Book Rec From Saranna

PASSION: Erotic Romance For Women

Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel

A collection of twenty short stories by some of the most talented authors in the genre meant to titillate and inflame.

One of my favorite stories was Lingua Franca by Justine Elyot. Although, I expected it would be. I first encountered Justine's work at The Masque with her wonderfully hedonistic story of choir girls, libertines and The Ripper in 1888 . She has such an amazing gift for language and her erotica is always literary. Her work never fails to stimulate my brain. Or give me hot flashes. *grin*

In Lingua Franca, our hero is a Polish immigrant to the UK and I can actually hear his accent in my head while I'm reading. Sometimes, when authors do this, it detracts from the story, but Elyot's writing is so vivid, it did exactly what it was supposed to and made me blush. The tension that's maintained throughout is delicious and the  ending is almost an HEA, but it's realistic. Although, still full of hope and promise. I would by this book for this story alone.

Another of my favorites was Crave You Close by A.M. Hartnett. Which was also expected. What I love best about her work is that it never fails to ring true. Her characters are always real to me. They behave in ways that make sense. That seems like a small thing, but it's no mean feat. She puts them through their paces and manages to still end in a place that's real, but still has that payoff.

In Crave You Close, the characters are down on their luck, it seems things are stacked against them and it doesn't matter because they are in love. The sex is still hot, even though their relationship is established and their blazing need for each other leaps off the pages. She too ends her story on a high note and you can't help but hope their whole "Us Against the World" pays off.

Another delicious morsel to be found within these pages was The Morning Ride by Delilah Devlin. I don't want to say too much about it, I don't want to ruin it. But it was a sweet, yet still spicy read that stayed with me long after I put the book down.

This book was a definite treat!

***In the interest of full disclosure, I do know some of these authors personally, but I wouldn't rec them if I didn't love their work more than cheesecake and Rosa Regale. I'd just sit quietly in the corner with my mouth shut. :) Or mostly shut.

Random Thoughts: Nice Reviews and Author Promotion

Here are the few random tidbits I found this week:

Moriah Jovan blogged about the phrase "I can't" and I tend to agree with her analysis. The phrase "I can't" is useful to instill in oneself a sense of urgency, a sense of needing to act, and a whip to humiliate even the most die hard procrastinator. I know I have used that phrase in the wee hours of the morning to spur myself on.

***

Emily Veinglory blogged about Siren looking for more "romances" that are F/M/M/M/M and I, when looking for an example for something entirely different found that they have already started publishing titles under their new Love Xtreme  line. You can call it whatever you want but a gang bang is a gang bang and this smacks of trying to make gang bangs more palatable for a female audience. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but it seems some publishers are trying to push erotic romance more and more into the realm of porn.

***

And now something completely different.

Are you an author and want to make an inexpensive, yet classy, website? We all know the key to being promotional powerhouse is having a nice and useful site. Well, to help you all out Annemarie Hartnett did a lovely and useful post on making a nice site on a shoestring budget. Even I learned something, go figure. ;)

see more Historic LOL

***

Finally, Kassa, at her livejournal 3 AM Reviews,  blogged about reviewers being reticent to post negative reviews. There is a lively and diverse discussion on the many reasons why a reviewer may hold off on posting a less than positive review.

The conversation reminded me of what I feel is a disturbing trend on Twitter--authors and various publishing folks exhorting people to leave "nice reviews" on Amazon and other various review aggregate sites. I find this troublesome because what exactly does "nice" mean? This seems like a value judgement to me and incorrectly assumes that reviews are for the authors, when they are not. I actually value negative reviews more than a positive review, so does that mean for me nice reviews are negative?

Another disturbing trend I have noticed as of late is that some reviewers will give a review that basically states the reviewer did not like the book, and yet the reviewer will rate the book three stars. This, to me, just seems bloody odd.

What do you think?

