Saturday, February 24, 2007

Saturday Night Fondue

I've got a feeling I'll be enjoying the Oscars a bit more than usual this year. Go Fug Yourself is live-blogging the Oscar ceremony. Trust me, it'll be better than the actual telecast.

I had completely forgotten that Romance Novel TV was due to go live on Valentine's Day. Of course, since the sound on my PC isn't working (see previous Bonbons), fat lot of good it does me, dammit! And Rebecca York is even on there! If I understand the concept of the site, we not only will be seeing interviews with authors but also those little commercials they do for their books!! I'm looking forward to those little gems all being in one place.

Snarkywood has FINALLY added another blog entry. Don't get me wrong, this one is well worth waiting for- it matches show dogs with their celebrity look-a-likes. *snicker* But c'mon, y'all... you've got one of the best site names around and you hardly ever post on it!!

So I stop by The Book Bitches and... HOLY SHIT!! Have you seen the ad campaign for Dolce & Gabbana??!! And this company thought an apparent gang rape in progress was good for business, why??!! At best, it's the chickie's asswipe boyfriend showing off for his friends by "teaching" her who's Top Dog. Although, if that chickie is willing, then it's actually kind of sexy in a dark erotic fantasy kind of way, yes? Click on the pic on the BB's site for a larger version. The other pictures in the campaign are also rather bizarre.

The topic over on Romancing the Blog is group blogs. I like the IDEA of group blogs, but so far I've been underwhelmed by most of them. It's great that several people can keep a blog fresh on a daily basis, but, as a reader, it's confusing when most of them are not very diligent about identifying who is actually posting a particular blog entry. If there are 6 or 8 possible contributers, then just showing that today's post is by Jen or Mary presumes we know the 6 or 8 well enough to keep track of who Jen or Mary are. PLEASE put your full name (in the case of group author blogs) under/in the post's title and it would be even better if you could include a little pic or avi of yourself with each post, too! I'm not being nit-picky, but if the voice in each post is going to be so different, it would read more smoothly if we know who each voice belonged to. There's also a link to a site I've not run across before The Good, The Bad and the Unread. I'll think I might be adding it to my list of regularly visited sites.

While I was poking around The Good, The Bad and the Unread, I came across a heartbreaker. Shiloh Walker released another book in her Hunters series and here I am with no PDA. *deep calming breaths* You know one benefit that I hadn't foreseen to writing this blog is that it can be really rather cathartic! After that whole techno-hell rant the other day (and it's mini-rant follow-up), I got the worst of my frustrations out of my system. I'm still in techno-hell, but I'm dealing with it much better. I think I'm going to buy an HP tx1000 convertible laptop when they are released next week. I'd rather wait until more manufacturers produce a convertible laptop (because of Vista, they are expected to rule this year) or until the current ones work the new model bugs out, but I'm not in a postion to wait. I'm still planning on getting a UMPC when the prices start falling to replace my PDA, but a tablet laptop will work out okay for right now. And HP's appears to offer the most features for the price. Toshiba and Dell only offer a lot of the bells and whistles if you're willing to go over $2k. HP's tx1000 starts at $1200 for a pretty loaded up version.

Anyway, back to Shiloh Walker's Hunters series. They are paranormal erotic romances available at Ellora's Cave. Vampires, shifters, witches; ongoing story arcs; three dimensional, sympathetic characters. The series is solidly a Peanut M&M with a couple of them (particularly the 1st two) sneaking up to a Lava Cake category. Flames heights range from 7" up to a full 9" for some scenes like the Declan/Tori/Eli romps. This new one appears to focus on Declan and Tori again but it sounds like I better have the tissue box nearby for this tearjerker!

Friday, February 23, 2007

Charles in Charge

I've had a very long frustrating day. I decided to put Charles Dera in charge of my dreams tonight...





