Sunday Soup - May Day

In The Soup This Week... Keri Arthur, Chanel Cleeton, Amanda Bouchet, Charlotte Stein

Soup Dish:  on my mind/good links

✽Fabio has certainly taken more than a fair share of ridicule--even my 6'2" husband, who once sported some flowing locks of his own, does a killer "I can't believe it's not butter" impersonation. But I gotta say, Fabio certainly seem to take it with good grace. His latest appearance at the new romance-only bookstore, The Ripped Bodice, made some definite ripples on Twitter this week.

✽Controversy broke out this week over Amy Lane's m/m Selfie, where a person of color is referred to as a "chocolate love monkey."  Look here for a Storify capture, courtesy of Julio, and Riptide's subsequent response. It's been a passionate discussion. I'm sorry these kinds of things are still happening, but in some sense, the fact that the conversation is happening, I think is good and hopeful. It's the sunshine as disinfectant, to paraphrase former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (who, by the way, seems to have been a fascinating person. If you were looking for a random internet byway to spend some time in, here you go.)

✽ If you're looking for even more reading, you can always try Violet Blue's weekly roundup of sex-news links. The site is NSFW, but the articles are not aimed at titillation. 

What I'm reading
I'm totally on a roll this week. Great stuff from #RT16, and still can't stop the one-click finger...

✽Tried and true, Keri Arthur never fails me. City of Light was awesome and I tore through in a single day (and one late night. I love that her heroines are tough but vulnerable, brave in the face of terrifying enemies, and have this unapologetic sexuality that remains orthogonal to morality.

✽Charlotte Stein's Never Sweeter was an absolute killer. Emotionally wracking. Stein takes situations that we can relate to, but then pushes them and pushes them and then shoves them over a cliff. This story is about a woman who'd been bullied in high school far beyond what most of us ever experience- trying not to spoiler anything, but the phrase "attempted murder" happens. She is terrorized by this person for years. He follows her to college, out of a real desire to make amends. I honestly found the idea that the heroine could have any spark of sexual feeling for him to be pretty dubious, but if you suspend that disbelief, it's it's an intense, romantic, emotional ride.

✽So then I went back to Fly With Me, by Chanel Cleeton, which was all light and sassy and sexy in the beginning but then had me torn up and weepy at the 80% mark or so. I've read a fair number of books featuring former military characters, but in reading this one, I realized that I haven't read too many that involve currently-active members. I didn't see it coming and it really hit me with some patriotic feels along with the romance.

✽My last read was another huge winner. It doesn't release until August but I'll give you just a little tease: fantasy/PNR, worldbuilding loosely based on the Greek mythological pantheon, warrior hero reminiscent of Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo and a heroine whose secrets include turning invisible and breathing fire, and those are just the little ones. Watch for a full review of A Promise of Fire, by Amanda Bouchet, later this summer. But if you wanted to pre-order now, I'm saying that wouldn't be a mistake.

2016 Book Goals
So three of my four reads above were physical books, but I got them all at RT, so I'm not sure they count as stash, or at least, they definitely weren't part of the stash as of January 1. Still... it's a little progress? sort of?

No progress at all on the non-fiction. I do have a couple titles on hand, maybe I'll dig into one of them this week.  I've been trying to decide on my next read!

That's it for this week. Happy reading!

Sunday Soup - June 7

In The Soup This Week... RUDCon, Kit Rocha, Courtney Milan, Kevin Hearne, & JR Ward

Soup Dish:  on my mind
✽So the big blog news is the Reading Until Dawn Conference. I've agreed to be a featured blogger, which entails writing more posts than I usually do, and of a type that I usually do not (author interviews & features). So look for a bit of a flavor change here at Alpha Heroes between now and October as I do my best to fulfill the responsibilities of my new office. :D (and if you think you might be interested in the Con, please don't hesitate to hit me up in comments or email.)

✽Are you ready for summer yet?  Around here, school isn't out until June 19th, so even though we installed our window A/C unit yesterday (one does the job for our house in the Pacific Northwest), it's another two weeks before the schedules really change up.

✽Last camp-out of the school year - usually my troop does 2 camp-outs: an indoor "retreat" in the cold weather and then a big, multi-troop event sometime in March, April or May. This year, we got wind of another event that was already planned at a site that my daughter loves, so next weekend we're hopping on the coattails of someone else's planning effort. All I have to do is show up and not lose my 4 girls; no schlepping food or activities supplies or worrying about filling the time (Well, not much.  I have backups.  I am a control freak, after all).

What I'm reading
I've been reading like mad since the last Soup -- here are some highlights:
✽Beyond Innocence, by Kit Rocha.  I do love this series, and the latest installment does not disappoint.  I think it doesn't break a lot of new ground for the series, and it wouldn't be a great place to start, but if you're already a fan, it will be well worth your reading budget investment.  If you haven't tried the series yet, Beyond Shame is free right now, and the next couple in the series are nicely discounted.

✽Sweet Agony, by Charlotte Stein.  To be honest, this was a bit over-stylized for my tastes; a modern take on a classic gothic reclusive hero/poor housekeeper trope.  The hot scenes were very hot, though, and the angsty hero so very, very--VERY-- angsty, so while it wasn't a perfect hit for me, it will be just the ticket for folks who like things a bit more twisted than I do.