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Lite Review: Enchanted No More-Robin D. Owens

I am a big fan of Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series and Sharon Greene's The Blending series. Robin Owens' book, Enchanted No More, looked like an intriguing twist on the elemental theme that also drew upon the fae mythos. The story is enjoyable even if it does suffer from a few predictable plot twists and slow transition sections.

Synopsis (from Amazon):

As one of the last surviving Mistweavers, half-blood Jenni knows what it's like to be caught between two worlds: the faery and the human. But the time has come to choose.


The Lightfolk require her unique talent for balancing the elements to fend off a dangerous enemy—and rescue her missing brother.

Only for Rothly will Jenni deal with those who destroyed her life. Only for him will she agree to work with her ex-lover, Tage, and revisit the darkest corners of her soul. For a reckoning is at hand, and she alone has the power to hold back the forces of dark….

Note: the synopsis for Goodreads (does not offer much info)  and Amazon (offers a little more info) both have issues. It should be noted that Jenni's ex-lover's name in the copy I read is Aric and not Tage.



Length: Novel

Release: December 2010 Harlequin Mira

The Good:

The world Owens creates in interesting and I found myself wanting to know more about the hierarchy. The world is ruled by the Eight, who are made of up of four married/mated pairs each representing and controlling one of the elements: elves (air), dwarves (earth), djinn (fire), and merfolk (water). The heroine, Jenni, is a quarter djinn, a quarter elf, and half human. She is able to control and balance each of the four elements.

Aric, Jenni's ex lover is half dryad (mum)  and half elf (dad)-he has daddy issues, which crop up from time to time. He also likes firey gals and was dating a djinfen princess, Synicess, who he conveniently dumps the minute Jenni is back in the picture (more on that later, and come on, some of us have done that in our dating lives)...

The narrative started out a little slow but really picked up once Jenni decided to help the Eight. I sort of like the brownie characters, they reminded me of the house elves from the Harry Potter universe.


The Bad:

Some elements are too predictable. I was not convinced that Aric would be involved with Synicess and their relationship and how she was introduced in the narrative was too contrived. I remember thinking "Uh oh, she will reappear later and cause some majour trouble" and she does. Oddly the trouble she creates has nothing at all to do with Aric and Jenni directly.

The big bad guys, the Dark ones, are almost comic villains twirling their mustaches. I thought they could have used more development.


I understood why Jenni had a chip on her shoulder about being a halfling in a world where status is based on being a full blooded fae creature, but she was a little too self absorbed, a little too whiny at times for my tastes.

The concept of time and mourning in this book also bugged me. Owens states in numerous places that because the fae folk were so long-lived that fifteen years would be like a blink of an eye to them thus it was normal to still be grieving. This concept is used to explain why Jenni was still upset over the loss of most of her family, the rift between Jenni and her brother, and what she felt was Aric's betrayal and dereliction of his friendship/duty to her family as well as why Etesian, an elf who was close to her father, was still grieving. (Wow, that was a long-winded sentence). I felt that I was having their longer lives hammered over my head, I also did not believe that they would hold onto grief and anger like it was fresh and still bleeding for that long. Now, it is common to use the idea that time moves differently in different realms or the faerie mound than it does for the mortal plane--I can buy that as an excuse to have a fifteen year time differential. In this place the fifteen years seems to have been used to allow Jenni to establish her own life amongst the human folk but the author somehow had to explain why she was so angry and others were still grieving--it was just not logical for me.

If you like:

...Sharon Green, Rachel Caine, snooty

Overall:

I enjoyed this book, even with the problems I had with it and I will definitely check out any other books set in this world. 


Where I got it: Netgalley

Lite Review: Litha's Constant Whim-Amy Lane

 Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Whim believes himself to be the least powerful sidhe at Green's Hill: he is as constant as a bumblebee in a hurricane and as faithful as a stray breeze. Whim's prince believes there is more to him than that and on Litha, the night of the summer solstice, sends Whim into the mortal world where he strives to give a piece of himself to others. 