*Sigh*
~

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Jaci Burton, Surviving Demon Island

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Surviving Demon Island by Jaci Burton

Category: Lava Cake - Reads like Warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts. (A,A-)
Flame Height:
7" out of 9"

From Amazon; Reviewer: C. Miller
"... Actress Gina Bliss has been working non-stop for two years doing action movies. When her agent brings her an opportunity to do a reality show, her first instinct is to say no. When she is told more about it, she is intrigued. When she learns that she'll be able to play with weapons and fight fake "demons", she's on board. While she'd like to be one of those people that like to lay on a beach and drink mai tai's, she's not. The reality show sounds like the perfect vacation for her.

Derek Marks is in charge of training the new "hunters". After seeing a demon kidnap his little brother from his bed over 20 years ago, Derek will do whatever it takes to destroy the Realm of Light. What the newcomers don't know is that they are being trained to be real hunters of real demons. Derek is blindsided by his attraction to Gina, who is as far from a Hollywood starlet as one would expect. When the demons invade their training island, the stakes are raised and Derek has to convince the hunters that the demons are very real.

The relationship with Derek and Gina is strong from the start. Burton throws in several twists, including why the five hunters were chosen to be trained and who Derek really is... "


I've always been able to count on Jaci Burton to give me a good ebook. Incredibly sizzling erotic scenes but a good solid story, too. This book more than follows suit with her ebooks but then passes up the Peanut M&Ms rating and edges into Lava Cake status because she came up with fresh, new concepts for this story.
`
Yes, we've seen other Survivor on TV type stories, we've also seen demon paranormals, but Jaci gives us an interesting, kick-butt and UNIQUE heroine and places her into an equally UNIQUE action packed paranormal thriller. Now see, here's why I use other people's book summaries instead of writing my own... I just don't want to spoil any of the fun of reading this book and everything I want to say about it might ruin a little surprise or the humungous surprise twist at the end!
~
I really enjoyed this one and sure didn't see that ending coming!! Since that twist sets up the next book, Hunting the Demon (08/2007), PLEASE don't read ANY blurbs about the next one until you've read this one!! I've only provided the link in case you want to preorder it!!



Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Free Me from Frustration!!! (Updated)

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Still no resolution to my techno-hell frustration. I have officially given up on my PDA. It's just not going to happen, I even tried it on the Dell and it freezes up as soon as I plug it into the USB adapter. I haven't mustered the courage to deal with the two Sony's again. My Sony now no longer has sound. I soooo do NOT want to buy a new PDA AND PC right now. I've been looking at the convertible laptops (laptop/tablet PC), but most of the ones that are truly Vista ready aren't out yet, plus Vista isn't quite up to par yet either. Seems silly to buy an XP one, though. I would LOVE to get one of those ultra moblie PC's (UMPC) that are basically the size of a trade paperback. But the price on those is just ridiculous!
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Here's the thing. I need a portable way to read ebooks. I also need a new "main" PC. So my dilemma is, do I buy something with as many features as I can find on a convertible notebook now because I can also use the tablet option to sorta comfortably read ebooks (although fitting in the purse isn't going to happen) along with a docking station/port replicator so that I can still use a full size keyboard and monitor? Or do I just replace my Sony desktop with the cheapest thing that will work along with a new PDA ($600) or cheapo laptop (<$700) and then hope that, down the line, the UPMC's will come way down in price? Gawd, this is frustrating!!!

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Speaking of frustration, my DH will be home soon so that we can FINALLY have our long anticipated, much needed Valentine's Day Playdate!! YES!!!
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This next bit of confection honors the occasion...
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...
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UPDATE:
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Sunday, February 18, 2007

Sunny - The Novels of the Monère, Children of the Moon

Mona Lisa Awakening, (Monère #1) 09/2006
Mona Lisa Three (Monère #1.5?) from the anthology Over the Moon 01/2007
Mona Lisa Blossoming
(Monère #2) 02/2007

Series Category: Lava Cake - Reads like Warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts. (A,A-)
Flame Height: 7" out of 9"

