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Yoohoooooo!
Welcome, welcome to Madame Gennita's Sekret Boudoir. You will LURV my specimens of manhood and smegma. Please, don't crowd around. Come in and enjoy. And the manacles are there for you to lead them to wherever you want, cherie!
Yum, no?
So, which one do you fancy? Madame has the key to unlock their chains!
Hmm. What do I say?
HARSH REVIEW OF THE HUNTER
You think I make up stuff from emails and readers who call my books trash, crap, and other unmentionables? Well, here is proof that one reader's treasure is another's most reviled poison.
One of the most frequently asked question for me from readers is which of my book is my favorite story. I don't actually have a "favorite" story but Hawk/The Hunter was one of my favorites to write. That I'm being accused of trivializing sex-trafficking after all the months of looking at U.N. photos of victims has me wondering whether saying it was my "favorite" book to write might be misunderstood that I actually "enjoyed" looking at them.
I started the series wanting to explore the very personal-to-me issue of child trafficking in Asia because I came from there and have seen it with my own eyes. In The Hunter, I chose Eastern Europe because at the time of writing, the United Nations had published a series of reports which you can find on the web, if you like, about what was happening there with weapons and female/child- trafficking after the downfall of Sarajevo. I wanted to show that this problem was not just in a third-world country in Asia, but also in Old Europe, where many people didn't believe white slavery existed.
However, having written this story as it is, showing how a war-torn country can be ravaged by a corrupted system, and not preach, to this particularly reviewer, meant that I was a PIMP. Whoa. Hate the book, okay, have a swing at it. But I was quite taken aback by the pimp accusation.
For the record, those pictures of mutilated and helpless women and children and their testimony at U.N. sessions weren't enjoyable to read. I used some of what they said for the book to show what they had gone through. I wasn't making fun of their humiliation or using it to fill the story with lurid sex. I wasn't even trying to preach. If I were, there would have been long passages of diatribe against men and their penises, trust me.
In the last couple of years, the Crossfire series has caught the attention of a few international women's rights groups who have contacted me to donate books, time or money for their causes, which included awareness to stop the violence against women as well as helping hungry children. There were auctions held by the VDay Bethesda (Until the violence stop) for the VDay Worldwide Campaign as well as Lewis Clark State College Book Auction for hungry children, both of which I donated to because these were a few of the reasons I wrote those books (there were others, but not for this blog topic).
I've posted many links to positive reviews of my books so I thought it was only fair to add at least one ;-) that shows a reader's negative reaction. If you do go to this blog, please do NOT post anything on my behalf or start a flame war with this reader. It's her opinion of my book and that's that, and I sure don't want to have you pimping for me, bwahaha. You may, however, rant all you want HERE ON MY BLOG ;-) because it's my blog and we can party anyway we want to here.
Obviously, I felt a need to make a defense about being called a PIMP or I wouldn't have posted this today. I hope you all understand that I'm not asking you to go there and rage about reviewers giving bad reviews at that person's blog because really, I have enough of that kind of behavior in Romancelandia Blogs and repeat, DO NOT WISH TO BE A PART OF THAT.
I do, however, wish to discuss about fairness in reviews, in the sense that, if the story didn't work for you, would you call the author a pimp? A PIMP???! If the bad guy is written as a child molester, would you be enraged enough to accuse the author of being a rapist??? And if there is torture involved, would you then judge her as a sadist???
I cannot emphasize enough that I am NOT angry about this review (I have to keep repeating this because in Romancelandia, many bloggers like to link to other blogs that have an author ranting about a bad review of her book). I don't agree with a lot of the reader's criticism of the story, but that's how she saw it, and that's fine. I thank her for giving me a try. I am, however, fascinated by the fact that the reader wasn't actually saying it was a badly-written book, but that she was totally put off that the author (me) was writing horribly realistic themes of men using children and, horrors, U.N. officials unable to achieve U.N. goals. Last time I checked, Sarajevo and what was Yugoslavia were still in the midst of chaos because of international (RE: U.N.) intervention.
Whatever would this reader say if I ever write about the horrendous practice of female fetoecide in China and India? Because it's been happening yesterday, and is continuing today, and tomorrow, you know. Depressing issues, yes, I admit that. No place to write graphically in romantic suspense/military spy romances? Bullshit.
