by SB Sarah

Grade: B-
Title: As Hot as It Gets
Author: Kennedy
Publication Info: Samhain Publishing 2014
ISBN: 9781619221338
Genre: Erotica/Erotic Romance

The things that Elle Kennedy does well - internal conflict, understandable emotion, logical attraction, interesting characters - are terrific in this book. Unfortunately for me, and I place the blame for this on myself and not anyone else, I still struggle to suspend disbelief when reading erotic romance, for a few reasons I'll explain in a moment. I'm going to go into some detail about the aspects of this book and some aspects about erotic romance that I struggle with, but first and most importantly, I really, really enjoyed this story, and I think Kennedy is a talented writer who can invent characters I care about. 

Mia is a landscaper/gardener who is raising her younger brother after their mom dropped him off for two weeks and never came back. Mia is ten years older than her brother, and to keep up with the food and the shelter needs, she works as a landscaper, taking on as much work as she physically can. Her brother is a varsity starting quarterback for the high school football team, plus he's a dude, and he's 16, so he eats a lot. They have a pretty good relationship, and are getting along well when the hero, Jackson, enters their lives. I really liked their relationship, and that it had normal conflict and moments of affection.

Jackson is one of a team of Navy SEALs (of course he is!) (no, really, the whole series is set among a SEAL team) (of course it is!) who in previous books have all been paired off with women (or in one case, a woman and a dude). Jackson is the last one left.

Instead of crowing about his single status and giving the other guys shit about how they're all tied down and tempting fate by saying he'll never fall prey to love like they did, he acknowledges to himself that he feels left out and wishes he had someone to be with as well.

CUE THE LIGHTS. IT'S TIME, DUDE!

Jackson bumps into Mia while she's finishing a landscaping job next door to one of Jackson's teammates. Jackson arranges for her to work on their yard as a belated wedding gift so that he can ask Mia out. I really, really liked that Mia called him on the stalker-y ness of that arrangement, and how she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to go near someone who'd manipulate her professionally like that, but she gives him a chance. And she meets him at the restaurant instead of having him pick her up at her home. There's a long line of little tiny moments like that which indicated the strength of Mia's determination to do the right thing, and take care of herself and her brother.

Their date is a great success from Mia's perspective, and Jackson's as well. Mia likes Jackson, Jackson likes Mia, and they go from acquaintances to talking frankly about sex before their entrees even arrive. What, like you don't confess all your sexual hangups on the first date over appetizers? It's not erotic romance if you don't discuss peen piercings and orgasms on the first date, within the first half hour, eh?

Later, Jackson decides to give Mia a kiss in the parking lot, which escalates quickly to his getting her off so rapidly she had no idea what had happened, and couldn't believe her body responded the way it did.

And this is where I confess that I think something is wrong with me where erotic romance is concerned. There are a few things I Do Not Get. This is one of them.

How is it that in so many erotic romances, including this one, the heroine's body is some sort of magical instrument that the hero instinctively knows how to play, and play well? Moreover, how is it that the heroine's sexual response is sometimes something that is out of her control, and completely apart from her own motivations? I see this in a lot of erotic stories, and I Do Not Get It: She doesn't like him… but her panties are trying to hold back class five white water rapids of arousal whenever he's near! She hates him but her body responds to his touch! Really?

In this case, Mia does not hate Jackson at all. And he's not disrespectful to her or callous or even condescending about her sexual concerns about her own libido, which they discussed frankly on their first date because… well, because they did.

But while Mia wants to be cautious and careful emotionally with Jackson, her body responds so quickly, it's like there are two votes for each woman, and if her head says Well…. and her body says HELL YEAH, it's game on, romance hero. Either the hero can instinctively read her sexual response with greater accuracy than she can, or his ample silo of experience allows him to understand her arousal and her specific sexual desires than she does, but the result is the same.

For example, from this book:

This woman liked to be dominated. She might not know it, not consciously anyway, but her body's responses to his commanding nature told him everything he needed to know. 

Wait, really?

Is this a recasting of sexual initiation, where the heroine couldn't find her own clitoris with a flashlight and a map but the hero will show her the way to perfect passion on the first try? Only now, instead of initiation into sex, it's initiation into being dominated? He can instinctively sense that she wants to be dominated, and it's an unconscious thing that she's not aware of, but he's definitely right?

I am not buying it.

I probably think too much about this, and it's not even as if it's a huge part of this particular book, though there are two moments that stick in my mind as I try to explain my mixed feelings (I'll post the other in a bit). Mia's body and brain line up pretty quickly to admitting they both desire Jackson, but the separation of body/sexual response from mental/emotional response confuses me. And the moments of separation of sexual attraction into mind vs. body detracts from the part I loved loved loved, which was that initially, Mia's reason for not wanting to get involved was that she simply did not have time, energy, or space in her life for a relationship with anyone. And I liked that Jackson's response was, basically, I'll take any time you're willing to share because I really like you. (Now that, beg your pardon, is seriously freaking hot.)

So Mia and Jackson are sort of seeing each other, but mostly for sex, because Jackson gives Mia all the best orgasms, and Jackson likes being his kinky, dominant self with her. In addition to the conflict of Mia having time in her life, what also pushed me past my 0_o? confusion about the erotic romance elements was the honest and realistic conflicts each character faced, both in their own lives, and in what they were trying to create together. The internal conflict for Mia and Jackson was what connected me to them, and Kennedy is pretty skilled at taking otherwise ordinary circumstances and making them seem like real and sizable problems. They aren't small problems inflated into monster size for the sake of the plot, and they're not contrived problems that drop in when there's too many pages between "right now" and "The End."

Mia is raising her brother by herself, and started parenthood when her brother was 14. Now he's 16, and she's 26, and they're both working really hard to make their lives as comfortable as possible. Jackson has family problems as well, which are distant given that his family is in Texas and they're in San Diego, but those problems still press on him uncomfortably at regular intervals, especially when he sees the relationship Mia works so hard to have with her brother.

Mia is the one who wants nothing permanent. Mia doesn't trust people easily, and she doesn't trust herself to become emotionally connected to anyone, mostly because her mother is a deplorable person not deserving of the title. She's had exactly zero good examples of stable and secure relationships except for the one she's created for her brother, and is fearful of being hurt by someone she trusted. At one point, Jackson starts ruminating on how he wants Mia to be a real and defined part of his life, not just a fling, and starts strategizing how he can make that happen - though he only lets her into his life to a point. Later in the story, Mia's brother notices that Jackson has started growing a beard. He's growing the beard because of the possibility of deployment to the Middle East, but doesn't really explain what that means, how long it might be, what would happen for Mia if he does leave suddenly - he just assures her she doesn't have to worry because deployment probably won't happen. Dude. iIf you want a serious grown-up relationship, part of that is explaining to the people you care about -- both of them -- what your job means and how it might affect them. I don't expect Jackson to give up military secrets, but an explanation other than, "I don't think you have to worry," wasn't enough.

SEAL secrets aside, the conflicts large and small that influence and interfere with Jackson and Mia's relationship were the best part of this story. It can be difficult to take ordinary life problems and make them real enough in a story that they sustain narrative tension while allowing the characters to change and grow. There are mad skills up in here.

But this brings me to the other thing that I struggled with in this book and Do Not Get  (and again, I'm laying the blame here solely and entirely on myself):

Erotic romance language and I are clearly not meant to be. The ways in which the hero and heroine's attraction to one another were explained and developed were familiar, and still baffling.

For example, while Jackson says perfectly charming and normal human things while he's talking to Mia, the narration of what I presume are his thoughts - or close to them - is very different:

Her chest heaved as she released another exasperated sigh, drawing his gaze to her breasts. They were smaller than he usually liked, just a gentle swell of cleavage peeking out of the bodice of her dress, but something about those perky little mounds made his mouth water.

Lord, he wanted to fuck her. Getting to know her better had been the number one item on his agenda, but now that was joined by a hefty dose of desire. He wanted her naked.

Perky little mounds? Mouth water? That is a way people think? Or is that the way erotic romance heroes think?

Later on:

He traced the swell of each mound with his finger, then undid the front clasp and exposed her to his gaze. Her breasts were indeed small, but they were damn perky, with pearly-pink nipples that made his mouth water.

Ok, time out. Are they breasts or are they a platter of hot wings?

Do people really think like this? Is this a thing that people do?

Then there's the moment when Jackson explains that he likes to be in control when having sex, that he likes to dominate, direct and control the action, and he's plenty kinky.

Except, instead of having a serious conversation about this, it's while the sexytimes are going down - which I really struggle with because, as I learned, the person who is doing the dominating really should not be the only source of information about what should and should not happen. It's not like Jackson breaks out the ropes without a safe word in place, but the degree of command and expectation that arose (hur) in the sex scenes was irritating because there was no discussion beforehand:

"Are you sure about that, sugar? Because once we get on this ride, I won't let you get off." He flashed a roguish grin. "Well, you will get off. but what I'm sayin' is, we will see this through 'til the end."

Mia swallowed. "What exactly do you plan on doing to me?"

"Everything," he said simply. "And you're gonna let me. You're gonna give me full control. When we're naked and alone, I call the shots."

Another gulp. "And if I don't like something?"

"Then I stop." The sensual smile returned to his lips. "But I guarantee you'll like it all. You'll beg for more every time."

In this scene, Jackson recognizes Mia's hesitation, and proposes that they take it slow, that he'll "do a little warm up" which consists of his telling her "You're gonna blow me," which Mia agrees to and finds that she likes, especially the commanding part:

She couldn't believe she was letting him order her around like this.

She couldn't believe it was turning her on.

It's not that I didn't think Mia consented. I absolutely think she did, that she was willing to do what Jackson was saying, and that she could have said no or stopped. But what I didn't like was that he was going to tell her what to do without discussing things in more detail first. His sexual knowledge is superior to hers, and of course his knowledge of what she wants and needs sexually is superior to hers as well - and the "I know your body and I know what you want better than you do…." Yeah, doesn't work for me.

ALSO: Can we stop with "blacking out the orgasm was so good" as a sexual device? If she's blacked out and he's banging her, that is NOT OK.

Mia must have blacked out. She didn't remember climaxing, wasn't sure how she got on her back, didn't know how Jackson's cock had wound up inside her, but her limp muscles and the unbearable pleasure pricking her flesh told her she'd come, and come hard.

Nope nope nope. Nope.

Also, also, do Navy SEALs sit around and talk about how much sex they're having with their wives? Their sex lives were almost public information within the group, and dude, I get that these people will save your life a billion times before you're dead but the degree to which they talk about the sex they're getting was bizarre to me:

"Hey, just cuz my wife is pregnant doesn't mean we don't have wild and crazy sex every night. With that said…" He flashed a smug grin, his blue eyes gleaming…. "It's time for me to go home and do some of that. "

Cash, Seth and Ryan followed suit, polishing off their beers in a rush.

"Yeah, I'm outtie, too," Seth announced. "My wife is a million times more interesting than you dumbasses. Besides, she lost a bet this morning so she owes me a BJ."

The foursome bumped fists with everyone and said their goodbyes….

I'm not saying people should never talk about sex - that's not something I would say, ever. My problem is the way in which their sex lives were publicly shared and discussed. I get that there is a very deep (hur) and instinctive level of trust between the men in this series - there has to be, given what they do. But the way in which the female characters are introduced and then discussed made it seem that, after they had their happy ending as heroines, their job as former heroines fell solely within the context of sexxytimes and blow jobs. That was their role, and the frequency thereof was going to be not just locker room talk, but front porch with a beer with all the guys talk. And in the night club talk. It's like the distant and terrible cousin of the Bechdel Test: Does the erotic romance feature two or more former or present heroes discussing their relationships in terms of how much sex they're getting, and/or how good it is?

I realize I sound like a very pinch-faced whiner right now, and I want to be clear that it's not the sex that's the problem. It's the way the sexuality is discussed ("my wife owes me a BJ") and the language with which increasing sexual attraction is explained ("pert mouthwatering mounds"). To me, it seems like a huge and sudden departure from the way people normally talk. Maybe I'm missing out and there's some secret society of sexually frank and excellently endowed Navy SEALs, or maybe this is the way erotic romance characters talk, but I loved the realism of the characters in this story SO MUCH. Yherefore, I kept being yanked out of the story by the And Now We Talk About the Sexy Perky Mouth Watering Peen Piercing Blow Job dialogue.

I get that part of the goal in erotic romance is to highlight and intensify the sexuality of the story, because to be successful erotic romance, the story can't really hold together without the sexuality. That's certainly true of this book: without the sexuality, especially Jackson's sexuality, most of the major plot points and pieces of backstory wouldn't hold together at all (I can't give away too much without spoiling things, sorry). I think in my case, I need to adjust my expectations that in erotic romance, the characters will occasionally think and speak in Erotic Romance Language.

As for this particular book, which I enjoyed and which also enabled me to identify and articulate what pieces of erotic romance are bothersome for me as a reader, I liked the story, and I loved the characters and the conflict. The ending arrives somewhat too easily, and the resolution of all the fallout of the dark moment came very quickly when compared to the slow development of the relationships in the beginning of the story, but despite that (and the Erotic Romance Dialogue bits), I would definitely recommend this book to erotic romance and contemporary spicy romance fans. My problems with it are my problems, not problems with the book itself.

This book is available from Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | iBooks.

Categories: General Bitching, Reviews, Reviews by Author, Authors, H-K, Reviews by Grade, Grade B

by SB Sarah

RECOMMENDED: Summer is for Lovers by Jennifer McQuiston is $1.99 right now. Elyse read this one, and despite not liking the prior book in the series - which is also on sale - she loved this book and gave it a big ol' A:

I recommend Summer is for Lovers as a break from the ballrooms of London scene in historicals, and as a way of reliving the best parts of summer vacation—rescuing a handsome Simon Baker look-alike from the ocean and then making out with him.

His heart is unavailable. Luckily, her interest lies in the rest of him . . .

Though she was just a girl when they first met, Caroline Tolbertson's infatuation with David Cameron remains undimmed. Now fate has brought the handsome Scotsman back to Brighton for what promises to be an unforgettable summer. Soon, Caroline will have to choose a husband, but for now she is free to indulge her curiosity in things of a passionate nature.

That is, if David will agree to teach her.

Past mistakes have convinced David he'll make a terrible husband, though he'll gladly help the unconventional Caroline find a suitor. Unfortunately, she has something more scandalous in mind. As the contenders for her hand begin to line up, her future seems assured . . . provided David can do the honorable thing and let them have her.

When a spirited young woman is determined to break Society's rules, all a gentleman can do is lend a hand . . . or more.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

 What Happens in Scotland by Jennifer McQuiston is still .99c. Elyse reviewed this book and gave it a D because she didn't enjoy the pacing, especially since the hero and heroine spend most of the book not with each other, but retracing their steps to figure out how they ended up married the night before.

Other readers enjoyed this book tremendously, particularly Elsie, the prostitute-turned-ladies-maid, and the humorous, light romping tone of the story. McQuiston's writing is fun and funny for many readers. Plus, Elyse reviewed the second book, Summer is For Lovers and loved it (which is right above this text in case you missed it. Look up!).

 Lady Georgette Thorold has always been wary of marriage, so when she wakes up next to an attractive Scotsman with a wedding ring on her finger, it’s easy to understand why she panics and flees.

Convinced that Georgette is a thief, her may-be husband, James McKenzie, searches for her. As both try to recall what happened that fateful night, they begin to realize that their attraction and desire for each other is undeniable.

But is it enough?

 Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Kobo | iBooks | All Romance eBooks

The Bride of Larkspear by Sherry Thomas is .99c. This is an erotic novella (front door, back door, side porch, and solarium action up in here) that is featured in the Fitzhugh trilogy - a story within the story. If you like historical erotic, you should very much like this. You can read more about the Fitzhugh trilogy in Carrie's review of Tempting the Bride.

My bride does not look at me. She is determined, as ever, to shunt me to the periphery of her existence, even on this, our wedding night.

I touch her. Her skin is as cool as marble, the flesh beneath firm and resilient. I turn her face to look into her eyes, haughty eyes that have scorned me for as long as I remember.

“Why are my hands tied?” she murmurs. “Are you afraid of them?”

“Of course,” I reply, “A man who stalks a lioness should ever be wary.”

“And what does a man do when he has caught said lioness and put her in a cage?”

I brush aside a strand of hair that has fallen before her eyes. “He teaches her that captivity can be wonderfully enjoyable."

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

 The Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Boxed Set of four books is .99c right now. Ashley Gardner is a pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ashley. These were originally published in the early 2000s by Berkley. The first one, The Hanover Square Affair has a 3.74 average at GR, and the boxed set has many positive reviews as well.

 A collection of the first three novels in the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries series plus two Captain Lacey short stories first published in mystery magazines.

This book bundle includes:
The Hanover Square Affair (full-length novel)
A Regimental Murder (full-length novel)
The Glass House (full-length novel)
The Gentleman’s Walking Stick (two short stories)

Meet Captain Gabriel Lacey, a half-pay cavalry officer who returns to Regency London with little money and no purpose, but with a sense of honor and fairness. He’s pulled into a search for a missing young woman, and thus begins investigating crime, using his status as a gentleman but a poor one to cross the boundaries between the top of society and the working class of the back streets.

In The Hanover Square Affair, a missing girl and horrific corpse plunge Captain Lacey into the dark underworld of Regency London.

In A Regimental Murder Captain Lacey is on hand to save the life of a beautiful widow; he then investigates the death of her husband, a colonel who had been accused of murdering a cavalry officer during the Peninsular War.

In The Glass House, Lacey investigates the death of a barrister’s young wife, and links her to a notorious brothel where the haut ton play.

Two short stories finish off the collection. In “The Disappearance of Miss Sarah Oswald,” Lacey is asked to locate a man’s missing daughter, though he senses that the family would be just as happy for her to remain missing. In “The Gentleman’s Walking Stick,” Lacey untangles a web of deceit involving a respectable society man, his only clue being a missing walking stick.

Join Captain Lacey and his friends as he investigates intrigue, murder, and villainy from the plush ballrooms of Mayfair to the darker streets of Regency London.

 Goodreads | Amazon | BN

Categories: Ebooks, Free or Cheap Ebooks, General Bitching

by CarrieS

Grade: B
Title: Ravensblood
Author: Reppert
Publication Info: Shawna Reppert 2013
ISBN: ASIN: B00G93U4F8
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy

Ravensblood is an excellent fantasy but not a completely satisfying romance.  The setting, the magical rules, and the world building are impeccable, the plot is clever and suspenseful, and all the characters are well-drawn and interesting – I just wasn’t sure I wanted the lead romantic couple to end up together.  Those two are toting way more baggage than fits in a carry-on compartment.

Ravensblood takes place in an alternate version of Portland, Oregon and the surrounding areas.  Lately I’ve been stumbling across a whole ton of books that completely by coincidence are set in some of my favorite places.  I love Portland and that part of Oregon, and the setting rang completely true.  In this alternate version, magic exists.  There are magic users and mundanes, and they know about each other and work and live together.  Raven is a dark mage who is in league with William, another dark mage who led a rebellion that was narrowly defeated.  Cass works for the Guardians, a sort of police force for the same council that William is still schemeing to overthrow.  Cass’s position is difficult because she and Raven were once lovers, and she can’t escape being distrusted, insulted, and discriminated against in her job and in her personal life because their association. 

Eventually Cass and Raven have to work together to try to overthrow William.  This is painful for both of them because their break up was…not amiable.  Raven hates himself and distrusts everyone, and everyone distrusts Raven and most people hate him.  But Cass and Raven continue to be drawn to one another even as Raven is faced with horrible choice after horrible choice.

If I’m making this seem too angsty, I’d describe it more as intense.  It’s suspenseful and exciting and worrying.  The reader is dumped right into the middle of the action and expected to keep up, and that gives the book a sense of immediacy.  The stakes are high and very personal.   I don’t really understand the politics of the world, but that didn’t bother me too much, because I felt like I did understand why we would not want William in charge.  And I cared very much about the characters, and wanted them to be OK, and wasn’t sure they all would be (no specific spoilers but not every character we meet makes it out of the story in one piece).

I loved all the characters in the book, but Raven and Cass’s aunt, Ana, seemed more like fantasy archetypes to me than actual people.   How can I put this?  They felt like people who really existed in this alternate fantasy, but not like people I’d ever meet.  It was impossible to picture Ana at Safeway or Raven at Target.  Ana is the archetype of the earthy mother figure, and Raven is every single inch a mysterious, broody Byronic guy.  No matter what he was described as wearing, I always pictured him in a cape, or, in the very minimum , wearing all black, and listening to The Cure.

On the other hand, Cass and her partner, Zack, seem like people who I actually might run into at Target, although all three of us would prefer running into each other at one of those all-natural, Fair Trade places that Portland is full of.  Raven may seem complicated, but his story is pretty simple – he had a terrible, terrible past and he brooded over it until he fell in with the wrong crowd, and now broods over his mistake of having fallen in with the wrong crowd. 

Cass is actually much more complicated.  We don’t know much about how she and Raven got together, but we do see that she is a person who is lonely, determined, and torn in an awful lot of different directions.  She has a lot to feel frustrated or angry or sad about, but she’s no whiner, and she doesn’t brood as much as Raven because she really doesn’t have time.  Meanwhile, Zack is a truly stand up guy without being a total stereotype.  He’s not one of those guys who’s nice in hopes of being repaid with sex -  he’s nice and kind and honorable because that’s who he is. 

As much as I liked the plot and characters of the book, what really drew me was the setting.  Magical Portland looks just like real Portland, possibly because real Portland already looks magical.  The city is so beautifully and affectionately described that not only did it make me homesick, but it makes me care about whatever happened in the plot.  I would have liked to have had a better understanding of the history of the rebellion and the structure of government, but all I really need to know is that William attacked Portland before and when he did he set fire to some of those lovely old houses. 

Here’s where I had trouble with the book:  Cass and Raven are presented as the main romantic couple, and I don’t forsee a whirlwind of bliss in their future.  I wanted Cass to end up with Zack and I’m pretty pissed about how that turned out.  I think that Cass is good for Raven, but I don’t think Raven is good for Cass, and he’s still very emotionally messed up.  They have plenty of chemistry, but Raven is dragging around a shit ton of baggage and I don’t believe he can sustain a relationship. 

I believe there is a sequel for Ravensblood in the works.  It will be interesting to see if this turns out to be a series of romances, or a series that has romance in it.  If Cass and Raven are going to stay together, all I can suggest is that they get lots and lots and lots of therapy – but I wish them well, since I truly loved both of the characters and I want to see them be happy!  One thing this book does do well regarding the romance is that it avoids overselling it.  Ultimately, readers are given a hope that Cass and Raven will be together, but they don’t suddenly say, “Darling!  Now that we’ve washed the blood of our loved ones off our hands, let’s get married!  Today!”  They seem as though they will be taking things slow, which gives me a little optimism for them. 

This is a weird book to grade.  Something happens at one point that I can’t reveal, but it made me so upset that I felt like the book didn’t have a happy ending.  So as a romance novel, all the world-building and beautiful descriptions and suspenseful plotting in the world can’t save it.  But if the book is meant to be a novel about the hard choices of war, with a strong romantic element, then it succeeds at showing the costs of war while still leaving the reader with some hope and happiness.  The book was intriguing and evocative and poignant.  I just think Cass ended up with the wrong person in the end.

This book is available from Goodreads | Amazon. 

Categories: General Bitching, Reviews, Reviews by Author, Authors, L-P, Reviews by Grade, Grade B

by SB Sarah

I have two crappy things first, then happy, silly, and interesting (I hope) things after, to soothe the crappy rage a little.

GUESS WHAT. People are still attempting to copy books, switching a few words or more than a few, and publishing them as their own.

AND GUESS GUESS WHAT WHAT ELSE. They get caught. By readers! Who read books! 

THE DEVIL YOU SAY!

Grab your copy of The Plagiarism Workout so you're ready, k? You never know when you might need it.

First, via a reader who alerted both me and Jane at DearAuthor: passages from Marilyn Lee's 2008 book Skin Deep magically appear in almost identical fashion in Leila Lacey's 2014 book, Vixen's Curves:

Corrected comparison. Marilyn Lee's book orig published in 2008 / Lacey's copy pubbed in 2014. pic.twitter.com/g4Zmrp0H3K

— Dear Author (@dearauthor) February 11, 2014

Here's the visual comparison, via Jane's feed: 

Vixen's Curves from Leila Lacey appears to be for sale still, but the 1-star HEY PLAGIARISM reviews are collecting like the snow accumulations forecasted for tomorrow.

This comparison, sent to me by reader T., is probably my favorite in the absurd department:

Plagiarism: it's all about the balls. 

But wait. There's more. Dammit.

Kate Rothwell outlines another case of probable copy copy paste paste with additional edit edit: JB Lynn's Nearly Departed features a plot that is alarmingly close to Wendy Roberts' The Remains of the Dead, the first book in her Ghost Dusters series. Except in the JB Lynn book, there's a switch in pov. Lynn's book is in first person, while Roberts' series is in third. 

Lynn has been pretty silent since Rothwell's post went up, though she has been mentioning how well Nearly Departed has been doing since its release, and was very happy with all the five-star reviews it's received. Since the post went up, nothing. I attempted to contact her via Facebook as there's no email contact method on her site, but haven't heard back.

Lynn's book has been removed from retailers, however. The book was published by "Gemma Halliday Publishing,"  a boutique publisher of mystery and romance run by author Gemma Halliday. The book also appears to have been removed from Gemma Halliday's site. Lynn has published several other books, including two in her Neurotic Hitwoman series with Avon. I'm guessing readers and authors armed with combs and Google are going over those other works, too. 

Kate Rothwell's entry also has a note from Wendy Roberts' Facebook post about the matter, which indicates that, yet again, the similarities were noticed by a reader:

I appreciate all the discussion and support. I've sent an email to my editor and agent and will let them decide if anything should be done. I'd like to believe that it was all coincidental but that may be my inner pollyanna lol!

The email from a fan pointed out these similarities: “her heroine does crime scene clean up and she hires an ex cop to work with her. She has a dead brother. She talks to ghosts and tells them in order to help them ‘move on’ she needs to know what unfinished business they have. She cleans a meth house, a hoarder house and drives a van. She gets all 4 of her tires flattened. She gets grossed out when a ghost runs through her body. She describes a lot of how hard it is to clean a shotgun suicide in a small bathroom”

How may similarities constitute blatant plagiarism? I have no idea and I have a feeling that nothing will come of this. I'm just glad the 5 books in my series all came out long before her new book.

This is the part that makes me roll my eyes so hard my eyebrows are now serving as goalies for the rest of my skull. Readers almost always find these similarities. Because readers, well, read so much, stuff gets noticed. I'm definitely a reader who notices patterns quickly - this is the source of my hatred of repeated cliches and repititious descriptions and adjectives in the same book. I notice the patterns very quickly, and I'm definitely not alone. 

So how is it that this still happens, despite ample evidence that readers will notice sooner than later? Cripes. It's enough to make me extremely cranky. 

...

Ok, that left a crappy taste in my mouth. I haven't got time for crappery like that to take up residence in my brain. Shall we move on to silly and fun things so as to salvage the morning?

YES. YES WE SHALL.

First: I'm over at Kirkus today, and I realized I neglected to link to my last column there as well (bad Sarah, Bad). In my 29 January column, I talk about Contemporary Comedy Romances - my term for the contemporary romances that make me snortlaugh: 

These are the books I recommend when someone asks me for a book that will make them laugh, and possibly scare the dogs. Some I've mentioned before, but if you're looking for a chortling good time, these authors and/or books will give you plenty to laugh about.

If reading about plagiarism allegations makes you cranky, too, I hope that list of funny books helps! 

Today, I'm back at Kirkus (HI KIRKUS! How are all your Kirks?) talking about naming genres when the labels we have don't adequately describe the books within them - including contemporary, or paranormal, or even historical: 

Readers want to be able to communicate what we're looking for, and many of us use author names to describe something we want to read: "small town contemporary romance like Susan Mallery." "Emotional historical romance like Meredith Duran." "Futuristic romance like those Elizabeth Lowell novels." It's useful to have author names to refer to, but perhaps one of the developments of readers talking to one another online is that we'll also develop more names for the styles we like and to describe those groups of books we love.

Perhaps, since I love me some turkey comedy from Ripped by Sarah Morgan, there should be a "poultry comedy" section in contemporary romance, with Ripped and the first Stephanie Plum book, wherein Grandma Mazur shoots a chicken in the gumpy. 

Poultry Contemporary Comedy Romance! That would look awesome on a bookshelf header, right? Damn chickeny. 

...

From the Additional Laughter Needed? We've Got That department, Bob Mondello and Linda Holmes from NPR are doing a video series for each of the Best Picture nominees for this year's Oscars. They select a sampling of online reviews for each movie, and narrate them. 

They are hilarious. SO freaking funny. My favorite is the one for Her:

...

I don't know if you've noticed, but Friday is Valentine's Day. I do not even want to TELL you how many messages have landed in my inbox about dating advice, breakup advice, relationship advice. And INFORGRAPHICS. Dude. I have GOT THEM ALL. 

I think Valentine's Day to romance fans is like January for people who like their gym. All of a sudden all these extra people show up and are suddenly and temporarily all about what you do consistently all year. 

Anyway. Valentine's Day is all about lists and romance and flowers and chocolate and stuff, and usually the "Oh yeah, February, let's talk Romance" repeat cycle is a bit tiresome. But then, there's Shutterstock, who did this: Power Couples : Classic Video Games Reimagined as Romance Novels.

To accomplish the task, we dreamed up titles and taglines based on some of our most loved 8-bit heroes (from a lovelorn Link to an enviously green Luigi), then sent them over to illustrator Echo Chernik, along with access to the Shutterstock collection and free reign to paint over and adapt our images in any way she could envision. Read on to see the results and get some insight from the artist on her process for each piece. Which of these books do you wish you could actually read this Valentine's Day?

I think my favorite is Pac-Man, though Duck Hunt is pretty freaking awesome. Which do you like best? 

I hope that's enough funny to take the crappy out of the earlier half of this entry. Yay funny funny creativity, and boo to signs of plagiarism (and winter storm warnings, too). 

Categories: General Bitching, The Link-O-Lator

by Elyse

Grade: B+
Title: Lone Warrior
Author: Austin
Publication Info: Signet Eclipse January 2014
ISBN: 9780451242327
Genre: Historical: American

I’ve been bingeing on Regencies lately (delicious, delicious Regencies) so I made a New Year’s resolution to explore historicals set in different time periods. I’m glad I did or I probably never would have read Lone Warrior by Lori Austin, and boy, did I like it. I’m trading in my rakes for cowboys, people. 

