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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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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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I’ve been literally buried in family matters and errands this week but did get a chance for a very quick used book store (UBS) raid on Tuesday that I had to share. The short version is that an appointment I had was moved back an hour and a half so I took care of a few errands and still had some time to kill. So I grabbed a hazelnut latte at a little local coffee shop and headed over to the local UBS, thinking that would be a nice “me time” way to spend the rest of the hour. Much to my surprise, though, IRead More →

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For the most part, I read one book at a time with one major qualification. I have two of those padded book covers and use the oldest for rereads and the newer one for first time reads. This system makes it easy to spot at a glance which is which but the downside is that I tend to get twitchy if there isn’t something in each of them. So, even though I tend to finish “reading” one book before starting another, I also tend to cheat on that by visiting with old friends. Otherwise, known as rereading or skimming the good parts. Currently Seal IslandRead More →

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Okay, fess up now. How many times have you read a great book, realized it was probably connected to at least a couple of others and told yourself to remember to check them out . . . and then never get around to it? Even with a book database like Readerware to help me remember these details, it happens. So, I was quite chagrined this morning to realize that I’d pulled not one but two books off the shelf to reread in the last 24 hours that fell into that “honestly good intentions” category. One, I’m currently rereading and will comment more about in aRead More →

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It took me all weekend and part of Monday but I finally finished it. Not all of that was the book’s fault. Actually most of it wasn’t because of getting involved in family activities and a major migraine that struck Saturday. Part of my distraction was due to the book itself, though. For some strange reason I wanted to stop and go rewatch The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weiss at several spots . . . and I’m still having the occasional twinge in that direction so I just might have to scratch that itch in the near future. Maybe Rupert reminded me ofRead More →

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Does anyone else’s book-buying go in cycles? Or am I simply a more eclectic romance reader than most. A week or so ago I found three books in my TBR basket at the same time that were in first person. This was unusual enough to make me stop and take notice. Then, today, I realized that the two books I bought this week are both romantic suspense. Again, a rather unusual occurrence. I’m not even completely sure I like romantic suspense on general principle so in retrospect I have to wonder what I was thinking to buy two at once. I do like the twoRead More →

The Nanny

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Having recently rediscovered this TV series, I’m absolutely amazed at how much I really do love it. I remember watching it while it was in first run on CBS and how much I enjoyed it then, but what gets me is how much it still makes me laugh. And giggle. And guffaw. Fluff? Sure. But good fluff, if you know what I mean. Comfortable with a sense of fun that doesn’t hurt anyone in the process. Will it become a true classic that stands the test of time? I honestly don’t know. I do know that so many of the series that were lauded asRead More →

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I’ve had this book for about a month now, can’t seem to get it read and I have no idea why really. Yes, her earlier Wildside books did seem to be acquired tastes, i.e. it took a bit of time to get used to the way she approaches storytelling, but I loved them. And I believe I’d love this one once I get into it, too, but so far I’ve had about three false starts on it where I completely zone out after about 10 pages, which only puts me up to about page 50 or so. Very odd. So, I guess it’s going toRead More →

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I’ve had this book for about a month now, can’t seem to get it read and I have no idea why really. Yes, her earlier Wildside books did seem to be acquired tastes, i.e. it took a bit of time to get used to the way she approaches storytelling, but I loved them. And I believe I’d love this one once I get into it, too, but so far I’ve had about three false starts on it where I completely zone out after about 10 pages, which only puts me up to about page 50 or so. Very odd. So, I guess it’s going toRead More →