See, I think we do need a blog-related forum for this post ;-).
A really bad week so far, my friends. First my car gets scratched and I feel more defensive about the crime than the perp. Now, I'm a pimp. Poor Vivi, Amber, and Llallana; they thought I was on their side!
I must add (with a smile) that The Hunter is, besides Facing Fear, my best-selling book. Yes, that does make me feel better. Off I go to pound out my frustration on the roof...nothing like real sweat to make me feel less like a pimp.
Nah. But I thought that would get you to read on. Heh heh. I figure if that was in the police report, I might have had a more interested response than the official "it's bad, bad, bad surfers" line. Surfing in the dead of night. Rrrrriggghht. A one-armed surfer, perhaps?
I did recently watch the movie version of The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, filmed in 1993. I remember watching the very successful TV show in Malaysia while growing up, but being young and English being my second language, I missed out on a lot of the nuances of the verbal play. Not that there were that many nuances in the movie version! :grin:
It's a classic suspense formula, isn't it:
1) smart man convicted of a murder
2) his need to prove his innocence
3) a chase
4) a shadowy figure that is always a little bit ahead
What made The Fugitive cool was The One-Armed Man. That's the killer, the guy who was always out of reach, making our hero suffer while he learns the truth a little at a time in a race against time.
To me, it's the same writing suspense. As a writer, I'm always looking for my One-Armed Dude (or Dudette) in my story, the element that would not only engage the readers into a mental chase in their mind, but also engage their emotions and ultimately, their championing of my hero/heroine's cause.
What made The One-Armed Man worked in The Fugitive is the story as told by the hero himself: (paraphrased) "I fought with the man and suddenly I pulled off one of his hands! A one-armed bandit killed my wife, I tell you!" In the wrong hands, this line could have gone into parody territory (as it has, in so many great comic spoofs) but here the writer and the actor pulled us in and we believed them.
As a writer, the most important thing is the balancing act as we juggle all our elements. The wrong step, and everything falls down, and the plot becomes a parody of a great performance as we weave around trying to keep the act going. After all, even a parody is done on purpose and the weaving and stumbling around are part of the act.
So, why am I bringing up watching The Fugitive all of a sudden when yesterday I was venting about, oh...a crime? ;-P I dunno. I guess I'm just processing my experience in the only way I know how, so that I can move on. Does that makes sense? Find meaning in a meaningless act?
*****
So. ACT II, juggling other items in life:
There has been a suggestion put forth in the Gennita Low Yahoogroup recently about a discussion board/forum. The reader says that she finds it frustrating that she can't continue commenting about certain blog posts because I've moved on to something new and most visiting readers might not read the comment area or add to the conversation because the post is a few days old.
So, the idea is that a "forum" is linked from the blog where a conversation of a past post can be "continued." For example, the reader might (God forbid) have found another article about smegma that she just have to share, but posting the link today means nobody, except me, will read it. With a forum, she can title the post More Smegma Stuff (and maybe put the date of the post to which she's referring) and then publish her link. Other interested readers can then access this link and make relevant comments, thus continuing the older "conversation."
Am I making sense? Is this something that would be of interest to you? Have you ever wanted to comment on an older post but decided not to because you think no one would read it? Just wondering.
Setting up a forum similar to the Romantic Times Book Club Forum is relatively easy, but I'm not looking to start another romance board, per se. It would be limited to posts relevant to topics from my blog, and that's really not such a huge limit at all, since I blog about everything under the sun, from roofing to veges to TV shows to bad boys to favorite books! Just make it relevant to a specific A Low Profile post, that's all. I'm sure, as time goes by, either the board will stand on its own or...dies a silent death ;-P, depending on your interest.
As a promotional tool, perhaps it would attract a few new readers who don't like blogs but enjoy a forum type atmosphere, and perhaps they will try some of my books. I know all those half-nekkid kilt pictures sure attract a great number of hits from somewhere! ;-) Perhaps I can put it to good use somehow, heh.
As usual, brain overworking. All your feedback enables me. Coz really, I'm just like Dr. Gregory House (oh, how wonderful to see my Sexy Grouchy Doctor back on my TV set again tonight!) and I'm just looking to bounce all my ideas off you, my ducklings.
And oh, yeah, I LURV my new LotR "Truth or Dare" gif!
So I dare ya...gimme some truths!
