Archive for: May, 2010

Review: Caught in the Act, by Samantha Hunter (Blaze)

May 13 2010 Published by under Reviews

I listened to Caught in the Act on audio, but it is available in paper and e as well. It is the second in Harlequin’s Dressed to Thrill series, whose plots are kick started by a completely incompetent costume shop employee who  keeps sending out the wrong costumes, leading, as one would expect, to hot sex and true love every time. The others are:

  • Feels Like the First Time (2009) – Tawny Weber (which I review here)
  • Hold on to the Nights (2009) – Karen Foley
  • Santa, Baby (2009) – Lisa Renee Jones

In this installment, set in Florida, Gina happens to get a sexy cabaret costume instead of the ghost costume she ordered, which she needed for the purpose of infiltrating a big costume party at Mason Scott’s house. Mason is the hot shot divorce attorney representing Rio, Gina’s soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law. Mason has incriminating photos of Gina’s impulsive, always-in-hot-water sister Tracy, and her lover, who happens to be a very evil crime boss.

Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, Gina happens to be mistaken for a hired performer (the real one happened to have canceled) and is forced to go on stage at the party and sing (which she happens to do pretty well), where she catches Mason’s amorous attention. He happens to track her down in his home office where she is looking for the photos, and they happen to have the best desk sex of their lives.

The next night, Gina has to go back again to get the photos, and more sex ensues, until Mason figures her game out (Gina should have paid more attention to knot tying at summer camp) and they both realize they are dealing with a very serious situation that has put everyone in danger. Instead of going to the authorities, they decide to “let the FBI sleep”, and have more sex until morning, by which time all hell has broken loose.

We then follow Mason and Gina, the FBI, Tracy and Rio, Tracy’s ex-lover, and a bunch of gun totin’ heavies through swamps, tourist towns, and storm tossed waves, including a detour on a sponge harvesting expedition, until it all gets wrapped up in a dramatic finish.

Caught in the Act was a very par-for-the-course Blaze, and I did enjoy listening to it. Despite a couple of truly TSTL moments on both Mason and Gina’s parts, the author was able to balance a pretty convoluted suspense plot with Mason and Gina’s developing relationship, and even throw in a marriage-in-trouble subplot. Although there was a light sketch of Gina as “the staid/boring sister” who needed sexual awakening and a more optimistic, risk-taking attitude towards life, there was almost no tension, sexual or romantic, in the relationship, with external conflicts presenting most of the drama. I happen to like more psychological action and internal tension, but that’s just a personal preference.

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Review: All I Ever Needed, by Jo Goodman

May 12 2010 Published by under Reviews

All I Ever Needed is the third installment of Jo Goodman’s Regency era Compass Club quartet, all of which were published in 2002-2003 . The Compass Club is a group of four friends who met at school and banded together to fight a group of bullies, known as the Bishops.  The first book was North’s (Brendan Northam), the second South’s (Lord Southerton) and this one is East’s (Gabriel Whitney, Marquess of Eastlyn). As adults, the Compass Club serve as spies for the mysterious Colonel Blackwood.

I listened to this book on audio, read by the wonderful Jenny Sterlin. It is my first Goodman on audio and 3rd in all.  The paperbacks were If His Kiss is Wicked (2007) which I enjoyed quite a bit, and One Forbidden Evening (2006), which, I am sorry to say, is languishing as a “did not finish” in my bedroom closet. I absolutely adore this author, but I suspect her writing may work better for me on audio for some reason.

The book opens with a prologue at Hambrick Hall that establishes East’s role as “tinker” — diplomatic fixer — among the four boys, and also lends a bit of pathos to a character who is essentially perfect (he was ridiculed for his weight as a boy). The first chapter introduces us to Lady Sophia Colley, daughter of the Earl of Tremont. In what has to be one of the most confusing yet intriguing openings I have ever read, East shows up at Tremont Hall to propose to Sophie.

They aren’t in love, and, in fact, have only met once or twice (this becomes important later). Rather, someone has started a rumor that they are engaged, and East proposes in order to spare her reputation (he can let her can break the engagement later, he thinks.). Sophie refuses, but their exchange — in particular Sophie’s convincing dismissal — piques East’s interest in her. Rather than taking her leave, he continues to engage her:

“You know, Lady Sophia, in some quarters I am considered a desirable partner.”

She did not so much as blink. “At cards, you mean.”

“At marriage.”

“But you play cards.”

“Well … Yes, I do.” Eastlyn wondered at her point, for it seemed to be completely at odds with his.

“And you make wagers.”

“Yes.”

“You drink to excess.”

“I may start soon.”

Her mouth flattened rather primly.

“Very well.” East said, entertained by her disapproving mien, but not proof against it either. “I admit to being foxed on occasion.”

“You have called men out.”

His amusement vanished. “One man.”

Sophie gave no indication that she was in any way intimidated. “You shot him.”

“Yes.”

“And killed him.”

“That was the purpose of shooting him, yes.”

There was a brief pause as Sophie considered the necessity of her next words. She had not conceived that she might have cause to say these things to Eastlyn, but the remembrance of things past had shaken her. Mayhap the marquess did not deserve such a setdown, yet Sophie felt compelled as if by some force outside herself to deliver it. “So,” she began with a gentle matter-of-factness, “by your own admission, you are a drunkard, a gambler, and a murderer. With so much to recommend you, it is little wonder you are sought by mothers in want of a husband for their daughters. These qualities have a certain cache among the ton, do they not? Gaming indicates a willingness to risk, drinking to excess a surfeit of confident recklessness, and –”

“And murder?” he asked.