I hadn’t read a Western in a really long time, let alone one that dealt with Native Americans. I remember all the “Savage” books of old (one of the first books I read had the white heroine raped in chapter one by the Native American hero). Then there was a sort of overly politically correct backlash where any characters of color in romance were shining beacons of every virtue, be they secondary characters or heroes. They weren’t real people, they were the author tip-toeing around the fact that people did really horrible shit back then.

Anyway, the hero of this book is Luke Phelan. He fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and was captured and tortured. He was granted a release as long as he agreed to ride west and fight the Indians with the army. During one encounter, Luke trades his life to the Cheyenne for the lives of three captives. He starts out a slave among them, then later is accepted and becomes a sort of honorary brother-in-arms to the Dog Men, elite Cheyenne soldiers.

Also, the Cheyenne refer to Luke as “The White Ghost with Hair of Fire” because he’s a redhead. Of course they do.

When the book opens Something Bad has happened and Luke is now living as a hermit in the Smoky Hills of Kansas. He’s having a little pity party when he’s sought out by the heroine, Rose Varner. The Cheyenne have kidnapped Rose’s daughter, Lily, and she wants Luke to help her find them so she can get her child back.

Luke initially has zero interest in going back to the Cheyenne, in no small part because he left on really bad terms, but circumstance force them together anyway.

A lot of things happen in this book. There’s a lot traveling and movement and action scenes, but none of it detracts from the romance. There is the harsh terrain that they have to survive. There’s the U.S. Army to contend with, and the Pawnee and the Sioux and the Cheyenne, none of them super friendly. There are bounty hunters. Basically EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD wants to kill Luke and Rose. This is a book about a journey, and if you like that, then look no further.

I liked that Luke and Rose aren’t struck by insta-lust or insta-love. There’s attraction, sure, but their love grows out of a mutual respect—a grudging one on Luke’s part. It’s almost like they fall in love without really being aware of it, like the love sneaks up on them in the dead of night and smacks them on the head and says “Guess what, motherfuckers?”

But the highlight of the book for me was Rose. She’s an amazing heroine. She’s not especially pretty or strong or special in any way, but she refuses to give up. She’s got a quiet sort of courage that made me respect and love her.

Rose was from a rich family in Boston, but she wasn’t the prettiest girl in town, and she was frequently ill. With the Civil War decimating the population of young and eligible men, she knew she’d die an old maid. She wanted children, so she answered the advertisement of a German homesteader in Kansas and traveled there to marry him sight-unseen. She traded in a comfortable life for a hard one with a stranger so she could have a family. Damn.

Of course, she didn’t know that her homestead was on Cheyenne land, and that’s how her home was burned and daughter stolen. Lily was kidnapped to “replace” a child a Cheyenne woman had lost to the whites. This brings up all kinds of issues even if Rose does find her daughter, who has now spent more than a year with a new mommy.

The Native American characters in this book came in all kinds of shades of gray, which I appreciated. They were real characters, complex and fully-drawn. Lone Warrior made me realize that I know shamefully little about the history of Native Americans. I bought a non-fiction on the subject to fill in the huge gaps in my education. As a result, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of Austin’s depictions of her Native American characters, but there was enough detail here to suggest to me that she’d done her research.

Research aside, there was some definite WTFery here. The hero and heroine have sex in a sinkhole. There’s a big storm and they fall into a sinkhole and Luke starts freaking out because he was thrown in a pit by the Union army, so what do they do? Have sex. It’s sort of primal and raw, what with the thunderstorm above and mud below, but all I could think of was What happens if you get mud in your vagina? I actually Googled it. I still don’t have an answer, but it can’t be good.

Even if there was no corresponding yeast infection, they’d both be picking dried mud out of their crevices for days. Come to think of it, Rose and Luke don’t bathe much in this book, and they’re pretty bloody and sweaty. And there’s no tooth-brushing. Fortunately I have a healthy sense of historical-hygiene denial.

My only issue with this book is that the ending happened really fast. There is a lot of action and a lot of new characters introduced in the last a few chapters, so much so that it left me spinning a little. This is also the third book in Austin's Once Upon a Time in the West series, and some characters from the earlier books show up, so you may want to read them in order. I’ve picked up the first two and am looking forward to a weekend of cowboys and bounty hunters and muddy sex in the Wild West. 

This book is available from 

Categories: General Bitching, Reviews, Reviews by Author, Authors, A-C, Reviews by Grade, Grade B

by SB Sarah

Heart of Iron is $2.99. This is book 2 in Bec McMaster's London Steampunk series. The first book, Kiss of Steel, has been on sale multiple times, so you may already own it. This series is much praised by fans of the genre because it blends familiar paranormal elements with intense emotion and layered worldbuilding. Have you read this series? Did you like it?

In Victorian London, if you’re not a blue blood of the Echelon then you’re nothing at all. The Great Houses rule the city with an iron fist, imposing their strict ‘blood taxes’ on the nation, and the Queen is merely a puppet on a string…

Lena Todd makes the perfect spy. Nobody suspects the flirtatious debutante could be a sympathizer for the humanist movement haunting London’s vicious blue blood elite. Not even the ruthless Will Carver, the one man she can’t twist around her little finger, and the one man whose kiss she can’t forget…

Stricken with the loupe and considered little more than a slave-without-a-collar to the blue bloods, Will wants nothing to do with the Echelon or the dangerous beauty who drives him to the very edge of control. But when he finds a coded letter on Lena—a code that matches one he saw on a fire-bombing suspect—he realizes she’s in trouble. To protect her, he must seduce the truth from her.

With the humanists looking to start a war with the Echelon, Lena and Will must race against time—and an automaton army—to stop the humanist plot before it’s too late. But as they fight to save a city on the brink of revolution, the greatest danger might just be to their hearts.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

The Crimson Petal and the White is $2.51 at Amazon right now. This isn't quite a romance, but many readers have mentioned it here as a book that was fascinating and hard to put down, though many have said the ending was very unsatisfying.

At the heart of this panoramic, multidimensional narrative is the compelling struggle of a young woman to lift her body and soul out of the gutter.

Faber leads us back to 1870s London, where Sugar, a nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs. Castaway, yearns for escape to a better life. Her ascent through the strata of Victorian society offers us intimacy with a host of lovable, maddening, unforgettable characters.

They begin with William Rackham, an egotistical perfume magnate whose ambition is fueled by his lust for Sugar, and whose patronage brings her into proximity to his extended family and milieu: his unhinged, childlike wife, Agnes, who manages to overcome her chronic hysteria to make her appearances during “the Season”; his mysteriously hidden-away daughter, Sophie, left to the care of minions; his pious brother, Henry, foiled in his devotional calling by a persistently less-than-chaste love for the Widow Fox, whose efforts on behalf of The Rescue Society lead Henry into ever-more disturbing confrontations with flesh; all this overseen by assorted preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all stripes and persuasions.

Goodreads | Amazon

The Sergeant's Lady by Susanna Fraser is .99c. This book is set during the Napoleonic War, with a commoner hero and a heroine who is related to some viscounts and/or earls (I don't think they are named Earl, however, which would be very silly). Readers who gave this book many stars really liked the depth of the historical research, and the conflicts that shift as the story continues. It has a 3.92 average at GR.

Highborn Anna Arrington has been "following the drum," obeying the wishes of her cold, controlling cavalry officer husband. When he dies, all she wants is to leave life with Wellington's army in Spain behind her and go home to her family's castle in Scotland.

Sergeant Will Atkins ran away from home to join the army in a fit of boyish enthusiasm. He is a natural born soldier, popular with officers and men alike, uncommonly brave and chivalrous, and educated and well-read despite his common birth.

As Anna journeys home with a convoy of wounded soldiers, she forms an unlikely friendship with Will. When the convoy is ambushed and their fellow soldiers captured, they become fugitives—together. The attraction between them is strong—but even if they can escape the threat of death at the hands of the French, is love strong enough to bridge the gap between a viscount's daughter and an innkeeper's son?

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

RECOMMENDED: It Happened One Midnight by Julie Anne Long is the 8th book in the Pennyroyal Green series and is $1.99 right now. The next book in the series comes out at the end of March 2014, so if you're going to catch up with the series, now is a good time - and that's a terrific price. Long's series is one of my favorites, and I'm not alone. This book has a 4+ star average on GR.

More than one beautiful woman’s hopes have been dashed on the rocky shoals of Jonathan Redmond’s heart. With his riveting good looks and Redmond wealth and power, the world is his oyster—until an ultimatum from his father and a chilling gypsy prophesy send him hurtling headlong toward a fate he’ll do anything to avoid: matrimony.

Intoxicating, elusive Thomasina de Ballesteros has the bloods of London at her feet. But none of them knows the real Tommy—the one with a shocking pedigree, a few too many secrets, and a healthy scorn for rakes like Jonathan. She is everything Jonathan never wanted. But on one fateful midnight, he’s drawn into Tommy's world of risk, danger…and a desire he’d never dreamed possible.

And suddenly he’s re-thinking everything...including the possibility that succumbing to prophesy might just mean surrendering to love.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Kobo | AllRomance

Categories: Ebooks, Free or Cheap Ebooks, General Bitching

by SB Sarah

This is a delightfully NSFW edition of the podcast. We sit down with Jill Myles, Jessica Clare, and Jessica Sims. Fortunately that's all one person. We talk about crazy sauce books, her publishing career, and the books she's written - all 65,793 of them.

Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:

This podcast is brought to you by Berkley, publisher of #1 New York Times bestselling author Maya Banks’ all-new Surrender trilogy, starting with the explosive LETTING GO!

Josslyn found perfection once, and she knows she’ll never find it again. Now widowed, she seeks the one thing her beloved husband couldn’t give her: dominance. Lonely, searching for an outlet for her grief and wanting only a brief taste of the perfection she once enjoyed, she seeks what she’s looking for at an exclusive club that caters to people indulging in their most hedonistic fantasies. She never imagined that what she’d find would be the one man who’s long been a source of comfort—and secret longing. Her husband’s best friend.

Dash has lived in an untenable position for years: in love with his best friend’s wife but unwilling to act on that attraction. He’d never betray his best friend. And so he’s waited in the wings, offering Joss unconditional support and comfort as she works past her grief, hoping for the day when he can offer her more.

When he finds her in a club devoted to the darker edges of desire, he’s furious because he thinks she has no idea what she’s getting herself into. Until she explains in detail what it is she wants. What she needs. As realization sets in, he is gripped by fierce, unwavering determination. If she wants dominance, he is the only man who will introduce her to that world. He is the only man who will touch her, cherish her…love her. And the only man she’ll ever submit to.

Our music in each episode is provided by Sassy Outwater, who is terrific at finding new music for us. This track is called Martha Stuart by Enter the Haggis. You can find them on their website and you can find them on iTunes as well.

If you like the podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or find us at iTunes. You can also find us at PodcastPickle.

Come find us! You can talk to us on the blog entries for the podcast, or email us, or talk to us on Facebook if that's where you hang out online - or call us on our Google Voice number. Lots of options! And we want to know: which books are your iconic ugly cry books? Do you have cyclist romances to recommend? You can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com (WE LOVE EMAIL! Send us some!!) or you can call and leave us a message at our Google voice number: 201-371-DBSA. Please don't forget to give us a name and where you're calling from so we can work your message into an upcoming podcast.

Thanks for listening!

Categories: DBSA Romance Fiction Podcast

by SB Sarah

Hey! It's Valentine's Day! That means the chocolate is on sale tomorrow (woo!), there's lot of people wearing red today (which, woo, because I like red), and there's glancing coverage of romance. I said this earlier in the collection of links on Wednesday, and had it made into graphic form just for fun: 

Happy Valentine's Day to us! 

AND ON THAT NOTE. It's time for Conversation Hearts of Awesome II: The Desolation of Smaug!

Theresa Romain gave me the heads up that yet again, you can create your own conversation hearts. 

Ha. Try and get any work done today! Just try! 

I made you some. A few valentines, from me to you!

If you make your own, please share, either in the comments, or email them to me and I'll put them in the comments for you. 

...

Need additional Valentines? NPR has some for you! I'm rather fond of the Carl Kasell one, myself. 

...

If you like history, here's a link that will make you VERY happy: the Museum of the City of New York has digitized over 135,000 images from its archives, and made them available online. 

There are theatre shots, architechture, celebrities, and more - it's all fascinating. And it'll probably cost you an hour of productivity but if it's research it TOTALLY counts, right?

Thanks to Ed Champion's Twitter feed for the link.

...

Here's a neat and fascinating article examining romances: Sarah Skwire takes a look at entrepreneurship and economics in historical romances in Economics With Romance.

I have found that historical romance novels are most interested in thinking seriously about work. Romance novels set in contemporary society tend to see work as merely a part of the background. Of course the hero and heroine have jobs. Everyone does. Often, while the work is the excuse for bringing the hero and heroine into initial contact with each other, writers don’t explore their characters' feelings about work particularly deeply, nor do they show the hero or heroine actively working.

But when set into historical context, writing about work can lead to debates over gender roles (“You get to have an interesting job and I have to learn to embroider? How is that fair?” or “Do you really expect that I’ll give up working when we get married?”), or about the mixed blessing of aristocratic privilege (“My father gambled away the family fortune, so I must work, but I have no skills!” or “I’d really like to be a writer/scientist/architect, but it is simply not done by people of my class.”), or about class and opportunity (“Yes, I stole your wallet, but I was fired from my job as a governess for ‘tempting’ the master of the house, and isn’t it better to steal than to be a prostitute?”). In other words, because of the deep conflicts over work throughout history, work in a historical romance novel can be a source of conflict between the hero and heroine. And romance novels thrive on conflict that keeps the lovers deliciously apart until they find a way to reach a happy ending.

The whole article is a fascinating and unique perspective on the role of employment in the pursuit of self-actualization in romances.

...

And finally, RedHeadedGirl, Elyse, Carrie, Amanda and I collaborated on a list for BuzzFeed that had plenty of room for snark but wasn't quite about romance novels: The 7 Worst Moments In NBC's 2014 Olympic Coverage... So Far.

I've been watching the Olympics somewhat sparingly, because each time I turn in, the sexism and condescension of the announcers bugs me more and more. I love winter sports in general, especially snowboarding and skiing, but as many people have noticed, the coverage is particularly shitful this year. 

So we rounded up the coverage and identified the standings for this year's Sexism and Condescension Competition. That battle is fierce. And I suspect we haven't yet seen the performance that will win the gold. 

Categories: Fun And Games, General Bitching, The Link-O-Lator

by SB Sarah

I don't always do nosy question threads, but when I do, they are HOLY CRAP EXPENSIVE because you all read all the interesting books and then tell me about them. 

I'm reading a few books concurrently - I call this "buffeting" my books, like I'm at the biggest all you can eat buffet and I can't just pick one thing. It's usually a sign that I'm stressed and easily distracted, but for now, it's working for me.

I'm reading a nonfiction book about inflammation and dietary response (WOO FUN) and Edith Layton's Tempting the Bride. Those two things are not the same at all. But Elyse is totally right about her books being wonderfully welcoming comfort reads.

So, whatcha reading? Any books that you'd recommend to others? What books are making your brain happy right now?

Categories: General Bitching

by SB Sarah

RECOMMENDED: My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick is $2.99 right now at BN and AMZ. Fingers crossed the Kobo fairy catches up! This book was nominated for a RITA® in 2013, and both our RITA® reader challenge reviewers really liked it. 