Mood today:
Today, I'm all talked out. It's amazing the havoc one criminal can still create to his victim long after the crime is done and he's onto another bad thing. And he has forever tainted my happy thoughts and memories about Charleston ;-(.
I'm here in Charleston to do a workshop about why BOOK TWO is, in some ways, more difficult and more important than BOOK ONE. My topic was roughly titled "second books and second contracts: why they are important to an author." It was fun talking to the writers who are at different levels of their career, giving insight on how the "second" manuscript wasn't just a second book, or a middle book, or a "set-up to the finale" book. It was also interesting to discuss about contracts because I feel many authors don't share the process enough and many newer writers are more or less in the dark when it comes to what is in a publishing contract.
Everything went super well and the trip has been very nice except for one detail. Someone keyed both sides of my beautiful Lexus convertible ;-(. All along the door and front fenders. It's going to cost me quite a lot of money, I'm sure, to get the scratches and repainted. I've recently changed insurance company, and sure don't feel like seeing my rates go up.
It's painful to look at my beautiful baby all scarred up too. The strange thing about this is, that was my reward to myself after getting my second contract with my publisher. Because the second contract meant that I was "established." That my publisher thought that I was good enough to keep in their stable. So I bought my dream car and loved it.
And now some walking piece of human garbage has decided that it was fun to run his keys along the sides of my car. Not one side. BOTH. I am angry. The words running in my head aren't exactly print-worthy, and since I'm not at home, but with other people at a beach house, I have to ruthlessly bottle everything inside. It's killing me! Because, if I were home, I would have screamed and cursed, and frightened all the mutant poms into hiding.
So this is what Jed must feel like, inside, if you're wondering.
Heading to Charleston for the Low Country Workshop this Friday, folks! I'll be driving and without my usual roadtrip buddy, sniff*. I'm also going to so miss my little Jiggle Low. He's been a shadow and actually likes to climb on top of me to sleep ;-P. So much so, that he's become an argument between me and the S.O. because well, the bad puppy thinks I'm his and no males are allowed to sleep close by. It amuses me no end.
So poor Jiggle Low is going to be without his momsie for the weekend. Sigh. Only I can get so darn connected to a furbaby.
His Jedness, in one scene, had to be in one country while Hell was working in another. This is the first time he'd ever kept wondering (I call it worrying, but he keeps saying it's wondering) about another operative's safety. It's all about his actions, that Jed, because he uses those big words from that dictionary of his to obsfucate the truth. ;-) He would disagree, of course.
I received an email yesterday which complained that Jed isn't a loving kind of character. I'm not sure how to respond to that. Going to have to sit on this and brood about it. There are many words I'd use to describe His Jedness but "loving" wouldn't be one of them.
The email went on to say that that since the hero is so "unlovingable," (is this word in Jed's dictionary?), then the romance between my heroine and him is also unacceptable. I wanted to pound out a quick reply to say, "Whoa...I haven't even gotten to the romance yet, dear reader!" But I stopped myself.
Part of my dilemma is a pseudo-rule I set for myself about fan/reader mail. Without a specific question, I will not write an explanation or defense of my story or my characters. A reader has the right to his/her opinion, and even the worst criticism is part of the writing for the public process.
For example, remember that hate-mail from that librarian dude who wrote that my book was trash? I know I gave a tongue-in-cheek reply saying that he must have wandered into the wrong aisle, but I also tacked on the suggestion that he returned the book, since he hated it so much. It was only when he replied several times after that to add that I should be ashamed of myself for writing his equivalent of excrement and that in future, I shouldn't write books like VHis anymore, and that if I don't follow his advice, my writing career will be a nothing, that I took offense. Yeah, hate the book, fine, but don't tell me what I can or cannot write.
So this reader feels VHis is a failed romance because Jed is "unlovingable" and doesn't "communicate his love." Then she tacked on, "The hero sucks so better luck next time." Argghhhhhhhhh.
Jiggle Low tells me what he thinks by his actions. The bad boy still lifts his legs and pees to mark his dominance. Unacceptable. Especially when he does it to the pillow on which someone else has slept. Totally unromantic. But he's communicating his feelings to me. There are different ways to communicate love. Just saying.
I need some sexy veges. They always put me in my Zen place.
New Amsterdam is like "Angel" except he's not a vampire. Heh. All right, let's see how that immortality curse works out, eh?
There's so many supernatural/paranormal TV shows, from Lost to Heroes to New Amsterdam, now that it's like looking at our romance bookshelves in the stores--all paranormal left and right. We even get our favorite paranormal writers' works as TV shows now--last season's The Dresden Files as example. I think Charlaine Harris's books is going to be a TV show too. Kewl, huh? I wonder which came first--the books generating the interest in viewers or the TV shows generating the interest in readers?
P/S There's still time to post under the Smegma Begone post from a few days ago to get a chance to win Jaci Burton's Surviving Demon Island, a...hey...paranormal book! ;-)
And guess what I'm reading right now...Lilith Saintcrow's The Devil's Right Hand. Unputdownable. And yeah, a paranormal (urban fantasy).
What if...I made all the COS commandos vampires? Huh? No? Sex Demons? I mean, they are already handsome devils ;-).
REC # 1: I'm reading Elizabeth Hoyt's The Raven Prince, a refreshingly different, yet familiar, historical. The hero has pockmarked scars from smallpox and the heroine is a REAL widow and the story takes place mostly in the countryside, around the earl's estate home. I'm enjoying the different take of a few familiar romance set-ups very much. Have any of you read her Prince books?
One thing though...nothing to do with the book...every time I read the parts mentioning the hero's scent in...ah...a certain region, I kept thinking about my new and unwelcomed knowledge about smegma (re: a couple of posts back). :shrrriiiieeeek: I can't bleach that article out of my head!
REC # 2: To distract myself, I added a link on the right side under Procrastination Station. It's called Naughty American History and if you answer the questions correctly, the teacher (sex of your choice, of course) takes off his/her clothing one by one ;-). His smile is a bit smarmy but who cares, he has a nice butt. And yeah, front too. And his fake cheer for you for getting all your history questions right at the end? Totally worth the chuckle. Go try it!
***Will pick winner for yesterday's book Monday night since I know many of you skip the weekends and then drop by here on Monday to catch up. Rules: You must comment under yesterday's post, that's all. Winner gets Jaci Burton's SURVIVING DEMON ISLAND.
Enough about smegma!
I'd like to talk more about My Space and cross-promotions but have to go out of town today. But thank you for sending me your My Space invites through email! I'll respond to those soon and check out your pages.
And to remove all traces of smegma, I give you these pictures of the same model. He embodies an intensity of someone I know. I'll let you make a guess and remark about his very CUT bod. ;-) Sometime this weekend Jiggle Low will pick a winner from the Comment Area and the winner will get Jaci Burton's Surviving Demon Island.
We were yakking about information yesterday--how we promote ourselves through informing others about us, our books, our likes and dislikes. The Internet is a wondrous place for facts--promotion or otherwise.
I'm still undecided about the value of having a My Space (or My Face, or My Place) to me as an author besides it being a social-gathering place. Admittedly, My Space appears to be more "hip" and your name gets advertized among many others as people looking for "friends." There are already people sending me invites to "friend" them at that My Space page I'd set up, but they are gentlemen looking for mates ;-). I checked out their pages and yeah, interesting dudes, but no, I'm not looking for someone to date through my Gennita Low page. So that's the downside of having a My Space page.
I'll perhaps jazz it up a little more during one of my free weekends (ha-ha-ha) and see whether I get any reader response. Don't get me wrong -- there are a few authors who love their My Space page so much they've abandoned their own chat forums in favor of just chatting through that site. To me, as a first time visitor, it's just a lot of "Hi, just wanting to say Hi" stuff, but I'm sure there are those who dropped by to look for book information.
Some of these pages are fantastic fun. Please do leave your My Space Urls here, if you have a page, so I can take a peek. I think, if it's not done already, this subject would be a great discussion topic for an author workshop at a writers convention. I just want to know all the relevant details that have nothing to do with "making friends" or "networking," like reader traffic stats, book-related questions, new readers who became curious enough to check out one of your books, that type of detail.
And now, because I'm the queen of the " from the ridiculous to the sublime," I was googling about uncut penises for a friend who needed information for her medieval book. My friend is an American writer who has never seen or touch an uncut penis and since she's about to write a scene with a Nekkid British Lord, she wants to be correct in her, ahem, details.