While Sophie suspected he was out of all patience with herself, she went on as if there had been no interruption. “Murder suggests a resolve to act. In your particular case, a regard for principles and the necessity of upholding them.”

Eastlyn pretended to weigh her words carefully. “It is your estimation, then, that I am embraced by mothers and their daughters, indeed, by all of the ton, not because I am regarded as a model of rectitude and good sense, but because I am the very opposite of those things?”

“That, she said, “and the fact that you are rich as Croesus.”

“Richer.”

“Just so.”

Sophie, at 24, has never had a season, because she was caring for her father, who had been injured in a hunting accident. His addictions eventually led to his death, and when his cousin inherited the diminished estate, Sophie became a poor relation and quasi-governess to the son of the current earl. She is under intense pressure to accept East’s proposal, to save the family from financial ruin.

So, given that East is gorgeous, rich, funny, and that it will get her family off her back, why won’t she? Well, you have to have a lot of patience in Sophie to enjoy this book. Her motives are not clear at first, but eventually her actions make sense.

For his part, East loves the way Sophie puts him off balance, and that initial attraction develops as his protective instincts drive him to maintain contact with her, even if he has to be creative to do it, given Sophie’s tendency not to go out in society, and later, her abrupt relocation to the family’s country estate. Much of the book involves East’s attempts to unravel the mystery of Sophie, and her attempts to stay one step ahead of him, keeping both physical and emotional distance.

We find out in fairly short order that it was East’s mistress, a Mrs. Sawyer, who started the rumor. What looks at first like the machinations of a jilted woman becomes much darker and more complex as the truth about Sophie’s rather dire domestic situation comes to light. All of the Goodmans I have read have a suspense plot, and on the whole, they work for me. I know many readers find it ridiculous that all of the Regency lords were spies, but East’s spying –  involving the East India Company’s establishment of trade relations in China — is more about using his connections talk to people, to get information, and to convince people to do things. It’s pretty believable to me. All of the elements come together in a surprising and wholly satisfying way at the end of the book.

I love the developing relationship between Sophie and East. It’s funny, and tender, and sexy, and sad. A revelation that comes near the end of the book made me go back and read the first several chapters with new insight. While some readers might feel it is jammed in there, I felt it was very poignant.

I can see a certain kind of reader really hating the writing and the slow pace of Jo Goodman. If you don’t read this book with care, you might see Sophie as humorless, whiny, and TSTL. I think that view gets her all wrong.  Of course, it is true that nobody talks like East and Sophie. Their dialogue is unrealistically polished and thoughtful and deep and intelligent.  For my part, that’s a world I would like to live in all the time.

15 responses so far

Contest: Win 1 Free Registration to RomCon (Denver July 9-11)

May 11 2010 Published by under Uncategorized

I have an extra ticket to the new romance readers convention in Denver, July 9-11. It’s called Rom Con, and it’s sponsored by Borders. Unlike RWA or Romantic Times, this event has an exclusive focus on readers (so, workshops on “blogging”, or on “what readers want”, rather than workshops on craft or getting an agent). Lots of authors are attending, and, I hope, lots of readers. I am keeping a list of attendees here.

I have one free registration to give away, which normally costs $125. Meals — and everything else, including your travel and hotel — are your responsibility.

To enter, just make a comment on this thread. I will use random.org to choose 1 winner. One entry per person. And please, enter only if you plan to attend.

Contest will close Sunday May 16 at midnight EST. I will announce the winner on this thread.

11 responses so far

Monday Morning Stepback: Defining Sluttiness, Buying Followers, and the TBR App

May 10 2010 Published by under Monday Morning Stepback

1. Links of Interest from the week that was

Avidbookreader is talking about Digital Backlists You Probably Don’t Know About.

How Kindle Handles Typos from GalleyCat (reporting on a Wired column)

Long, but worth it. A report on a speech by Coetzee on censorship at UT’s LBJ Library (from Maud Newton)

Victoria Janssen on The Bashful Hero.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the romance novel hero who’s physically large and good at everything and gorgeous to boot. Except, I don’t mind that combination of traits if the hero is bashful about being good at everything, or embarrassed because he’s so tall, or just interesting in some way.

At Novel Matters, Ariel Longhorn on Reading and Discernment. Her post focuses on her identity as a Christian and whether she should read or reject books that represent views that challenge her faith.

At Abe Books, Beth Carswell on Reading and Seething: Books That Make Us Angry (via Books, Inq). Check out their very diverse list, which happens to include a sparkly, angsty vampire.

The UK Observer had a neat piece on covers.

What possible discussions took place in Germany, for instance, when publishers first received the manuscript for Martin Amis’s House of Meetings – a novel that describes the misery of life in a Russian gulag – and set to work on a cover that featured six figures body-popping in the windows of a modern apartment block? What prompted Italian book designers to give junior wizard Harry Potter a hat shaped like a mouse, and why did the French opt against the monochrome design that jacketed Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated in the UK and the US, concocting instead a watercolour of somebody fondling a woman’s breasts?

Ever wondered how to get a direct link to a tweet? The Book Vixen explains how.

At The Millions, an enthusiastic attitude to the TBR pile: The Joy of Unread Books:

I have about 800 unread books on my shelves. Some would find this excessive, and they would probably be right. But I take comfort in knowing that I will have appropriate reading material whatever my mood, that I will be spoiled for choice whenever I want a book, and that I will never, ever run out of new stories.[2] From the cover design, the back blurb, and general absorption of cultural knowledge, I have a strong idea of what each one of my unread books is like.

Take a look at the new Vanity Fair cover, featuring World cup athletes. Some are saying it objectifies men, and/or is “gay pornish”. Both seem to be objections to it. What do you think?

What do you think about The Pregnant Heroine? Sandy Heather at AAR says:

However, as I’ve grown older (or maybe because I’ve since had two of my own babies) I can’t seem to make myself turn off reality and find the pregnant heroine sexy. When the heroine discovers she’s pregnant, my mind automatically goes to prenatal vitamins, folic acid, or even birth defects. I can’t help it; I’m a worrier. I think about nausea, vomiting, and the even more unpleasant things that go along with late pregnancy. Yes, pregnancy is a beautiful and a life-changing experience for which little else can compare, but it’s also physically draining at times and at others downright unpleasant. For me, nowadays, it’s just not romantic in a sexy, steamy way.

Having just read Jo Goodman’s All I Ever Needed, I admit to being completely thrown out of the story by how often and how far into the heroine’s pregnancy she gets it on with the hero. I wondered, “is Sophia’s nonchalance typical or even believable for Regency era pregnant women?”.

The funniest thing I read last week was a debate about Miley Cyrus’s new song and video in The Sexist. I am pretty sure it is one of the worst 5 songs I have ever heard in my entire life. As Amanda puts her view:

It’s just important to make the distinction between OH MY DISNEY GIRL SEXY AVIAN COSTUME WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO OUR CHILDREN! and saying, Hey, it must be hard to be a Girl, Not Yet A Woman in the spotlight and be criticized no matter how you want to grow into adulthood. I will say that the song kind of sucks, in a not-criticizing-her-burgeoning-sexuality kind of way.

Feministe on Defining Sluttiness. Here quoting Sady Doyle, who participated on a panel at Harvard’s Rethinking Virginity conference:

The fact that anyone can be labeled a slut, at any time, with any level of sexual activity under their belt, and the fact that sluttiness is a moving target, makes it clear that slut-shaming isn’t just about controlling how much sex women have*. If you can be called a slut without so much as kissing another person, then it stands to reason that your slut status must be based on something besides your level of sexual experience or activity. And often, it is. It’s based on what people assume about you just by looking at you – at your body, your clothes and the way you move through the world. Once you realize that, it becomes obvious that the slut label isn’t just about controlling how much sex women have: It’s about controlling how we dress, how we walk, how we talk, how we dance, how much we drink, who we talk to, how we feel about our own desires and so on and so on.

Angela of Save Black Romance on Dorothy Koomson, Race and Culture:

However, I admit to feeling funny while reading both books. More than once I stopped to ask “Where are the black people?” or “Doesn’t Kendra/Kamryn ever date any black guys?” and I was often weirded out by how, well, “white” Kendra and Kamryn sounded.

BookEnds LLC on the question of whether there is or should be a Morality Clause in YA fiction.

2. Romanceland items: goodbyes, the TBR App, and growing your blog the new fashioned way

Good bye to Romance Buy The Book and Royal Reviews, although the former will be back after summer and the latter will continue to blog as individuals.

I had just discovered Royal Reviews, and was really surprised to see how young it was and how many readers it had. It’s funny how some sites take off and some don’t (by which I mean, specifically, “DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!!!”). I have no idea how the folks at Royal Reviews grew that review site, so this is not about them, but I will take this as an opportunity to rant a little about using prizes to get more followers. I am really sick of all the tweets coming in to my stream with “Follow Susie! She needs to get to XX followers. Bigger prizes the more followers she gets!”.

People have a right to grow their blogs or their Twitter followers count however they want, and I have a right to say what I think about the practice. IMO, there is a difference between having contests and deliberately growing your blog by giving away bigger prizes the more followers you get. And the difference is this: one of them is pathetic and the other isn’t. I’ll leave you to decide which I think is is which.

Finally, the TBR App was released last week by Smart Bitches/Dear Author. The app is free for your iTouch or iPhone. Here is the description:

To Be Read is an iPhone app for the romance reader. It includes content and reviews from Dear Author and Smart Bitches Trashy Books to help you build your romance To Be Read pile. It also includes free reads from some of the best names in romance fiction.

And about the site, TBR.com, which appears to be a host for the different projects like Save the Contemporary and DABWAHA:

To Be Read is a collaborative site designed to bring you up to date romance news, reviews, and recommendations. Conceived by Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches Trashy Books and Jane Litte from Dear Author, To Be Read is designed to help you build your To Be Read pile, one romance novel at a time.

I downloaded the TBR app, which is free. I confess I do not understand why they called it a TBR app instead of “Smart Bitches Dear Author App”. You can’t bookmark reviews, or search them, or create a list of books to buy. As Christina commented at the SBTB site:

Hmm, maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t see a way to actually make a TBR LIST in the app. Having all the reviews in one place is great and all, but if you can’t actually use it to make a list of the books you want to get…. Well, what’s the point?

The app is basically a dedicated app for those two blogs. Except it is not even as useful as just bookmarking them and reading their mobile versions on your iPhone, because the TBR app does not include comments, which are often really great at both sites.

One cool feature of the TBR app is the free content, including work by Sherry Thomas and Jill Shalvis. The free content is not that attractive to me, personally, because (a) I hate reading on my iTouch, and (b) there is a glut of free content out there already, and (c) I already have too much to read, but I am sure this will be a big hit for others. If you mainly use those two blogs to get book recs, or if you don’t care about comments and like the easy access the app provides to DA and SBTB, it is worth looking into in its current version.

Those folks deserve a ton of credit for creating the very first romance app. I know they are soliciting feedback, and continuing to make changes, and I may well be thrilled with a later version, just as many are thrilled with the current one. But this one, for me personally, not so much.

It did make me long for a LibraryThing app, though. There is a Goodreads app, but I would have to switch over to Goodreads. Has anyone tried it?