It is on Litha that Whim meets Charlie, a young, desperate human who steals a kiss. Whim steals one back and, in turn, craves another taste of this extraordinary man. Their vows to return next Litha and finish what they started launch a thirteen-year tradition of celebration between the mortal and the immortal, between love and patience, that is sustained by Whim's driving, faithful compulsion to love and keep his human close to his heart.

Length: short novella


The Good:

Anne Cain managed to sell a book to me just with her lovely cover art once again.

It's a sweet story of Whim who meets a human boy and proceeds to meet him every year during Litha. Both the boy and the elf grow up through the years and the story is a coming of age tale with heartrending elements.

The Bad:

I felt like other characters just kept popping up and the story could have been developed a bit more--Whim and Charlie were caught in a stream with other people and events whizzing by.  I am aware that this is a side story from  larger plot arc of  the Green's Hill series that have been published through vanity publisher IUniverse but felt that some characters photo bombed the story and they needed a little more development/explanation.

I also question the wisdom of the publisher (I will assume the author did not know that this was a no-no) to quote song lyrics at the front of the book as I believe this violates the musician's copyright as I do not see a clear statement of permission granted. I could be wrong, but I think I read a recent blog post by an agent that they are careful to tell their clients to avoid quoting song lyrics--especially those by popular artists because the fees to use the lyrics in a book are quite exorbitant and permission needs to be granted.

If you like:

...sweet and poignant m/m stories.

Overall:

It was cute and a nice break from the zombie binge I seem to have been on. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a different love story.

Where I got it: I bought it.

Lite Review: Dust--Joan Frances Turner

I used to be able to say that I am not a fan of the zombie genre, but that is no longer true and I totally blame Annemarie Hartnett. I can hear her evil cackle coming from the far north east in Nova Scotia.Now, I am never going to be interested in a romance or erotic romance with a zombie as a protagonist, but a smart dystopian tale? Hell yes. I ran across the trailers for Dust and the concept of a female zombie protagonist intrigued me. I not only read through the book in one sitting, I also sent it via LendMe to Saranna and proceeded to gush about it. It is one of my favourite books of 2010 (a squeaker since I read it during the last week).






Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Nine years ago, Jessie had a family. Now, she has a gang. 

Nine years ago, Jessie was a vegetarian. Now, she eats very fresh meat. 

Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. Nine years ago, Jessie was human. 

Now, she’s not. 

After she was buried, Jessie awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. Jessie’s gang is the Fly-by-Nights. She loves the ancient, skeletal Florian and his memories of time gone by. She’s in love with Joe, a maggot-infested corpse. They fight, hunt, dance together as one—something humans can never understand. There are dark places humans have learned to avoid, lest they run into the zombie gangs. 

But now, Jessie and the Fly-by-Nights have seen new creatures in the woods—things not human and not zombie. A strange new illness has flamed up out of nowhere, causing the undeads to become more alive and the living to exist on the brink of death. As bits and pieces of the truth fall around Jessie, like the flesh off her bones, she’ll have to choose between looking away or staring down the madness—and hanging onto everything she has come to know as life…

The Good:

To the living, a zombie appears to be a language-less, dead, rotting, and not very sentient nightmare but in reality zombies have their own culture and their own codes of conduct.

The reader is introduced to Jessie as she is about to reach another crossroads. Jessie has been a zombie for about ten years. Her living life (all fifteen years of it) could be characterized as one full of fear, strife, and loneliness but her life in death is one of family, belonging, and strength. Each phase not only is a metamorphosis of self but of love too.

There are a few different messages in this story. It touches on finding one's own inner strength as well as challenging what it means to be alive and how we view people who are not like us and our desire for people to conform. For instance, Jessie runs into her brother Jim who is desperate to have his sister back and for her to shed this new and rotting form.

Every character is beautifully flawed.

