Contining the theme of Book Rants, books that really, REALLY pissed a reader off, I bring you Leslie, who picked up a re-issue of a book originally published in the 80s, and found it to be jaw-dropping horrible angry-making. Sometimes it’s the nonsensical plots, and other times, it’s sexism, racism, stereotypes, and complete asshattery. When a romance lets a reader down, the result can be epic. Book: The Bronzed Hawk by Iris Johansen Originally published: … Continue reading Book Rant: Iris Johansen’s The Bronzed Hawk →
This guest entry from CarrieS is in honor of Charlotte Bronte's birthday, which was last weekend, 21 April. OK, Bitches, this is it. In honor of Charlotte Brontë's birthday (April 21, 1816), it's time to fulfill my long-time goal of establishing what I believe may be a universal truth: You cannot passionately, deeply, own-multiple-copies-of, take-to-a-desert-island-as-your-one-book, love both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Love one, hate the other. That's the deal. You may appreciate the quality … Continue reading Jane Eyre Vs Wuthering Heights Smackdown - A Guest Entry by CarrieS →
In a series of links that dropped my jaw, made me shake my head, and feel a boatload of “Oh, No,” here's an eyeopening series on how to catch someone stealing your content online, which was posted today by CuddleBuggery after Katiebabs saw an anonymous link on this older post on plagarism. The follow posts are from January 2012, and I'm not sure why the book blogging community wasn't aware of it until now. Kristi Diehm, better … Continue reading Plagiarism and The Story Siren →
By popular demand, here’s more of Pig reading Killer Temptation, from chapter two, all the way through… chapter four! Pig: OH HAI. It’s me again. This book keeps blowing my mind hole. —– Kindle Loc 337: When she’d first gotten this assignment she’d been more than a little nervous because her boss had told her the owner, Sean Guthrie, was a personal friend of his. He’d also said Guthrie never, ever did anything halfway, so … Continue reading Book Rants: Killer Temptation, Part Deux →
Every now and again, I receive exceptionally irate and often hilarious email messages from readers who are in the middle of a romance that is so WTFCRAZY they cannot keep it to themselves. And then my inbox is splodey with the awesome, and I love it. The book rants are epic. When we romance fans pick up a book that drives us bonkers with the WAT?, it can get ferociously funny. So I have a … Continue reading Book Rants: Killer Temptation →
The media courage of 50 Shades continues, long and frequently enough that there are some themes emerging. One fantastic example: mommy porn. In two words, there are a lot of things wrong with Mommy Porn. Add to that “Mommy’s naughty reader” and the rhetoric that women are ashamed of their erotic reading material and thus buy and read it digitally, as the Wall Street Journal suggested yesterday, means that the shame-wagging-finger gets bigger. I have … Continue reading Romance, Arousal, and Condescension →
I did a lot of vacation reading last week, and one thing that jumped out at me (not literally but if it had been it would have been awesome) is the relentless pursuit of cliches when describing nipples. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about here: there's a sexy scene, and the characters undress. The sex scene – which is, it seems to me, more often from the male point of view than the … Continue reading A Description of Nipples →
Since January there's been coverage of plagiarism on Amazon, with folks self-publishing works in the public domain or copying works by other authors, slapping their own names on them, and selling them. NPR and FastCompany covered the problem in January regarding plagiarised works – including in one case a word-for-word copy of Dracula – posted as “erotica” – which tends to sell rather briskly. One issue is that even if Amazon responds and removes the … Continue reading Kay Manning, Peyton Bradshaw, Kristal Singletary, and Plagiarism →
If you are reading this in a RSS reader, this entry is for you. Feedburner has stopped updating entries automatically, and the only way it refreshes the feed is for me to go and do so manually. Most mornings I can do that, which is why you might notice entries that went live around midnight appearing around 8-9am Eastern time. Sometimes I can't, which is why you'll notice that sometimes four or five entries … Continue reading RSS FEED ALERT: Please Update Your Feeds →
Another day, another article about genre fiction, including romance, selling quite happily in digital format. And the reason? Wait for it…. Reader embarrassment! Kindle-owning bibliophiles are furtive beasts. Their shelves still boast classics and Booker winners. But inside that plastic case, other things lurk. Sci-fi and self-help. Even paranormal romance, where vampires seduce virgins and elves bonk trolls. The ebook world is driven by so-called genre fiction, categories such as horror or romance. It's not … Continue reading Reader Shaming →
Late last night, links and fiery tweets went around about Romance Writers, Ink, an Oklahome-based chapter of the RWA. They've stated that for the 2012 “More than Magic” competition for published writers, they will “no longer accept same-sex entries in any category.” Way to be bigoted! Heidi Cullinan has a blog entry about the problem and cites an unnamed individual who may have received a response from the chapter saying that the reason was some … Continue reading Romance Writers Ink Contest: An Exercise in Discrimination →