This whole app thing related to blogs raises a question for me, and I’ll end this section by asking it. Right now, I have separate apps for a few different news sites: HuffPo, NYT, Guardian, etc. I don’t expect HuffPo to carry NYT news or vice versa. Is this where we are headed with romance? Will there be an AAR app? A TGTBTU app? A Mrs. Giggles app? And will that be a great thing? A mixed thing? A thing only for the relatively few who actually own a iphone or itouch? Or something else?


3. Personal

My inlaws have just left, and we have the house to ourselves. Mr. RRR is where he can be found all summer long: in the garden. I finished my annual report and completed all of my grade rosters. It is fucking freezing here in Maine today, but I don’t care because after I finish this post I am going to grab my Kindle and curl up on the couch with my Slanket and have a readathon!

I am going to attend RomCon in July. I had decided this prior to the change of venue of RWA for several reasons too boring to contemplate (will attend RWA in 2011 in NYC), but now I am very glad I made that decision because there is no way in hell I would spend a minute inside a convention center while at WDW, one of my favorite places on earth. I have an extra RomCon ticket for the $125 admission which I will give away shortly on this blog. I noticed that for the Book Bloggers Convention in NYC later this month in conjunction with BEA, they are keeping a list of attendees. I thought it would be fun to do the same. So, if you are attending RomCon, comment here.

HAPPY WEEK!

PS. Have you ever noticed that women fiction bloggers always have their own signatures? I decided to get me one for fun:

19 responses so far

A Jewish Reader Reflects on Never Deceive a Duke by Liz Carlyle

May 07 2010 Published by under Reading Reflection

I’m thrilled to present this guest post by Stacey Agdern. It never occurred to me that a romance novel could be an important part of a modern family’s practice of an ancient religious tradition, but it makes perfect sense now. Thank you, Stacey.

Stacey Agdern is an award winning bookseller whose achievements have been cited in Publishers Weekly.  She is also one of Barbara Vey’s WW Ladies, reviews Manga and Graphic Novels for Romantic Times Magazine and has given presentations about working with booksellers at regional and national conferences.  She can be found on twitter at @nystacey.

This year, my brother and sister-in-law decided that they wanted to add an element to our traditional Passover seder.  They suggested that the attendees bring with them a reading, a song, something that would elaborate on the themes of the holiday; anything from the Exodus to the greens on the seder plate.

It took no time at all for me to decide what I wanted to bring.  I make no secret of my admiration for Liz Carlyle’s Never Deceive a Duke and the way she deals with the theme of anti-semitism in regency England.  Especially since the hero of the story is one of few Jewish characters to be depicted in a historical romance novel (and in a leading role…).

The words used to describe the thematic path of the Exodus, the going out of Egypt, are “from degradation to dignity.”  But when I thought about things further, I realized that these words also described the character arc of the hero of Never Deceive a Duke. Not only from the slums of his youth to the wealth of his adulthood, but also, and more importantly for my purposes, his religious arc.

Yes.  His religious arc.  For the hero grows from a boy unwanted because he has a Jewish taint, to a man who finds comfort in the faith of his mother and the grandparents who loved him.  From Degradation to Dignity.

The notes below are what resulted from my mental ramblings.  The italicized passages are taken from the story, my notes and interpretations below.  I hope you find them thought-provoking.

From Degradation to Dignity: The Journey of Gabriel Ventnor aka Gareth Lloyd

Passover themes as explored in Liz Carlyle’s “Never Deceive a Duke”

By Stacey Agdern

Gabriel stood at a distance as the older boys played, kicking their ball along the swath of green.  He had seen them in Finsbury Circus before.  And he had seen the ball too; an amazingly round and bouncing sphere that skittered across the grass at lightening speed, and made a satisfying ‘thunk’ when kicked.

The smallest boy caught Gabriel’s eye and crooked a finger.  With a glance back at his dozing grandfather, Gabriel dashed onto the grass.

The boy held out the ball.  “We need a sixth,” he said.  “Can you kick?”

Gabriel nodded.  “I can kick.”

The biggest boy elbowed past him.  “Give it will,” he said, snatching the ball from between them.  “We ain’t playin with Jews.”

The time: The regency era

The place: England.

The facts:  Our Gabriel is the product of a mixed marriage between the son of an aristocratic family and a young Jewish woman.  He is loved by his parents and maternal grandparents.  But his father is a soldier, a major in the British army stationed in India.  So he is left with his mother and grandparents, ignored by his paternal relatives, subject to prejudice because of the ‘taint’ of his mother’s faith  As you can tell from the scene above, the anti-Semitism of regency England runs deep. It is accepted at all levels of society and passed down to children as young as those depicted in the scene.

“Well he looks sturdy enough,” mused the Duchess, cutting a glance at her husband.  “He does not appear to be wormy.  He seems appropriately humble.  And at least he is not swarthy.”

“No,” admitted the duke churlishly.  “He is Major Ventnor made over, thank god-those gangling legs and that gold-colored hair included.”

The duchess turned her back on the old woman who had brought the boy.  “Really, Warenham, what choice do we have here?” she murmured.  “We must ask ourselves, I think, what is the Christian thing to do? Your pardon, of course, Mrs. Gottfried.”  This last was tossed carelessly over her shoulder.”

On the death of his mother, father and maternal grandfather, his maternal grandmother is left with no choice but to seek help from his paternal relatives.   They despise the young boy, despite the fact he seems to look just like them.  Therein lies the fundamental problem with anti Semitism:  at its core, it’s a prejudice against something a person can’t see or touch.  As a result, it’s a rather difficult prejudice to fight, as Gabriel is learning here.