I'll use this Amazon.com summary of Sunny's "Blossoming" to describe the series- "Mona Lisa has finally accepted what she really is-a Mixed-Blood of the Monère, the Children of the Moon. Stronger, faster, and more beautiful than any human, they are the origins of Earth's darkest legends-and Mona Lisa is their newest Queen. Accompanied by her loyal cadre of warriors and kin, Mona Lisa is entering her territory of Louisiana for the first time. She slowly learns the erotic and savage customs of the Monère elite-though some of her new subjects are uneasy at being ruled by a half-human. Her reign is threatened by enemies old and new, and she is ensnared in the thrall of dark forces she cannot deny. In a hidden world of animal passions and unrelenting lust, Mona Lisa soon grasps the tremendous power she must command if she is to hold her realm together-and if she is ever to come into her own. "

I was conflicted trying to figure out how I would rate/review this series. Here's the problem: in the acknowledgements for "Awakening" Sunny says "And special thanks to Laurell K. Hamilton and Anne Bishop, whose wonderful stories inspired my Monère Children of the Moon series." INSPIRED? Hell, she completely ripped them off!! Seriously, it is a jaw-droppingly blatant theft of AB and LKH's concepts! She basically took Bishop's Black Jewels Trilogy (the Queens hierarchy, Hell and demon dead, even a character named Janelle) and Hamilton's Merry Gentry series (mixed breed queen with modern ways and compassion, glowing skin during sex, healing during sex, male harem/guards, acquire new powers through sex or emergency) and Hamilton's Anita Blake series (again the healing during sex, the kick-butt heroine, shape-shifting, acquire new powers through sex or emergency) and combined them in a new setting. In "Blossoming", there is even a scene ripped off nearly word for word from LKH's Obsidian Butterfly and Narcissus in Chains where the life force is sucked out of another person. Over on the LKH forum¹, Anne Bishop said that her people looked into it and didn't feel there was enough grounds for legal action, but, IMHO, if her and Laurell joined together, there would undoubtedly be grounds for a legal case here.

And furthermore, I am always hearing stories about authors wanting to have their novels shelved as "Fiction" (they think that makes them more "legit", I guess) rather than Romance or Sci Fi/Fantasy, but their publishers/agents/editors tell them "No way!" Yet here is this upstart author who not only gets her obviously erotic romance book shelved as "Fiction", but gets by with using a pretentious one-word name like Cher or Madonna! And she's seen not only schmoozing with Kathryn Falk (the Grande Dame of RT Book Reviews Magazine), but gets invited to be a panelist at the next RT Con in Houston, thus legitimizing her plagiarism!! Oh and did I mention the major television interviews with her? Damn, this woman must really have raised clit/cock sucking to an ART!

So that's why I was conflicted about how to rate this series. The fact is, if I had never read Anne Bishop or Laurell K. Hamilton, I would probably have raised my rating of this series up to Crème Brûlée - My All-Time Moan-Out-Loud Favorites. Ironic, huh? But then again, she ripped off the best, so why SHOULDN'T her work be great? I DO really like the series and WILL continue to buy new stories as they are released, but would like to see her now take the world she created from other author's ideas and create stories that are completely ORIGINAL and UNIQUE to the Monère world.

ADDED: ¹ Since older LKH forum threads are periodically copied to inaccessible archives, I will have to quote pertinent comments from that discussion. Keep in mind that this discussion occurs after the release of Monere Book 1: Mona Lisa Awakening:

Anne Bishop 10/01/06 (after being asked if she is aware of the first Monere book): "I don't know what the correct course of action is. This is my first experience with this situation. But I did check out the Amazon reviews and they're flagging the same thing--that this author has used a lot of material that is derived from the Black Jewels universe. I'll send the information to my agent and let her take a look at it to see if/how much of a problem is brewing.

Thank you for pointing this out. This isn't a book I would have picked up, especially when I'm writing a new Black Jewels book. If there is a problem, it needs to be addressed."

Anne Bishop 10/02/06: "Have to admit I've been thrown by this, and I really have to get my head back in my own game since I have writing and proofing to do today. But I was curious about something.

This story takes place in contemporary USA? So this is Earth with Earth history and Earth religions? If so, is the High Prince of Hell in the story the Satan who is the adversary of God? Or is this an alternative Earth that didn't develop some of the Earth religions? I just wondered how the author got around that connection within the setting."

Anne Bishop 10/03/06: "Those Who Know checked out the book in question and feel the similarities are superficial rather than substance. So it's imitation of some elements rather than intellectual theft and hasn't crossed any legal lines.

Now I'd better bust a-- to get those Sebastian proofs done and get Surreal into her next scene."

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Sucks in a GOOD Way...

After the past couple of techno-hell days, I need a nice, long, hot...



bath.
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More Suckity, Suck, Suck...

I fucking HATE Bill Gates!! Oh sure, he's a useful son of a bitch so long as everything is going fine and dandy, but if he has to talk to someone else or his product fucks up... well, suckah... you on you own!

Here's the techno-hell I've spent the last couple of days wallowing in. This actually goes back to when IE7 was released and nothing else on any of our PCs would work with it. Well, the Dell wasn't too bad, but the Sony's were totally fucked up. Not only would McAfee and AOL not talk to IE7, but Sony's little pain-in-the-ass irritant pre-loaded programs just made the situation worse. I'll never buy another Sony because of these what-the-fuck-are-they-for programs like uPnP framework that Sony only occasionally graces us with fixes for. Anyway, on my Sony, I was able to restore to a pre-IE7 checkpoint then uninstall McAfee and AOL. Redownload IE7, reinstall AOL then McAfee. McAfee fucked up AOL, so I uninstalled them both again and reinstalled McAfee BEFORE AOL and this time installed AOL9.0VR instead of AOL9.0SE, which just wasn't ready to play nice with the other two. So, YEAH! I was back in business. Went over to the kid's Sony to do the same thing and... uh-oh... they had no restore checkpoints. Evidently one of the little geniuses disabled the automatic checkpoint creation!! So there that Sony has sat since then because I KNEW it was going to take a l-o-o-o-ng time to fix. And I've let the little buggers come use the Dell in my office.

And one MORE thing that was fucked up by Bill Gates little IE7 bomb- my PDA could no longer sync with my Sony. Blew both the PDA AND the SONY up every time I tried. Which means no new ebooks- a state that is starting to make me twitchy!
So this brings us to this week's techno-hell. I've got 4 ebooks to read and judge for the Passionate Plume Awards. I don't particularly like reading ebooks on my PC and prefer to curl up and read them on my PDA. So I figured I better get my PDA and Sony talking to each other again. I uninstalled then reinstalled ActiveSync. That went okay. I popped the PDA and it's sync cable into a USB. Alright, the Sony saw it and recognized it. Cool. I started ActiveSync and... nuthin'... ActiveSync could not find any device to sync to. So, the Sony knew it was there, but ActiveSync said it wasn't!! So a few more of these tries and I realized that my PDA had blown up again like before- frozen solid! So I unhooked it, did a soft reset and tried again. This time I blew both the PDA AND the Sony up again!! Okay... fuck it!! I needed to walk away.
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Yesterday brought more techno-hell. I decided I was going to fix the kid's Sony. Now I knew that the only way to fix it at this point was to completely reload it from the Sony Recovery Disks that came with it a couple of years ago. That actually went quite smoothly and I repartitoned the drives while I was at it. Cool. Then I reach around, through, over, and under their desk and get the system unhooked and lugged into my office where I can use my faster ethernet cord instead of their slower wireless connection to bring Windows, McAfee, and AOL up to date. Since we are talking a couple of YEARS worth of updates and multiple system restarts, this took all damn day. FINALLY I was done with that, but in the meantime, after frantically searching, I could not find installation CD for their Netgear Wireless USB Adapter. So, off I go to Circuit City and buy a new one. When the updates finished I thought I was home free because the USB Adaptors have never given me trouble. WRONG!! I never did get the little son of a bitch to work!! That little sucker and that fickle bitch, Windows, just wouldn't acknowledge each other!! By now it was after midnight and I was getting dangerous so I called it a night...
This morning, I had to get up and take my youngest son to his basketball game. We travelled 45 minutes away to play... wait for it... the other 5th grade team from his own school which is 5 fucking minutes away from us and sitting empty!! Oh well, at least there was a Coldstone Creamery on the way home.