✽The Duchess War, by Courtney Milan. Oooooo, I loved this so much. It's free right now, and if you haven't read it, you should really really grab it. A duke who wants to do away with the peerage and a heroine with a secret identity-- just so brainy and rule-breaky and self-aware.  Love love loved it.

✽The Bourbon Kings (ARC), by JR Ward.  I'm mulling this one a bit. I liked it well enough, but it's a bit different than what I expected.  It's clearly a series set-up, and it's very, kinda, soap-opera-y.  Reads a bit more mainstream fiction than romance.  It has that BDB thing where there are lots of threads going, and while the hero/heroine are front and center, the romance doesn't feel like the main thread.  You'll see a full review on this one next month (honest!).

✽Trapped, by Kevin Hearne.  I'm pretty far behind in this series, but I'm enjoying my leisurely catch-up.  In this installment, Granuaile's induction continues, and (slight spoiler, I guess) she comes into her full Druidic powers, which I thought was the neatest part of the series development. Action-packed as usual, full of smart-alecky wisecracks as usual -- so yeah, pretty awesome.

Outlander Thoughts.

✽eeeeeee I've still been too chicken to watch the last couple of episodes.  I'm not 100% sure I'm going to... although I probably will.

Sunday Soup - March 16

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...
At my house, March madness doesn't have anything to do with basketball:  it's all about the Girl Scout Cookies. Starting in late February, my house becomes the Cookie Depot for our troop, which is quite large-- we have about 30 girls this year.  I got the last of the cookies out of my house yesterday, and now just need to square up the accounting -- also, super fun!  Anyway, it's all for a good cause.

Then there's St. Patrick's Day.  Our family is not in the least Irish, nor are we in a particularly Irish community, but this year we decided to decorate a little bit, which entailed power tools and spray paint... I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  I put up a little faux mantel on one wall and my younger daughter and I decorated it.  It's probably kind of lame that that took up as much brain-space as it did, but it is what it is.

Anyway, on to Book Things!

✽How Public Libraries Are Solving America's Reading Problem Really good article, with really good news, IMO. How the publishing revolution is offering libraries a new life. Via the twitter feed of Seattle Book News.  

✽Anonymous reviews -- Two items in the news recently; first a petition endorsed by Anne Rice to remove the ability to leave anonymous reviews at Amazon.  Her endorsement can be found on her public Facebook page. Second, a major Australian paper announced that they will be publishing their professional reviews pseudonymously. Good summary article here.

My thoughts are mixed here.  Mostly I do not attempt to keep my reviewing identity secret, because I am just paranoid enough and just tech savvy enough to know that if someone really wanted to out me, it's just not that hard to do so.  Therefore, I started from the very beginning with the decision that I would not put anything online that I am not willing to have my name attached to, for any reason.  (The one place that this really inhibits me--heh-- from posting is discussions about erotica.  I would say things anonymously that I'm not really willing to have out there in front of the world.)

Amazon's review system is troubled, for sure.  I don't pay much attention to reviews or average stars.  I go more by word of mouth and reading an excerpt for myself, but there's no doubt that those ratings and reviews influence sales, for better and for worse.  It's a shame that some people have nothing better to do than to game the system.

✽Do you use photos in your blog? then this is BIG NEWS: Free Use of Images from Getty. If you read the fine print, you may find that once again, there's no such thing as a free lunch:

once the images are embedded, Getty has much more control over the images. The new embeds are built on the same iframe code that lets you embed a tweet or a YouTube video, which means the company can use embeds to plant ads or collect user information.

To be honest, that pretty much seems worth it to me, but your mileage may vary. Via Dear Author's Twitter feed.

Author News
Interesting stuff from some of my favorites!

✽Charlotte Stein's newest release is with a new Avon line -- I'm gonna need to check out both.

✽Ilona Andrews announces new book, new series, and new publisher -- very exciting.

✽Chloe Neill also has a new series beginning.

What I'm reading

✽Apples Should Be Red, a subversive, salty little novella by Penny Watson.  This is a second-chance romance, with characters edging into senior citizen territory. I have more to say about this one, but bottom line is -- I liked it, and you should read it.

✽Clean Sweep, by Ilona Andrews.  I read a little bit of this when it was published as a serial for free, and adored the world premise. Really loved it, and the full book!  Great story, but it felt like the beginning of something that might not get finished.  I'm getting spoiled about long-running series, I guess.

✽Crazy, Stupid Sex by Maisey Yates. How can you resist a title like that?  Another winning nerd-girl heroine.

✽Fury of Desire, by Coreene Callahan.  Book 4 in the Dragonfury series, and not bad on the adventure and series arc fronts.  I found the hero's character resolution to be a little jarring and not quite on target though.

 ✽Kinked, by Thea Harrison.  Good grief, I really, really loved this one. This is the story that I wanted for J.R. Ward's Vishous.  It's the story of two extreme entities, who have waited a long time to meet their matches.  When they do, sparks fly, and nobody has to give up who they are.

Outlander Watch... Och. I canna wait for Jamie and Claire onscreen.


Delightful photo via Outlander Life's Twitter feed: