It's Thursday SOMEWHERE, Right?

I'm blaming the heat.

Thursday Thirteen, Ed 14

Something that sort of took me by surprise after I’d been blogging for awhile… is that it’s really a circle of bloggers. I think it’s the rare reader, or at least the minority one, that doesn’t have her own blog. I had this image, originally, of providing this font of knowledge for appreciative readers who just didn’t know WHERE to turn for their next romance fix.

OK, heh, so it’s not quite like that. We all have blogs, we are all voracious readers of both books and other blogs, and we are all avaricious about our reader stats. Turns out there’s a fair amount of behind the scenes type stuff that bloggers may or may not do to make their blogs memorable and manageable. Maybe you saw my earlier posts about Bloggiesta and the hard-working Natasha. There’s also a group at BookBlogs.ning that I belong to where bloggers share tips and advice about improving their blogs.

I found all this to be very inspirational, however I wasn’t able to get nearly everything done that I wanted to during the official “Bloggiesta.” So I’m dedicating this T-13 to my blog to-do list.


1. Content. The part that I care most about for this blog is to have good content, even when I don’t feel like writing. I’m going to try to write one “rainy-day” post each week that I can pull out when work gets crazy or the kids get sick. When I have a nice stash, I’ll start posting them and writing replacements so they don’t get too stale.

2. Guest posting. Something I hadn’t thought too much about, but Natasha’s list included working on getting guest posters to appear regularly, and I really like the idea.

3. Static Content Pages. I’d like to have a good “about me” page, as well as pages that outline my policies (my, doesn’t that sound official?) for accepting submissions, reviews, and giveaways. Blogger doesn’t have a great way to do this, so I need to get creative.

4. Sidebar clean-up. I’ve got quite a bit of stale stuff there that feels cluttery. The new template helped a lot, but there’s more to do.

5. Figure out Feedburner and Technorati.

6. I’m planning to kick off something new here that I’m fancifully calling “Friday Fantasy Feature.” Since this IS a romance blog after all, you may be forgiven for that little trip into the mental gutter you just took – but no, I’m not talking about erotica or THOSE kind of fantasies. I’m talking about the sci-fi/fantasy genre, which I confess occasionally distracts me from romance (though I always return).

7. Submissions to book review sites. I’ve poked around a bit superficially without much luck, but I know they’re out there.

8. Contacts at publishers. I have a couple. I want more. (Don’t we all?)

9. Thinking about joining RWA, even though I’m not an aspiring writer. Seems like a good way to find out about good stuff coming up.

10. Graphics and badges. I want to play around with a small square icon for Alpha Heroes – some people like to put graphics in the sidebars, and I might futz a bit with some T-Thirteen headers to share.

11. Do more blog-hopping. I think I’ve gotten into a bit of a rut. I have my favorite bloggers, to whom I’m very loyal, but there are new ones all the time and I don’t tend to make much effort to find them – and that is definitely MY loss.

12. Related, I want to refresh my blog rolls. There are a bunch that I want to add.

13. Read and comment more at the big sites: AAR, Smart Bitches, Dear Author. I tend to feel a little overwhelmed by the big magazine style sites, but I should get over it. Maybe. OTOH, I rather like the little single-owner blogs; they have an intimacy that I love.

Visit the Thursday Thirteen site here.
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others' comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The Fire King, by Marjorie M. Liu - Review

The Facts
Title: The Fire King
Release Date: July 28 (eek, I thought I had more time for this review!)
Liu's Site (with a nice meaty excerpt)
ISBN: 08439-5940-1
307 pages

Short Answer
Loved! One of the best in the series.

Tell Me More
OK, but remember, you asked for it.

You know how, when you're on a job interview or at your performance review... or maybe the marriage counselor's office, heh, and they ask you those questions: "What's your greatest strength? And what's your greatest weakness?" and sometimes, the answer is the same thing?

One of the best things about Liu's universe is the endless variety of talents and mythologies she draws from. I think that in this way, she takes more chances than some of the paranormal authors out there who have a more tightly-focused world. And there have been some books that didn't appeal to me that much. This one though, just hit every note exactly right for me.

