Blog (Page 41)

I had how I was going to do these “connected group” blogs all outlined in my head before I posted the first one, right down to knowing most of the author groups I was going to refer to. Then Outlook ate the content of not one but two of the posts, namely the ones on episodic series and story arcs, which I had mostly written, no less. Just up and made the entire text of the messages disappear. I’ve never had that happen before and I still have no idea why it happened after a week or more of trying to figure it out. Grumble,Read More →

Bet you all thought I’d completely forgotten about this one. Well, I hadn’t. I just haven’t had time this week to catch up on it. Since it took me a lot longer to get back to this than I’d expected, I decided to do one mass response to all the suggestions, both in emails and blog comments, and compile them into an alpha by author list. Oh, and, before I get to the list, several of you wondered how old Amy is. I guess it didn’t even occur to me to mention her age, 25, since it stopped being an issue several years ago. So,Read More →

This is the first of either three or four entries on personal favorite and not-so-favorite connected groups that I promised to post in response to a discussion going on in Maili’s blog about series fatigue. Take it all with a grain of salt as being the observations of a long time romance reader and let me know what you think. I’m willing to have my mind changed but I give you fair warning that you’re going to have to work at it. Universe spin-offs have long been the mainstay of romance for many years and with good reason. I will also admit that I originallyRead More →

My daughter, Amy, is on a werewolf kick and she’s been picking my brain for any titles I have in my collections. The problem is that I don’t have all that many and even if I did, our tastes aren’t always the same. Case in point, she absolutely loves J.D. Robb’s In Death to the point of taking the books away from me because I didn’t respect them enough. And as far as I’m concerned she’s welcome to them. Back to weres, though, Amy tends to like romances with magic and mystical elements as opposed to science fiction based ones. Any suggestions?Read More →

I have a real love and well, not quite hate, but definitely problem with Melanie Jackson’s books. I love the universe she’s created. No problem there. For the most part, I love the characters that inhabit it, odd though some of them are. I just have a real problem actually reading the books straight through. I don’t think there’s been a one yet that I’ve started reading and didn’t end up skipped towards the middle, finishing and then going back to the beginning again to fill in the blanks. That habit was very much present here. OTOH, this was a very interesting installment in herRead More →

Some people may believe that authors who write long, extended family series will eventually run out of material. Or become repetitive. For the most part, both of those are probably a true to some degree. Somehow I don’t find that to be the case with Stephanie Laurens and her Cynster clan, though, because so far I’m finding that I’m actually enjoying the books about the peripheral members of the family a lot more than the ones about the central six cousins, AKA the Bar Cynster. Truth to tell, the only one of the extra books that I’ve actually actively disliked was the one about ChillingworthRead More →

I enjoyed this little romp by Minda Webber through, well, whatever era it was. To say this author has a unique voice is an understatement. In a big way. This is not a bad thing. Exactly. Because I did truly enjoy the book. I’m not sure I could stand a steady diet of her, um, creative use of phrases, though. So, I’m currently eyeing the spin-off hesitantly. OTOH, I did laugh and chuckle quite a bit while reading it so that’s a major plus. I’m just not sure how exactly to take her approach overall. What do the rest of you think? Oh, and here’sRead More →

I don’t know why I never thought to do this before but I have now and found I couldn’t help myself once I started no matter how hard I tried. That’s my defense and I’m sticking to it, anyway. Yeah. (BG) And what did I think of? Well, I decided to do some definition checking on a topic that’s always left me completely confused and irritated in the hopes that maybe finally I could shake free of the miasma. (Bet you think you know what’s coming, don’t you? Hah, we’ll see.) Using Merriam-Webster Online and only those definitions that actually apply to books, we haveRead More →

Hey, does anyone know if there is a way to make one’s list of Bloglines subscriptions into a list of links on one’s Blogger blog? Seems like I remember seeing something along these lines mentioned somewhere but can’t remember where exactly. And I could really use it. ‘Cause I’ve come to the firm conclusion that that’s the only way I’m going to get around to having one. And keeping it updated. Yeah, I know, I’m being lazy asking without looking but sometimes searching through Blogger help is really time-consuming. Time I just don’t have right at the moment. Maybe over the weekend if one ofRead More →

My god, they’re everywhere. I’m out of it for a day or two with a virus and when I come back seems like every other update to my subscription list on Bloglines today had a post about reviews. And, no, I’m not posting any of the links here, either. Are you people crazy? Why perpetuate the madness? (BG) I do have a question that popped into my head while reading a couple of the posts. (Yes, I read them but just couldn’t bring myself to comment. At least, not yet. Maybe after my stomach settles more. ;-p) Anyway, it occurs to me wonder something andRead More →

Okay, so I’m looking up Love Spell covers in Readerware – just love the new cover thumbnail feature – in response to Sybil mentioning how nice one of their new (upcoming?) covers is. And what do I find but something I hadn’t noticed before on one of the covers and for good reason. The, um, item in question is not on the book on my shelf. Really curious now, I checked Amazon to see if that’s where Readerware got the image. And sure enough, there he is. So, why does the image on Amazon have Count Mighty Mouse on the cover and my book doesn’t?Read More →

Yes, I am so proud of myself. I’m currently reading The Truth about Love by Stephanie Laurens and I actually managed to convince myself to put the book down at a decent hour – without yielding to the temptation to start skimming. Of course it helped that I was only a chapter or two into the book when I made this momentous decision, since I’d only picked on the way to bed anyway. And that I was really tired to begin with, so deciding to read longer wasn’t really an option. Still, I feel like this is a major milestone. Yeah, right. (Gotta get meRead More →