Sunday Soup - April 14 2019

In The Soup:  Starla Night, Kresley Cole, Talia Hibbert, Elizabeth Harmon, Jessie Mihalik, Reedsy, Shelf Addiction

Soup Dish: on my mind right now
✽ This goes back a little ways, but since I've been slacking on the blog, I hope you'll forgive me. Romance Novels Are Not Junk Food

✽Trying to read more diversely? There are lots of lists out there, but here is a great one: 80 Black Romance Novels

✽Not romance, but sort of anti-romance? I love a good take-down review: Psycho Analysis, on Bret Easton Ellis' latest.

✽This tweet made me laugh and laugh-- I love the word nerds in my timeline:

Link to tweet

Stalking Me: where else to find me
✽My recent Reedsy reviews: Secrets of the Sea Lord, by Starla Night (3 stars) and upcoming in about week look for a review of The Cemetary Circle, by I.L. Cruz.  Link to come.

✽On the podcast, Tamara released our #3Bloggers1Series discussion of Endless Knight by Kresley Cole. The podcast is pre-recorded, but we are doing live listen-along commentary on the Shelf Addiction Facebook Group, which is a ton of fun. The next one, for Dead of Winter, will be Wednesday April 24th, 6 pm Pacific.  I haven't done a Shelf Byte in a while, but Tamara's got a great one for Consumed by JR Ward (which I reviewed last fall, here).

Recent Reads:
✽I am having such a hard time NOT bingeing on the Kresley Cole Arcana series (it's no good to get too far ahead of our recording schedule) that I decided to catch up on the Immortals After Dark series. I don't know how I get so far behind on these things, but I am going way back to books 9 and 10, with Pleasures of a Dark Prince, and Demon from the Dark. Yumm. I'm on a wait list at the library for the next one, so I'm taking a probably-well-advised break for a week or two. Loved them.

✽Mating the Huntress, by Talia Hibbert. I am really loving Hibbert's contemporaries, so when I found out she had a paranormal romance out in the world, I had to snap it up. Really good, and I'm sad that she isn't doing more PNR. Among other things, it inspired a bit of a riff on Twitter (be sure to click into the replies 😉 ) with the hashtag #HeSmelledLikeThreeThings:

...so maybe he'd always had this incredible scent, this heady mixture of power, fresh pine and midnight heat, and she'd never noticed. 

✽I read Pairing Off, by Elizabeth Harmon, who is an author I met through the Rust City Book Conference a year or two ago. I've never read a figure skating romance before, set mainly in Moscow, and I enjoyed those elements a lot. It wasn't overly jargon-y on the skating technicalities, but focused more on the emotional dramas and pressures between pairs partners, ex-partners, coaches, and family. There is a lot I liked about it, but I found it a bit draggy and just too long.

✽The biggest win of the last month was Polaris Rising, by Jessie Mihalik. This was a romance book club pick, and I was happy to give it a try, as it was getting so much good buzz from people whose recs generally work for me. Man, this was a five star read for sure, maybe 6 on a scale of 1-5. I loved it a lot, and I am not a space opera person. I am, however, a fabulously competent heroine on an epic adventure person, and this totally worked for me. Tech was perfectly on point, completely believable (I say this as a person who has worked in high tech for 20-plus years) and not boring. I'm already seeing some buzz about the sequel and I can't wait.

Well, it looks like these posts are coming more like monthly... that's not too bad, right?  What's going on in your reading world?

Elizabeth Harmon: Rust City Featured Author

Welcome to your early-bird peek at some of the fantastic authors who are already signed up for the conference. Today I'm showcasing

 

ELIZABETH HARMON!

Hi Elizabeth, can you tell us a little about yourself and your work?

Hi Nicola! I am a contemporary romance author who loves to write and read romances that are just a bit different. My latest release "Getting It Back," came out in April. It's the third book in my Red Hot Russians sports romance series which features sexy and swoon-worthy Russian figure skater heroes. My debut novel Pairing Off is a 2016 Romance Writers of America RITA Finalist for Best First Book.   Congratulations on the RITA! And wow, who doesn't love figure skaters? Hmmmph, those *thighs*...

Ok, Elizabeth, let's talk about RustCity!

1. Fill in the blank: "I used to be really good at doing the splits , but these days I'm pretty rusty." Pretty sure I can't remember a time when I could do the splits...

2. Eminem or Aretha? Explain.
Aretha, please. She's the queen of soul, and has so many great songs.  Can't really argue with that!

3. Choose One:
Vernors
Faygo
I'm confused. And not from around here.

4. What are you looking forward to most at the RustCity conference? Meeting readers and other authors. Well, that's perfect, since that's the main plan!

5. What is an off-the-cuff association you have with Michigan, Detroit, or Troy?
Love, love, love the Petoskey area! My husband and I have stayed at the Perry Hotel a couple of times, and I even found a Petoskey stone, which I still have. Someday, when I become fabulously wealthy romance novelist, I plan to buy a quaint 27-room Victorian summer cottage in Bayview. :) Well that was a pretty cool little sidetrip down Google Alley for me. For anyone else in the dark: Petoskey Stones. When you buy that cottage, I'll come visit!

6. Your latest work of fiction features a wealthy industrialist and an R&B singer. What's the first sentence?
Sylvester Elliot's sweet voice soared above the down 'n dirty throb of bass and drums. The rhythm was tight, but not as tight as his half-naked body as he moved across the stage. Cassandra licked her lips. The man sang like an angel, but the way he moved would make the devil blush.

What's it about?
Overachiever Cassandra Heath's dying father chose her to lead his billion-dollar corporation. It's the career she's been groomed for all her life... but is she about to throw it all away for the love of the wrong man?
Ooo, I like it! I kind of want her to be an arrogant alpha who gets brought to her knees for the first time by the love of a good man.

7. And finally, would you like to participate in the Alpha Heroes Five Words Fiction Game?  Absolutely!

Fantastic! You chose to work on our Contemporary story, Hook and Curve (or possibly Curve and Hook?), which is shaping up to be a reunion romance between Maddie, a formerly-curvy romance writer, and Hunter, a booking agent for MMA fighters. They have a past... but do they have a future?

The world-building rules are: set in contemporary times, with no magic or paranormal elements. It's not required to be a romance. Have fun! Your challenge words are:  balloon, slipper, hot dog, scotch, nap

Part One, by Shelly Bell
Part Two, by Josie Kerr
Part Three, by MK Schiller
Part Four, by Rue Allyn
Part Five, by Vanessa Knight

Part 6:

Jenna took forever to answer her phone, and Maddie kicked off her painful stilettos. Why couldn’t her SpongeBob slippers be considered fashionably acceptable footwear? And where the heck was Jenna? It was ten in the morning, and her friend owned a souvenir shop in downtown Detroit. Was there a crazed demand on “Mad 4 Motown” balloons this early?

Maddie hoped she wouldn’t have to leave a message, as she wanted the element of surprise on her side. When Jenna answered, breathless, Maddie pounced. “How did you know Hunter Allen would be at McGreevey’s last night?”

“Uhh…good morning to you too, Maddie. Having a rough day already?”

She sighed. “I’m stuck at the airport. Everything is grounded because of weather problems.”

“But it’s---“

“Elsewhere,” Maddie snapped. She didn’t want to talk about thunderstorms, she wanted answers. “But sitting here gave me time to think, and it hit me, that running into Hunter last night was too much of a coincidence. You insisted on going to that particular bar. You told me to take an afternoon nap to rest up for a big night, coached me on being sexy, and when we got there, bought me Scotch for courage. You also made yourself scarce when Hunter showed up. You must have known!”

“Hey, it was luck. You know, the Universe was on your side!”

“No,” Maddie said. “There’s more to it. What’s going on, Jenna?”

In the pause the followed, Maddie stroked the tattoo on her wrist. LOV and a date. So far, it was the only anniversary she and Hunter shared, though she doubted he even remembered. Jenna’s subdued voice brought her back to the moment. “Yes, I knew he would be there.”

Maddie’s chest hitched and her stomach rolled, the smell of roasting hot dogs from the nearby food court, made her vaguely nauseous. How could Jenna have known? She wasn’t part of Maddie’s high school years. They’d been neighbors in New York, before Jenna moved back here to run her family’s business. And while Maddie had told her a little about Hunter—at least the significance of the tattoo—she’d not shared much else, including Hunter’s name. Heart pounding, and breath shallow, she asked, “How?”

Jenna’s answer was barely more than a whisper. “Because we’ve been dating for the last three months.”

I never did trust Jenna! What the actual heck?

Hah, right? you never know about those secondary characters.  See you in August at #RustCity16!

Can't wait! and thanks so much for playing!  Meanwhile, here are a few places around the web you can find more from Elizabeth:  Website | Facebook | Twitter | Google + | Goodreads Author Page | Goodreads Book Page | BookBub | BookLikes | Blog | Amazon Author Page

Book Links for Getting It Back: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo

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Reader Registration is still open for #RustCity16!

Be sure to keep up with all things Rust City 2016, by following it via your own personal social media drug of choice: Facebook |Twitter | Google+ | Tumblr | Instagram | RSVP at the Facebook Event.