The World
For the most part, this is a book that answers more of the existing world-building questions rather than raising new ones. It's built on shades of gray and uncertain alliances. What really happened to all those shape-shifters? Previous books have alluded to a far-different-looking pre-history, where creatures of myth and legend were not only real but plentiful and played an equal role with humans when it comes to the question of "who's in charge here, anyway?" Most interesting to me was the absence of the Consortium, which has played the role of the villain in most prior books. Here, Liu introduces fractures within the hierarchy of the shape-shifters, and a new group which occasionally aids the Dirk and Steele team, but more in the spirit of a shared enemy than of a shared moral compass. Teensy spoiler: watch out for the double-cross!.

The Hero
Karr is a chimera, the first of these that we've seen in the series, and the discovery of his kind plays a pivotal role in the world-building. He's among Liu's oldest creatures and has an unnatural immortality, which is a mystery that is unravelled in the course of the book. He's isolated and lonely; heroic but with an undeniably brutal side. Able to shift into lion or dragon form, Liu's heroine finds herself thinking of CS Lewis' Aslan, and the Christ analogy isn't entirely off-base. He's a bit of an unlikely hero, but Liu brings them together, bit by bit. I can't say that Karr is my favorite hero; he's a bit more aloof than suits me, but he suits Soria, which is far more important.

The Heroine
Soria is one of the most interesting heroines you're going to see, ever. Shell-shocked, recovering from a major trauma, attempting to escape the shadowy world of Dirk and Steele and the adventures that she no longer feels up to, she is pulled back into a new mission with little choice. I love the way that Liu feeds us information about Soria-before, and Soria-after her trauma. I was frequently surprised, never bored, and yet the heroine's actions never seem out-of-character, perhaps because so much of the interior story is about her reclaiming and redefining herself.

She's got a don't-let-the-bastards-grind-you-down core (though it's been AWOL for a little while when the story opens) and a grim sense of humor that doesn't quit. This bit made me snort at an unladylike volume:

...given the circumstances, a paper trail seemed like a rather poor idea, right along with using a credit card, or writing her name across the sky with big giant arrows pointed down at her ass.

And when you learn about the trauma? whooee. It will set you back on your heels. Liu delivers a depth of horror with this matter-of-fact style that has you absolutely believing. It's more than a bit creepy that within her sky's-the-limit fantastical universe of magic and myth and super-powers, often the elements that are the most profoundly disturbing are the ones that we can find in true headlines. (My husband, the comic-book fan, reminded me that the major theme in the X-Men series is that the monsters are NOT the mutants.) Soria's character is my favorite part of this book -- the way she triumphs through the strength of will is an utterly gorgeous progression. And Karr's best moment is how he listens to her story, and gives her exactly what she needs. The scene is too long to excerpt here, but it's pitch perfect. Every word, every gesture.

And isn't that one of the purest romantic fantasies? A partner who can give us-- who can be-- exactly what we need?

Other Reviews
I'm seeing lots of articles announcing the release, but not too many reviews. Be sure to leave your link in comments if you have one, or know of one, and I'll add it into the post later.

Michelle Buonfiglio at B(u)y The Book

Sugar Time, by Jane Adams - Review

Finding the Right Label
A "coming of age" story is defined by Robert Harris of virtualsalt.com as:

A type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence.

Now, I don't know who Robert Harris is or whether virtualsalt.com is any kind of authority, but it seems like a reasonable working definition to me.

So what is the name for books on the other side of adulthood? What comes after the genre romance happily-ever-after, which frequently is marked by a wedding, pregnancy, the beginnings of career super-stardom, or some combination thereof. What happens with the kids are grown, the tumbling honey-colored locks are turning gray and thin, the improbably pneumatic bosoms are drooping, and the type-A alpha hero goes into cardiac arrest at age 60 while he's running that venture capital empire? What's the "coming of old age" literary tradition?