So, good friend that I am, I googled for pics and articles that didn't sound too scientific, but with enough information about how the foreskin worked and what medieval or Regency males did to keep clean, etc.
Oh My God. Too. Much. Information.
Here is (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) Everything You Ever Need To Know About Smegma. Oh My God. Scroll down the page and read everything under the Smegma section. One comment needs to be cut (hah) and pasted here: "I used to think it was very unfair of life that, although I was very turned on by the equivalent smell of a female, I never found a woman who liked the smell of my (uncut) penis."
Oh. My. God. I will never read a Medieval story the same way again. It's normal back then to only bathe once or twice a year! Argghhhhhh. The stench.
Thanks, my writing buddy. You OWE ME a lot more than alcohol for this new piece of information.
And why am I passing the shudders on to you, my friends? Because I shouldn't be the only person to bleach my eyes and brainage today ;-).
Besides, now I have the perfect answer to those pesky readers who like to debate about condoms and the awfulness of romance authors who don't consistently demonstrate their social responsibility by having their characters use condoms during sex. You don't scold me about condoms and STDs, and I won't write about the smell of seven day-old smegma, deal?
AND THE WINNERS ARE:
CATHY AND MONIQUE!
Congratulations! Please email me at Jenn @ my website with your snail mail address and the ARCs will be in your post boxes via our wonderful postal service.
**********
How many of you have a My Space page? Do you visit authors' My Space pages? I'm curious because many of my published writing friends have spent A LOT of time working on their pages and they promote their books through them. Of course, to be able to view members' blogs and pictures, I had to register, so now I'm the owner of a My Space page. I haven't done anything to it--no skin, no book covers, no pictures--other than a few lines of intro.
First, the time thing. Second, I don't know whether it's going to be worth it for me as a promotional tool. Do I need another website to distract me (and yeah, I can tell it will definitely be a fun place to "decorate")? I think my regular websites and my blogs do a lot already, don't you?
However, every one of us is being urged to promote, promote, promote. With Walmart cutting off a bunch of midlist authors' books, our numbers are down and the only way to reach out to a wider audience is through promotion. As I told you earlier this year, when I heard the news about Walmart, I was determined to get my name out more because...well, because that's what published authors have to do to survive these days.
Yes, I'm going to say it. A lot of old-timers and famous authors will disagree with me. It is NO LONGER enough to write a good book. If you're not in the business and don't subscribe to different forums (for recommendations) and reviews, you won't hear about many books beyond the ones that are in the top tier. I depend on my friends and the author's own savvy promotions to find gems such as Nalina Singh's, Lilith Saintcrow's, and Elizabeth Hoyt's first books. And of course, the competitive part of me tells me that if I want to be as popular as they are, I have to get my name out too.
I love their books and tell my friends and readers about them, who, in turn, spread the word through their favorite forums and their own blogs and My Space pages. So doesn't it make sense to use the huge world of My Space as a promotional tool to get my name out?
This is just me yak-yak-yakking of course, as I tend to do when I'm procrastinating. Writing is the most important thing. Staying creative and doing my best to write the books as I envision them. Being true to the characters. Getting Jed to cooperate. Making deadlines. Argghhhh...why did that have to come up, huh? Huh?
(Ah, Monique and Tara, I see you both perking up at the idea of more COS and GEM background :D )
Thanks for making it to chat at Writerspace on Sat. night! It was a blast, and of course, tons of questions on His Jedness. It also wowed me to know so many of you want to read more about Alex and T. They are an elusive couple ;-).
It's difficult to properly explain their story and the circumstance of their book in a chat, though. Yes, it's true that I wrote Diamond's and T's story a long time ago, but it was categorical length (pre-2000 new word length) and conceived way before the expansion of the COS commando/SEALs/GEM plot lines of the later single titles. The manuscript was, at the time, the second book in my five-book plan to write about a group of commandos that had been taken surprise by an explosion during an important mission (see Big Bang intro at Da Glow World).
When I sold Into Danger, I signed a two-book contract and I offered Diamond's and T's story as my second proposal. However, my then editor, after reading the proposal and chapters, rejected it, saying that she (and Avon) thought that it was not second book material. I still have no idea what that means. Anyway, I offered Ricardo Harden's story instead and that was accepted.
