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I’ve been on a Kinley MacGregor kick lately and have been actively searching out her backlist. And not just getting them to stockpile but reading and enjoying them almost as fast as I find them. And even immediately rereading a couple of them. Don’t you just love it when you find a new author to binge on? (G) Well, the last one I read, Born In Sin, was about yet another arranged marriage and it got me to wondering something related to the previous soulmates discussion. Anyway, for those of you that don’t like soulmates as a device in romances, how do you feel aboutRead More →

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I’ve been a little under the weather for the last week, more or less, so I’m playing catch up . . . starting with all the blog feedback comments I haven’t responded to here. So, if you’ve left one in the last week or so, please check back on it. Hopefully, I’ll get back into the swing of things in the next day or so and add a few new blog entries.Read More →

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Several weeks ago on one of the fan fiction forums I visit, there was a mention of a thought provoking essay about alternative universe in fan fiction and I thought some of you might like to check it out. I especially like how the author of the essay breaks down the logical “choices” that a writer makes in deciding which direction to go. It really helps me to see where some of my own fan fiction ideas are giving me problems and why. Lots of food for thought if anyone is into fan fiction.Read More →

Lois & Clark

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I may be a little distracted from thinking about books over the next week or so since I bought a copy of the new season one Lois & Clark DVD yesterday. Good thing I currently have a small backlog of blog posts ready to go online. (G) God, I miss this series, though. It’s not just that it had a fantastic romantic comedy emphasis or that there was such amazing chemistry between the two leads, Dean Cain & Teri Hatcher. It’s all that and the fact that it was a more grown-up approach to the Superman myth, taking it out of the adolescent stage ofRead More →

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I just cleaned out my TBR basket because it was beginning to take over my bedroom. I was amazed to discover that one reason the books seemed to be multiplying out of control were five books I’d started then tossed back into the basket to read later. And still don’t want to read. Maybe I usually clean out the basket more often but I’ve never noticed that many false starts there before. So, I thought I’d share the list before I shelved them to see if anyone else had read them. They are, in alpha order: Brallier, Kate: Seal Island – I probably got theRead More →

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Last week I bought the Hero, Come Back anthology and devoured it almost in one gulp. All three stories – one each by Stephanie Laurens, Christina Dodd & someone new to me Elizabeth Doyle – were really good. The Doyle story was especially a pleasant surprise and I may talk about it in another blog one day. Today, though, I want to comment specifically on my reactions to the Lauren’s short story – Lost and Found, the story of how Reggie Carmarthen who appeared in On A Wild Night links up with Anne Ashford from On A Wicked Dawn – because it made me realizeRead More →

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Not long ago, Wendy in her RTB blog said: Sure, the concept that everyone has a “soul mate” is terribly romantic, but it has a tendency to perpetuate what I call “lazy romance.” Instead of showing two people learning to love and understand each other, the author so often just whips out the concept of soul mates and voila! Instant romance! Who needs characters learning to understand and respect each other when Fate destined them to be together for all time? Why take the time to get to know each other and fall in love when it’s already written in the stars? Yeah, I canRead More →

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There have been several extremely good blogs posted in the last few days related to the lack of respect romance gets and what we should or shouldn’t do about it. This is another of those topics I’ve learned to stay away from, not because I don’t believe romance novels get a bum rap overall. I do. It’s just that after reading an almost infinite number of these discussions over the years I tend to shake my head more over how we all tend to get outraged for the wrong reasons at times than feel compelled to comment. So what I normally do instead of postingRead More →

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I was intensely craving a medieval romance over the weekend and realized with some dismay that there wasn’t one in my TBR basket currently. That will definitely have to be corrected but, in the meantime, I gave my bookshelves and good long scrutiny and came up with this favorite reread of mine by Donna Fletcher. I tend to pick books more for plot than anything else and this one combines two favorites of mine – the oft-used romance device of the arranged marriage with just a hint of a mating challenge, although to be honest I’m not sure who is the seducer here. Then again,Read More →

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And, no, I do not want “innocent, prim & proper virgin” as an answer here. For one thing it’s too long. (G) Here’s the deal. I’m working on a blog entry about opposites in romance and realized that I need a better term opposite loner. Currently, I have “leader” vs. “loner” and it just doesn’t work for me. Well, it does but it’s not nearly as good a pairing as, say, “lover” vs. “thinker”. And, yes, I know how to use a thesaurus but for some reason that’s not helping at all. Oh, and one other thing, it has to be gender neutral, meaning thatRead More →

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Am I the only romance reader who doesn’t believe that romance should be “for women by women” solely? Every time I run across that “mantra” lately, it’s starting to stick in my craw. If I had a craw, that is. (G) And that specific phrase doesn’t even have to be “said” for me to start twitching. Take the ever-present discussion of chick lit that’s always popping up somewhere or another nowadays. That one always starts me dwelling on how chick lit is so strongly focused on “her story”. That’s all well and good and actually nothing all that new to romances – not that chickRead More →

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No, not those covers but the ones we buy to put on the books for comfort as much as to cover up those covers. Okay, I’ll stop before I confuse myself. (G) Thing is that I’m always looking for a good book cover and am frustrated by the only place that sells my favorite type, Hidden Secrets, locally is our small UBS. They keep an extremely limited selection in stock and don’t appear to be sold retail on the web anywhere. So, call me frustrated. Anyone know of an online seller of the Hidden Secrets line? Or have suggestions for other good covers?Read More →

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I’ve said before that I don’t review books; I just like to talk about them. I’m also not a writer, published or otherwise. About a decade ago, however, I did discover fan fiction, both reading and writing it, although only in one fandom. (Look on the Lois & Clark Fanfic archive under B.B. Medos to read some of my short stories.) The significance of this is that until that time I’d never written creatively and it was with great surprise that I discovered I liked it. Not enough to become an author but definitely enough to enjoy the storytelling process. Over the years of playingRead More →

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Ever read an extremely satisfactory romance and come away wondering why you didn’t like it more? This has happened with me with two books in the last week or so. I really enjoyed both. Honest. And yet . . . I can’t say I was wildly crazy about either one of them. I also haven’t been able to figure out why. True one was by a first time author, Sally MacKensie, but the other was by someone I’ve liked quite a bit in the past, Jillian Hunter. In fact one of Hunter’s books, Fairy Tale, would probably place on a list of my top tenRead More →

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This is the first book I’ve read in months that I literally devoured in one gulp. Yeah, that just about sums it up . . . so much so that I’m almost tempted to stop right there. I won’t simply because that would be cheating. Right? Well, right? Okay, okay. Here’s the quick summary interspersed with why I liked this one so much. (And this is as close to a review as I get so enjoy. ;-p) Return of the Warrior  (2005-05) is a second in Kinley MacGregor’s Avon Books medieval romance Brotherhood of the Sword group and I didn’t mind at all that IRead More →