Rachel wrote: I give this book an A-.  I loved the sweetness of the story.  I adored Jase’s gentleness and Jase and Sam’s love brought back so many memories for me.  I would have loved a little longer epilogue and/or a bit more after the conflict was resolved.  Otherwise, this book was such a sweet, sweet escape for me.

AnimeGirl wrote: In general, I’m a person who deeply mistrust HYPE.

9 out of 10 times I just don’t get it and often I don’t even think the hyped-about book was all that good.

But I’m happy to say that My Life Next Door is that one book where the hype is totally granted. I loved the book from start to finish; I couldn’t put it down even though I had a ton of work to do. I just had to keep reading and I’m going to break down why in 4 parts.

A gorgeous debut about family, friendship, first romance, and how to be true to one person you love without betraying another

“One thing my mother never knew, and would disapprove of most of all, was that I watched the Garretts. All the time.”

The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not. Loud, numerous, messy, affectionate. And every day from her balcony perch, seventeen-year-old Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them . . . until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs her terrace and changes everything. As the two fall fiercely in love, Jase's family makes Samantha one of their own. Then in an instant, the bottom drops out of her world and she is suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

A dreamy summer read, full of characters who stay with you long after the story is over.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN

A Series of Unfortunate Events Books 1-3 WITH BONUS MATERIAL WOO! is $2.99 right now at Amazon. In my world, February is Read-a-Thon month, and I love the discounted collections of young reader books. They make for a great library for my kids - and you're never too young to learn to appreciate the joy of Bonus Materials, right? Right!

Lemony Snicket’s unhappy tale of the unlucky Baudelaire siblings begins with The Bad Beginning. In this short bothersome book alone, the three orphans encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.

Should you not mind deadly serpents, slippery salamanders, lumpy beds, large brass reading lamps, long knives, and terrible odors, then proceed with caution to the second book in the miserable series, The Reptile Room.

Readers unbothered by inclement weather, hungry leeches, and cold cucumber soup will want to continue with the third installment, The Wide Window. Others will not.

If you’ve got the stomach to wade through the first three tragic tales in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, then this troubling collection might be the one for you. Several loathsome extras, including a compilation of unsettling quotations and a very disturbing portrait, await those who successfully complete the wretched journey. You’ve been warned!

Goodreads | Amazon

The Maverick & The Manhattanite by Leanne Banks is a Kindle Daily Deal today, which hasn't been pricematched as I write this. My fingers are crossed for price matching, though, because the price is .99c! Nice. This is a Harlequin Special Edition with a city girl heading to Montana to help after a devastating flood, though she doesn't seem condescending about the cowboys and Montana-nites - she's got a secret cowboy fascination according to the cover copy. Have you read this one?

Rust Creek Ramblings 

Ever since volunteer coordinator Lissa Roarke rolled into town with her fancy luggage and metropolitan attitude, Sheriff Gage Christensen has been fit to be tied. Everything about Lissa seems to rub Gage the wrong way. She talks too fast, she's too bossy, she's just too…darned…irritating. And readers, you know what that means.

It's only a matter of time before these two squawking opposites find their way—together!

But there's a rough road ahead for Rust Creek's sexy sheriff and his do-gooder girl. Can Big Sky and Big Apple make it past the first frost? Just how much will a city girl sacrifice for the strong arms of the law?

Goodreads | Amazon

The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh is $2.99 at AMZ and BN right now as a Kindle Daily Deal. I'm including this book because I've seen several writers mention online how beneficial they've found meditation, and there's no shortage of articles discussing the benefits of daily practice.

This book has a 4+ star on GR, with many readers in many languages praising the simplicity and accessibility of the language and explanations. If you've been thinking of trying meditation, this book may give you a few methods to start.

In this beautiful and lucid guide, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh offers gentle anecdotes and practical exercise as a means of learning the skills of mindfulness--being awake and fully aware.

From washing the dishes to answering the phone to peeling an orange, he reminds us that each moment holds within it an opportunity to work toward greater self-understanding and peacefulness.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN

Categories: Ebooks, Free or Cheap Ebooks, General Bitching

by SB Sarah

Here is a text transcript of DBSA 78.An Interview with Jill Myles, Jessica Sims and Jessica Clare, Part 1. You can listen to the mp3 here, or you can read on! 

This podcast transcript was hand-crafted of artisanal excellence by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.

 Here are the books we discuss:

Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to another DBSA podcast!  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me is Jane Litte from Dear Author.  I am attempting to record this with one of my cats who is intent on sitting on the laptop, so if this sounds really extra messed up, I’m going to blame her, and she’s 16; she can take it.

This week, we have a really fun interview that we’re going to do in two parts with Jill Myles and Jessica Clare.  Fortunately, these are all the same individual, so otherwise you would have a lot of voices to keep track of.  The first part of the interview is all about her publishing story, the books that she’s written most recently, and a little bit about the things that she likes to read.  Next week, we’ll have the second half of the interview, which is a little bit more talking about self publishing and lizards, because you know you really can’t get enough lizards.  I know you can’t – don’t lie!

This podcast is brought to you by Berkley, publisher of the #1 New York Times bestselling author Maya Banks’s all new Surrender trilogy, starting with the explosive Letting Go.

And yes!  The music was provided by Sassy Outwater.  I’ll have more information at the end of the podcast.

I should warn you, this conversation is not always safe for work or children in the backseat.  And now, on with the podcast!

[music]

Jane:  Did you know that there was some guy author on Facebook sending, like, chest and dick pics in exchange for reviews?

Sarah:  How are we not offered this?  I’m left out!

Jane:  I don’t know.  Jess, do you want to send naked pictures of yourself in exchange for reviews?

Jess:  No, no, I don’t think so.  I think they would be bad reviews, so…

[Laughter]

Sarah:  I feel so left out that I have not received any dick or groin or chest pics in response to a request for a review.  Oh, man!

Jane:  I don’t know who the author is, but I think that it might be this one author who is pretending to be this Dom, and he’s got a book about, he’s being interviewed about his Dom escapades, and one of the reviews says something like, I was honored to be asked to review the first third of this book.  Five stars!

Sarah:  The first third?

Jess:  Oh, this isn’t like the guy that divorced his wife and then wrote that horrible book about her?  Do you remember that, Jane?

Sarah:  No, wait, when was this?

Jess:  Oh, God!  It was, like, about her turning into, like, the devil or something.

Sarah:  Oh, my God!

Jane:  Oh, oh, oh, I do remember that!  That was, like –

Jess:  Yeah!

Jane:  - at the beginning of the explosion –

Jess:  That was crazy!

Jane:  It was the beginning of the explosion of self-published books, and we were just starting to kind of get self-published authors to submit to us, and this was a book about – [Laughs]  It had this horrible cover.  One half of the woman was in a, was in a wedding gown –

Jess:  Yeah!

Jane:  - and the other half was her, like, in a, like, lingerie or a stripper outfit, and I don’t remember –

Jess:  And she was, like, whoring for money, or drugs or something.

Jane:  Yes!  But he was, like, desperately in love with her.  I mean, it was really, like, I kept reading it ‘cause it was so – [Laughs] I shouldn’t be laughing.  Oh, my gosh!

Jess:  No, it was funny – [Giggles]

Sarah:  There has to be a name for that, too –

Jess:  - You can laugh.

Sarah:   - when you’re reading something, and it’s so horrible you can’t believe that this is what your eyes are actually doing right now with your body and your energy, but you can’t stop reading because surely this isn’t real.

Jess:  Yeah, it’s called a keeper.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Yeeah.

Jess:  I have a shelf full of them.

[Laughter]

Jess:  I have favorite authors.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  That’s a very specific kind of keeper.  That’s like a “Dude, you’re not going to believe this” keeper.  [Laughs]

Jess:  But, you know, there’s something fun about reading a book that’s just so bad you don’t know where the hell it’s going to go, so…

Sarah:  Oh, crazysauce is the best!

Jess:  Yeah.

Jane:  The book from Ravenous Romance that I remember was super, it was so tremendously bad that is was hilarious was that Ryan Lewis American Idol fanfic, ‘cause it, he – I have to Google this so I can read the lines from the book, but one of them talks about, like, how he unspools his dick like a Bounty paper roll.

Sarah:  What?!

Jess:  Oookay.  The only one I remember –

Jane:  Jess, were you the one that was worried that we couldn’t swear?  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yeah.

Jess:  Yeah, well, you know –

Sarah:  You can swear, trust me.

Jess:  I listen to the podcasts and then I totally forget if you guys swear or not, and I was like, well, damn!  ‘Cause I have a salty mouth, so...  I do!

Jane:  It’s American Star by Ryan Field, and here’s some description:

Then he spread his legs and slowly lowered his zipper.  It fell from his jeans like a roll of paper towels unraveling across the kitchen floor.

Jess:  Ewww.

Sarah:  [Laughs] Well, you know, that’s clearly a missed opportunity in Super Bowl advertising imagery.

Jess:  It reminds of those, those fruit rollup, the Fruit by the Foot commercials.  Remember what we used to just, like, roll out?

Sarah:  And you know what?  I give my kids Fruit by the Foot semi-regularly.  Those things are really frigging long.  It’s not a lie.

Jess:  You’re welcome.

[Laughter]

Jess:  Try taking a bath next time.

Jane:  He wanted to stay here on his knees and stare at it for the rest of the day.  He could have put it over his shoulder and burped it.

Sarah:  Oh, gracious.

Jane:  And then, this is my favorite.  He has a lot of smells, he’s, what’s the word for smell –

Sarah:  Smell?

[Laughter]

Jane:  No, um –

Sarah:  You mean –

Together:  Olfactory?

Someone:  There it is.

Jane:  Yes, olfactory.  He has sex with several different men, and Terrence has, has balls that taste sweet and smell like baby powder.

Jess:  Sure.

Jane:  And another one’s tasted salty and smelled like apple vinegar, and another one tasted salty and smelled like onions.

Sarah:  Oh, God!  Oh, God!  I, I had to stop reading a male/male romance because the character who was narrating the sex scene was all about the smells that he was encountering behind the other guy’s balls, and I, and I am so smell sensitive, I could not read it.  It was making me nauseous.  I could not get through it.

Jane:  Okay, here’s, here’s one other line:

His underarms smelled like raw onions and meat.

Sarah:  [Laughs] Oh, God!

Jess:  Is this the hero?

Jane:  No, I think it –

Sarah:  I’m going to get ill now!

Jane:  So, maybe this is a thing with men, like they’re very sensitive in their noses?

Jess:  Or hungry, one or the other.

Sarah:  Or really like onions.

Jane:  Your husband’s near you, Jess, right?  Can you ask him?

Jess:  No, he’s asleep, he’s asleep, so…  He told me was going to heckle me, but I’m lucky, he’s asleep, so…

Jane:  Well –

Jess:  But, yeah, no, he doesn’t smell like, you know, hamburger and onions under his arms, so…  He smells like Old Spice.

Jane:  [Laughs] Your husband’s Canadian.  Can I say that?

Jess:  He is, yes.

Jane:  Okay, so, during the Olympics, who do you cheer for?

Jess:  [Sigh] Canadians.  Yeah, he woke up the other day, he was like, Ooh, we got another medal!  And I was like, Americans?  He’s like, ppffbbt, no.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  It’s Canadians, clearly.  I’m like, I’m, I’m not Canadian.  But he likes curling and he likes hockey, and the rest is just crap, so…  That’s all right, though.

Jane:  - book about a former Olympic skater.

Jess:  Who, me?

Jane:  Yeah, no, Sarah.  Sarah’s writing a book about former Olympic skaters.  [Laughs]

Jess:  It cut out, sorry.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Yeah, all we heard was “book about former Olympic skaters.”  Like, okay!

Jess:  - Olympic skaters, yes.  Yeah, I did!  It’s called Ice Games, and the heroine, Zara, is an Olympic skater, and I always – Okay, once upon a time, when I first wrote my first book, I wanted to have a book about an Olympic skater who totally lost her shit.  You know, ‘cause they’re always so composed, even when they fall on their asses and just make a total fool of themselves, and I was like, why doesn’t somebody just, like, get up midstream, say fuck all of you, and you know, just stomp off the ice?  And nobody ever does!  I’m like, ‘cause that’s what I would do, you know –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  - if I totally blew it at the Olympics.  I would just lose it and just quit.  But they never do, they just, you know, they keep skating, and then they smile, and then they go leave.  And I was like, that’s just not a normal person reaction, so my first book that I ever wrote was, like, total Mary Sue fiction about a girl who’s an Olympic skater, and it never saw the light of day ‘cause it was horrific, but I liked the idea of having a heroine that was an Olympic skater, so that’s kind of how the heroine in Ice Games came about.  And so I figured she would be, you know, desperate for a job, and she decides to go on, like, ice dancing for the stars, and she gets stuck with the hero, and the way most of the Games books work is that, you know, these two people get stuck together, and they always hate each other in the beginning, and then, of course, they fall in love and, you know, shenanigans.

Sarah:  Is that, is that book in print?

Jess:  It is!  Yeah.

Jane:  Well, no, it’s an eBook.

Sarah:  Right, obviously.

Jess:  It is, but there’s a print version of it, yes.

Jane:  Well, here’s the thing about Jess’s Games things, ‘cause I remember she told me she was writing it, I think her first one is based, is loosely based on The Amazing Race, and –

Jess:  No, well, Wicked Games is the first one, and it’s based off of Survivor.

Jane:  Okay, so I just remember I was like, well, first, I don’t even watch Survivor, and second, I hate reality TV games, and worse, I can’t even imagine reading one about a reality TV game show.

Jess:  Yeah.

Jane:  So, she had sent me the book, and I don’t remember when I started reading, but I know I didn’t read it right away, and I opened it and I started reading, and I finished it that night, and I emailed her, and I’m like, holy shit!  I really enjoyed this book!  I didn’t think I would!

[Laughter]

Jess:  I get that a lot.

Jane:  So, if you go to the Wicked Games on Amazon, that is like the first sentence of everybody’s review.

Jess:  Yes.

Jane:  I didn’t think I’d like this book, but I do.  [Laughs]

Jess:  I know!  And I love, like, Survivor.  I’ve been a Survivor junkie ever since it came on.  Like, it first came on in, I want to say, 2000?  And I watched the very first episode, and I pretty much saw every single episode except for when I got married, I missed one episode.  Like, I was a total nerd.  I read the books, I had everything, I actually paid to have tapes of it that I bought from eBay, because they didn’t have it on DVD once upon a time, and I would watch the tapes over and over again.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  That’s how dorky I was about Survivor.  I knew everybody’s, like, luxury item from the first season and I knew all of the –

Sarah:  Didn’t somebody bring, like, mascara or something?

Jess:  I don’t know.  I remember one girl brought a camera, and another girl brought, like, a bullet on a necklace, and –

Sarah:  Yes, that’s useful.

Jess:  Yeah, exactly.  They had all kinds of weird stuff, but, like, the very first season, they didn’t really know what the hell they were doing, so they just let them bring whatever.  Well, the girl that brought the camera was a lawyer.  And so that didn’t turn out so well.  So, I don’t think she was ever allowed to do anything with that, ‘cause then she ended up suing them because she said it was rigged, and it’s like, of course it’s rigged!  It’s TV!

