends. (Of course, these are MacGillivray’s reviews and she is entitled to do whatever she wants with them).
A corollary to this is that the co-publisher uses a Yahoo Group list, Ladies in Waiting, change her Amazon reviews. When MacGillivray she gets a bad review, she tells the loop to click on the link to the Amazon page and vote “no†and then “report abuseâ€. With enough…
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April 07, 2008 | Monday at 6:26 pm | 10 Comments
Some individuals are composites, some details have been changed, and author Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House is “not a work of ‘nonfiction’ in any meaningful sense of the word,” according to the Boston Globe, but yet it is marketed as a “true story.” The movie 21, based on the book, opened this weekend in the #1 spot, and I knew a few neighbors who were hiring babysitters to go enjoy the behind-the-scenes story of how a group of MIT wundergeniuses hosed Vegas for millions by counting cards at Blackjack. To give you an insight into why hiring a babysitter to see a movie is significant, let me share: I have not seen a movie in the theatre since The Incredibles was in the dollar theatre in North Bergen, NJ. It takes a hell of a movie to convince me to go to a movie theatre as opposed to waiting for the DVD.
So is it a true story? Depends on how you define the words “is” “it” “true” and “story.”
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April 07, 2008 | Monday at 5:55 pm | 14 Comments
Erotica author James Lear offers his opinion on why writing erotica (or porn - he uses the terms interchangeably) is a marvelous way to make a living, despite erotica being neglected by mainstream publishing.
I think that erotic literature serves the same purpose as other genre fiction, but with a more literal outcome. A good crime novel, be it by Agatha Christie or Alexander McCall Smith, provides a failsafe formula of crime, investigation and solution. The porn parallel is encounter, seduction and sex. While a whodunnit plots this pattern across an entire book, a porn writer must repeat it several times within one novel, allowing the reader time to recover before revving up the engines again. The reason why dirty books remain in the shadows is very simple: the book trade is not comfortable with masturbation. Books in which children are abused, women murdered and men brutalised crowd the shelves of WH Smith. Books in which consenting adults enjoy each other for the healthy entertainment of literate wankers do not.
Lear’s perspective is refreshingly blunt and analytic. No matter what anyone says about reading for prurient intentions, no one ever ignores money. Especially when that money is profit.
…
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April 07, 2008 | Monday at 2:38 pm | 11 Comments
Bitchery reader Eleanor is looking for an author who published under several names, but hasn’t been seen recently:
I’ve been trying to track down the historical romance author Stella Riley and I wonder if you can help me. Back in the 1980s and 1990s she published under the pen names Stella Riley, Anna Marsh and Juliet Blythe; her books included Garland of Straw, Black Madonna, Lucifer’s Champion, Splendid Defiance and The Marigold Chain. As far as I can tell she worked with Fontana, Severn House and Headline, but the latter axed her halfway through a four-book series, at which point she dropped off the face of the earth. Could you possibly shine a light on this for a frustrated fan? Any help greatly appreciated!
Barb Deane’s site doesn’t have any information - do y’all know what’s up?
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April 06, 2008 | Sunday at 3:50 pm | 3 Comments
Results time!
DA Results:
SB Results:
The winner is Nora Robert’s High Noon which won by a total of 136 votes. At the SB site, Robert’s book won by 83 votes and here at DA, it won by 53 votes.
The Championship Round is now in progress. We’ll begin the post mortem on Tuesday. I know you guys are so excited you are about to pee your pants.
Click on the links to our sponsors to let them know that you actually are paying attention to the contest. It’s for a good cause (not really, but the words “good cause” usually gets people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do).
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April 05, 2008 | Saturday at 11:15 pm | 3 Comments
Results of the Paranormal v. Historical (Round 1 of the Final Four)
Combining the results of both Dear Author and Smart Bitches’ polls, here are the results:
The winner is Colleen Gleason’s The Rest Falls Away which won by a total of 37 votes. Over here, Colleen’s book garnered 38 more votes than Elizabeth Hoyt’s The Serpent Prince. At DA, The Serpent Prince received one more vote than The Rest Falls Away. Don’t forget to vote in the second of the Final Four polls: Erotica/Erotic Romance v. Contemporary both here and at Dear Author.
Click on the links to our sponsors to let them know that you actually are paying attention to the contest. It’s for a good cause (not really, but the words “good cause” usually gets people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do).
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April 05, 2008 | Saturday at 8:24 pm | 10 Comments
Nipples! Thanks to Bitchery reader Susanne vai Boingboing, nipples are Photoshopped off of male wrestler mantitty for billboard in Florida.
Nipples, it may be, are against the law in Florida. Not having them. Just showing them (remind me, next time I go to Florida, to bring a lined bra and leave at home a few specifically nipple-friendly t-shirts I own). Fascinating discussion of why no one takes sociology seriously anymore follows the original post—my response? Hey, romance novels and man titty aren’t either, and lemme tell you. Man Titty is serious business!
Also, I would like to officially state that “heteronormative” is my new favorite word, and I’m going to use it at least six times a day.
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