The church of St. George’s-in-the-East was a towering white edifice dwarfing everything which surrounded it.  Stark against the Sunday morning sun, the bell tower cast a shadow which ran all the way to Cannon street and right over Gabriel’s toes.

“Bubbe, I don’t like it,” he whispered, tugging at her hand.

“What is this?’I don’t like it?’ ” she chided.  “It’s a church, tatellah.  It is god’s house.”

“Not your god,” Gabriel muttered.

His grandmother squeezed his hand. “Gabriel, my child, you must learn to be a part of them, these English.  In a few years, you will be old enough for your Bar Mitzvah, yes?”

He narrowed one eyes suspiciously.  “The English don’t have them ,bubbe.”

“Oh yes, but they are called confirmations,” she answered.  “It was your mother’s dearest wish that you should have one.”

This scene is both controversial and rather important to Gabriel’s growth.  It is controversial because many readers believe that Jewish grandparents would not raise their grandson out of the faith.  But these comments come out of a modern view, products of a society where it is possible to live freely and openly as a Jew.  However, in Regency England, Jews could not attend university, sit in parliament and do many other things English citizens took for granted.  Therefore, it could be argued that Gabriel’s grandparents were acting purely with Gabriel’s survival and success in mind.  Any grandparent who loved their grandson would understand that.

It is important to Gabriel’s growth because it demonstrates how truly in-between both the ‘English’ and the Jewish world he is.  His loving maternal grandparents lived in a world he could not fully join, and the rest of the world didn’t really want him.

“Oy gevalt,” murmured his grandfather.  “Poor devil.”

Soon the commotion was gone.  Zayde grabbed Gabriel’s hand and hastened away.  The gang had vanished into the g loom.  “What did that man do, Zayde?”

“Drank too deep with men he did not know,” he said.  “The English need sailors and to the press gang, almost anyone is fair game.”

Later in his own life, Gabriel was sold to a press gang by his paternal relatives.  But thankfully, his story does not end there.  For us, it jumps ahead to a time where Gabriel is forced to confront his ghosts and his past.

“You are surprisingly knowledgeable, Gabriel, for one who did not worship the faith.”

They had started down the hill which lead to the pavilion and the small lake beyond.  Gareth found himself growing unaccountably tense.  “Everyone I knew, Antonia, was a Jew,” he said quietly.  “As a small boy, I had seen no other way.  And yet I was kept from being a Jew.”

…

“Do you believe what they believed?”  There was no hint of judgment in her voice, merely curiosity.

“Some days, Antonia, I don’t know what I believe.”  He paused to lift a wayward briar from Antonia’s path.  “For me, this isn’t even about faith.  It’s about a nurturing community of good and honest people.”

She ducked under the briar, then glanced toward him with a faint smile.  “Perhaps I understand better than you might imagine, Gabriel.”

Antonia has lived through the tragedy that brought Gabriel back to the central scene of his childhood pain; the death of her husband and child give him an unexpected and unwanted title.  And yet she finds herself listening to him when he explains the process of shiva, of mourning. She who has no reason to listen at all.

Even though this story covers a great deal more ground, Gabriel Gareth Ventnor’s journey from degradation to dignity serves as its core.  Thank you for listening.

32 responses so far

When You Feel Like You Just Can’t Keep Up: Being a Tortoise Among the Reading Hares

May 05 2010 Published by under Genre musings

Recently, a category romance author was quoted as saying her book was a good “bathtub read”, as if it could be finished, not just in one sitting, but in one bathing! Me? I need three days to read a category romance.

I read slowly. Very slowly. I know this comes in large part from habits developed reading and teaching philosophy over the past many years.

The connection between philosophy and slow reading is not just personal: some, citing the following passage, credit Nietzsche with kicking off the “slow reading” movement in the modern era (and yes, “modern” to philosophers is anything from Descartes on):

Besides, we are friends of the lento, I and my book. I have not been a philologist in vain — perhaps I am one yet: a teacher of slow reading. I even come to write slowly. At present it is not only my habit, but even my taste — a perverted taste, maybe — to write nothing but what will drive to despair every one who is ‘in a hurry.’ For philology is that venerable art which exacts from its followers one thing above all — to step to one side, to leave themselves spare moments, to grow silent, to become slow — the leisurely art of the goldsmith applied to language: an art which must carry out slow, fine work, and attains nothing if not lento.

Thus philology is now more desirable than ever before; thus it is the highest attraction and incitement in an age of ‘work’: that is, of haste, of unseemly and immoderate hurry-skurry, which is so eager to ‘get things done’ at once, even every book, whether old or new. Philology itself, perhaps, will not so hurriedly ‘get things done.’ It teaches how to read well, that is, slowly, profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner thoughts, with the mental doors ajar, with delicate fingers and eyes. My patient friends, this book appeals only to perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!

–”Nietzsche on Slow Reading”, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/22/08. The passage is from Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, p. 5 in the Maudmarie Clark edition (1886)

Isn’t that a great passage? I think what Nietzsche says about philology is, or can be, true of fiction as well. At least it is for me.

Educators from preschool to the graduate level have been rethinking our attitude to reading. They are wondering if speed is a good indicator of fluency after all. Is accelerated reading always better?

In departments of education, professors talk about the “fluency” that those who are learning to read need to achieve to become good readers. Unless one can digest the letters on the page fast enough, one cannot comprehend what one is reading. But once one learns how to read, there is a speed beyond which one stops reading in a truly effective way. I am convinced that most speed reading is impaired reading, just like the sort you do when you have a fever or are tired or engaged in other tasks at the same time you are supposed to be reading. Unless you are very smart, speed-reading forces you to ignore all but one dimension of a literary work, the simplest information. What we lose is the enjoyment that made people turn to literature in the first place.