Well, Sugar Time self-referentially introduced me to the term "hag lit," which if you ask me is pretty damn unappealing. Nancy Thayer, author of The Hot Flash Club, explains in a Columbia Journalist article, “It comes from the Greek meaning Holy. A thousand years ago, Hagia Sophia meant goddess of wisdom. What we’re becoming is goddesses of wisdom.” Hmmm. Nice try, I guess, but it's still not catchy and I'm not sure I want to dance to it.

I'm NOT a Baby Boomer, Dammit
I was so pleased when I heard about Douglas Coupland's Generation X. Finally, a demographic of my own! However, when "they" talk about children's literature, they say that readers are typically the age group behind the subject matter-- tweens like to read about teens, teens like to read about older teens and adults. Since I started reading romance at the ripe old age of 12 or so, I'm pretty open to reading something in this new genre, too (and I do think it's a new genre, though I'm sure there are pioneers who are there already).

Sugar and I got off to a bit of a rough start though. First off: Sugar. Sugar Kane. Seriously? Whatever. The name was overly twee and didn't seem to suit the character, who was certainly not especially sweet. I half expected her to turn out to be Erika Kane's long lost sister or something. (Though come to think of it, perhaps the reference isn't an accident. The character of Erika Kane remains a femme fatale now for almost 40 years, since her debut in 1970. Ooops-- tangent, sorry).

Second: Sugar is a very particular character type, one that I'm rather familiar with through the magic of TV and novels, but that I've never actually encountered in real life: she's the wise-cracking, fast-talking bi-coastal Jewish woman who's "in TV". She makes me think of Rose Marie from The Dick Van Dyke Show, or maybe even Lucille Ball. Sugar is characterized as someone who uses humor to keep people at a distance, and intentional or not, I was put off at first.

Cut to the Chase Already
Eventually, I did warm up to Sugar. The first couple of chapters were fairly introspective, but I liked it more when she started to interact with the other characters. Throughout the book, the main voice is Sugar's, in the first person, often interior, but once she started doing things, rather than thinking about things, it got more interesting. ;)

I want to go back to Prof. Harris' definition again and re-iterate that this kind of story seems to be a bookend to the "coming of age." If the one is a disillusionment and loss of innocence, this story is about overcoming cynicism and regaining a belief in love. It's a reminder that even if it might be too late for some things -- maybe being the next Mick Jagger or the first woman president is off the table-- life is full of possibility, no matter your age.

There's a lot going on here besides the relationship, and I find that completely appropriate for this phase of life-- falling in love when you're a bit older is still a pretty great ride, but I don't think it's as all-encompassing at 60 as it is at 20.

Bottom line is, this *is* a romance--so sez me-- and I hope I'm not spoilering when I say we *do* get a romantic HEA. It does carry the sense that the "ever after" might not be as indefinite as those tumble-tressed genre romance heroines get. Some of the obstacles between the hero and heroine are also different than their younger counterparts'... but some of them are the same. Trust, career, balancing obligations, family complications -- relatable stuff here, for any demographic.

What Others Are Saying
Mary at Books Gardens and Dogs
Suzanne Braun Levine
That's a Novel Idea

Seems to be early days for reviews on this book, so let me just leave you with the author herself. I pulled this from her website-- she speaks very eloquently about what Sugar is all about:

Loving a Lost Lord, by Mary Jo Putney - Review

Short answer: Best Historical This Year! (well, so far anyway!)

The Premise
A terrible steamship accident causes Our Hero to wash up onshore at the feet of Our Heroine, who just happens to need a husband. Since he also conveniently has amnesia, she tells him one big whopper: "Can you have forgotten that I'm your wife, Mariah Clarke?" from which many subsequent whoppers follow. If Mariah had had Pinocchio's curse, her proboscis would have been prodigious indeed.