After this first two-book contract, Avon offered me a three-book contract, with the request that I wrote about SEALs. Brockmann's SEAL books were very, very popular back in 2003/04 and of course, many fans had written to Avon that they enjoyed Stash's story and especially his cousin, Hawk, and his SEAL team very much in Into Danger.
As it so happened, I had already started Jazz's story on my own a while back. In my head, I had an overall arc of missing weapons, revenge, and the Big Secret of the GEM project, that sort of went like this:
(Before I continue, I want to emphasize that since I do NOT plot or FOLLOW any stringent plot line in my head, what you read in the following paragraphs does not mean it's the plot you'll read in my published books, but I thought you might be interested in knowing that I do have a Grand Plan. Of sorts ;-P)
1. Big Bang
2. Five commandos affected, some dead (KIA), some missing (MIA)
3. COS Center in deep doodoo, shorthanded, out of whack
4. Number Three (written)
5. Number One found (written)
6. Number Nine returns (sort of written, but discarded because he was just too damn tomcat-tish) and umm, yeah, this was him with Nikki.
7. Number Five (a quarter written)
and so on and so forth outlines of various commandos.
8. Meanwhile shorthandedness causes part-merger with GEM
9. (At this point, I'm writing my first single title Grace's story because it's tied to Number Three story)
10. I jumped two years ahead of the Big Bang to see the effects of the Big Bang on COS and GEM, but I also wanted to see whether I could write some other entity besides commandos. And I wanted to showcase my GEM operative in action. Decision paid off: I gots me Stash and Marlena hotness;-).
11. Harden and Nikki, another GEM operative. And umm, yeah, I took Nikki away from Jed and umm, yeah, he' still punishing me for it.
12. The SEALs were needed because the commandos were shorthanded, remember? They were all after different missing weapons now, so I wrote the three SEAL stories. I showed COS Center's hand in these missions with the appearances of Diamond and Jed, as well as references to them, the two year long operation after the Big Bang, the merger.
All along, questions to SELF: What is happening at COS Center? They aren't just sitting on their hands letting those SEALs have all the action, right?
13. I woke up one day and found my answer to what was to be the COS solution: super soldier spy. After all, they were almost 100 percent again and the merger was, in my head, a success. I have given them time to recruit new VIRUSes (including Armando Chang). It was time for Da Revenge.
14. The Virtual story must flip back the timeline because I need Helen not being there for two years (the two years since the Big Bang and merger). When she appears, there is a hubbub of activity going on, most of which you already know, (not necessarily in order but my brain has these notations floating around) what with the SEALs running around in a Joint Venture, darling T. bringing the inscrutable Diamond back into the fold, the commandos having been undergoing tryouts with SymBios Serum II, Jed getting busier and busier and BUSIER, one weapon found, noose around Mad Max getting tighter, COS commandos coming back together as a full unit, and yeah, let's bring Super Soldier Spy in.
15. What? (cupping ear) You want to know the Big Secret of the GEM project.... Nope, not telling ;-).
But haven't I bent your ear enough with the grand scheme of things? Besides, the above explanation was meant to clarify Alex's and T's story. Yes, it's written, but I have to reconfigure it to fit the other stuff. T. and Alex play a vital part in my COS and GEM story arc, but their odd cat-and-mouse game has to be relegated in the background till I can get their story sold. If ever, sob***.
So, in answer to a bunch of similar questions on Saturday night and in emails, no, I don't know when T's and Alex's story will be out. I don't know if it will be sold, even, because publishers have different agendas than my Muse ;-). I know I will rewrite their story one day, though, because they are a part of the universe I've built.
As a reward for your patiently reading this long, long post, I have TWO ARCs to give away:
On The Loose by Tara Janzen
Lessons of Desire by Madeline Hunter
Just post in the comment area and tell me how disturbing my brainwaves must be to have all the above curdling in there...somewhere..... Don't leave your email addy, 'kay? When I post the winners, you can email me and give me the info then.
There, have I bored the panties off you yet?
REMINDER!
Chat tonight with moi at http://www.writerspace.com/ at 9pm. Please do join me if you can and yes, I'll be answering any silly questions, especially about sexy vegetables and kilts ;-).
Here's yet another review of VIRTUALLY HIS at Loves Romance And More. The review was fair and I love how the reviewer summed up the different aspects of the plot. I also appreciated that she GOT the fact that this is the FIRST part of a series, that the relationship between Hell and her monitor is just at the beginning stages. She called it "the opening act." PERFECT! Thank you for the very balanced review...but can I umm...ask for a teeny bitty correction? The title of my book is VIRTUALLY HIS, not Virtually Yours ;-).
EDITED TO ADD: The link to this site suddenly doesn't work any more (was working fine last night). So here is the CACHED PAGE instead. Click here to read the review for now.
That's the tough part about starting a series with a repeating title. Like the In Death series--I can't remember the titles/plot besides the first one, Naked In Death. Everything else is sort of a mixed of title and plot. However, the positive is, the brand recognition is immediate--you see an IN DEATH book, you know it's part of the series. And it makes me pick up the book to read the blurb to make sure I haven't bought this particular one yet.
*************
Reading-wise, I just finished Madeline Hunter's Lessons of Desire (yes, I have the ARC, bwahaha), the second book in her Rothwell series. Phaedra, the heroine, was different because she was brought up by a very suffragette-like mother, who'd taught her that free love is better than being tied to a man like a possession. Lord Elliot, the hero, found the combination of independence and open sensuality very intriguing. Through circumstances brought on by their parents' past, these two found their lives changed forever.
I enjoyed the second half of the book more, when the heroine began to find out more about her dead mother's past and the secret lover. The passion between the main couple, however, was very muted compared to past Hunter books that I've loved, like By Arrangement or Lord of a Thousand Nights, both of which I've recently reread because the tension in them was teh hawtness.
I was a tad disappointed with how this story about a remarkably strong woman ended. Don't want to spoil it, so you'll have to read and discuss it with me ;-).
What are you reading right now? Disappointed or satisfied?
What Kathleen Woodiwiss was for the romance genre, Luciano Pavarotti was for opera. He was the icon that pushed beyond his art, the "rock star" that put his name and his art into the public consciousness. Today, many old school romance readers name Woodiwiss' books as their first romances. I'll also bet that many people who don't care for opera know Pavarotti's name and have heard him sing either on television or radio.
I remember learning how to play the piano (a thousand years ago) and my music teacher had Pavarotti's record playing. We didn't start our lesson till he hit the high Cs in Donizetti's opera La Fille du Regiment ;-).
Of course, I didn't understand how great his voice was till I was much older. But I remember telling my mom (who didn't know much about Western opera or classical music) that I had been listening to Pavarotti and she knew who he was.
That is uberness.
RIP, King of the High Cs.
Over at Lynn Viehl's blog, she posted a funny rant about how her Zen calendar's "deep thoughts" were incomprehensible to her. Looking through her examples, I had to agree. Also, her comments for each one cracked me up.
For next year, she decided to make her own Writer's Zen calendar, and she came up with some really great ones. Here are a few:
September 6: They don't all hate you. Go and write.
September 7: Maybe two hate you. But only two, I promise. Could you write now?
September 8: All right. Fine. They all hate you. I hate you. Happy? Now go write something, or tomorrow we'll start talking about why we hate you.
So of course that started me down long and winding Procrastination Lane ;-) and I happily spent my minutes away thinking up deep Zen thoughts about writing instead of doing the writing itself. Ha. If that isn't the Zen of Irony, I don't know what is.
And of course I'm sharing some of my deep thoughts about writing with you!
September 5: To write or not to write....that isn't a question...is it? Huh. It doesn't sound like a question. I wonder if Wikipedia would have an entry on that....
September 6: Writing is like training a puppy dog to stop chewing your favorite slippers. You will find the slippers chewed again and again anyway.
September 7: Wow, yesterday's deep thought was deep, wasn't it?
September 8: I know what I know, if you know what I mean...what I am is what I am...are you what you are--or what? I'm sorry, that song came on suddenly. Deepest. Songwriter. Evah.
September 9: Hero and Heroine together: "Are we there yet?"
September 10: WWJD: What would Jed do?
Hee. I knew I could get Jed in there somewhere ;-). Procrastination station: my favorite stop.
Maybe you can help me with a few deep thoughts for the calendar? Thanks, Ms. Viehl, for the fun...I think.
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Of course, nothing deep about KILTS.
My Yahoogroup moderator has found a good place for an informal live chat. If you are interested in joining me, please visit http://www.writerspace.com/ at 9pm EST, Sept. 8, 2007 (this coming Saturday).