I was really, really into it, and I’m always writing something new, and I wanted to write a book about reality TV, ‘cause I just think it’s really interesting, and I think it’s a great setup.  And so, I wrote the book, and I told my agent, I was like, hey!  I just wrote a contemporary romance about reality TV.  She was like, [buzz], no, bad idea.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  She’s like, nobody’s interested in that.  And this was years ago, and so I was like, okay, so I put it on my hard drive and left it there, and when I started self publishing, I was going through all the things that I’ve written that never went anywhere – and I have way too many – and that was one of the ones that stuck out to me, and I was like, you know, I love this book!  And I put it up, and it didn’t sell, and I don’t know if it was ‘cause the cover – the cover has been like –

Jane:  It’s not the cover; it’s the reality TV show hook.

Jess:  Well, when I first started self publishing, my covers really sucked.  Like, they were skanky and the fonts were kind of hideous, but I didn’t know, you know, the first thing about self publishing.  This was, like, four years ago or something like that.  So, I put it up there, and it didn’t sell, it didn’t sell, it didn’t sell, and then I was like, okay, so I changed the cover, like, five times, which if you go on Goodreads, you’ll see there’s like five different covers, like, and they start, like, ultra-skank and they slowly move towards, like, less skanky, less skanky, to decent, to like, hey!  That looks like a real cover!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  So, it didn’t sell, and I was like, well, you know, I really like this book, and so I set it to free, and all of a sudden everybody was like, well, holy shit!  This is a cool book!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  I didn’t want to read it because it was about reality TV, and apparently everybody hates reality TV but me, and –

Sarah:  No, I think everyone likes to say they hate reality TV because they’re terrified if they’re the one person who says oh, my God, I love reality TV!

Jess:  I love it!

Sarah:  Everyone’s going to be like, okay, you have to leave the Earth now.

Jane:  Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s full of assholes that are, like, fighting against each other, and everybody’s a jerk, and they’re fake, and it’s just, it’s an awesome setup, because they’re all out to get each other.  So, I’m like, you know, the last thing you want to do is fall in love with somebody.  You’re stinky, you’re fighting this person for a million dollars, you have sand up your ass, you know.  I just think that’s, that’s such a fun setting to have, like, romantic entanglements.  So, yeah, I set it for free, and I left it free for, like, a really long time, and all of a sudden everybody was like, well, holy crap!  This is an awesome book!  You should write one about The Amazing Race!  And I was like, ppfftt, no, I don’t want to write about The Amazing Race, but then I watched another season of The Amazing Race, which is another favorite show, and I wrote a book about that, and then I just kind of spun off into several different books, and now everybody constantly emails me and asks for more Games books.

Sarah:  That’s awesome!

Jess:  Yeah!  They do ask for a Biggest Loser book, but I don’t, I don’t think I’m going to do that, ‘cause I don’t find it sexy.

Jane:  I would like you to do a Top Chef one, because that’s my favorite reality TV show, but you don’t watch that show.

Jess:  I don’t.  There’s just nothing aggressive enough about the cooking.  I watch Survivor, I watch The Amazing Race.  I did watch The Biggest Loser, but it really kind of beat me down with, like, how happy everyone was and – I like it when they’re kind of cutthroat.  I do have plans to do a Bachelor-type one, I want to say in December, and the next one, they’re going to go back to a Survivor setting.  I call it Endurance Island, and that one’s going to be coming out in a couple of months, and it’s going to be kind of like Survivor crossed with Naked and Afraid, so everybody that’s participating on the island is going to be naked!

Sarah:  And afraid.

Jess:  Yes.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Survivor:  Naked and Afraid.

Jane:  I’ve never seen, I’ve never even heard of Naked and Afraid.  What is that?

Sarah:  Yeah, this is the first time hearing of this magical thing.  Please tell me more.

Jess:  So, it’s this show on cable, and I don’t remember what channel it is, because we just TiVo everything, but basically they take two strangers that want to be on TV for some God knows whatever reason, and they set them out in the wild, and they don’t know each other, and they’re naked, and they’re supposed to survive for a couple of weeks.  And it’s just very bizarre.  There’s not like, I don’t think that there’s a prize involved.  The prize is, like, you know, being on TV.  Yeah!

Sarah:  So you do it for free for exposure like its Huffington Post.

Jess:  Exposure.  Wah-wah!  Yes.

[Laughter]

Jane:  The problem is, is I always wonder, like, what kind of people go on this show?  Like, what, how are you going to make the man and woman that are on this Naked and Afraid show, like, what are their motivations?

Jess:  Money.

[Laughter]

Jess:  It’s easier, I guess, to make the heroine going out there for a money-related reason, ‘cause, like, anybody can see, like, you’ve seen people on Fear Factor that will eat, like, a bull’s dick or, you know, bull scrotum or pig anus or whatever, but they’ll eat it because there’s like a, there’s like a $50,000 prize, and somebody’s always like, I really need that money, and I’m like, ain’t nobody needs $50,000 that bad.  But apparently someone does.  So –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  They’ll do these horrible things for the chance at $50,000.  Well, it’s like, what would you do for $1,000,000?  I’d go starve an island for a month for $1,000,000, you know.  So it’s a lot easier to make it money involved for the heroine’s part, and I think for the hero, I can see guys doing it because they’re ultra-competitive.  Or a lot of the time, I like to also throw in, like, the hero in this Amazing Race book, Playing Games, was a rock star, and he didn’t want to be there, but he had to because his label wanted the publicity, so…  And in Ice Games, the hero didn’t want to be there again, okay, so maybe it’s not, maybe this is my pattern.  He didn’t want to be there, but he had to because of PR.  Because he’d bitten off somebody’s nose in the ring, and he was trying to repair his image, so they stuck him on this ice dancing show.

Sarah:  Like you do.

Jess:  Yes, as you do.  Yeah, its, I mean, there’s different reasons, but it’s never like, I don’t know, okay, the guy in the fourth book, which is Bedroom Games, which is based off of Big Brother, he definitely wanted to do it for the money.  He was in a, a prior book, and he was a real asshole and screwed over his sister, and as soon as I wrote him, everybody was like, oh, he’s got to be the hero of another book, and I was like, really!  Because he just seemed like such a jerk.  But people love a jerk, so I put him as the hero of the fourth book, and everybody loved it, so…

Sarah:  Now, does anyone in your series say I’m not here to make friends?  There’s always that one person who’s like, I’m not here to make friends.  I’m here to humiliate everyone.

Jess:  Yes.

Sarah:  Is that, is that token player a necessary element of reality television, do you think?

Jane:  It’s usually the hero in her books.

[Laughter]

Jess:  Yeah.  The hero’s usually going out there with, you know, I’m not here to make friends, I’ll flirt with the ladies if I need to, you know, I’ll do whatever it takes to get ahead, and in the fourth book, Bedroom Games, the heroine goes in saying okay, I need the money.  I’m going to do whatever I have to to get ahead.  And so she goes in with the idea that she’s going to screw everyone over, and she finds it a little harder than she anticipated because she gets paired with the screw-over guy, they’re both kind of like the villains working together, and so she has to decide, you know, is he playing me or is this, you know, something for real between us?  So, it was, it was fun to write, so…

Sarah:  Do you have an Omarosa-style character?  I, I, she fascinates me for so many reasons, because –

Jess:  No, she scares me.

Sarah:  She fascinates me, because I’ve seen interviews with her where, for just a moment, she’ll let you in on the fact that her awfulness is entirely a character.

Jess:  Really!  No!

Sarah:  Yeah, like, all of her absolute awfulness is – Like, I am fascinated by her because she is so consistently awful every time she shows up.

Jess:  No, I haven’t really delved into that.  Most of my books are based off of, like, the Survivor and The Amazing Race culture which, there’s this whole fandom online, like if you ever go to the board called Survivor Sucks, which I love – I never post because they scare me too – but there’s this whole culture of dissecting the types of people that go on these shows, and there are mactors, which are model-actors.  There are, you know, washed-up stars who want another 15 minutes.  There are specific types that the directors like, like they like the cute southern blonde, so… I tend to kind of go with more those stereotypes, just because it’s what I’m familiar with as what they cast on these shows, so…  There’s not a lot of Omarosa types, although that’s not a bad idea to include for the future; I might have to steal that, so, yes.

Sarah:  Now, I remember when I first met you was at RWA in D.C.

Jess:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And I remember you telling me that you had placed a book with a particular publisher who hadn’t published it for, like, two years.

Jess:  Yes.

Sarah:  And you were like, this sucks.

Jess:  It did!  It was, it was, it was a very long period of time.  So, I have been doing the traditional publishing thing for, like, forever and a day.  I think I first started writing for novels in, I want to say, 2000?  2002?  Something like that?  And I wrote about, I want to say, five books before I started hunting for an agent, and it took me a year to find an agent.  I found an agent, and it took him a year to sell my first book.  And it got bought, and I want to say I signed the contracts in 2007, and they’re like, yeah, the book will come out in 2008!  I was like, cool!  Then 2008 rolled around, and they’re like, no, not yet.  And then eventually, I think it came out on, I want to say, December 29, 2009.  So, from the time that I got the acceptance and signed the contract to the time the book actually came out, I want to say it was like 33 months.

Sarah:  Yes, ‘cause RWA in D.C. was in 2009, and, and –

Jess:  Yes.

Sarah:  - you were like, I think I’m going to be published this year?  But I don’t know!

[Laughter]

Jess:  It was, it was a real interesting lesson in how the business works, because I write all the time, and if I’m not working on something, it makes me antsy, so by the time that first book came out, I want to say I’d written like 17 books at that point –

Sarah:  Like you do.

Jess:  - and – yes, as you do – and it was, it was, like, book number five that I wrote.  I felt like I had gone ahead a million years, and to feel that first book still coming out, it was very weird for me, but it was interesting because I learned a lot about the business in the meantime, and I want to say I switched agents twice before the book even came out, so by the time it hit, I was on agent number three, and I had written, like, 17 books, and I knew way more about the bad side of the business than the good side.  But the good news was that, you know, it came out, and I’m still publishing with that publisher, under a different name.  I now have contracts with another publisher under a third name, so, you know, I feel like everything’s worked out.

Sarah:  How many names do you have now?

Jess:  I have three.  So I started out as Jill Myles, and Jill Myles was first published by Pocket.  Then I published three books in that series, and they did okay, but print sales were really not good.  Like, they printed, I want to say, like 130,000, ‘cause they got a big order, and like 90,000 of them came back!  So that was bad!

Sarah:  Ouch!  Ouch!  Ouch!  Dude!

Jess:  [Laughs] It, it was, it was an eye-opener!  So –

Sarah:  Yeah!

Jess:  - when they came back, and they said we like you!  But we can’t do anything with this name anymore.  Do you want to do something else under a different name?  And I was like, I don’t care what you call me, just keep publishing me.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  So, I became Jessica Sims, and Jessica Sims was shiny, bright, and new, and I wrote another paranormal series, and it was Midnight Liaisons, which is a shifter dating agency, and they cater to everything paranormal, and so I write under that series right now, and then I met Cindy Hwang at, who is executive, I want to say executive editor at Berkley.  She’s, she’s, she’s a big cheese at Berkley.  I love Cindy.  I thought she was awesome, and then we met and we, like, connected at, like, some higher level.  At least I thought so.  Maybe she doesn’t think so.

[Laughter]

Jess:  And I was like, Cindy, I would love to, to write something for you.  She was like, well, send me something!  So, I thought, you know, I’ll write contemporary!  ‘Cause I like contemporary, and I don’t have to do any paranormal shit for that.  I wrote some contemporaries, and I sent them to Cindy, and she bought them, and she was like, but we need to call you something else –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  - and I was like, once again, call me whatever you like!  Then I became Jessica Clare, and Jessica Clare has actually been my most successful name.  I am now a USA Today and New York Times bestselling author!

Sarah:  I was just going to say, you hit the Times and the –

Jess:  Yeah!

Sarah:  - and the U, and the, I call it the USAT.  You hit the Times and the USAT with that.

Jess:  Yes.  Yes, I did!  I was really surprised.

Sarah:  That’s awesome.

Jess:  Thank you!

Sarah:  Now, I have a question for you.

Jess:  All right.

Sarah:  And it’s really hard to ask these questions without sounding like an asshole, so –

Jess:  Okay.

Sarah:  - I’m, I’m not trying to sound like an, like a dick here –

Jess:  Asshole away.

Sarah:  - but one of the things that caught my attention about all of the different books that you’ve published is how different they look, depending on what name you have.

Jess:  Yes.

Sarah:  To what do you attribute the success of the Jessica Clare books?  Is it the, the marketing of Penguin plus the incredibly opulent, gorgeous covers?  I mean, those covers are really, really rich.  They’re beautiful!

Jess:  You know, I –

Sarah:  And they’re the only ones that don’t have people on them, and I’m trying to think –

Jess:  Yes.

Sarah:  - what was, what was it about this particular series that made people go, oh, my God, I want to read right now!  Because, I mean, even –

Jane:  It’s the word billionaire.

Sarah:  There is that!  There is billionaire.

[Laughter]

Jess:  I think a lot of it is, so, I think billionaire books are less contemporary and more, like, another type of fantasy that just doesn’t happen to have, like, elves and dwarves and dragons and shit.  So, I think a lot of it is a Cinderella-type story, more than, like, regular contemporary where, you know, you might fall in love with the plumber, and maybe he drives a beat-up car –

Sarah:  Yes.

Jess:  - so the billionaire has, like, the lifestyle, he has the clothes, he has the money, he has, you know, he can take you to expensive locations, so it’s just a different type of fantasy, and –

Sarah:  And he has absolutely nothing to worry about, ‘cause he’s a billionaire.

Jess:  Absolutely.  You know, who doesn’t want to have to not worry about money for the rest of their lives?  So I think the covers really helped with that.  I, I, I don’t really give a lot of feedback on my covers.  I’m like, you’re marketing, I’m not, do whatever you think will sell the books.  They, Cindy said, well, you know, we really like these object covers, and I was like, that’s great!  That’s fine!  So when they showed them to me, I was like, oh, I really like them, and if you put an object on there, you know, I’ll write it into the story, I don’t care!

Sarah:  [Laughs] Easy to get along with and so nice!  Damn!

Jess:  Sure!  Sure!  Well, you know, there’s always, there’s always a way to work something in, like, I think Once Upon a Billionaire, which is Billionaire number four, it’s coming out, and it has a crown on it, and I just thought that was the cutest thing, because that one is really a fairy tale type of story with, the hero is a, is a, is a viscount in a little European country.  I do think that they symbolism a different type of story, but I also think that because it fit in with the genre, people were more willing to give my books a try, whereas a lot of the time, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t tend to take myself very seriously?  So –

Sarah:  No!  You don’t say!

Jess:  Yes.  It’s true.  So, I get lumped in with a lot of the light, fluffy, funny type of books, and I don’t think those sell very well right now.  They’re typic – there’s a different type of book that’s selling right now.  It’s, I like to think of it in musical terms.  Adele is selling hot, and I’m more Katy Perry.  So –

[Laughter]

Jess:  It’s hard.

Jane:  Katy Perry’s selling!

Jess:  I know!

Sarah:  I was going to say, Katy Perry has like one, number one songs, and she totally pole dances on a broom!