The Good Stuff
It's a little puzzling as to why this story works. There are a fair number of tired elements -- I mean, really, amnesia?? And in some ways, Mariah resembled one of Putney's recent heroines that I found really boring: she's relentlessly pragmatic in a similar way to Abigail from Marriage Spell. It's been awhile since I read that one, so this point is no doubt debatable, but I found this heroine to be more real. Putney did a better job of showing me the internal struggle it cost Mariah to maintain her outward serenity, while Abigail just seemed phlegmatic.

Adam is a wonderfully fresh hero. If you're tired of the cold, aloof rake whose glacial heart must be melted by the spunky heroine, pick this up immediately. Putney uses the amnesia device to provide Adam with a tabula rasa; he literally leaves all his cares behind and puts his well-being in Mariah's hands. Beneath the worry about his memories, he's trusting, playful, and loving. As his memories gradually return, you can vividly see the weight they apply, bit by bit, to his ducal shoulders. And of course the reader sees the looming Revelation of Truth along with Mariah, which adds to the tension.

I think one reason that Putney manages this constellation of elements that could SO easily go SO wrong, and pulls off a truly fabulous story instead, is that in spite of the rather preposterous circumstances, both characters behave in truly believable ways (at least, I thought so). Discounting that first lie, there are no TSTL decisions. Mariah understands the consequences of The Lie and is constantly weighing Adam's best interests in the timing of her reveal -- at no time does she really think she's going to get away with never coming clean. But Adam arrives at her doorstep utterly helpless -- it's far more mortifying to him to think he's at the mercy of total strangers than to feel that he's where he's supposed to be, even if he doesn't remember. And when he does learn the truth, he understandably loses trust, but he doesn't leap to wild conclusions like "she must be a gold-digging slut! I shall hate her forever and ship her off to Barbados!" Big points in that respect -- two grown-ups, acting like grown-ups, in spite of the pain it causes them. Go figure.

Another is simply that these characters sparkle with each other. Chemistry, zing, whatever you want to call it. From the fact that Mariah accidentally hits on Adam's true given name, to the way Adam feels perfectly at home with her, Putney builds an implacable rightness between these two. It is marvelous and impossible to analyze. Here, Adam has asked Mariah if she will sleep with him-- not for sex, as he's still injured, but for comfort and intimacy:

Shyly she took off her robe, then climbed into the bed. He recognized that he was still something of a stranger to her. But she was not a stranger to him. Odd, since he was the one who'd lost his memory.

Oh, le sigh....

An interesting theme that Putney plays with here is a duality of nature. There is the obvious: Adam with and without his memories. Once he regains them-- integrates those two men-- he realizes that the foreign side of himself, one he has repressed since inheriting the dukedom can also be acknowledged, at least among friends.

Mariah gets a flip side too. She's had a lonely existence, and an imaginary friend or alter ego named Sarah has been with her since childhood. Sarah helps her remember how to be proper, which is a bit double-edged for Mariah. Sometimes those reminders are helpful, but sometimes they only make Mariah feel inferior or like a poseur. At first this seemed a little odd to me for a grown woman, but hey, you sometimes just go with things. And I like where Putney took it in the end.

The Plot
Besides the amnesia and secret-marriage-that-isn't-really, there seems to be a plot afoot to harm the Duke. While there weren't any big surprises here, the plotting and pacing are meticulous and serve as a perfectly adequate foil for the emotional story.

The Series
I don't know if Putney was the first, but if not, she was certainly a very early adopter of the setup of a group of men, linked from childhood, as the glue for a series of full-length romances. And good lord, she's good at it. I really loved how she shows us bits of the Duke's friends: through his troubled memory-dreams, and Mariah's interactions with them, we learn a lot in a way that whets the appetite without being too obvious. As an example:

She wondered if any of his friends would be as willing to admit vulnerability. Masterson possibly. Kirkland... she wasn't sure. Randall would probably rather be torn apart by wild horses than admit weakness.

And then Mariah is back into dialog with Adam. Just a small aside, not heavy-handed. An amuse-bouche. (And, any guesses as to who the next Lost Lord might be? Heh.)

The Happily Ever After
Putney goes completely wild on this, into real fairy-tale territory. Obviously, I can't say more without spoilering, but I enjoyed it, even if it took an extra dollop of suspension of disbelief-- it was worth it.

Don't Tempt Me, by Loretta Chase - Review

A Little Disappointing
I have never been let down by Loretta Chase before. Even deep in her backlist, where sometimes you find an author's less polished works, I enjoyed every book. Chase has a knack for writing unusual, misfit heroines that succeed against all odds, generally because of their eccentricities, rather than in spite of them.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen for me with Don't Tempt Me. I really did want to love Zoe Octavia, but I felt like I was seeing her through the wrong end of a telescope for most of the book. Very little takes place from within her point of view -- what there is, is intriguing, but there wasn't enough for me.


The Premise
In a nod to the Old Skool harem trope, Zoe is introduced to the reader as the latest ton sensation, the long-lost daughter of a prominent noble, escaped after 12 years in the harem of an impotent <eyeroll> pasha. Her mission: to overcome the scandal and live the life to which she was born.

Lucien, with an abandonment complex the size of the Titanic's nemesis, has just enough power in the fashionable circles to help her out. Considering that Zoe's father is the one person for whom Lucien has respect and affection, he's more than willing.

And then?
Beyond that, the book sort of petered out for me. There was never any major obstacle to the relationship between the hero and the heroine. The plot device was unimaginative and underdeveloped. I could live with that, but what I really wanted was to connect better with Zoe.

I didn't get to, though. Her backstory was told to the reader through a newspaper story, of all things, which Lucien engineered to build some empathy for her plight. Not a bad starting place, but we got very little more. I was left feeling like I knew slightly more about Zoe than any random woman of the times who read the newspaper.

The Bright Spot
Chase has always been good at building characters, and maybe the trouble here is just that it was too subtle for me overall. The stuff I did like was about Zoe's consistency throughout. Certain characteristics pinged back to her and Lucien's shared childhood, showing evolution but not radical change. I liked Zoe's pragmatic approach to fitting back into society, while still using and valuing skills she learned in that alien society. Zoe has composure, strength and self-confidence no matter the situation, and that was very appealing.

Don't get me wrong, this was not a terrible book by any means. But Chase is one of those authors for whom I have very high expectations. Hopefully the next one will be back on track.

Around the Blogosphere (my state of underwhelm is distinctly the minority)
Katibabs at RNTV
Neesah Allora
Janet at Dear Author
Ana at The Book Smugglers
Carolyn Hughes
Esmerelda at Flutter (a spanking new romance blogger, and since she agrees with me, you should all check her out and watch her for great things to come.)

Thursday Thirteen, Edition 13

Every now and then even *I* take a break from reading and blogging romance.

The internet has been an incredible arena for people to connect and share their creativity in so many ways. I do love the cool stuff that shows up on YouTube from time to time. Most of these were spotted and shared on Facebook by friends of mine. Watch a few (or all of them, if you have time to kill, LOL) and share a few that inspire you or make you laugh. In no particular order, here are:





13 FUN YOUTUBE VIDEOS

1. Badly animated hippo sings (embedding disabled, sorry)

2. Not the original, but the best Mahna Mahna:


3. Improv in Grand Central Station (so cool)


4. Playing For Change’s Stand by Me


5. More Muppets: OMG, DRUM BATTLE!


6. The first help desk (so funny!)


7. A day in the life of a mom (it's like the soundtrack to my childhood!):

8. Cake or death?


9. Torn- a strange mélange of mime and not-quite-ASL: -- the facial expressions and the word-by-word translation just make this.

10. This is a snip from what MIGHT be the funniest ½ hour of 1980s TV (though the very end was lame). If you’re patient enough, you can find most of the ep in the related snips (embedding disabled).

11. F*cking priceless:


12. Bohemian Rhapsody, but… different.


13. Did Mary Poppins freak you out? No? Maybe you should watch again.

Hope you found something to make you smile! Leave a comment and I'll stop by your place too!

Visit the Thursday Thirteen site here.
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others' comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants