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Hot and Badgered
Hot and Badgered by Shelly Laurenston is $1.99! This is the first book in the Honey Badger Chronicles. Sarah read this one and gave it a B grade:
Among my favorite things about Laurenston’s writing is how very affirming and inspiring and a whole lot of fun it is, because angry, fearless women make room for themselves, they get shit done, and they’re the heroines. More honey badgers, please.
It’s not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn’s hotel balcony. Definitely they don’t usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she’s gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she’s a honey badger shifter, it’s too late.
Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won’t even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she’s not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He’s trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He’s cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .
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On the Surface
On the Surface by Kate Willoughby is 99c! This is a contemporary sports romance between a hockey player and a nurse. Many readers loved the premise, especially how the hero and heroine initially met, but mentioned some execution problems, like stilted dialogue. It has a 3.8-star rating on Goodreads.
NHL player Tim Hollander lost his temper one time and threw a water bottle at an abusive fan. After “Bottlegate,” he’s traded to the San Diego Barracudas, where he’ll need to keep the bad publicity to a minimum while proving he can still compete with the younger guys on the ice.
Erin Collier is a pediatric nurse who’s never seen a hockey game, but gets in line for Tim’s autograph at a PR event in hopes of impressing the doctor she has a crush on. When an obnoxious fan gets pushy toward Erin, Tim rushes to defend the pretty stranger, throwing a punch in the process.
Grateful for the rescue, Erin agrees to stand by Tim during the resulting press conference and host him at a hospital charity event. Their chemistry is palpable, and soon their lives are intertwined. But Erin doubts a hockey player is capable of anything resembling a real relationship. And if Tim can’t get her to see beyond what’s on the surface, they’ll never last longer than a single season…
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Time Served
RECOMMENDED: Time Served by Julianna Keyes is 99c! This is a contemporary romance with an ex-con hero and it was mentioned on a previous podcast with Jane, who recommends Keyes if you like “moody loner dudes.” Last time it was on sale, there was some great discussion in the comments!
Dean Barclay had nothing to do with my decision to flee my old life, but he is 100 percent of the reason I vowed to never look back.
I’ve never forgotten how it felt to follow Dean—dangerous, daring, determined—away from the crowd and climb into his beat-up old Trans Am. I was sixteen and gloriously alive for the first time. When I felt his hand cover my leg and move upward, it was over. I was his. Forever.
Until I left. Him, my mom, and the trailer park. Without so much as a goodbye.
Now Dean’s back, crashing uninvited into my carefully cultivated, neat little lawyerly life. Eight years behind bars have turned him rougher and bigger—and more sexually demanding than any man I’ve ever met. I can’t deny him anything…and that just might end up costing me everything.
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The Princess Bride
RECOMMENDED: The Princess Bride by William Goldman is $2.99! It’s a KDD for today! We previously ran a Squee from the Keeper Shelf review of The Princess Bride. I’ve read the book and seen the movie, and both are enjoyable. I don’t know if I could choose which one I liked more. How would you compare the two?
William Goldman’s modern fantasy classic is a simple, exceptional story about quests—for riches, revenge, power, and, of course, true love—that’s thrilling and timeless.
Anyone who lived through the 1980s may find it impossible—inconceivable, even—to equate The Princess Bride with anything other than the sweet, celluloid romance of Westley and Buttercup, but the film is only a fraction of the ingenious storytelling you’ll find in these pages. Rich in character and satire, the novel is set in 1941 and framed cleverly as an “abridged” retelling of a centuries-old tale set in the fabled country of Florin that’s home to “Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passions.”
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Uh oh, could be a few Princess Bride quotes coming up on here…
I love, love, love TIME SERVED. It’s one of my all-time favorites and a regular re-read. HOWEVER…whenever it goes on sale, there is a discussion about (1) the hero’s confession of a rape fantasy (never acted upon) and (2) perceived slut-shaming of one of the heroine’s co-workers. I think both are forgivable within the context of the story—which is essentially about how a couple who were teenage sweethearts never—for a variety of reasons—really outgrew their adolescence. I highly recommend it, but proceed with caution if either of those two items give you concern.
INCONCEIVABLE!
Having said that, I think the book goes into much more depth than the movie does with character backstory. *However,* the book also has a more depressing ending about “what ifs” of the characters.
I bought the special illustrated edition of ‘The Princess Bride’ not long ago as a gift for my BFF whose favorite movie it is. Then of course I had to re-read the book before handing it on. Must confess: as clever as the book is, I prefer the movie. There is no day so crappy that it cannot be improved by that movie.