Here are her instructions:
Go to http://www.writerspace.com/. Along the bar to the left top of the page, choose Chat Rooms. On this page, on the right you will see Authors Forum. BEFORE you go in, if you are new to Writespace, you will need to register a nickname - just click the link above the Authors Forum to register. Follow the instructions on that page. Then sign into the room! Of course you can always register anytime between now and then and save the hassle on chat night.
I hope to see many of you there! Come in and say hi. I'm looking forward to meeting y'all.
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Talking about chattery, here's another Word Magic moment with my roofer, Da Linguist Linguini:
DLL: "I can't walk on this roof!"
RB: "Why?"
DLL: "I'm wearing new shoes and they don't have any contractions."
RB (without pausing): "Tell me when you start sliding six minutes apart."
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A conversation at Shit and Grits:
Alien (regular customer who really thinks he's one) (turning around to talk to RB) (Notice all these conversations are to RB and not me): "My friend asked me last night whether I would leave him all my money when I die."
RB: "Oh. Well, what did you say?"
Alien: "I said, I don't know. But it's okay, my friend's going to commit suicide anyway."
(Jenn covering her face at this point)
RB: "So you should give him all your money when you die. Save him from dying, you know? Do a good deed and all that."
Alien: "That's right! I can save his life!"
(Later, waitress comes by with the bill).
Alien: "Can I pay you next week? I don't have any money.
(Jenn banging her head on table)
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I tell you, I'm surrounded by aliens. Let's hope we make more sense on Writerspace ;-).
Lalalalalalalalalalalalala...all day long I'd roll in my bed...if I were uber rich....
You know that song is going to play in my head all day now!
Hey, Monique, you obviously have not seen my older posts on the COS Commando's naughty veges ;-P. Ahhh, that was a memorable day when I found those peppers, heh heh.
Hey, some people tell dirty jokes. I post sexy veges, so there.
I was looking at the list of books coming up that I'd like to buy. Yikes. Way out of my budget. Sigh. So, I'm narrowing it down to just a few books this month:
J. R. Ward
Lilith Saintcrow
Shane Abe
What books are you looking forward to and MUST HAVE this month?
Reason for singing song: I can't afford all the books that are out any more, wahhhh. And yet, there are people who would buy a $50,000 Vividus Bed. Sigh. $50,000 for a bed, girlfriends. That's, like, how many great romance books? ;-P
Seriously, would you pay $50,000 for a mattress?
At that price, it better came with George Clooney ;-). No, no, Gerard Butler. Wait...can I have both? Would they fit in there? With me in the middle, you know, it could be a tight squeeze. $50,000. Goodnight....
And to think, when I was a wee lil' girl, my bed was one of those cheap cotton cots held together by a few sticks, the kind that you can fold up during the day, so you can move around the bedroom....Sometimes, I would drape my blanket over it, crawl underneath and pretend I was a desert sheikh living in a tent. I bet you can't do that with your $50,000 bed, ha.
So, tell me, what's the most extravagant thing that you ever spent your hard-earned money on?
Everyone is vegetating this weekend. I'm allowed to be obscure in my references because you aren't reading this, anyway ;-).
When in pain, go in search of sexy veges. That's a very important thing to remember, for writers and...especially for writers. Instead of raging about the pain and drama, or get into a sordid exchange of whose mouth is bigger in CAPS, or take down fellow-authors in WWF (also known as Web Writing Fiasco), soothe those female hormones with sexy veges, I say.
But I know nobody's reading the blogs this weekend anyway. So I'm dedicating this to SQ. ;-)
There's NO labor of love like growing sexy veges and fruits, my children.
Labor Day weekend! Are you barbequeing yet? Or out buying cars? ;-)
I have a sorethroat. While I'm babying it, here's the Da. Best. Geek Romantic Intrigue. Evah. Man, if I had all the techy stuff we have now in college, I swear I would never have graduated....
And celebrating labor itself, if the corporate world today is run by some of the people who comment online (read Youtube comments, for a refreshing course in daily conversation) today, a meeting would sound like this:
;-).
I did have a good chuckle at the random guy who came in promising Bigger Ahem, and all the guys stood up to follow. Now you know who click on all those damn spams!
MAY 07