Jess:  Nobody comes out and says Katy Perry is my favorite.  They all say, oh, you know what, I love Adele.  So, I think it’s not cool to like Katy Perry, but I think that you, it’s kind of infectious and it’s just kind of fun.  So that’s kind of what I go for in my writing voice, and I think it’s harder to market that in the current landscape where everybody loves, you know, tortured, emo, unhappy people, and so I think my covers fooled everyone into thinking that my billionaires were tortured, miserable assholes.  My books are really more about, like, a really fun heroine meeting up with this guy and kind of, you know, changing his, changing his mind, I guess, about life and romance and things like that.  So I think people were more willing to give my book a try when it wasn’t the typical cutesy couple on the cover, ‘cause a lot of the comments I get on the billionaire books are, I’m surprised by how much I like this book, and it’s about billionaires, ‘cause everybody’s tired of billionaires, or so they say, even though they keep reading them, so I don’t know.  Yeah, so mine are not super dark, super angsty.  There’s usually some humor.  Nobody is like, you know, miserable 24/7, not that that’s bad, but it’s like, nobody’s being beaten with, beaten or spanked, you know, until they liked it, and, yeah, they’re just, you know, kind of happy stories about people that fall in love, and there you go!

Sarah:  One of the things that I really liked in the review for Beauty and the Billionaire was that the heroine was not only unique, but she was, like, actually curvy.  Not like the adjectives were applied to her but she wasn’t actually, she was actually a curvy person.  I so appreciate that.  Thank you!

Jess:  Well, you know, I just don’t think, as a writer, I kind of wanted her to be, you know, you read all these typical heroines, and, you know, the writer heroine is practically sitting in a café, you know, sipping a latte and crossing her size 0 legs as she, you know, types 500 words on her computer and makes millions of dollars, and I’m like, that’s bullshit.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  You know, that’s, that is Carrie from Sex and the City, so when I made Gretchen, I wanted her to be like the antithesis of what a normal writer heroine is that you’d read about.  So she’s a writer and she fucking hates it.  She hates writing these shitty, pulpy books that she can’t stand, and she knows they’re crap, but it’s a paycheck.  And she’s never, like, super put together; she’s a slob.  She wears yoga pants, she never fixes her hair, she never leaves her apartment.  She is, she’s what I think a writer is, you know, and so I tried to make her as realistic as possible.  She’s got the writer’s butt, you know –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  - she’s not in great shape.  She is –

Sarah:  So, it’s, it’s got sort of like a chair-shaped flatness on one end.

Jess:  Right!  And she’s, she’s constantly –

Sarah:  I know that butt; I have it right now.

Jess:  She’s constantly freaking out about her next deadline.  I actually, I think I gave my editor a bit of a complex because in all of her notes, as she was reading the book, it was like, Gretchen really needs to be working on her deadline right now!  Gretchen needs to work on her deadline!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  ‘Cause I just like giving her PTSD, because my character was so bad about hitting her deadlines, and everything was all, just two more weeks!  Just two more weeks!  So I tried to make her more of a real person than how I feel like you normally read the writer heroine, because I, I hate, and I’m not saying that all heroines are Barbies, but I hate it when I don’t feel like, when I read a story and I don’t feel like I relate to the person there, so…

Sarah:  I know exactly what you mean.

Jess:  Yeah.  So I try to make them people I relate to.

Sarah:  I also really struggle with writer heroines because when the romance is about a romance writer heroine, I feel like it is all of a sudden uncomfortable levels of meta, and there’s a lot of, like –

Jess:  Yes.

Sarah:  There’s a, it’s a combination of in-jokes that aren’t that funny and a sort of sense of self awareness that is, it’s not a silly self awareness, and I like silly self awareness, I’m all for it!  This is “I take myself very seriously; I need to portray myself as an artist” awareness, and that just does not work for me.  And it also seems like much of, like, I remember in that one book you talked about, Jane, and I can’t remember the title, but there was the romance author who was being pursued by, like, an angry blogger or something?

Jane:  It was the Lori Foster book.  I remember that book because the author was supposed to be so rich that she could have been, one of the possible motivations for her kidnapping in Mexico was a ransom, and she was so rich that she had, in her apartment, not even a house, but her apartment, posters on the wall, and she’s very proud of that, and she splurged and she bought herself a Mazda Miata –

Jess:  Ooooh!

Jane:  - so…  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That’s a regular thousandaire right there.

Jane:  I just, I mean, though, the author was supposed to be so rich that, that, that she would be the target of a ransom kidnapping, but I don’t know, if you’re buying Mazda Miatas, who’s going to pay to have you kidnapped?

Sarah:  [Laughs] But she was being stalked by a blogger, right?  Am I remembering that part right?

Jane:  Ultimately, yes. The person who paid to have her kidnapped was a reviewer who didn’t like her!

Sarah:  Yes, because that is totally what a reviewer would be doing with their dollars.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  No, any, any actual reviewer, they’d be buying more books!  ‘Cause that’s what they do.

Jess:  That reminds me of, I don’t know if you guys ever watch NCIS, but I’ve watched it very rarely, but there was one episode where the one guy is a super famous author, and, who also works for the NCIS division, you know, as you do.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, what’s his face, the, the, the geeky guy.  I used to watch the show all the time.

Jess:  The little dorky guy.

Sarah:  Yeah!

Jess:  Yes.  So, in this one episode, they decide that to catch a criminal, I don’t know, they had to go to this club, and it was a super swanky club, and they were like, oh, we’re not going to be able to get in, and he’s like, wait here, I can handle this.  And he goes in, and they’re all like, oh, Mr. So-and-so, I loved your last book!  And I’m like, what?  ‘Cause they all knew who he was, because he was a famous author, and I was like, Please!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  It was like the most ridiculous Mary Sue fantasy, and he would go home and he would type on an old typewriter –

Sarah:  Of course.

Jess:  - you know, clickety-clack ones, you know, and I’m like, whatever, has anybody ever tried to do that, because when I was, like, 10, I decided I was going to write my first novel, and it took me, like, four hours to write one page on the clickety-clack typewriter, and after that, I was like, ppfftt, I’m done!  This is way too much work!  So I can’t imagine anybody doing that for real.  Or can you imagine being the editor that gets that shitty pile of 400 typed pages?  I mean, you would have to be fucking amazing for somebody to sit, to put up with that crap, so…

Sarah:  [Laughs]

[music]

Sarah:  And that’s all for this week’s podcast.  I hope you enjoyed this interview with Jillessica.  She’ll be back next week with us talking about additional things that are equally scandalous, quite entertaining, and definitely involving lizards.

This podcast is brought to you by Berkley, publisher of the #1 New York Times bestselling author Maya Banks’s all new Surrender trilogy.  Josslyn found perfection once, and she knows she’ll never find it again.  Now widowed, she seeks the one thing her beloved husband couldn’t give her:  dominance.  And Dash has lived in an untenable position for years:  in love with his best friend’s wife, but unwilling to act on that attraction.  When he finds her in a club devoted to the darker edges of desire, he’s furious because he thinks she has no idea what she’s getting into, until she explains in detail what she wants.  You can find the new Surrender trilogy beginning with Letting Go in bookstores now.

This music is brought to you by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is Enter the Haggis, and this tune is called “Martha Stuart.”  You can find them online at their website or on iTunes, and I’ll have links in the podcast entry so that you can do exactly that.

And if you like this episode and want to tell us things or ask us questions or make suggestions, you can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or you can call our Google voice number 1-201-371-DBSA.  Please leave your name and where you’re calling from so we can include your message in an upcoming podcast, and I totally love when you both email or call or do both multiple times.  Really, it’s not creepy, I promise!

We’ll be back next week with more from Jillessica, and future podcasts will involve more author interviews, which we’re setting up now, and interviews with some of the reviewers at Dear Author and Smart Bitches, ‘cause we thought you might like to get to know some of them too!  In the meantime, Jane and I wish you the very best of reading, and thanks for listening!

[very cool music]

Categories: General Bitching

by Redheadedgirl

Grade: D
Title: A Million Dirty Secrets & A Million Guilty Pleasures: A Million Dollar Duet
Author: Parker
Publication Info: Bantam 2014
ISBN: 978-0345548764
Genre: Erotica/Erotic Romance

This is PpyaJunebug’s fault.  She’s the one who said there was a 50 Shades knock off coming out and that I haaaaaaad to read it. Little did I know that it was a duology and that it was basically the most derivative thing I’ve ever read.

Yeah.  But don’t worry, it is tooooooootally on the up and up. 

First off, pretty much everyone who sells themselves in this place as doing so with full consent- I mean, some of the women are doing it because they owe money to the guy who runs the place, but hey, they have a choice to sell themselves or something else, so that’s totally consensual, right?

Also, she signed a contract that will OF COURSE be honored and protect her. 

Lainie is bought for $2 million by Noah Crawford, a rich billionare who is unable to cope with finding and maintaining a relationship since he found his best friend and business partner balls-deep in his (Noah’s) then-girlfriend’s ass.  But the man has NEEDS, you know?  And his needs include people not talking about how he’s fucking hookers.  He needs ONE woman who won’t talk and is lean and hasn’t been tainted by other, you know, MEN.  How better to deal with this problem set than by buying a virgin at a shady-as-fuck-auction?

So he does, and then he’s shocked –SHOCKED- when he shoves his dick in her mouth, and his brand new, 2 million dollar, verified virgin has never given a blow job before.  But he does get all smug that he gets to be the one to teach her how to fuck like a pro, so…. Yay? 

Lanie, on the other hand, just acts pissy with him.  Like, she sold herself to this guy, and she hates someone who would be so skeevy as to purchase a virgin, so she mouths off to him, and is generally a huge brat.  Instead of an Inner Goddess, however, she has a Double Agent Coochie, who looooooves Noah and especially loves Noah’s dick. 

So she can’t stay, like, MAD-mad as long as Double Agent Coochie needs the D. 

As an example, Noah takes her shopping for underwear, and when they get there, Lanie discovers that the shop is owned by an old flame of Noah’s and she has a huge snit fit and storms out. Noah tells his ex to pick out what she knows he likes, and when the box arrives, Lanie sets it on fire.  In the driveway, to be sure, but she sets it ON FIRE.

So, naturally, Lanie and Noah fall in love within two weeks. 

Through it all, Noah has been trying to not think about who this girl IS, but then his curiosity gets the better of him, and he hires a private investigator to find out what her deal is, and when he finds out she needed to money for her mother, he breaks it off and sends her home. 

That’s where Million Dirty Secrets ends and Million Guilty Pleasures picks up.  We get another point of view character, in the name of Noah’s former BFF and current business partner, thinking about how he wants control of the company they own and how much he wants to fuck Lanie purely because he deserves to and also it would make Noah SO MAD.  I’ve seen more nuanced villains in Super Mario Brothers games. 

The BFF is also in business with the guy who ran the auction, so he finds out where Lanie came from, and plans a take over using that information, and also offers for Lanie to get to fuck him and fuck Noah over.  When she turns him down, he tries to rape her, because what we have here is a villain made of tissue paper.  Noah comes in at the last minute, beats the shit out of him, blah blah blah. 

(Oh, Noah’s uncle is the best cardiac surgeon in the world, and Noah puts him on the case of Lanie’s mother, they magic up a heart donor - don’t ask how, I didn’t - and she’s released from he hospital after a heart transplant within ten days.  That seems a little fast to me, but I guess Plot Obstacle Heart Transplants heal faster?)

So.  The BFF calls a meeting of the board, but his father gets to him first, and Noah confesses that he did, in fact, buy a virgin, and the old man is like, “Boys will be boys” and I rolled my eyes SO HARD.

So they get married, because that is what you do when your Coochie can’t do anything but think about the Magic Peen (yup) and the Ridonkabutt (yes, really), and there’s been no character development to sustain the idea that you require anything else to sustain a relationship, so why not? 

Whatever.  I mean, everyone likes Lanie. Noah’s driver says, when Lanie is at her mother’s hospital bed, “I guess I never realized the effect the little gal had on so many lives.”  I don’t even know what that means. 

Basically, this is 18 kinds of ridiculous, with super boring sex (and so much of it!).  The writing is trying so hard to be clever, and it’s not, really.  There’s a super awkward scene with Lanie and her post-operative mother talking about the size of Noah’s dick, and some spy shenanigans and a Double Agent Coochie.  I can’t even.

Plus the amount of slut shaming that happens is ridiculous. Lanie’s BFF is a slut that’ll fuck any man that moves, and Lanie really thinks awful things about her- like why are you friends with this person if you think she’s such a giant slutmonster?

It’s BORING, is what it is.  There’s NO character development. There’s no exploration of what would make a girl fall in love with the guy THAT BOUGHT HER (beyond his giant magic dick), or what, beyond “I need to get laid,” would make a reasonably upstanding guy buy a virgin to fuck him for two years (or what makes her think that she would be released after two years).  There’s just being told that is what is happening and that’s it.  We’re shown NOTHING.  This is a clear attempt to capitalize on the 50 Shades effect, and it’s SO BAD.

A Million Dirty Secrets is available from Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks.

A Million Guilty Pleasures is available from Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks.

Categories: General Bitching, I Read This Sh*t So You Don't Have To, Reviews, Reviews by Author, Authors, L-P, Reviews by Grade, Grade D

by SB Sarah

The Hot Zone Bundle of Hot Stuff, Hot Number, Hot Item, and Hot Property by Carly Phillips is .99c right now. That's 4 novels for $1 (give or take a few tax pennies). PLUS this is a deal available at all vendors, so woo hoo! These are all contemporary sports romances, so if the Olympics have you curious to read more sport romances, here's a perfect bundle.

HOT STUFF

Powerhouse sports publicist Annabelle Jordan has sworn never to date another jock--not even one as sinfully sexyas football legend Brandon Vaughn. Yet as the two team up to turn his image around, the chemistry between them might be too hot to handle.

HOT NUMBER

She might work at a sports agency, but Micki Jordan has decided she's through being just one of the guys. But when she sets her sights on pro ballplayer and renowned playboy Damian Fuller, her heart might be in major-league trouble...

HOT ITEM

Cool, collected Sophie Jordan loves her daily routine running her family's top sports management agency--until star quarterback and notorious bad boy Riley Nash tempts her to break all the rules.

HOT PROPERTY

Hot Zone publicist Amy Stone has one task: to help center fielder John Roper get his life back on track after a World Series disaster. But then the two retreat to a secluded lodge to escape the fallout--and the gorgeous ballplayer throws Amy a curveball she never saw coming.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O'Neal aka Barbara Samuel is $1.99 at Amazon. Paging the price match fairies! This book won the RITA® for Novel with Strong Romantic Elements, and is a blend of magical realism, food fiction, women's fiction, and romance. It has a 3.88 average at GR. Have you read this one?

Professional baker Ramona Gallagher is a master of an art that has sustained her through the most turbulent times, including a baby at fifteen and an endless family feud. But now Ramona’s bakery threatens to crumble around her. Literally. She’s one water-heater disaster away from losing her grandmother’s rambling Victorian and everything she’s worked so hard to build.

When Ramona’s soldier son-in-law is wounded in Afghanistan, her daughter, Sophia, races overseas to be at his side, leaving Ramona as the only suitable guardian for Sophia’s thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, Katie. Heartbroken, Katie feels that she’s being dumped again—this time on the doorstep of a woman out of practice with mothering.

Ramona relies upon a special set of tools—patience, persistence, and the reliability of a good recipe—when rebellious Katie arrives. And as she relives her own history of difficult choices, Ramona shares her love of baking with the troubled girl. Slowly, Katie begins to find self-acceptance and a place to call home. And when a man from her past returns to offer a second chance at love, Ramona discovers that even the best recipe tastes better when you add time, care, and a few secret ingredients of your own.

Goodreads | Amazon

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple is $4.99 at Amazon right now. (Come on, Price Match Goddesses!)

This book has been recommended by so many people - and when it was last on sale, even more readers spoke up. Bernadette is a contemporary mystery with a lot of humor and a very, very strong sense of place (Seattle and Microsoft culture specifically) and what is sometimes called "competence porn:" Bernadette's profession (she's an architect) plays a huge role in her character. 