So after that big fucking ordeal of digging my way through a major shopping district on a fucking SATURDAY, I come home and turn MY Sony on. It has some windows updates waiting to install... fine... I click install. I click on AOL, then I get this "Svchost.exe Application Error. The instruction at.... blah, blah, blah". And my Sony freezes... in the middle of Windows update installs!! I had to switch the power off in the middle of fucking Windows update installs!!
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Oh, and, according to Microsoft's knowledge base, this is a KNOWN problem and they then give some techno-bullshit-only-for-fucking-NASA-scientists ways to try and fix it!!
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So, I restore back to a checkpoint from 2 days ago- no change. Restore to a week ago, still no change. I restored to a MONTH ago and I still get the damn error message!! Now I'm getting desperate because Windows firewall says it's not working. I tried uninstalling McAfee and AOL in case it was another conflict with that group of ne'er-do-wells. I reinstalled them and now, even though I still get that damn svchost.exe message, the system doesn't freeze up. But it's not fixed and I have a feeling I'm going to be reloading my Sony from scratch. Only, I have too much data to just blindly do that. So off to Circuit City again to buy an external hard drive- which I really should have had before now instead of using CD's for PIA backups. And did I mention that my Windows bars and such are now taupe/grey instead of Classic Windows Blue? Yep, even tried to change them back but the Sony thinks they're still blue!! Curiouser and curiouser!
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I just can't wait to see what happens when I try to install the external drive tomorrow! Oh joy! And I still have to finish fixing the kid's Sony AND get my PDA to work- which I think I might try syncing with the Dell instead. Of course, that will probably fuck up the Dell and we won't have ANY PCs working right around here! Oh, and did I mention that I don't have a clue what the fuck I'm doing???!!!
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And if that's not enough, blogger is thoroughly pissing me off right now because it keeps putting extra blank lines between some paragraphs and taking out other ones. AND it isn't showing them in the preview- they only show up after I post!! So, now I'm reduced to putting "~" where I want a paragraph break!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Winter Sucks... and not in a good way.

So, my DH and I had planned on both taking off work today and having a much anticipated (and much needed) playdate. Then Old Man Winter decided to bury us in snow, so that meant the kids were home and therefore- NO PLAYDATE. You suck, Old Man Winter. Big time. Oh, they've already called off school for tomorrow, too. And they were already going to be off Friday and Monday. Six days snowed into the house with the kids. Oh joy.

I've decided that I need to spend some time frolicking on the beach with Scott...







Hey Old Man Winter... suck on THAT!!

Today's Confection Special

A heated touch... a gasp of surrender... passion...

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Karen Marie Moning, Darkfever/Fever Series Book 1

Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Category: Crème Brûlée - My All-Time Moan-Out-Loud Favorites (A+)
Flame Height: 3"out of 9" for sexual tension/potential.

From Booklist "MacKayla "Mac" Lane is a small-town southern girl living a life of suntans and shopping. All that changes when her sister dies in Ireland and a cryptic message on Mac's cell phone raises disturbing questions about the nature of her sister's death. Mac follows the lead to Dublin and the strange life her sister led, on to the darkly dangerous book-dealer Jericho Barrons, and a burgeoning war with deadly Fae that humankind doesn't even realize has begun. Time-travel-romance maven Moning reshapes her Celtic lore for a radically different and engaging new dark fantasy series. Mac's first-person narrative is more than point of view; it's a true recounting of how a sheltered young girl grows to accept the role fate has dealt her. And while moments of sexual awareness hint that a relationship between Mac and Jericho could complicate matters in the future, wisely there is no full-blown romance here to distract from the complex introduction to Moning's new world."

I've been singing the praises of this book for months. Darkfever is the start of a new series. There will be some romantic elements at some point in the series, but not in this one. As much as I like spice in my books, this book was just so damn good that I didn't even miss it! I fervently hope the rest of the series lives up to the promise of this first book because it truly blew me away- I read it and then downloaded the audiobook because I needed to listen to it too. It's an urban fantasy about the sidhe. But we're not talking cute waifs, or even LKH's sexy sidhe here. The unseelie are the monsters from our nightmares.

I know alot of people have problems with the popularity of books written in first person POV, but the FPPOV added to this book's enjoyment. We, as readers, don't know anything until/unless Mac does, so it makes the reader feel that much more involved in the story. And it is written from the future perspective (I guess that would be the term). Mac is recounting to us things that already happened. However we don't know right now if this is Mac telling us or something she wrote down in her ever present journal and we are now reading... maybe even after her death.

Mac is a bit too self absorbed to be completely likeable. And I believe that was KMM's intent because, by the end of Darkfever, we are starting to see glimpses of the heroic, yet disillusioned and world-weary woman who is narrating the story. And Jericho also comes off as a mercenary bastard, yet we suspect he cares far more than we know. In fact, his one frantic shout of "MAC!" leaves a huge gaping hole in his icy facade. Speaking of Jericho, I can't wait to find out who, or should I say WHAT, he really is!

This book was soooo worth breaking my "wait for the paperback" rule! The Fever series looks like it will become Karen Marie Moning's Eve Dallas, Anita Blake, Betsy Taylor, or Sookie Stackhouse. This is as close to a modern masterpiece as I've ever seen.

The next one, Bloodfever was due out in August, but Amazon is now showing it's release as the end of October. That's just cruel.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Catherine Coulter, Point Blank/FBI Series

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Point Blank by Catherine Coulter

Category: Peanut M&M - Devour, sigh, then reach for the next one. My daily dose of insanity-be-gone. Most books fall in this category. (A-,B+,B)
Flame Height: 0", off

I've always loved Catherine Coulter's FBI series. The first one, The Cove, was deliciously off beat and suspenseful. She really hit her stride with The Maze where we meet Savich and Sherlock and I have to tell you that their first skin to skin scene had me panting out loud in anticipation! What a build-up! PHEW! And what a great thriller! It remains my favorite book of hers. All of her main characters have a sarcastic, playful wit and she brings some of them back from book to book; Savich and Sherlock in every book. It's kind of like going on an adventurous road trip with old friends.


The paperback for her latest, Point Blank, is now available from Amazon:
"From Publishers Weekly Coulter's new thriller romance (Blowout, etc.) opens with Ruth Warnecki lost in a cave in rural Virginia while fellow (married) FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock are hot on the tail of a psychotic dirty old man (Moses Grace) and his flirtatious teenage partner (Claudia), who've kidnapped a smalltime comedian. Coulter fans know if they suspend belief—really suspend belief—she'll deliver page-turners filled with good guys battling bad guys as well as enjoying domestic tranquility. After Ruth makes it out of the cave, she's cared for by Dixon Noble, the local sheriff and ex-New Yorker with two kids and a missing wife; then Ruth and the gang return to the cave to discover the body of a murdered music student. Lacey and Dillon consult MAX the miracle computer about Moses while Dix introduces Ruth to his domineering father-in-law, Chappy, and musician Gordon, Chappy's geriatric lech of a brother. Coulter alternates between the search for the student's killer and the hunt for Moses, cases tied together only by the FBI agents solving them and the theme of criminally insane grumpy old men. Coulter continues to prove more convincing describing virtue than vice, which means that sympathetic characters and happy endings take precedence over serious detective work."