The role of literature is to mess with time, to establish its own time, its own rhythm. A new agenda for literary studies should open up the time of reading, just as it opens up how the writer establishes his or her rhythm. Instead of rushing by works so fast that we don’t even muss up our hair, we should tarry, attend to the sensuousness of reading, allow ourselves to enter the experience of words.

– Lindsay Waters, Time for Reading, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 9, 2007, Vol. 53 Issue 23, Special Section pB6-B8

I don’t know if speed reading is “impaired reading” for others. It definitely is for me.

I am truly amazed at how many books romance readers can read at a time, in a week, even in a day. Romance readers are often referred to as “ravenous” or “rabid”, and while one part of me wonders if those adjectives come from a subconscious worry about women deriving personal pleasure in anything (got to keep women’s sexuality in check), I also ask myself if there is any other genre so well known for voluminous reading.

I can get overwhelmed, especially hanging out on Twitter, by how many books there are, and by how fast my peers in Romanceland seem to get through them. Purchases of books have become a kind of coping strategy for me. At this point, given my reading speed, I think I have purchased my total allotment of books for my mortal life!

[As I was putting the finishing touches on this post a new itouch/iphone romance novel app was announced by Smart Bitches/Dear Author, a TBR app. Considering I am already overwhelmed by my TBR, I think I would do better with a "Don't Buy Any More Books" app. Is there one of those?]

Another habit that many folks in Romanceland have is reading in “snatches”. On Twitter, I saw a picture of a book open on a table in a crowded bar, and thought to myself, “I would never try to read at a bar”. I tend not to read unless I know I can be undisturbed for a stretch of time.

I also love audio books, and it wasn’t until I started looking into the “slow reading” movement (and, yes, it is connected to “slow food” and similar movements that emphasize locality, community, uniqueness, and pleasure over commercial culture, cost saving, and convenience. That means there is an anti-digital aspect to it, unfortunately) that I understood one of the attractions of the spoken word book:

In a classic study of the psychology of reading, Edmund Huey (1921) claimed that oral reading had a ceiling of about four words per second, whereas silent readers could process texts at two or three times that rate—with no diminishment of comprehension. It was time, he argued, for reading to go silent. Lip readers and subvocalizers (like me) were viewed as too stubbornly tied to the sound of words, too limited by the inefficient mechanisms of breath and speech. Huey did claim that silent readers retained a form of inner speech with traces of sound awareness, but at the higher and more efficient speed of reading, readers only sampled sounds— the train was moving too fast.

–Newkirk, Thomas, “The Case for Slow Reading”, Educational Leadership; Mar 2010, Vol. 67 Issue 6, p6-11

Being a slow reader, audio works for me. A category is about 6 hours on audio. That’s not much longer than I would spend reading it.

One of the things that many people in Romanceland do is reread, and rereading is something the “slow reading” advocates … advocate. I was at a thesis defense with 5 English professors last week (on sensation novels of the nineteenth century), and when I mentioned that I never reread, they gasped in unison. My admission literally brought the defense to a full stop. I think rereading would fit nicely with my slow reading style, and keep meaning to do more of it. But I need to get off my own back about “catching up” first.

I’m not trying to tell anyone else how to read. If anything, I’m reminding myself that it’s ok to be a tortoise among the hares. I sometimes wish I could read more, and faster, and still read the way I want to, so that I could join in more conversations and make more genre connections, and not feel like I am so far behind. But that’s not going to happen.

To emphasize that last point, I’ll end with a quote about individual reading styles as not just a matter of personal preference, but as a vital cornerstone of democracy:

And we are active about the process. We are in charge of the time, for example. We can choose when to read; we don’t have to wait for a timetabled opportunity to open the covers; we can read in the middle of the night, or over breakfast, or during a long summer’s evening. And we’re in charge of the place where the reading happens; we’re not anchored to a piece of unwieldy technology, or required to be present in a particular building along with several hundred other people. We can read in bed, or at the bus stop, or (as I used to do when I was younger and more agile) up a tree.

Nor do we have to read it in a way determined by someone else. We can skim, or we can read it slowly; we can read every word, or we can skip long passages; we can read it in the order in which it presents itself, or we can read it in any order we please; we can look at the last page first, or decide to wait for it; we can put the book down and reflect, or we can go to the library and check what it claims to be fact against another authority; we can assent, or we can disagree.

So our relationship with books is a profoundly, intensely, essentially democratic one. It places demands on the reader, because that is the nature of a democracy: citizens have to play their part. If we don’t bring our own best qualities to the encounter, we will bring little away. Furthermore, it isn’t static: there is no final, unquestionable, unchanging authority. It’s dynamic. It changes and develops as our understanding grows, as our experience of reading – and of life itself -increases.

–Phillip Pullman, The Guardian, The War on Words, Saturday 6 November 2004

23 responses so far

Review: His Convenient Virgin Bride, by Barbara Dunlop

May 04 2010 Published by under Reviews

I love my Kindle, but sometimes, I really hate walking out of our local Borders with nothing in my hands for me (as opposed to the family). Last week, in the checkout line, I grabbed this book off the rack.

This Silhouette Desire (April 10, 2009) is part of the Montana Millionaires series: The Ryders. Ryder International is a huge corporation run by three siblings. The two brothers have had their own HEAs  (in Seduction and the CEO and In Bed with the Wrangler), and now it is little sis Stephanie’s turn. Twenty-three years old, she is in charge of the Ryder Equestrian Center, where she both competes in horse jumping and trains other jumpers.