The Bad:

I have nothing really negative to say. If you believe zombie tales should stick to "traditional" tropes (although I could argue and provide evidence that traditional zombie folklore is more akin to vampires so this is a moot argument), then this is not a book for you. If you are very squeemish and don't like to read about rotting bodies, noisome effluvia, and bugs, then this is not a book for you.


If you like:

...The Stand, dystopian fiction, post apocalyptic fiction (World War Z), or I am Legend.

Overall:

I never thought I would be writing that I found a book about a zombie beautiful, but I am. There is something about Jessie's character growth, that is abnormal yet fascinating. At its heart, this book is a tale about lost family, lost loves and new family and new loves.

Where  I got it: I bought it.

Lite Review: One Bloody Thing After Another-Joey Comeau

I was looking through ECW Press' offerings for books because I had enjoyed The Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation. When I was browsing, I was looking for something different, something that looked like it was fresh and new. Joey Comeau's book One Bloody Thing After Another did not disappoint.

I would like to claim that I recognized Joey Comeau's name from his webcomic A Softer World , which I have browsed on several occasions, but I only made the connection this morning after I finished his book.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Jackie has a map of the city on the wall of her bedroom, with a green pin for each of her trees. She has a first-kiss tree and a broken-arm tree. She has a car-accident tree. There is a tree at the hospital where Jackie’s mother passed away into the long good night. When one of them gets cut down, Jackie doesn't know what to do but she doesn't let that stop her. She picks up the biggest rock she can carry and puts it through the window of a car. Smash. She intends to leave before the police arrive, but they're early.

Ann is Jackie’s best friend, but she’s got problems of her own. Her mother is chained up in the basement. How do you bring that up in casual conversation? "Oh, sorry I've been so distant, Jackie. My mother has more teeth than she’s supposed to, and she won't eat anything that’s already dead." Ann and her sister Margaret don't have much of a choice here. Their mother needs to be fed. It isn't easy but this is family. It’s not supposed to be easy. It'll be okay as long as Margaret and Ann still have each other.

Add in a cantankerous old man, his powerfully stupid dog, a headless ghost, a lesbian crush and a few unsettling visits from Jackie’s own dead mother, and you'll find that One Bloody Thing After Another is a different sort of horror novel from the ones you're used to. It’s as sad and funny as it is frightening, and it is as much about the way families rely on each other as it is about blood being drooled on the carpet. Though, to be honest, there is a lot of blood being drooled on the carpet.

Release: May 2010 by ECW Press

Length: Novel (I would argue that is a novella as it clocks in at around 160 pages, but the price is a tad high).

The Good:

This, at its heart, is a very unusual ghost and zombie story. At first glance it appears to be about three disparate stories--everything is connected. Even elements that may seem trivial have some deeper connection to the larger meta plot.

The story opens with Ann and Margaret eating breakfast while their mother, who seems to be coughing up gobs of blood and flesh, heads out for a job interview. The reader is then introduced to Charlie while he is trying to walk his elderly and somewhat idiotic dog Mitchie and Jackie, a young woman who wants to ask her best friend on a date. I loved all of the characters, especially Jackie and Charlie.

All three of the main characters are trying to figure out how to negotiate their world while dealing with various supernatural beings. Jackie's dead mother helps her escape the police station after she is arrested. Charlie is visited by a headless, and very gruesome, ghost daily and the dead young woman leads  him to the apartment of one of his neighbours. Ann has to contend with the horror that waits for her at home--she would rather hang out with Jackie, but knows she must help take care of her younger sister Margaret and feed her zombie mother.

The story is told at such a frenetic pace that reminded me of Run Lola Run that I read it n one sitting and was up wayyy too late. While One Bloody Thing After Another is indeed a horror novel, it was funny and sweet (I am not talking saccharine sweet, I am thinking more of a naive sort of impressionistic sweet). 