This one has two central, very fast paced storylines, neither one can be considered secondary to the other. What's interesting is that we really don't have a romance in this book. Dix's wife disappeared 3 years earlier and he's been mourning her and raising two sons. Ruth has him thinking that he might be ready to start accepting the fact the his wife is gone for good. A quick kiss is as close as Ruth and Dix get to romance. Of course Dillon and Sherlock are still wildly in love, but the closest we get to a romance with them is an afterglow scene.

Yes I do miss Ms. Coulter's marvelous build-up of sexual tension between her characters. But since she writes one hellaciously enjoyable thriller, I'm more than willing to overlook it.

I recommend this book if you enjoy thrillers, just don't expect it to be a romance.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Today's Confections

Since I was just discussing LKH and Anita Blake,

here's what Micah looks like in my head (Orlando Bloom)...


And here's Richard (Marcus Schenkenberg)...



And Jean Claude (Donovan Lewis)...

Blushes, and Giggles, and Bitches... Oh My!

Melanie Anderson has some interesting thoughts today over on Romancing the Blog. I get a bit uncomfortable letting non-Readers know that I even READ erotic romances. So I can only imagine what it's like for the authors that actually WRITE it. How DO you become comfortable with the idea that people are speculating about your sex life? How squicked out are you that your family, neighbors, co-workers, etc. are looking at you like they don't know you at all?

On one of the Erotica panels at the Daytona RT Con (05/2006), Cheyenne McCray said that, though she can write them, she absolutely cannot bring herself to say "any of the "C" words." Actually, I can relate to that, too. There are just some words that even my bawdy old self can't utter.

I recently was a beta reader for a new author, pen name Merry Phillips, who sold her first submission, Jason's Reckoning, to Phaze Publishing. It's a F/F/M and, I have to admit, at first I was squicked out thinking of her in sexual terms. Then I got over it and got on with my job as her "Comma Patrol." Thank God her sex scenes didn't need much editing, though, because that would have been very weird debating the details with her!

Alessia Brio left this comment for Melanie:
"It’s “the” question of romance/erotica writers, huh? People don’t walk up to Stephen King and ask him if he really did (or wanted to do) the things in his books. Even so, I prefer that my relatives not have those insights into the workings of my mind"

This reminds me of the ongoing controversy with Laurell K. Hamilton. For those of you that live in a field of innocent daisies, let me summarize it. LKH writes the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. Anita is a kick-butt heroine who kills rogue vampires and lycanthropes and helps the police solve preternatural crimes, when not busy with her regular job as a corpse animator. That's a really bare bones summary, but it wouldn't be difficult to find more details. The early books were action oriented. The later books are sexually oriented. Some people are downright hostile about the series' change in direction. Although sex was introduced BEFORE Narcissus In Chains, this was actually the pivotal book where sex (actually a metaphysical succubus called the ardeur) became a major storyline in the series.

Most of the speculation has been that Laurell discovered good sex with her then new husband, Jon, and felt a need to "share" it with her readers through a new character called Micah and a new emphasis on sex. ASSHATS, every one of them! Anita had been shooting the heads and or hearts out of people for several books. Did LKH write that because she suddenly had a need to share her real life bloodthirstiness with her readers? So where has she been disposing of all these bodies?

Here's the truth directly from Darla (LKH's PA and indispensable right hand) and interviews that Laurell has done:

At an early book signing of LKH, only 3 people showed up- Darla, Darla's husband, Jack, and a then older teen Jon. They all became friends and Laurell's most faithful fans. Cut to down the road more than a few years and Laurell is going through a divorce from her first husband, Gary. She's a single parent to a very young daughter, trying to make a living and support them through her writing. She has started writing Narcissus in Chains. Anita and her hunny-bunny, Richard, aren't really together anymore, but Laurell, who's going through some rough personal times, can't bear for Anita to not have someone too. Thus Micah came into the picture. Most people start speculating that Micah was/is Jon. Nope, before NiC was finished, Laurell had started to date again. Most men her own age either dismissed her writing career or were intimidated by it. By the time she finished NiC, she had begun to wonder if there could be something more than just friendship between her and Jon. Now with edits and publishing lag time, by the time NiC was released, her and Jon WERE together. But a whole lot of asstards put two and two together and came up with 5.