Stephanie’s brothers are having some money troubles, due in part to the twelve million dollars they have paid out to a blackmailer to keep Stephanie’s true parentage a secret. Yes, twelve million dollars. If I were Stephanie, I would rather find out I was sired by a one night stand between Lucifer and Sarah Palin than lose twelve million bucks, but I’m not a Ryder, so what do I know. Enter Alec Creighton, Chicago millionaire and “troubleshooter”, hired to streamline the family’s portfolio and investigate the blackmailer.

Stephanie is young and impulsive. Not stupid, just leads with her heart. If there’s a character arc in this book at all, it’s hers. Alec is pretty much perfect. He has no issues except for failing to wear a glove when he loves.

There is an immediate attraction between Alec and Stephanie, and an almost immediate consummation. I had not read a Silhouette Desire in a while, and found myself surprised, especially in comparison to Harlequin Blazes, how little sexual tension there was and how brief and nonexplicit the intimate scenes were. If this had been a Blaze, there would have been at least 20 references to Alec’s erection and Stephanie’s wet panties prior to any consummation. I found the change refreshing.

This turns out to be  a marriage of convenience story. Although that term is odd, since there could be nothing less convenient for a Chicago businessman than to have to marry a Montana woman he has just met. The blackmail plot is resolved off screen, and Stephanie’s reaction to her true parentage gets little play. I am sure you can guess why Alec marries Stephanie.

I find “marriage of convenience due to pregnancy” a very hard sell in the twenty first century in the US.  It would be one thing if the couple was religious or from a traditional community (maybe Orthodox Jewish or Saudi immigrants to the US or something), which they never are in these books. I suppose the motive is that they are such good people that they want the best for this child. But then I never understand why “we’ll just stay married until the baby is born and then divorce” is better for the child than not marrying.

The conflict on Alec’s part becomes “I can’t allow us to fall in love because I have to divorce her because that is The Plan”, and on Stephanie’s part is “I don’t really like this guy (Cause he knocked me up? Cause he’s from Chicago? Cause he’s nosing around my family’s business? Not sure.) so I can’t allow myself to fall in love”.

So, as you can see, I found most of the conflicts in this book underdeveloped or not believable. But this is the third Dunlop category I have read and I have, on balance, enjoyed them all, mainly because of the interactions between the hero and heroine. Alec and Stephanie are both very likable, and have genuine, compelling interactions. I also liked the Montana/equestrian center/competition setting, and enjoyed the rivalry between Alec and the younger Wesley, a jumper Stephanie is training, which lent the story a fun old school feel.

I’ll end with a short passage:

Alec bunched his napkin and tossed it on the table. “So what did you get me?”
“I was supposed to buy a gift?”she feigned alarm.
He nodded. “It is our anniversary.”
“What anniversary is that?”
“Fifteen days.”
“Ahh,” she nodded. “The little known fifteen-day horse-themed anniversary.”
“Celebrated from Iceland to Estonia.”
“We’re in Kentucky.”
“So, no present for me?”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “I saw a ten-gallon hat in the gift shop downstairs.”
He grinned. “Not my style.”
“A silver long-horn steer belt buckle?”
He rose from his chair. “Try again.”
“I’ve got a nice riding crop in the trailer.”
“Did you mean that to be sexy?”
“Nooo,” she chuckled as she shook her head.
“Thank goodness.” He made his way around the table. “I mean, ouch.”

9 responses so far

Monday Morning Stepback: Stupidly Happy Edition

May 03 2010 Published by under Monday Morning Stepback

The weekly links, opinion, and personal updates post

1. Personal

Do you ever listen to XTC? One of my favorite albums of theirs is Wasp Star [Apple Venus Volume 2] and the song Stupidly Happy has been a constant refrain the past few days:

I’m stupidly happy
Everything’s fine
I’m stupidly happy
My heart pumping wine
I’m stupidly happy
With idiot grin
I’m stupidly happy
You won’t catch me in

Why? Well, the academic year is basically over. I have some thesis defenses and grading, but the wind is very much at my back. All of the things I was worried about have not come to pass (and yes, that should give you a good sense of my typically anxious and pessimistic state of being. For me, “good times” means “nothing really awful is happening right now”!). My department seems safe from the cuts, and my friends kept their jobs. I had my first post-tenure review and it went swimmingly. Research and teaching are both going really well. A senior colleague’s retirement means I get to move into his gigantic corner office (although the loss of that colleague will be huge. He is not being replaced). I am picking out the wall paint today.

The long Maine winter is over and I spent the warm, sunny weekend in our flower gardens and at my sons’ soccer games. I have a new Hospice friend who is an avid mystery and Western reader, and a dear. Everyone in my family is healthy and reasonably happy. I am looking forward to attending RomCon in July [saving RWA for NYC in 2011]. Oh, and I turn 41 today. :)

2. Romantic Times Roundup

I did not attend (and have no plans to, ever), but it has been fun to follow along with the Tweets and posts:

Romantic Times Blog (several posts, scroll down for an amazing shot of an incredibly crowded signing)

Lisabea (author LB Gregg) of Nose in a Book has a fun pic post with shots of Sarah McCarty, Lauren Dane, Tessa Dare and others.

The Deadline Dames have a lot of fun pics (scroll down).

Barbara Vey’s Beyond Her Book blog at PW with lots of pics, including Barbara Taylor Bradford, Harlequin CEO Donna Hayes, Heather Graham as a Mad Hatter that would put Jonny Depp to shame, and some mashed potato martinis, a trend I first heard about maybe 7 or 8 years ago, and that I had hoped would be long gone by now.

WickedJungleOnline has a neat slideshow video featuring UF and paranormal authors including Carolyn Crane, SJ Day, MJ Davidson, and others.

Jill D., of Romance Rookie, has a Day One post. I am sure she will have more to come.

Amy C, of Romance Book Wyrm has a post with lots of pics.

Also check out Jane of Dear Author‘s post, which has gotten a two three and counting very heated comments from one of the Mr. Romance contestants who felt dissed by the post and also, apparently, subject to sexual harassment by a “very popular author” and her friends in their suite. A second contestant chimed in ot complain that he was not invited to said orgy.

KristieJ’s post on RT at Reader’s Gab.

Sarah of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has a post up.

Sarah’s Tweet stream also had loads of great pictures.

Some other RT tweets of note:

Fun picture tweets:

@Zoe_Archer The red hot dance team of me, @carrielofty, @sherrythomas and RT’s Morgan at the Ellora’s Cave #RT10 party.

KristieJ being a terrific sport by wearing a Mullet wig!


Blind Item Tweet:

@Ethiopiansiren Authors: Nearly all in attendence @ Sat’s bookfair were amazing and kind. But those who give bitchface then leave early? Readers talk. #RT10

Creepiest Tweeter:

@

TheCreepyDoll @SevickBrown Wasn’t I awesome? Didn’t you like me? I sure did like you. I’m so sad that you didn’t like me. I bet I can make you like me.#rt10

Never underestimate continued popularity of JR Ward: @AlannaCoca Stalking JR Ward at the book signing. Check out the crowd there! #RT10

And a great shot of author Tracy Cooper-Posey and (her husband?) Mark, complete with red leather, dog collar and leash! (thanks to @CaitMiller)

Tweeter Most Likely to Make Mr. Romance [aka "the mangeant"] Contestants Cry:

Tor Books editor @HeatherOsborn I feel a little sad for Mr. Romance’s body image issues. #getoveritpussy #mangeant #rt10

@HeatherOsborn Judges choice! And the winner is… Jamie. This is only the beginning Jamie. THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER. #mangeant #rt10

@ HeatherOsborn These ballroom dancers have the sexual heat of a vomit crusted sink. #mangeant #rt10

3. Links of Interest

The NYT reports on growing numbers of Twitter grammar and spelling police (thanks to @keirasoleore)

Provoking an irate reaction seems to be largely the point. GrammarCop, one of several people who seem to exist on Twitter solely to copy-edit others, recently received a beatdown from the actress Kirstie Alley, to whom he had recommended the use of a plural verb form instead of a singular. “Are you high?” Ms. Alley wrote back. “You really just linger around waiting for people to use incorrect grammer? you needs a life.” (One of Ms. Alley’s people said that the actress was too busy to comment for this article.)

Think anyone pointed out to her that she misspelled “grammar”?

Niall Alexander at Walker of Worlds on SF Fatigue — why he had it and what books got him out of it. (From @Milerama)

For all that science fiction purports to be a genre in which boundless imagination roams the narrative wilds untamed by such dullard concerns as reality and mere mortality, towards the end of my reading spree those words, so often spoken to champion the genre, felt somewhat hollow. Rather than freeing, sci-fi seemed to me a storytelling medium as constricting as any real-world space.

Kindle now has “collections” capacity. Yay! But it is a royal PITA to get it to work. Boo! Karen at Books on the Knob tells you all you need to know.

Most of us know by now that AAR and Ramblings on Romance were plagiarized. Jane of Dear Author has written a post detailing the recourse a blogger has if she is “scraped”.

May 1 was Blogging Against Disablism Day. I was puzzled at first by the use of the word “disablism”, until I realized that is the preferred term in the UK, while folks in the US use “ableism”.

Here are a few good posts:

Form the F Word, a guest post by Amy Clare On Being a Disabled Blogger

…every disability is invisible on the internet – meaning, blog posts do not come with a report detailing all the difficulties its author experienced while writing and moderating it. Fighting disablism in the blogosphere, then, necessitates awareness, in the mind of the able-bodied reader or fellow blogger, that the post they are reading may have come from a disabled writer, that this writer may have any number of the problems described above, and that ultimately, a person’s disability may require more attention than the internet does.

Also at the F Word, What is Disablism?

From Feministe, a post on Addressing Ableist Language

Switchin to Glide has a post up questioning the feminist emphasis on “independence” :

What if instead of deriving so much pride from our independence, we took pride in our networks and community memberships? This is not to say that we cannot be proud of both, however, the exaggerated emphasis on independence, emancipation, and liberation in privileged Western feminisms bars important members of our feminist communities from participating fully.

And a wide ranging roundup of links to posts on topics such as education, technology, sex and love, access, and other issues from a disabilities perspective from Diary of A Goldfish.

4. Upcoming on this here blog…

LOTS OF POSTS!!!!

I’ve got reviews of Jo Beverly, Jo Goodman, Barbara Dunlop (Silhouette Desire), and Cheryl St. John (SuperWendy’s blogger bundle) to write. Also part 2 of my summary of the PCA paper on ethical criticism of genre fiction.

I’m pushing the Romance Roots Readalong of Jane Eyre back to Tuesday May 25. Sunday May 23 (in deference to BEA).

I’ll write a post with some observations to get discussion going, and folks should feel free to comment here or write their own post and put a link in the comments. Whatever works for you. I will leave the post open for as long as people want to comment: this will not be a scheduled discussion.

I am thinking of doing some theme weeks this summer, such as a mystery week, a nonfiction week, and a blue collar hero week (for our driving trip in August to a Tigers game). Also, the long awaited Penis Week Member Week Cucumber Week is coming soon. I promise.

Finally, I now have some time to work on a RRR logo image and decent banner. Hopefully things will look better around here soon.

HAPPY WEEK!

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