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I’ve been thinking. Dangerous, I know, but it sometimes happens when I least expect it and then what am I to do? Really, though, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this fixation romance readers have with their romantic HEA, i.e. couple meets and couple ends up together riding into the sunset. PERIOD. Absolutely no exceptions. Okay, almost no exceptions. Nah, no exceptions. Like I said, it’s a fixation. A serious fixation that brings out the snarling beast in those sweet creatures we all know as romance readers. (And if you believe that last description have I got a bridge for you.) Anyway, while thinkingRead More →

I’ve mentioned before that within the last couple of years my sister and I have taken our parents into our homes with me taking our father and Barbara taking our mother. This is something I’ve rarely mentioned online in the past but I feel like maybe I should talk about it more if only to give a little background on it so that when I do refer to the situation in the future everyone won’t be completely lost on what I’m talking about. I say that because it’s become such a normal part of our lives now that sometimes I’m surprised when others comment onRead More →

I love Stobie Piel’s books. I won’t say she’s never let me down but I will say that when she does it’s never in ways that other authors do. Okay, wow, that’s definitely the kind of statement one needs to explain and usually have no idea how to do so but I shall try anyway.Let me put it this way, her stories, characters and approaches are usually so different from most other romances that I guess I’m willing to forgive more “problems” simply for the sheer enjoyment of the storytelling. She also has a certain non-linear approach to choosing her spin-off plots that I canRead More →

Where I expect a happy ending, that is. I don’t like open ended endings for just about any story. In any medium. I expect the detective to solve the case. I expect the adventurers to find the treasure. I expect the superheroes to save the world. And when they don’t, I get bummed. Which is why I haven’t rewatched Crouching Tigers Hidden Dragons or Hero but that may be a completely different topic. Er, maybe. So, why is it such a radical concept that I expect the couple to be together at the end of a romance?Read More →

Oh, get your minds out of the gutter. I mean I’m literally scratching an itch. Several of them in fact in the form of a widespread rash. It started last night around 9:30 PM at my hairline and slowly spread to cover almost literally from my head to my toes. The doctor called it a systemic allergic reaction to something unknown (at this point, anyway) and started me on steriods and heavy-duty antihistamines. So, expect me to be scarce for the next few days until I can sit at the desk without squirming and scratching. The flip side is that if I’m not asleep most ofRead More →

This little jewel is a sweet romance. No, really, I mean it doesn’t have a single love scene in it. Or rather there is a love scene but it’s “off-screen” as it were. I didn’t remember that from the first time I read it, so it sort of caught me off guard while rereading it again. That said this lack is in no way a problem in this contemporary “fractured fairy tale” romance by Kristine Grayson. I think it actually works in the book’s favor. At the very least, I didn’t miss the love scenes, which is always my benchmark on the issue. Don’t makeRead More →

This is the title of the series finale episode of Charmed that was on last night. All I can say is WOW. That was possibly the best finale I’ve ever seen in my life. Really. It was funny and poignant all at the same time, just like the series at it’s best and it’s been pretty good this last year as they wrapped things up. Were there plot holes? Yeah, probably, but as my son would and will probably gripe, even that was consistent with the series. So there. :p The crucial emotional content for a final goodbye was there and all the necessarily threads wereRead More →

It was bugging me that I hadn’t gotten around to adding the rest of my blog subscriptions to the sidebar so I decided to tackle that this morning after being a couch potato most of yesterday. As a result I ended up with a general Links section for non-blog links and two sections dedicated just to blog divided by Communities & Individuals, both imported from Bloglines. Much easier to maintain. I feel so much better now. 😀 I’ll probably do some puttering around here the rest of the day, both in getting posts ready to publish and in learning more about WordPress. Baby steps.  Read More →

I saw the Library Thing feature on Marg’s blog and had to have it on my sidebar, too. Okay, I probably saw it elsewhere several weeks ago but her blog was the most recent place I ran across it so she gets the credit this time. 😉 I’ll probably only add books to my personal list as I discuss them here or have time to add favorites that I can remember easily but I think it’s a fun way to provide links to books, both to LibraryThing and to Amazon, so have fun.Read More →

I read the Kinsale essay over on Smart Bitches and thought it was beautiful. It truly is a beautiful piece of writing but as I was reading it through again my left eyebrow started twitching and I thought “What the-?” Because there’s only one topic that brings about that reaction and I’d swear she never used the word review. Yes, I actually typed the word. That should tell you something. What I don’t know. I even did a search. Not there. Only it is. When one gets right down to it, beautifully written or not, it’s all a thinly disguised variation on who can talkRead More →

So, I may be an infrequent poster in the next few days. First, I had a regular doctor’s appointment today and he started me on a new medication that may make me drowsy until I get used to it. Joy. On top of that, my mother and sister are coming in for a visit Thursday through Saturday from out of state and that’s always a busy, busy time for us all. It’s a long story that I won’t get into here, but the short version is that our father lives with me and our mother lives with her because of health problems both are having. Anyway, will try to postRead More →

My goals for today are simple. I want to catch up on all the outstanding comments I still need to respond to here. So, if you’ve commented either here or on Bev’s Notes in the last week or so, check back later today or tomorrow and, hopefully, everything will be acknowledged. Plus I want to see if I can add both a recent comments & recent posts box to the sidebar. Along with those I am dead-set on finishing the Ridgway I’m in the middle of reading. Not to mention that I really need to reshelve all those stacks of books that seem to haveRead More →

I was updating my shopping list this morning and finally got around to ordering another book or books from this author because I enjoyed Simply Irresistible so much when I first read it. Okay, yeah, the Superman references didn’t hurt, but still, I really liked the book. I couldn’t order them all from Amazon but did order Totally Spellbound and Absolutely Captivated. I’ll have to check the UBS over the weekend. I did find something interesting when I finally tracked down her website, however. Anyone read her books? I mean her other books. Apparently she’s published in mystery, romance, science fiction and fantasy. Who knew. Really, did anyone elseRead More →