Look, I don't usually give a rat's ass about an author's personal life. But it just pisses me off that, first of all, people are launching personal attacks against Laurell and Jon, and secondly, the ammo they are using is totally untrue! Not just asstards, but fuckwads!

Which brings me to this recent entry of Mrs. Giggles. I usually enjoy her posts. But why oh why do you have such a hard-on for LKH, Mrs. G? Good Lord woman, you are now laying the decline of erotic writing and probably western civilization at her feet! Last year, you flat out stated that Micah is Jon and Richard is Gary! Of course then you proved that you didn't have a clue what the fuck you were talking about when you came out with this brilliant spew! My favorite part of this one? "She married her fanclub president, created Micah and Jonathan after him, used Richard the werewolf as her therapy couch to indulge in her love-hate feelings for her ex-husband" Who the hell is this character Jonathan? That's her husband's name and he is NOT in the books, Mrs. G!! Have you even READ the books and author that you seem so obsessed over?

Okay, okay, off on a bitch tangent there. I really do enjoy Mrs. G MOST of the time, but she needs to take a cue from the Smart Bitches. When they discussed a recent LKH blog entry that set tongues a-waggin' all over the 'net (more on that another time), they made their point without the below-the-belt personal attacks. In fact, one of their entries criticizing LKH turned into a fascinating discussion among authors about character development and making their characters come alive for them. But, we'll get back to that topic another day.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Virgin No More

Yep, at the ripe old age of 50, I've decided it's finally time for my electronic deflowering. And like all first-timers, I'm not quite sure how this is all gonna work. So I have to trust that my partner, blogspot, knows what it is doing.

So why here, why now? I do post on a couple of boards. One has a small group of phenomenal women on it, but it is an individual author's board and I hate to clutter it up with my babbling about other authors and other sites. A couple of other boards are very conservative and I have to rein myself in when posting. Another board I go to has to be the most feature rich, beautifully organized board EVER. Sina seems to have made it her mission to make sure everyone has every fun bell & whistle available for vBulletin. It's got a large membership that enjoys discussing books and a million other subjects, and I used to be totally addicted to posting there. But I don't enjoy going there as much anymore because a small group of asstards and fuckwads still think they're in junior high and have tried to drag everyone else on the board back there with them. You know the type, target someone and spread smack about them. Say it to enough people, often enough, and it becomes truth even when it can be proved otherwise or goes against all common sense. They've aimed at more than one target, including me, but I was the most visible. Too bad rules can't be created specifically to ban viper cliques. Ah well, if it makes them feel bigger in their sad little empty lives...

So what do I plan on doing with this blog?

Well, hopefully I can summarize the highlights from some of the "Can't Live Without" sites I visit every day. I seem to have become a snark addict.

I also plan on posting quite a bit about books. I'm a Reader (note capital "R"). Mostly Paranormal Romance, Historical Romance, Urban Fantasy/Romance and all with at least a bit of spice or, even better, flat out erotica within those genres.

Oh, and as to the name Cubie's Confections, that refers to my enjoyment of Eye Candy. I can't take credit for finding it all, Karlz and Luv are the Treasure Hunters, but I can still share all the candy that I scooped up from them.



As for "QB", that's from a long running joke between my DH and I. I would be laying the law down to the kids (because he cannot say "NO" to them) and he would walk by and whisper (jokingly, I hope) "God, you're a Bitch!" to which I would snap back "That's Queen Bitch to you, bucko!" Well, Queen Bitch became QB then morphed into it's pronunciation "Cubie".

Thus ends my deflowering. And like most first times, it was "meh".


Now here's the QB Dancers to help me celebrate.


Take it away, boys...