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

Goodreads | Amazon

Angel's Rest by Emily March is .99c. This is book 1 of her Eternity Springs series, set in a small town (of course) in Colorado. (What would happen if we renamed all the big cities after small towns from romance? Heh heh.) Some readers adored the emotion and heart of the story, while others found it too cloying and contrived. It has a 3.9 star average on GR.

Beloved author Emily March returns with a warm and uplifting new novel about a small town with a big heart. Welcome to Eternity Springs, a little piece of heaven in the Colorado Rockies.

Gabriel Callahan has lost everything that mattered. All he wants is solitude on an isolated mountain estate. Instead, he gets a neighbor. Vibrant, no-nonsense Nic Sullivan is Eternity Springs’ veterinarian, and she has an uncanny plan to lure this talented architect back to the world of the living.

First with a dog, next with a renovation project, and, finally, with a night of passion that ends with a surprise.

Now a man still raw from tragedy must face the biggest struggle of his heart. Can he forgive himself and believe in the power of second chances? Dare he trust in the promise of a future and a brand-new family here in Eternity Springs?

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

Rose's Heavenly Cakes is $2.51/2.99 at AMZ/BN. This cookbook has a 4+ star average on GR, and the most amazing looking cake on the cover. It won the Winner of the 2010 Cookbook of the Year Award from the IACP. Recipes include Sticky Toffee Pudding with Guiness Stout, Golden Lemon Almond Cake, and Mud Turtle Cupcakes. Oh, dear heaven. Nom.

Rose Levy Beranbaum is a much beloved and widely respected baking legend-"a worshipped woman . . . revered by serious cooks and part-timers" alike, in the words of USA Today. Eagerly-awaited by her legions of devoted fans, Rose's Heavenly Cakes is a must-have guide to perfect cake-baking from this award-winning master baker and author of The Cake Bible, one of the bestselling cookbooks of all time.

This comprehensive guide will help home bakers to create delicious, decadent, and spectacularly beautiful cakes of all kinds with confidence and ease. With her precise, foolproof recipes, Rose shows you how to create everything from Heavenly Coconut Seduction Cake, Golden Lemon Almond Cake, and Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache to Orange-Glow Chiffon Layer Cake, Mud Turtle Cupcakes, and Deep Chocolate Passion Wedding Cake.

Features Rose's trademark easy-to-follow, expertly tested (and retested) recipes for perfectly delicious results every time

Offers over 100 simply wonderful recipes for cakes for every occasion-from exceptionally delicious butter and oil cakes, sponge cakes, and mostly flourless cakes and cheesecakes, to charming baby cakes and elegant wedding cakes

Features special tips and tricks from a beloved baking expert for creating amazing special effects and beautiful cake decor

Contains 100 tempting full-color photos

Visit Rose Levy Beranbaum at realbakingwithrose.com and learn basic baking techniques with her, including measuring, preparing, and mixing ingredients to make cakes and creating decorations to dress them up.

Everything you need to create heavenly cakes-every time-can be found in this new collection of tried-and true recipes by one of the most celebrated bakers of our time.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN

Categories: Ebooks, Free or Cheap Ebooks, General Bitching

by Elyse

Grade: A+
Title: Striking Distance
Author: Clare
Publication Info: Berkley November 2013
ISBN: 978-0425257357
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Striking Distance by Pamela Clare rocks.

I love being surprised and learning new things. Today I learned that if you ground up a mouse and ate it, it would contain about 57% protein (this from our vet, I am not Googling "mouse protein content"). I also learned that it is possible to have a romantic suspense book that is feels entirely authentic and real.

I love romantic suspense, but it tends to require I do a lot of disbelief suspending. I mean, people do not fall in love with their exes while on the run from a serial killer/drug warlord/human trafficking ring. Even Liam Neeson can’t pull that shit off convincingly. If someone told me “it’s a book where a reporter is kidnapped by al Qaeda and then rescued by her former lover who’s also a Navy SEAL, but it’s, you know, believable,” I would have said “Shhhhhahhhh, no way.” And I would have been wrong. 

A word of advice. I recommend reading First Strike, the prequel novella to Striking Distance first. It’s been periodically featured for free, so it’s worth checking out. First Strike does a good job of setting the tone of the relationship between the hero and heroine, Javier and Laura, and I felt it helped me appreciate their journey later. It’s mostly sex though. Lots of delicious, illicit sex in a Dubai hotel room.

Laura Nilsson is a journalist, reporting on the war in the Middle East. She meets Javier Corbray, a SEAL, when he’s on leave in Dubai. They have the aforementioned sex, which they agree is no strings attached, and then go their separate ways.

Later Laura and her TV crew are attacked on live television, and she’s taken hostage and presumed dead. Javier feels guilty and grief-stricken despite only knowing her (and knowing her) for a weekend. Eighteen months later he’s part of a team sent to capture Abu Nayef Al-Nassar, the leader of an al Qaeda splinter group. When they infiltrate the compound they find Laura there, and rescue her. Laura doesn’t know that Javier is the SEAL who saved her life—he’s wearing a mask and goggles—and after eighteen months being held captive, repeatedly raped, and psychologically tortured, she has a lot to work through.

Two years later, Laura and Javier cross paths again. He’s been injured in the line of duty, and blames himself for the deaths of some of his men. Laura has just testified against Al-Nassar, and has received very scary death threats from him and his followers. Laura is also harboring a giant, agonizing secret. More on that later, though.

Laura and Javier meet up through mutual friends. He’s staying at a ranch belonging to a friend (a previous Clare hero). She’s invited to the ranch for a barbeque. At first things are awkward “Hi, sorry I didn’t call you after we slept together, but I was taken hostage by al-Qaeda, so…” but later as the threats against Laura become very real and attempts against her life are made, Javier steps forward as her bodyguard.

So after reading all that, you’re like, no way did this book feel real, right? BUT IT FUCKING DID. When I was reading the opening segment, where Javier and his team break into the compound, I could see it all happening in my head, the way you would on a Nat Geo reenactment in a documentary. Maybe some of it rang true because I remember when Lara Logan was attacked in Egypt, but I think a lot of it was just that Clare is a really excellent writer. She was an investigative journalist, and you can tell. Everything feels flawlessly researched, and she blends enough detail in to make her writing authentic, without bogging it down. This book is sharp-edged and smart.

I loved her characters too. Laura is struggling to deal with nearly two years of sexual, physical and emotional torture, but she’s strong. She testifies against Al-Nassar. She works to get her life on track again. She describes disconnecting with her body in order to survive her ordeal. She’s vulnerable and strong at the same time, and I just liked her so much.

I liked Javier even better. He’s a tough guy without being an asshole. He has some real guilt to work through after a decision he made got members of his team killed. He’s also tender and patient when he needs to be. He cares deeply about Laura, and he does what he can to help her heal without trying to fix her problems for her.

Then there was this ovary-exploding scene:

They settled on the sofa, Laura insisting that she wouldn’t sleep, so they might as well watch a movie. She chose Pride and Prejudice, and Javier didn’t complain, despite the fact that watching guys with goofy-ass hair and prissy clothes walking around speaking in fussy English wasn’t exactly his thing. Hell, he’d have spent the night watching Sesame Street if it would make her feel better.

The spark between Laura and Javier is still there, and she’s desperate to reclaim her sexuality. He’s the perfect partner for her, in that respect. Javier meanwhile works with the US Marshals to keep Laura safe, and works through some of his self-doubt regarding his skills as a leader and protector. And all of this while they try to figure out who is attempting to kill Laura.

And if that wasn’t enough…

Laura’s big secret? SPOILER (highlight to read) She was impregnated by her rapist and her daughter is still somewhere in the Middle East. She’s intent on getting her daughter back and saving her from a life where women’s rights condemn her to no voice and an early marriage. That is if she doesn't die of an entirely preventable disease first.

So yeah, that’s a big ‘ol ball of conflict that needs to be wrapped up there. And a convincing love story that needs to be told. AND SHE DOES IT.

Holy shit, Clare does it.

I admit to being slightly thrown off by ending—not disappointed so much as surprised—but I really, really enjoyed this book. Go read it, like now.

This book is available from Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | iBooks.

Categories: General Bitching, Reviews, Reviews by Author, Authors, A-C, Reviews by Grade, Grade A

by SB Sarah

Hearts of Darkness by Kira Brady is $1.99 right now - and all the books in the series are on sale or deeply discounted, too. Yay! This is paranormal urban fantasy with dragon shifters that takes place in Seattle. Readers who enjoyed it say the hero is terrific, the setting is excellent and the world building deeply immersive - though it starts out slowly and builds over the first half. Have you read this series?

In the first of a dazzling new romantic trilogy, one woman’s courageous search plunges her into a millennia-old supernatural war—and an irresistible passion…

Nurse Kayla Friday has dedicated her life to science and reason. But for her, Seattle is a place of eerie loss and fragmented, frightening memories. And now the only clue to her sister’s murder reveals a secret battle between two ancient mythologies…and puts Kayla in the sights of lethally-sexy werewolf mercenary Hart. He’ll do whatever it takes to obtain the key to the Gate of the Land of the Dead and free what’s left of his soul.

But seducing the determined Kayla is putting them at the mercy of powerful desires neither can control. And as the clock ticks down to hellish catastrophe, the untested bond between Kayla and Hart may lead to the ultimate sacrifice.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Hearts of Fire by Kira Brady is free right now - free, cheezy bread, free! This is a prequel novella to the Deadglass series and comes before the first book (above). This novella sets up the world in the series.

In the prequel to a stunning new paranormal series, one woman’s desire for a forbidden man will spark a centuries-long supernatural conflict—and a love nothing can destroy.

She’s the heiress to Seattle’s most powerful shifter clan. Her destiny is as controlled and certain as moonrise. However, from the moment Alice Corbette encounters the man known as Brand, she will defy all constraint and break every rule to make this dragon-shifter hers. Brand is determined to repay the clan leader he owes his life to.

But one taste of Alice’s exquisite spirit will make him question his loyalty—and plunge them both into the middle of a ruthless power play. Their only chance at freedom is a gamble that could risk the future of humans and shifters alike.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Hearts of Shadow by Kira Brady is $2.51/2.99 right now. This is book 2 of the Deadglass series, and features a science-loving beta hero dragon. (That's like a big bouquet garni of all my catnip, like damn). Readers really liked the chemistry between the characters, and the setting makes those who know and love Seattle really really happy.

Grace Mercer's unmatched wraith-killing ability made her the unofficial defender of a city shattered by supernatural catastrophe.

So there's no way she'll allow the new regent of Seattle's most powerful dragon shifter clan to "protect" her from a vicious evil stalking the ruined streets--and keep her from the freedom she's risked everything to earn. Leif's science-honed instincts tell him Grace is the key to keeping shifters and humans safe.

But helping this wary fighter channel her untapped power is burning away the dragon's sensual self-control and putting a crucial alliance at risk.

Soon the only chance Leif and Grace will have to save their world will be a dangerously fragile link that could forever unite their souls. . .or consume all in a storm of destruction.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Hearts of Chaos by Kira Brady is available for pre-order at Amazon for $4.61, and 5.49/5.99 at other vendors. This book will release on 4 March 2014, and is book 3 in the Deadglass series.

To save her world, one woman's fierce quest will put her up against an ancient evil—and a desire too dangerous to deny...

She is betrothed to Seattle's most feared shifter clan leader. Still, the Lady Lucia can never be the dainty aristocratic wife Emory Corbette thinks he needs. And as a malevolent, all-consuming monster plots to take hold of their shattered world, Lucia will risk her untapped powers to defeat it—and challenge the Raven King's seductive rule.

No one in Emory's many lifetimes has ever defied him. Lucia's courage and strength are shaking his iron control to its core...and making him hungry for all she can give.

But their only hope is a wrenching sacrifice that could unite humans and shifters in victory—or destroy everything Lucia and Emory desire most.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Cinder by Marissa Meyer is $2.99 right now. This is book 1 in the Lunar Chronicles, a YA dystopian steampunk fairytale wherein Cinderella is a cyborg, and hated by many, including of course her stepmother. This book has a 4+ star average on GR with many breathless, happy reader reviews.

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction.

Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

Categories: Ebooks, Free or Cheap Ebooks, General Bitching

by CarrieS

Grade: C+
Title: Full Throttle
Author: McCarthy
Publication Info: Berkeley Sensation 2013
ISBN: 978-0-425-261745-3
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Erin McCarthy is one of those writers who can get me to read things I might otherwise pass over.  She writes steamy contemporary about race car drivers, which is pretty far from my usual fare of science fiction, fantasy, and historical.  But I love McCarthy’s strong sense of place, character, and family and she’s on my auto-buy list.  Full Throttle is not her strongest work but it's still a fun read.

Full Throttle is the latest in a series of loosely connected NASCAR romances (the Fast Track series).  This book involves Shawn, a racetrack owner, and Rhett, who is on a pit crew (Erin McCarthy fans will note that he’s on the crew of Eve, from the last book in the series, Jacked Up).  Shawn is supposed to inherit the track she manages from her grandfather, but when her grandfather dies he leaves a clause in the will that says that Shawn can only have the track if she gets married.  Cue secret marriage of convenience, as Shawn pays Rhett, a cute guy she meets in a bar, to marry her.  It turns out that not only does Rhett work for Eve, but he is also Eve’s husband’s brother, and Shawn is Eve’s best friend.  Cue funny moments with family and friends.  Plus, Rhett is looking for a woman who will be submissive during sex.  Cue sexy times.

Full Throttle was an odd book for me because it involves a dominate/submissive relationship, and that’s a dynamic that tends to make me uncomfortable.  Although I absolutely respect the rights of people to engage in consensual BDSM, I have a lot of hang ups about it and a high level of ignorance – please accept my pre-emptive apologies if I offend anyone in this review, and feel free to recommend books in the comments that would be helpful to me in developing a more nuanced understanding of BDSM issues.  I had a hard time untangling my own hang-ups about Dom/sub dynamics from the actual quality of the book. 

Erin McCarthy goes out of her way to establish that Rhett is not controlling in general – only in the bedroom and only with consent. I understand that BDSM does not equal sexism, and the book goes to great lengths to explain that Rhett is not sexist (showing that he respects Shawn and her boundaries as he and Shawn define them, showing him washing dishes and just generally being a decent guy who pulls his weight around the house). 

But I felt that this book was actually a little sexist for reasons that had nothing to do with Dom/sub dynamics.  The overall tone of the book, beyond the D/s thing, is one of condescension towards Shawn, and that has nothing to do with my personal discomfort with Dom/sub stuff and everything to do with how the characters are written.  Rhett says he thinks that in an ideal relationship both partners take turns taking the lead depending on the situation, but the reality of the book is that Rhett is always the one who calls the shots.  He is portrayed as mature (although he’s much younger than Shawn), considerate, good at his job, a good communicator (usually), and levelheaded.  Even Shawn refers to Rhett as being more mature than she is.  Shawn is portrayed as manipulative (although her motives are explained very well), insecure, inept at communicating, ignorant and inexperienced at sex (she worries that having daily sex might be bad for her vagina), possibly not being great at her job (the track is in trouble although that’s not necessarily her fault), and not smart enough to ask a lawyer for a second opinion before getting drunk and promising $100,000 to a stranger from a bar.

