Bev's Books » Ten Nights of Love
Ten Nights of Love: Overview & Afterthoughts
Yes, I know it is past Valentine’s Day, but my ever so logical brain wouldn’t let me ignore posting a list of chronological links for this entire Ten Nights of Love series for future reference. Following that, you’ll find a few thoughts that crossed my mind as I made this journey through the years. First, here’s the full list of posts in order: The Introduction Grace Livingston Hill Emilie Loring Glenna Finley Julie Garwood Amanda Quick Dara Joy Stephanie Laurens Christine Feehan Linnea Sinclair Shelly Laurenston Cover Gallery Now for my overall thoughts completely unrelated to individual authors and simply about the journey I just took. I find it fascinating that what started out as an attempt explore the changes in sexual content in the books turned into something completely different. Or maybe it didn’t. The thing is I’m not sure we can ever … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Cover Gallery
Happy Valentine’s Day When I first came up with idea of doing this Ten Nights of Love series of posts, I wanted to find something to illustrate them and the obvious choice was the books. As I sorted through my collection, though, I realized that they also showed a lifetime of changes in the covers themselves. So, I wanted to see a gallery of one cover for each author in one post and thought you might enjoy it, too. I included Ten Nights of Love just to keep things even although I may have sort of cheated elsewhere for the purposes of showing an early electronic cover. Odd how few clinches there are… Related Posts:Ten Nights of Love: Overview & AfterthoughtsTen Nights of Love: Shelly LaurenstonTen Nights of Love: Linnea SinclairTen Nights of Love: Christine FeehanTen Nights of … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Shelly Laurenston
For most of the previous entries in this Ten Nights of Love series, I automatically knew who the various authors were going to be and all I had to do was make sure I arranged them in chronological order to tell the story. For this last post, though, I knew what the content was supposed to be about but had three author under consideration and three different reasons for selecting them, which for some odd reason totally and completely confused me, but more on that in a moment. You see, a couple of years ago, I actively started dipping my toe, heck, my entire foot, into the so-called erotic romance sub-genre. I call it “so-called” because I’m still not entirely convinced that all the books with that tag are labeled … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Linnea Sinclair
Next up here I have a special treat. I was digging around some old electronic files recently and found some things that I treasure almost as much as some of my old paperbacks. A lot of people nowadays know about a book called Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair. But do they know about or have the original story that appeared as an e-book called Command Performance from before she made it to the big time in print? I do, plus several of her other books in their original e-book form. Anyhow, I bring all this up to point out that prior to say, about, oh, 2001, I’d most likely already bought some e-books off the Internet but I wasn’t all that sold on the practice. To say it was a … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Christine Feehan
When I first arrived on the Internet in the mid-1990s and eventually discovered various forums and websites related to romance novels, one of the things that fascinated me was that romance had an official definition – as found on the Romance Writers of America website. I mean it’s perfectly logical that it would, at least in terms of the need authors have to be able to market their books to the publishers who in turn need to be able to sell them to the readers. That’s business. I can respect that need. What amazed me was how stripped down that definition was from how I viewed the romances I read and that I’ve always read whether I realized it or not at that point. What I’ve always wanted in a romance … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Stephanie Laurens
Over the twelve years since the Cynster series by Stephanie Laurens first debuted, I sometimes honestly believe I’ve spent more time defending her heroines to other romance readers online than I’ve spent reading the books. Her heroines, mind you, not her heroes. To me, that’s significant because I’m not sure what other author’s heroine’s I’d think deserved the defense. Not needed it, mind you, but deserved it. In the one and only review I ever wrote, I said this about Honoria, the heroine in Devil’s Bride, and in many ways I think it holds true for most of Laurens’ heroines to some degree or another: Poor Honoria, her fate is sealed, or so Devil keeps telling her. And, lest anyone think it’s as simple as that, Honoria is one of the most sensible … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Dara Joy
It’s now late spring of 1995 and I’ve picked up another issue of Romantic Times. Inside is this preview description of what sounded like possibly the wackiest romance I’ve ever heard of. The real kicker was that it was a futuristic – being marketed for its sexiness. Whoa. Got my attention. Now, we have to put this in context because futuristic romances, AKA what the publishers at that time were attempting to pass off as some type of watered down blending of science fiction and romance, were not known for their, ah, sexiness. Heck, they were barely known for their romances and that was a large part of why they’ve never been all that popular with romance readers. First impressions, you know. We won’t even go into what the science fiction in them consisted … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Amanda Quick