I read The Princess Bride and loved it before the movie was made. (Yes, I am old.) If you go into it expecting the movie, you will be disappointed. It is different because it is a book. I think the movie adaptation is brilliant as well, because they made it as a movie, not an exact copy of the book. They both are great for the medium that they are in. I think the best adaptations make sure they take advantage of being a movie, instead of being absolutely faithful to the source material, but creating something that maintains the essence of the original material. I feel the same way about The World According to Garp. One of my favorite books, and I love the movie too, but they are not exactly the same.
I somehow got a copy of the book after seeing the movie as a middle schooler. (Did the mall bookstore have it? Did they special order it for me? I can’t even remember how we bought things back then.) After seeing this post, I had to go find the book on my shelf. It’s a cheap paperback with yellowing pages, but it has a fold-out colored map! And, tucked inside the book is an envelope from Ballantine etc. publishers in NYC. If I remember right, somewhere in the book, the narrator mentions a cut “reunion scene” that you can get a copy of by writing to the publisher. So of course I did. Instead of the scene, they sent a three-page letter from W.G. explaining why the scene is not available yet, because it is tied up in lawsuits. (I vaguely remember being disappointed because the reunion scene seemed likely to be romantic.) The letter is dated 1978, but has a 1987 postscript added after the movie came out. I’m dying to know if they still mail the letters out!
I ordered that reunion scene years ago, too. It is now online, linked off of the publisher’s page for the deluxe edition hardcover at https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/The-Princess-Bride-Deluxe-Edition-HC/9781328948854.
Or a direct link: https://s3.amazonaws.com/prod-hmhco-vmg-craftcms-public/trade/goldman-princess-bride-response-letter.pdf
Because Princess Bride is always a good idea to make a day better, in either form, because they are both nearly perfect.
The Princess Bride movie was seemingly always on in the Magura household when I was a child. I wish I could find the audio book which I think was narrated by Peter Falk. As it stands, the only one available comercially is the abridged version, and I avoid abridged versions like the plague.
Just adding my two cents to the comments above: the book is wonderful. The move is great, too, but the book is, IMHO, one of the greatest treasures of the 20th century. If you can catch a teenager who hasn’t seen the movie yet, get them to read the book (and then, by all means, watch the movie). I read it aloud to my husband when we first got married (before the movie was released – yikes!), and we had such a glorious time laughing and gasping together.
At Amazon Australia, Deception by Gaslight: A Gilded Gotham Mystery by Kate Belli is $2.84.
This was featured on SBTB Dec 2020 Book Beat.
For all of the other fans out there, I highly recommend As You Wish, Cary Elwes’ memoir about the making of the movie. The audiobook includes many of the actors and crew (well Rob Reiner at least) narrating their own contributions to the book. Their remembrances of Andre the Giant are a very sweet tribute. I also really enjoyed Elwes writing about his and Mandy Patinkin’s very physical training for the fencing scenes. I watch the whole movie with a brand new appreciation for the work.
The book and audio versions are often on sale.
Cary Elwes’ book is indeed incredible – I think my favorite anecdote is still the time William Goldman visited the set and witnessed the set-up for the fire swamp scene, where Robin Wright’s skirt gets set on fire, and he ruined a take by exclaiming about it aloud. Also CE and Christopher Guest, in their quest to make the scene where Rugen knocks Westley unconscious more realistic looking, decided it would be a good idea to bonk Cary on the head with the hilt of the sword. Only CG did it so hard it legitimately knocked Cary out and they had to take him to the hospital.
PB is a perfect book that spawned a perfect movie, and I love it.
I reread The Princess Bride a few years ago and it didn’t hold up as well as I’d hoped. All of the female characters are portrayed as either shrill or vapid (or both). If you thought Buttercup was lacking a little agency in the movie, be warned that in the book she has much, much less agency.
It is a charming and clever book. If you can get past the casual misogyny. And the pacing issues.
I was also disappointed when I re-read The Princess Bride a few years back and found there’s a nasty bit of homophobia (including a slur) in the author’s narration. I’d forgotten about that. I was reading the 25th Anniversary edition and was surprised they hadn’t edited it out — it would make no difference to the story.
On the Surface was a meh read for me. It started off well, but got very flat in the middle. There wasn’t a lot of chemistry between the two MCs and I remember thinking the reason for conflict/misunderstanding was not realistic.
I really like Laurenston’s shifter books especially the honey badger and bear ones. There’s a lot of humor and kick-ass action in the books and the women might be strange but never uninteresting. I like the way the men accept and support the women in these books. Tolerance of differences and even a glory in it are nice to read about in these troubled times so its a welcome respite from the news every day. Enjoy!