Cormeau does a wonderful job writing from the point of view of two teenage girls and their voices juxtaposed with the very cranky, yet lovable, Charlie really made this book sing for me. 

The Bad:

My issues with the book are more publisher issues than author issues.

I read this as an ebook and the book was clearly formatted more for print (which is not a negative as this was a galley) and the layout for the print book looked lovely. So much so, that I am curious to see what the physical book looks like. That being said, I have no problem paying 10 or 12$ for a lovely, but short, print book, but 8$ for an electronic edition seems a little steep to me. I am torn, because this is a book I would reread, and that alone would justify the 8$ price tag for me but I know that some readers may find the price prohibitive.

Another wagging finger of shame is that an ebook version is available for Kindle via Amazon and Kobo (sans cover art and was a pain to find at the latter), but is not available at Barnes and Noble for the nook device. I will spare you another rant about not having digital books available at all four of the majour US digital book retailers.

If you like:

...David Sedaris, Christopher Moore, or Tom Robbins

Overall:

This is a fabulous story that is like taking a roller-coaster ride with a book. I would recommend it highly with a caveat/warning about availability and price.

Where I got it: Netgalley

Lightning Lite Reviews: The Concubines and Slaves Edition

I have admitted to my penchant for slave and/or concubine stories. Here are a few that I have read recently.

I picked up The Pleasure Slave (m/m) by Jan Irving because it was set in Ancient Rome.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Lucius Mettelus Carbo, once a legate on the rise in the Roman army, rescues a beautiful young prostitute, Varick, who immediately stirs him. However, Lucius doesn't believe anyone could want him, a man cursed by the gods with an ugly, twisted leg. He resists his attraction to the pleasure slave as they forge a tempestuous relationship, and Varick tries to convince Lucius that he desires his master despite the injury. Both men are fighting their fears as they strive toward a future together… a future in the shadow of the volcano Mount Vesuvius.

If memory serves, this was sold as a novella and it is more like a longer short story (it clocks in around 50 pages).

I was not pleased, after purchase, to discover that the author decided to move a battle up chronologically to suit the plot. Why write historical fiction if you do not want to observe the few concrete landmarks that define historical change?

The story and characters seemed shallow. Lucius just seemed overly tortured just for the sake of being an overly tortured soldier.

 The phrasing is also redundant--you know it is redundant when a reader notices. For instance, "cupped" was used seven times, and for five of those times in the context of cupping someone's cheek.

The Starlight Rite (BDSM) by Cherise Sinclair grabbed my attention. I like the starlet running from a murderous husband only to be sold into indentured sex servitude plot, synopsis (from Goodreads):

Her voice is known throughout the galaxy; her face is completely unknown. 


Fleeing her monstrous husband back on puritanical Earth and the police assassins he's hired, singer Mella Archer becomes stranded on the frontier planet of Nexus. Desperate to survive, she picks the wrong target--Dain, the head of planetary security. 

Dain is amused by the attempted theft, and when Mella is sentenced to serve time indentured as a bedroom slave, he buys her contract. As he introduces the repressed Earther to the pleasures of sex with a dominating warrior, he slowly comes to realize that the little thief has stolen his heart. 

When the monster arrives on Nexus and has lunch with Dain, Mella is panic-stricken. Her owner must be part of the conspiracy to kill her, and it will only be a matter of time before the monster discovers that she's still alive. She attempts to escape. She fails. Embittered by her lies and mistrust, Dain returns her to Indenture Hall to be sold again. 

Now the monster has found her. And she has nowhere left to run...

I really enjoyed this book, even though it sort of plays on certain sci fi cliches of earth civilizations turning to a far more puritanical religion that views sex for pleasure as a sin. Mella finds herself on Nexus, a planet that views sex in the opposite light. I am curious to see if Sinclair will set any other stories in this world as I am intrigued by the civilization she has built.

That being said there were a few issues. The first has to do with the blurb. See that blurb there, the one up above? That is a rough and skeletal outline of 80% of the book. It did not bother me too much, but I was a little shocked at how spoilery the blurb was. Another issue I had was that some of the characters had odd modes of speech. Some of the men who worked in the Indenture Hall sometimes sounded like Yoda, which jerked me out of the story. Overall, I can highly recommend this one.

Lastly there is Jill Knowles Concubine which I also thoroughly enjoyed. Here is the synopsis (from Goodreads):

DSM LGBT Futuristic Fantasy 

Scholar, captain...war prize. Prince Kael of Korai is stunned when his father gives him to an enemy warlord in a desperate attempt to salvage Korai’s reputation. With his country’s honor at stake, Kael resolves to submit to Warlord Taren’s every debauched whim. 

But life in Zandria isn’t anything like what Kael imagined. Instead of pain and cruelty, Warlord Taren seduces Kael until the bewildered prince craves his Master’s every intimate caress. As he sinks into the decadent, sensual life of a concubine, Kael makes a powerful enemy, one who wants him removed from Zandria by any means necessary. 

Betrayed by his body, trapped by his honor, Kael must learn to trust his Master or get them both killed. 

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: BDSM theme and elements (including/not limited to bondage, gagging, tethering), dubious consent, exhibitionism, male/male sexual practices.

Knowles creates an interesting fantasy world. I would have liked to have read more about Kael's own culture. Taren, the warlord he is given to, lives in a culture that is sexually open and it is clear that Kael's was not but we are not given much information. The palace intrigue that threatens to take out/eliminate Kael is also interesting, but a little under developed. Again, we have a book with redundant phrasing. The phrase "half demon" as a descriptor for Taren was way over used. But, all in all, this was a fun read.

So, I can recommend two out of three. Not too bad, eh?

Thoughts on the Year That Has Passed and Suggestions For This Year

Another year has passed and voila here I still am.  In true Dhympna form, here are some random thoughts.

Blog direction:

This blog has morphed quite a bit over the past few years. It used to be just random commentary and various puerile and childish endeavours, but has now morphed more into a blog about book reviews, book commentary,and recipes. The switch really occurred when I decided to merge my two blogs together. There once was a separate review blog and at some point I will move the old reviews over to this blog. I suppose I have merrily settled into a direction. Yayy! Go me!

The very near future:

This week I will be doing my best of 2010 post. I am still ruminating on it.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Last year:


Overall, 2010 was a good year. I probably read 100+ books (my Goodreads total is not accurate, I do not always add books there). While perusing various book blogs and book retailers I noticed a few things.

1) Can we please retire "awesomesauce" for 2011? Please? It is now so overused that awesomesauce is being spread everywhere like a mad blogger bukkake fest that I find myself humming the tune for that annoying PSA from the '80s (for those who are old enough, that would be "Don't Drown Your Food"). Seriously though, the word is no longer cute or cool, so let's find a new word to use. It just creates an environment of boreism. If you find yourself about to use that word, then why don't you go visit my fave new site Save The Words and adopt a new word.

2) Speaking of things that are overused...can we please, please, PLEASE stop using the word "fallen" in titles for books that deal with angels and/or demons? Please? Do you know how many books I have with the title Fallen on my e-reader? It is getting worse. Please? I want to be able to remember a book and bland titles are not a good mnemonic device.

3) I have realized that I gravitate to stories that contain: abductions, slaves, concubines/slave-concubines, angels, and demons.

Random blog posts that caught my eye this week:

Emily Veinglory suggested that writers consider the Erotes as a subject. I too have to agree and would snatch up a book about them in a heartbeat.

Annemarie Hartnett blogged about her quest to free a book that she bought from DRM. The DRM was preventing her from reading it on a device that she prefers to read on. I know that I will have to figure stripping out as I have some books I bought way back in 2004 that were on my old computer (it suffered a severe hard drive failure).