SPOILER (Highlight to read): Also there’s a totally weird babies-ever-after thing.  Look, in my personal life, I like babies.  But this is way out of left field.  It’s just – ta-da, random baby.  I’m actually really concerned about this baby’s welfare since she or he apparently is going to be raised by impulsive idiots.

The thing that kept me reading was the high quality of the writing overall in terms of dialogue, characterization, and story structure.  Shawn and Rhett really do seem to belong together - they are so comfortable with each other when they aren't being stupid, and Shawn does a great job of defending Rhett when his family misunderstands or patronizes him.  

The supporting cast kept this book afloat even when the main characters floundered.  McCarthy has a talent for creating real, flawed, fun people.  They interact like what they are supposed to be – a flawed, slightly insane, loving family.   I also appreciate that McCarthy’s characters tend to defy stereotypes and tropes.  Her books are light and fun and entertaining, but they also remind me not to make assumptions about what people are like based on age, gender, profession, or any other external marker. 

The series has encompassed a lot of personalities and surprises.  McCarthy’s characters touch me and make me laugh and challenge my assumptions.  Whenever I pick up a McCarthy book, I know that while I might like some of her books more than others, all of them will be fun to read.  This is not her best book because it has some writing flaws (the sudden baby thing, Shawn’s general ineptness) and it’s not my personal favorite because of personal triggers, but it’s still a fun, solid book.

This book is available from Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks.

Categories: General Bitching, Reviews, Reviews by Author, Authors, L-P, Reviews by Grade, Grade C

by SB Sarah

Recently, a HaBO featuring a reader looking for a book with somewhat sentient hair and possible prism embossing on the cover led to a discussion of Ann Maxwell's books - and the covers thereof. The book in question is likely Timeshadow Rider, but Elise Logan sent me pictures of a few other Maxwell covers from her collection, and, seriously, HOW DID I MISS THESE.

I had no idea there was this gaping void in my memory where excellent futuristic prismatic covers should be! Good thing Elise can help us all fix that.

Ann Maxwell, if you weren't aware, also writes romance under the name "Elizabeth Lowell." I didn't know this until I'd read a pile of Lowell books - I loooooved them. The books below are much-loved science fiction books, too, with many, many positive reviews in various places online. I had no idea she'd written science fiction as well. Or that the covers were SO COMPLETELY AMAZING.

Ready to go back to the future?

First, there's Fire Dancer: (GR | A | BN)

No, no, don't worry. Elise also sent a CLOSE UP: 

Good heavens. My eyes aren't sure what to look at first: boobs, orbs, or the assortment of erect and elongated things. WAIT A MINUTE. Is this the Olympics of the future?! 

Elise: I love that naked dude behind her is about to throw a discus (and is pointing to where he's aiming) and has completely fabulous glow-in-the-dark eye makeup.

Elise would also like to draw our attention to the tagline: "Were they the last survivors of their planet's blazing glory?"

It appears the blazing glory came with them and is in her hand.

Then there's Dancer's Luck: (GR | A | BN)

Yes, of course there is a close up: 

Imagine that 911 call: "Sir, sir. I need you to slow down. You say there's a lightning woman and her dog is where?"

I also imagine that in this world, "Never ride the horned dog" is NOT a euphemism. 

Elise: Fire shooting from your hands and dogs coming out of your crotch seems like something you might want to avoid. Just sayin'. 

But wait! There's more! Please meet Dancer's Illusion: ( GR | A | BN )

Close up? BUT OF COURSE.

You know what? I think romance needs more sideboob. And dragonflies, red togas, shoulder armor, and eye makeup. Let's make it happen! 

And the TAGLINE: On a world where nothing is what it seems, ecstasy can be the deadliest trap of all!

THE DEVIL YOU SAY.

Elise: It looks to me like they've been taking LSD, not Ecstasy, but what do I know?

And Good. Lord. Mario World flying jellyfish on the left, bird freaking the fuck out on the right, crazy glowy dragonflies, a dress that would make Nicki Minaj think twice, and homegirl needs some serious hair care. Plus, now the dude is coming out of her ass, - with his eye makeup STILL IN PLACE. That takes serious talent right there.

Remember, people. Ecstasy can be the deadliest trap of all. 

Categories: Covers Gone Wild! (Non-Snoop Dogg Edition), General Bitching

by SB Sarah

RECOMMENDED: How to Marry a Marquis by Julia Quinn is $3.99 right now. This is the second book in her "Agents of the Crown" series, following To Catch an Heiress. This is light, fun, humorous historicals, and if you need an enjoyable pick-me-up, or you know someone who does, this is a terrific choice.

When James Sidwell, Marquis of Riverdale, offered to help Elizabeth Hotchkiss find herself a husband, he never dreamed that the only candidate he could propose would be himself...

SHE'S TRYING TO FOLLOW THE RULES
When Elizabeth Hotchkiss stumbles upon a most intriguing book, How to Marry a Marquis, in her employer's library, she's convinced someone is playing a cruel joke. With three younger siblings to support, she knows she has to marry for money, but who might have guessed how desperate she's become? A guidebook to seduction might be just the thing she needs—and what harm could there be in taking a little peek?

BUT HE'S MAKING HIS OWN
James Sidwell, the Marquis of Riverdale, has been summoned to rescue his aunt from a blackmailer, a task that requires him to pose as the new estate manager—and he immediately sheds suspicion on his aunt's companion, Elizabeth. Intrigued by the deliciously alluring young woman with the curious little rulebook, he gallantly offers to help her find herself a husband...by practicing her wiles on him. But when practice becomes all too perfect, James decides there's only one rule worth following—that Elizabeth marry her marquis.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn is $3.99. This is the 5th Bridgerton book, featuring Eloise (after, of course, Anthony, Benedict, Colin, and Daphne). (The other romance sibling names I remember in order are Blaze Wyndham's sisters and brother) (No, I don't know why). The hero, Phillip, is a botanist and widower, and a bit of a grump, so when Eloise shows up on his doorstep, there's mayhem.

Sir Phillip knew from his correspondence with his dead wife's distant cousin that Eloise Bridgerton was a spinster, and so he'd proposed, figuring that she'd be homely and unassuming, and more than a little desperate for an offer of marriage.

Except . . . she wasn't. The beautiful woman on his doorstep was anything but quiet, and when she stopped talking long enough to close her mouth, all he wanted to do was kiss her...

Eloise Bridgerton couldn't marry a man she had never met! But then she started thinking... and wondering... and before she knew it, she was in a hired carriage in the middle of the night, on her way to meet the man she hoped might be her perfect match. Except... he wasn't. Her perfect husband wouldn't be so moody and ill-mannered. And he certainly should have mentioned that he had two young - and decidedly unruly - children, as much in need of a mother as Phillip is in need of a wife.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

Monster in my Closet by RL Naquin is .99c today as a Kindle Daily Deal. This is book 1 in the Monster Haven series, and Carrie S reviewed it in October 2012 (C-). She really had a problem with the villain's crimes (trigger warning) which contrasted too much with the writing and humor for her. However, many other readers enjoyed this book a lot. Have you read it? Do you recommend it?

I stopped believing in monsters long ago. But I knew I wasn't imagining things when I found one in my kitchen baking muffins. I'd seen him before: lurking in my closet, scaring the crap out of my five-year-old self. Turns out that was a misunderstanding, and now Maurice needs a place to stay. How could I say no?

After all, I've always been a magnet for the emotionally needy, and not just in my work as a wedding planner. Being able to sense the feelings of others can be a major pain. Don't get me wrong, I like helping people--and non-people. But this ability has turned me into a gourmet feast for an incubus, a demon that feeds off emotional energy. Now, brides are dropping dead all over town, and my home has become a safe house for the supernatural. I must learn to focus my powers and defeat the demon before he snacks on another innocent woman and comes looking for the main course...

Goodreads | Amazon

Promise Me Forever is one of four Lorraine Heath books priced at $3.99 right now. You can see the others here. This one has a Regency cowboy in London instead of the US, and a lot of emotion.

Warning from reviewers: do not read the epilogue. You've been warned.

On the outside, Lauren Fairfield appears the very picture of cool, contained nobility and blueblood British sophistication. Inside, however, she longs for Tom, the charming rogue she loved--and lost.

Now a sinfully handsome would-be gentleman has arrived in London--and Lauren nearly swoons when she realizes it is her Tom, grown to magnificent manhood. He has come to claim his lost title as Earl of Sachse . . .and to fulfill an oath once made by two young lovers beneath a long-ago moon, a scandalous promise no proper lady would dare honor.

Lauren could never love a staid and stifling lord, and Tom's future is the aristocracy. So she will teach him their ways before she exits his life forever. But the wildness she adored still lives in Tom's heart--and he will not rest until he proves to the proud, resisting beauty that "forever" is a promise that must be kept . . .

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

Categories: Ebooks, Free or Cheap Ebooks, General Bitching

by SB Sarah

Yesterday we talked about the science fiction covers of Ann Maxwell's Dancer series. Today, I want to ask your opinion about Elizabeth Lowell! If a reader had never read a Lowell novel, which one would you recommend first and foremost? 

I remember tearing through several Elizabeth Lowell novels in college. The paperback book rack - which was not large - was right across from the main entrance, and there'd be plenty of paperback romances lined up on the shelf. I'd take at least two per week. And, given that my memory is already pretty shoddy and that I was already plenty stressed, I would take out the same book every other week and re-read it. But it was so good I didn't care, and kept re-reading it. 

That's how I came to read Untamed about sixteen times. I don't even like medievals all that much, but I read and re-read that book over and over. For me, Lowell has ample crack in the pages. 

But do I remember the title? No, of course not. I remember the STEPBACK: 

The HAIR. His possibly medieval MULLET. The sheets that appear to be a weave that didn't exist at that time (is that satin?)!  I mean, there is three quarters of a man butt on that stepback. I remember it vividly.

And I liked the book, too, obviously. 

I also have pretty strong memories of the stepback for Enchanted, which was the next book in the medieval series, and of course the very small library at my women's college had that one, too. (Thank you, whomever ordered the popular fiction back then, because you saved my sanity.)

First, I am pretty sure that's the same model pair. Her hair is a different color, but I think it's the same. And instead of man butt we have man groin - who, while I'm pondering this stepback, clearly pulled out the luxury sheets for this seduction, but didn't iron them or anything because they look like they've been folded for years. Look at all those creases! Surely "Iron the sheets before you get naked" is on the mulleted-hero seduction checklist, right?

Anyway, if you ask me which Elizabeth Lowell novels I adored most, I'd tell you the one with the pink satin sheets and the one with the purple satin sheets with all the creases. Because that is a perfect amount of information to go book shopping with, right?

(This is why you shouldn't ask me - at least not when I am unable to Google my description to come up with, you know, a title.)

What about you? Are you an Elizabeth Lowell fan? Which of her romances do you like best and would recommend to a new reader? Not only did Lowell write historicals, but she, like many historical authors at that time, switched to romantic suspense as well, so there's a LOT of backlist to recommend. Which one should a reader try first? 

Categories: General Bitching, Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid, Classic Romances: Which One First?

by SB Sarah

First, there are a ton of historicals from Avon, with a few romantic suspense novels mixed in, that are on sale for $3.99. You can see the complete collection at Amazon if you'd like.
 

The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale is $3.99 right now. This is one of the more emotional Kinsale novels, though that's already a high bar to clear given her romance backlist as a whole. Kinsale takes a lot of unique elements - virgin hero, warrior ninja, orphans finding one another - and mixes them up like whoa. Some readers adore it, and others struggle to unite all the plot elements. Have you read this book?

THE SHADOW

Wealthy, powerful and majestically handsome, he is a man of dark secrets--a master of the ancient martial arts of an exotic distant land. Scarred by a childhood of shocking degradation, he has sworn to love chastely... but burns with the fires of unfulfilled passion.

THE STAR

Lovely, innocent and nearly destitute, she is drawn to him by a fevered yearning she could never deny -- following her enigmatic "shadow warrior" into a dangerous world of desire and righteous retribution.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

The Paris Affair by Teresa Grant is $2.51/2.99. This is book six in the Charles and Melanie Fraser series about a husband and wife sleuth team in France after the Napoleonic wars. It's a mix of historical fiction, mystery and light romance - and it has a 3.89 average on GR.

From the ashes of war rise the secrets of its darkest hearts…

In the wake of the Battle of Waterloo, Paris is a house divided. The triumphant Bourbons flaunt their victory with lavish parties, while Bonapartists seek revenge only to be captured and executed. Amid the turmoil, British attaché and Intelligence Agent Malcolm Rannoch and his wife, Suzanne, discover that his murdered half-sister, Princess Tatiana Kirsanova, may have borne a child—a secret she took to the grave. And Malcolm suspects there was more than mere impropriety behind her silence…

As Malcolm and Suzanne begin searching for answers, they learn that the child was just one of many secrets Tatiana had been keeping. The princess was the toast of Paris when she arrived in the glamorous city, flirting her way into the arms of more than a few men—perhaps even those of Napoleon himself—and the father must be among them.

But in the melee of the Napoleonic Wars, she was caught up in a deadly game, and now Malcolm and Suzanne must race against time to save the child from a similar fate…

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Steam & Sorcery by Cindy Spencer Pape is .99c today as a Kindle Daily Deal (hey, price match fairies, come on down!). This is book 1 of the Gaslight Chronicles. Carrie has revewied the second and third books, Kilts & Kraken and Moonlight & Mechanicals, and liked them a good bit, though she struggled with the writing. If you've been curious about this series, you can try the first one for a dollar - not bad!

Sir Merrick Hadrian hunts monsters, both human and supernatural. A Knight of the Order of the Round Table, his use of magick and the technologies of steam power have made him both respected and feared. But his considerable skills are useless in the face of his greatest challenge, guardianship of five unusual children. At a loss, Merrick enlists the aid of a governess.

Miss Caroline Bristol is reluctant to work for a bachelor but she needs a position, and these former street children touch her heart. While she tends to break any mechanical device she touches, it never occurs to her that she might be something more than human. All she knows is that Merrick is the most dangerously attractive man she's ever met—and out of reach for a mere governess.

When conspiracy threatens to blur the distinction between humans and monsters, Caroline and Merrick must join forces, and the fate of humanity hinges upon their combined skills of steam and sorcery...

Goodreads | Amazon

Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters is $2.51/2.99 digitally. This cookbook is all about comfort foods, specifically the recipes for baked goods that have been passed down for multiple generations. The cookbook description sounds like it would be as interesting to read as it would be to useful for re-creating the recipes. Also I love the term 'heirloom recipe.'

We all have fond memories of a favorite dessert our grandmother or mother used to bake. It’s these dishes that give us comfort in times of stress, help us celebrate special occasions, and remind us of the person who used to bake for us those many years ago.

In Heirloom Baking, Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass preserve and update 150 of these beloved desserts. The recipes are taken from their vast collection of antique manuscript cookbooks, handwritten recipes passed down through the generations that they’ve amassed over twenty years. The recipes range from the late 1800s to today, and come from a variety of ethnicities and regions. The book features such down-home and delicious recipes as Brandied Raisin Teacakes, Cuban Flan, Cranberry-Orange Cream Scones, Chattanooga Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, and many more. Accompanying the recipes are stories from the lives of the families from which they came.

The Brass Sisters have taken care to update every recipe for today’s modern kitchens. More than 150 photographs showcase the scrumptious food in full-color detail. Finally, the Brass sisters encourage each reader to begin collecting his or her own family recipes in the lined pages and envelope at the back of the book.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

Categories: Ebooks, Free or Cheap Ebooks, General Bitching