Once I’d started reading historical romance with Julie Garwood, I did sort of dive into that particular pool headfirst. I remember reading a lot of mostly medievals in those next few years of the early 1990s. All the while still reading some contemporaries and searching for that elusive perfect fantasy/science fiction romance combination to appear on the horizon. There were occasional fits and starts in that direction with the new Leisure/Love Spell line but not a lot of enthusiasm on my part for what they were producing. But back to reading historical romances, I slowly began to dip my toe into the Regency era and it was definitely slow going. Regencies are an acquired taste, long and short or what we in romance call the Traditional Regency Romance. For some strange … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Julie Garwood
Sometime during 1989, I picked up a copy of Romantic Times at the local independent bookstore, when we still had a local independent bookstore here, because I distinctly remember that was where I first read a preview of The Bride by Julie Garwood. So, I did something very out-of-character and found that book. I say it was out-of-character because before that I didn’t like to read historicals. The Bride was not only my first book by Garwood but the first historical romance I ever remember reading and actually enjoying. I loved it and the rest as they say is history. I remember reading an interview with Julie Garwood on AAR where she talks about not even realizing her first romance, Gentle Warrior, 1985, was a romance when she wrote it. I believe her … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Glenna Finley
One major misconception is that all romance readers took the bodice ripper route during the 1970s. I’m one of the ones who didn’t. Other than continuing to read books by Hill, Loring and eventually Glenna Finley, I mostly read mysteries with a light sprinkling of category romances mixed in. In fact, I’m pretty sure from the late 70s all the way through the mid 80s was really my Agatha Christie phase, the period when I collected most of her books in paperback. Oh, I may have occasionally picked up that rare single title historical romance during that era, but I didn’t find them appealing. I mostly didn’t like the plots or the characters. Probably because I was more into shorter mysteries at the time and more apt to look for something like a Harlequin Intrigue, if they even … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Emilie Loring
The next romance author I remember getting handed routinely from librarians as a relatively young teen was Emilie Loring, which I didn’t mind at all to tell the truth. Her books were actively published from the 1920s-1970s but that’s a tad misleading since she died in 1951. It’s widely known that what happened is that there were 30 novels written and published by her directly before her death but a lot of unfinished manuscripts and notes were found by her sons afterwards, which they then edited and finished into 20 more novels that were published under her name over the next 20 years. When you considered that she didn’t start writing until after she turned 50, it’s an incredible story of a dedicated romance author. Over the years, I’ve told other … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: Grace Livingston Hill
As far as I can remember, my big book reading started at around age eleven, circa 1970, and the very first adult romance, although that’s probably a misnomer because I’m pretty sure young adult romances didn’t exist back then, I ever remember reading was a hardback copy of Ladybird by Grace Livingston Hill that someone, maybe a pastor’s wife, gave my mother. I read and collected many of her books during that decade of my life and they were interesting in their own way. My biggest memory of them, though, are pages and pages and pages and pages and pages – I kid you not – of descriptions of rooms, houses and landscapes, not so much what happens in the stories, which is probably why I don’t get all uptight over what other … Read entire article »
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Ten Nights of Love: The Introduction
Last fall, Heather over at The Galaxy Express asked me what the dividing line between romance and erotic romance was. I almost laughed in her face - figuratively speaking. I mean, come on. One, much more eloquent people than me have tried to explain it, did great jobs and, yet, still gotten lost in their own words and, two, sometimes, I’m not sure there is an answer. Then I stopped backing away and realized that what she was asking was the age old, ever popular question that comes up repeatedly on romance forum discussions of “how much sex is too much?” before it becomes not romance and off I went emailing her a bunch of thoughts and links which later evolved into this long article that I divided in a series … Read entire article »
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Baskets & Boxes (my Tumblr blog)
Ten.
Okay, I can’t help it. I see this and I giggle. As much as actually like Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, there was just something about Tennant’s attitude that made you think he was laughing half the time. Even when he probably shouldn’t have been
see more Set Phasers To Lol">By the Power of Thundera - uh, rightWhen I first saw this on the LOL site, I got fixated on Lion-o’s hair to the point where I couldn’t even figure what the heck I was seeing. Then I finally got it. Now I’m like, what the… as in, it’s an interesting picture but they seem overly muscled or something. Maybe it’s just me.
[Superman vol 2 #62]
Remember when Clark lost his memory and Lois tried to bring it back by kissing him…
Meanwhile Emil’s attempts to cockblock her were futile.
I love this scene, but the dormant Lois & Clark fan fiction writer in me immediately has to wonder what the heck Emil and that critter in the gold and blue suit are doing on what looks to be a deserted island with them. Kind of kills the mood. Heh, maybe it isn’t as dormant as I thought. ;-)
Also:
You know, at first I didn’t even like him all that much but there is just something so totally lovable about Wilfred (Donna Noble’s grandfather on The Doctor) that you just can’t help finding him adorable. Even the Doctor fell under the spell. Sigh.
Best. Transformer. EVER.
OMG! I want one. Like yesterday. :-)
My friend
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