Sunday Soup - May 17

In The Soup This Week... conference news, musing about cross-posting reviews, Karina Cooper, and maybe I'm in a rut?

Soup Dish:  on my mind this week
✽As expected, I spent the week enviously stalking the #RT15 hashtag. Along with the all of the fun pics of romance lovers boozing it up, reuniting with friends, goofing with cover models and posing against sexy wall cling pics, I saw this tweet and I can't stop thinking about it:

Pam Jaffee (spelled wrong in the tweet) heads up the amazing publicity team that runs the Avon Addicts, the program I've been privileged to participate in for three years now. I've met her at the two RT cons I've attended and I doubt there is a savvier person in the entire "Big 5" romance publishing world.

That's a scary thought.  Change someone's career?  Note that she doesn't specify whether the change would be for better or worse. I tried cross-posting my reviews for awhile, but many of Amazon's policies about reviews (like stripping out the link to my blog) annoyed me.  Perhaps I'm being too selfish though.  I'm giving some serious thought to this.  Those of you that blog reviews more religiously than I -- do you cross-post? what do you think?

✽I am planning to go to Casey's Reading Until Dawn conference in October, but I need to get going on all the things I agreed to do! I can't believe we're in the second half of May already.  WHAT.

✽Oh, oh! guess what I found out about?  the Historical Romance Retreat conference for 2016.  This one is drive-able for me, the list of attending authors is STUNNING, and I adore Delilah Marvelle, so this is on my DO WANT list also!

✽And while we're talking about conferences, next year's RT will be in Vegas, which seems to be a bit of a polarizer, and RT17 is rumored to be in Atlanta.  I might break my every-other-year rule, because Atlanta seems cool. Well, not literally, it's not called Hotlanta for nothin'. But you know what I mean. I might be in the market for a roommate in Vegas, so if you're going too, maybe hit me up in August or September.


What I'm reading

✽Currently finishing up Engraved, by Karina Cooper.  It's the second to last in this steampunk/alt history/urban fantasy series, and so so interesting.  I love the world and the main character.  I'll be honest though, I'm finding this book a little slow-going.  It might be because I'm coming down with a delightful spring headcold, but it's also a function of the diction, which, in a bit of a nod to nineteenth-century penny-dreadful, is sort of deliberately lurid and ornate. I like it, but (because?) it slows me down.

✽Can you believe that it has taken me this long to give J.D. Robb a try? I picked up the first book, probably as an Amazon freebie, and I can totally see how addictive it will be.  I'm slightly put off by the gruesomeness of the murder though, which is kind of why I don't read murder mysteries in the first place.  With 30-some books, I need to watch my budget so I need to work out some kinks in my e-library account at the moment before I go glomming on this one.

✽I guess it's been a bit of a slow week in books because I can't think what else I've got.  A few things I'm looking forward to in the next months:

• Beyond Innocence, by Kit Rocha. God, I love this series.
• Shards of Hope, by Nalini Singh. Soooooooooon, my pretty.  Sooooooon.
• Taking the Heat, by Victoria Dahl. Buzz on this one is seriously hot. Why on earth isn't there a buy link yet??
• The Legend of Lyon Redmond, by Julie Ann Long. I guess this is fairly predictable of me.
• The Bourbon Kings, by JR Ward. Also predictable. 

Maybe I need some new authors in my rotation.  Who's new that you love?

Outlander Watch... Och. I canna wait for Jamie and Claire onscreen.
So I missed an episode due to some traveling, and haven't caught up yet, and I'm kind of afraid to watch the finale. What's wrong me me??!

Sunday Soup - February 22

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...
✽I'm getting all revved about RT14! I confess, I've been stalking the hashtag a bit.  Are you a Karina Cooper fan? I thought I had reviewed her ... but I guess that's another one that never made it out of the "thinking about" stage and onto the actual blog.  Anyway, if you're going to RT, check out the plan Ms. Cooper is hatching, if for no other reason than that she always has the most FABULOUS boots.  And either way, if you haven't sampled her St. Croix series, you really should. Creepy and dark; it really brings the horror element.

✽A friend posted this article about women's voices and it's kind of amazing.  [Ironically] I can't really articulate my response to it, but it has me thinking thinking thinking.

✽Adventures in Reading! I had lunch at Panera the other day, with my book of course, and I kept sort of eavesdropping on these two women sitting near me.  I can hardly be blamed though, because they kept dropping tantalizing words like "genre" and "literary" and "urban fantasy" and I couldn't quite catch what they were actually talking about, but it was clearly a business conversation.  Finally I couldn't stand it any more and butted in. We talked books and genre and social media for at least half an hour before I had to run and tend to the rest of my real life schedule. In the process, I learned about Curiosity Quills, a very cool new(ish) publishing house. It's always a great day when I can nerd out with someone new!


What I'm reading
✽I finished the Alexa Egan title I mentioned last week.  I think I liked the second one a little bit better, but it's definitely a series I'll stick with.

✽Blazed through Thea Harrison's Lord's Fall.  I know, I'm way behind.  I've already started Kinked.  I love this stuff.  I'm probably due for a contemporary pretty soon though; I'm thinking probably something from Victoria Dahl.

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

✽Interview with Ron Moore; nice chunk of discussion about adapting the book to film.

One of the very first notes that [Starz CEO] Chris Albrecht told me was to trust the book. He said, "We love the book. Make the show for the fans of the book and believe that anyone who doesn't know this material, when they see it, they'll be swept into the story like everyone else is.

What a great thing to hear!

✽Ron Moore and Sam Heughan in kilts.  Although I searched diligently, out of the generosity of my heart for you, my readers, all for you... the photographic evidence is sadly minimal AND owned by Getty Images, so you'll need to click through for a look.