Snow stuff

2010 Feb 18

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I have those glasses that darken with the sunlight. When I went outside the other day to get the mail and came back inside, they took forever to change back to regular after all that reflection off the snow. And the sun wasn’t even shining that day! I was walking around the house for several minutes wondering why it was so dark before I figured out what in the world had happened. That’s happened a couple of times in the summer but never in the winter that I can remembr. The odd things is that I finally had to literally warm them up in my hands to get them to turn back to normal.

I had to nod in agreement with something Tara Marie said on her blog the other day:

It’s been a very strange winter in our neck of the woods. Very little snow, but very cold. The river behind our house is frozen over. We’re expecting some snow tonight (4-8″), but certainly nothing like the Mid-Atlantic States have seen this winter.

via Romance Reading Mom: Some random thoughts…

The pond on the hill behind our house has been frozen, at least at the surface, seems like for the last month. It almost never freezes. Also, not sure where she’s at, but here in western Kentucky, we’re definitely not used to having snow on the ground for two weeks. It’s not the snow, it’s that it’s taking so long to melt. I mean, it’s not like it’s a couple a feet like in the east or northeast. It’s just a few inches, more or less, but it’s not melting! o.O

Normally, even if we do get up to four or five inches, which for some odd reason usually happens in late February or March around here, not December or January – those months are our rainy season - the sun comes out the next day and, pfft, the stuff is gone in a couple of hours. Literally. Late February or March, remember. We might get a foot one day but two days later, it’s 50 degrees. 50 degress and sunshine can melt snow fast. Usually.

This stuff, though, is like someone sprayed it on. ;-)

It’s got our cats freaked out like you wouldn’t believe. Living on a farm, they’re both indoor and outdoor cats. We have four and some of them prefer to stay outside more than others but most of them will head inside when the weather is bad. Just long enough for the sun to come out again. They’re used to odd behaviors on our part, weather included, but this carpet of white, cold, wet annoyance has them acting like, uh-uh, not going out there until someone removes whatever that is. They keep looking out the doors and windows to see if it’s gone yet.

I kinda agree. :-D

When the formula works ;-)

2009 Dec 06

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I finally finished What Price Love? and I liked it. Not loved it, mind you, but even with having to struggle through (okay downright skip) parts of it, I did enjoy the horse racing scandal storyline. The romance itself picked up considerably for me when I reached the “boy loses girl” point, too, and Dillon had to follow Pris to London. Of course, since this was Laurens, boy didn’t actually lose girl. With this author, it’s more a matter of boy laying siege to girl surrounded by the Cynster clan, and everyone else, mostly, giving him their full support.

Which got me to thinking about that list of things that are always supposed to happen in romances. I can’t remember who came up with it off the top of my head but I know I read about it on Teach Me Tonight and could probably find it there somewhere. But whenever I read a book like this, I’m always wondering if it’s the exception to the rule and whether anyone has checked to see if it fits the so-called formula.

Okay, just call me suspicious by nature. ;-)

But, you know, it’s even worse when I read Krentz and I think I’ll read one of hers next. Maybe.

Secrets – as plot devices they can be tricky

2009 Dec 05

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I’m still reading What Price Love? by Laurens, but I did finally give up on a section at the beginning of the book from about ch. 5 to roughly ch 10. Once I decided to give myself permission to do that, I figured out what the problem was.

It isn’t the horse racing per se but the fact that they’re investigating a racing scandal and that was being held up by Pris keeping secrets from Dillon unnecesarily. Oh, she had her reasons and they’re probably pretty good ones, but I was impatient to get to the meat of the story. Now that they’re actually in the thick of things, so to speak, I’m reading along at a pretty good clip and will hopefully finish the book tonight if I don’t get distracted by, um, you know, life. ;-)

Well, that was a bust

2009 Dec 04

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I was in and out of the doctor’s office so fast I barely had time to get the book out of my bag, much less read anything. Truly amazing considering I as in for a yearly physical.

OTOH, I think I’ve figured out part of the reason why I’m having so much difficulty reading this one. It’s the horse racing theme. Now normally something esoteric like that would grab my attention but I’m not a horse person and I just remembered I had problems getting into Demon’s book, too.

So, I am seriously considering either pulling out another one of hers to reread – I’m leaning towards either Gerard’s or Michael’s stories – or going back to one of Jayne Castle’s Harmony stories.

Yeah, that’s another binge I’ve been on lately.

Ever kept wading?

2009 Dec 04

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I have recently been on a binge of reading/rereading a bunch of books by old favorite authors. Apparently there are several that I have books by that I’ve never gotten around to reading.

What Price Love? by Stephanie Laurens is a prime example and I think I’ve figured out why. Or maybe not. I love this author. I’m one of her main defenders within romance circles online but I have to say that reading this one is like wading through mush for some reason. My mind keeps wandering. I keep finding myself jumping ahead to read other parts of the story, which are not altogether bad. It’s not that I’m not interested in the story itself. It’s that I can’t seem to read it in a linear fashion starting at the beginning and working my way to the end.

My mind literally keeps wanting to jump to another of her books and that is not a good sign. Oye.

Okay, since I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, I’ll give a couple of more chapters before giving up – or at least until I’ve jumped around enough to feel like I’ve read most of the book anyway.

Double oye. (rolling eyes)

Seriously, anyone ever run into this problem with this or any other author?

Not just for women

2009 Oct 18

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For months now I’ve been thinking of starting a post category on the blog called “Romance Is…” dedicated specifically to defining romances as I know and love to read them, not in any specific dictionary definition way but more in a “what they are and aren’t” to me personally as a longtime reader and by association to other readers as I find things to comment on around the web. Well, the first instance of this has occurred. Heather over on The Galaxy Express asked me a question in one of the comments on Will Sweet Science Fiction Romance Survive? and when I went to answer my response ended up becoming this post. So away we go:

@BevBB If you’re still checking back, do you think the “by women for women” mantra is as vitriolic in nature? Maybe it is–you might know more–and I agree both represent extreme positions, but from what I’ve seen (which is to say in my limited experience), messages a la Spearhead from the SF side has been downright misogynistic at times (although not as extreme).

The romance mantra seems to be an attempt at being empowering vs. blaming the fault of anything questionable in romance on the male gender.

I could be wrong, though.

I don’t believe it’s intentionally vitriolic nor do I think she’s wrong, it’s just that it’s more a combination of perspectives and attitudes than any one simple thing. Just like everything else in life. It’s been my observation that this one falls into several basic points. Make of them what one will.

1) Books labeled romance were marketed to a distinct female audience from the start even if the authors weren’t female. Why? Because there was a market there and there is still a market. As long as there is a market publishers are going to feed that market. Over time that market and how that market is fed has only gotten more specialized. That’s only natural. That is never going to change. But did you notice that many of the early authors weren’t female?

2) When exactly did the phrase “for women, by women” originate? I’m not sure exactly but it seems to spring out of the paperback boom surrounding the 1970s for some reason, which I find extremely odd on reflection. There were some extremely anti-female attitudes espoused in those books, both the historical and contemporaries, possibly even some that were worse than those that had come before that time period. And yes, that can be proven. Bodice rippers. Rape romances. Heck, Greek tycoons, anyone? Oh, I forgot we still have those don’t we. See, most people say that these attitudes have gone away while I’m not so sure. Have they gone away or have they been rechanneled elsewhere? Have they popped up in paranormals in another form? Or have they instead transmuted themselves into a gender reversal where the male is objectified rather than the female? Attitudes, people, can come back and bite us in the ass if we don’t truly confront and understand them.

3) So, because people have tried to understand the attitudes springing from that one era of romances I tend to believe that they’ve, sometimes incorrectly at times, taken the “for women, by women” mantra and run it into the ground as a way of explaining why some of those books were either written or how the genre has since evolved. Personally, I feel it’s an extreme oversimplification all the way around. The reason I say this is that if one just asks this question and lets it sink in – how do you think some of those wrong attitudes got into the books in the first place? Just ask yourself how many men have been writing the books all along using pseudonyms, possibly under what are/were then called house names? So, we’re maybe espousing a mantra, created during a boom era, based on a lie, promoted by the marketing departments of the publishing houses solely to sell the books to us? Of course it means something to us but that doesn’t mean it might not have been based on a lie at one point or another. Think about that for a long, long moment and let it get under your skin.

4) Although many readers and authors would deny it to high heaven, there is a territorial mentality to the “for females, by females” mantra in terms wanting males to keep their mitts off of our books and always has been – I’ve seen it happen on forums when male authors, in particular, speak up. Because, well, men just can’t speak our language – the language of romance. That’s fandom mentality at its worse. Nothing wrong with fandoms as long as one recognizes it for what it is because if one doesn’t then it is a bad thing. What’s really telling is when people resist seeing this community as one enormous fandom as if burying their heads in the sand will make it not so. But again, who and what fosters this sense of fandom that is so apparent? One simple phrase, repeated endlessly over and over - by women, for women. And you know what, fans buy lots and lots of products. Yet, again, we circle around to marketing for some odd reason.

Now, the above are all basically about attitudes but there is also an element of perspective to this in that there are some readers and authors who do think of romances – and notice the small “r” there – as her (the heroine’s) story. If one listens closely enough, one can spot it when they discuss the books because it’s very clear they want the books to be about her journey almost exclusively. I don’t care how much we talk about the focus being on the hero, the journey in romance is hers to a lot of readers, people. His objectification but her journey. To that I ask a simple question, how can one tell a story about a relationship developing without it being their story? Equally.

So, are they relationship books or are they personal diaries?

To put it bluntly, it takes two to tango.

In other words, the more I listened the more I started to suspect that to embrace the “by women for women” mantra really meant embracing that romances were supposed to be woman’s fiction in an effort to get away from those male attitudes and I reject that with both barrels. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing at all wrong with getting away from some of those backwards attitudes, any and all backward attitudes, but we don’t have to alienate half the population to do it. More to the point, my father is the one who taught me to love a great romance when we sat up watching all those late night Errol Flynn movies. He’s the one who taught me the love of a great swashbuckling adventure where the mythological hero rescues the damsel in distress. Or even the latest B-sci-fi monster flick for that matter.

He taught me a love of reading on top of all that and I would hope I’ve passed all of that on to both my daughter and my son.

Romance is universal and definitely not just for women.

Attitudes and perspectives, people.

Now, is it the same battle in reverse or not?

So, this is the first entry in my Romance Is… irregular series. Not sure how often I’ll do these. That will depend on how often I find something to comment on or how often people ask me questions and get the juices flowing to start me babbling. ;-)

Just a happy ending? I think not.

2009 Oct 17

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JMC has a very thought-provoking post over on the AccessRomance – Reader Gab blog entitled What is “Ever After”? in which she asks about the darker side of that phrase and how we use (misuse?) it in romances. Her post reminded me of something I’ve been holding back on saying myself for a while now.

It always amazes me how bent out of shape some people get about the fact that romances have happy endings when most popular fiction formulas do, too. Personally, I think we romance readers need to hold our heads up high and look down our noses at the rest of popular fiction readers because we have higher standards in our reading tastes.

Don’t believe me? I mean get real. Most story protagonists in those other genres only need to figure out the mystery, kill the monsters, save the world (or universe) and generally defeat the baddies. Then they rest on their laurels. Romance heroes and heroines have to convince the readers they can make a relationship work for the rest of their lives at the same time figuring out the mysteries, killing the monsters, saving the worlds and/or universes and defeating those nefarious bad guys - while raising kids and/or dealing with an extended family of some sort at times, too.

Piece of cake, right?

NOT!

And anyone who thinks it is, is freaking nuts.

So, just a happy ending for us?

Hah.

Yeah, we romance readers expect more, a whole hell of a lot more than some measly, pathetic, stinking happy ending. When we say happily ever after, this is what we mean - the whole package.

Show us some commitment, buster. Ain’t no laurels around here.

Demanding?

Not by much.

So, settle for a simple happy ending if the rest of you wish to in what you like to read but we prefer satisfaction. Oh, and, by the way, don’t leave us dissatisfied either.

Not a pretty picture. :D

Three books and a giggle

2009 Aug 18

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I’m trying to be more diligent about giving heads up for any good discussions I run across and/or join into on the web. Most of the time, I figure new book finds can wait until Friday but what’s the point of waiting to tell you about the posts I’m already commenting on? That makes no sense. And sometimes those are about books. It’s a confusing conundrum so the confusion stops here. (At least for me. You could very well still be scratching you head. :D ) Anyway, just to catch you up, here’s what I’ve been up to lately.

Book 1: Heather over @ The Galaxy Express posted the Cover for Katie MacAlister’s STEAMED and, oh, my word, it’s a doozy. The book sounds interesting too. ;-) A steampunk romance. I can’t wait to get my hands on it. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for romance to discover steampunk. Any other fans of steampunk out there? Books or movie recommendations welcome. (Oh, and I love it when they work in authors from the era like H.G. Wells or Jules Verne. Just a quirk.)

Book 2: Then there’s the review by C2 over on The Good, The Bad and The Unread for Stephanie Lauren’s Daziel book in the Bastien Club group called Mastered by Love. I could’ve really done without knowing this book was out. Seriously. I was happily ignoring the rest of that series because Laurens hadn’t written Daziel’s book. Now someone has told me about it. Doggone it! I have some major catching up to do. Wonder if I can skip some books and go straight to his? I can’t even remember which ones I’ve got/read in that group. Really. Sigh. Sometimes these spin-off series truly are a pain because one just doesn’t know. Help?

Book 3: Trust between an author and a reader is a precious thing. It’s nebulous and difficult to describe but it’s something that’s either there or it isn’t. If it exists it can cause a reader to try a type of story they wouldn’t otherwise but if it doesn’t it can stop them dead in their tracks when an author goes in a new direction. There’s one particular ebook author that I’ve found I would pretty much try anything she wrote because I’ve found that I can trust her writing style even in those areas that I normally don’t like to go and that’s Bianca D’Arc. I say all this because she has a new book, Grady’s Awakening, out today in a series, Resonance Mates, that I haven’t even gotten started on yet because it has menages. The thing is that I’ve read other books by her that have menages in them, most noteably her Dragon Knights series, and loved them. She doesn’t just toss the menages into the stories. They are there for a reason. Yeah, it’s a fantasy reason for the most part as well as truly working on the extended relationship but it works and that’s what I trust. So, why have I been hesitating on this other series?

Heck if I know. ;-)

And the giggle: Jessica over on Racy Romance Reviews posted a hilarious, um, sampling of lines from romances featuring the sense of smell. If you haven’t read it yet, treat yourself and go over to check out  Smells Like Romance Spirit: On the super noses of our heroines and heroes. It’s worth the time. :D

Mid-Summer Reading

2009 Aug 14

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Currently reading

It doesn’t happen often but occasionally I get in the mood to read a biography or an autobiography. Normally, they’re just not on my non-fiction to look for. I tend more towards arts and crafts with a smattering of self-help type books. Recently, though, I’ve become interested in the story and life of Teddy Roosevelt. It’s not simply the political climate in the country but oddly enough I’ve run across several romances over the years that have him in them. Yeah, they do exist. ;-)  And he’s almost always portrayed as a “character” to say the least. An interesting one but definitely a larger than life personality, almost more so than many of our other Presidents. So, anyway, I got curious and thought I’d start looking for a book on his life and lo, and behold, one was just published and I grabbed it last weekend - The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley. I’ve just started what’s a really, really big book so I’ll have to get back to you on what I think of it after I wade through some of it.

Summer TV

Do you love or hate summer TV? I can never decide. On the one hand, we have reruns but, on the other, we have summer replacement series. It can be an uneven trade-off. I was thinking about this the other night while catching up on some recordings I was behind on. There were several replacement series there that I have definite mixed feelings about but a couple I love. In the mixed category are Royal Pains and Warehouse 13. In the love, love, love, can’t get enough of is Eureka. (Warning, those are all graphic intensive sites.) I actualy wish Eureka was on all year long, it’s that’s good. But then, there is the old saying about too much of a good thing, so mayb not.

Great discussions here and there that I’ve been following

And in the “did you know?” category

There’s a new Tron movie in the works called Tron Legacy. Well, I hadn’t heard about it until I ran across a blog post about it the other day.

An interesting week to finally get back online

2007 Sep 21

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The first thing I found out Monday was that Robert Jordan, author of The Wheel of Time fantasy/science fiction series, had died. Bummer. Especially for my son, who is a such big fan. He’s actually met the man several times at signings so he’s been rather depressed about it all week. (I’d link to it but I’d misplaced the report I had saved, so just do a search for around last Sunday on that name and you should get something.)

On the flip side, I got the message that Linnea Sinclair is doing an interview with Admiral Branden Kel-Paten and is asking for readers to submit questions. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, where have you been hiding? Hehehe.

And then I get on today and run across an interesting discussion over on Dear Author from yesterday about someone dissing romances. Those types of discussions always fascinate me. Not because they can ever accomplish anything but because they can’t. Well, sort of. I guess what I’m getting at is that if people would actually stick to the point and be specific then maybe we actually could discuss the topic and clear something up. But do they? Rarely. Clarifying to each other what was said back and forth isn’t sticking to the point either. Nope, not really. It just seems like it is and makes people feel better.

It’s particularly difficult to have a full discussion when one isn’t supposed to mention a specific book or author when one is talking about reading preferences. Oye. Rolling my eyes so hard they’re about to fall outta my poor head.