Leap Soup - February 29

In The Soup This Week... Kit Rocha, Samhain, and bookish apps!

Soup Dish:  on my mind
✽Sad to hear that Samhain is closing. They played a huge role in breaking open erotic romance into the thriving genre it is now. I believe the announcement went out via email, but the email was posted online. Class act for sure. Be sure to check with your favorite Samhain authors over coming months for updates about their titles.

✽There's a bit of a buzz going on about Litsy, a new social/reading app for tracking and sharing books and reactions, or in their menu terms, Quotes, Blurbs, and Reviews. I recently switched from an iPhone to Android, so I won't be an early adopter. To paraphrase the zen parable, could be a good thing, could be a bad thing. It doesn't have a web client so it probably wouldn't get a lot of lift with me anyway. I love my mobile apps, but for lots of typing, I want my a real keyboard.

✽Speaking of apps, I was poking around book blogs, as one does, and stumbled over an amazing-looking plug-in for formatting book blog posts. Like everyone who's been on the Blogger platform for awhile, I thinking about migrating to WP every now and then.  This could be an incentive!

What I'm reading  --Kind of a light week.

✽I dived right into the latest Kit Rocha, but I resisted the impulse to speed through it.  It's really an amazing speculative world to visit, but it's the emotional wringer that forces me to set it down here and there, just to catch my breath. It's killer. When you get this far along in a series, sometimes things get to feeling a little stale but the Sectors just get better and better.

✽I dabbled around a little bit with some samples but I didn't find anything that hooked me. I did read a sort of hilarious erotic scene that was basically an X-rated version of "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie." I'll leave the details to your imagination.

✽Lastly, I had a 3rd-party review book that consumed a bit of my time.

Overall, not a bad week but didn't get through a whole lot of titles.
 

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 - August 16

Sunday Soup is... Summer activities, a contemporary hit-list, and a dash of Outlander debrief.

Soup Dish:  on my mind this week...
✽Last Sunday's Soup was pre-empted by a very hot, very dusty day at the local Renaissance festival.  Although we don't go all out with costume and accessories and fake accents, as a family we make it a point to go every year, have a bottle of sarsaparilla soda, buy a trinket or two, and watch the spectacles.

✽I've also been doing a bit of handyman stuff around our house this summer-- painting rooms and installing dimmer switches and new outlets.  Stuff like that.  I'm feeling very pleased with myself, but the blog has been part of the time tradeoff there.

✽I've also been in the midst of changing some things up personally, nothing bad, but it's had me unsettled and distracted.  All of which is not to be defensive about not posting more, but just chatting about what I've been doing instead.


What I'm reading
There is a lot to catch up on, given my negligent posting, but I think the theme for this week's reading is FABULOUS CONTEMPS! Some really good stuff here:
 
✽Currently in the middle of Skinny Dipping, from Connie Brockway's backlist.  So funny. I wish she had done (or would do) more contemporaries.

✽If I Stay, by Tamara Morgan. I got this one from Carina Press at RT.  I think I saw a mention of the author on Twitter, and that was enough to tip me into trying out the title, and I'm really glad I did.  I'm always interested in finding new contemporary authors, and I really loved this one.  The style reminds me a little bit of Kristan Higgins, without the dogs.  I'll absolutely be reading more from Morgan.

✽When I heard Victoria Dahl's latest Jackson Hole title, Looking for Trouble, was out, I hit it like it owed me money (or something like that.)  Dahl's contemporaries are getting hotter and hotter and this one scorches.  I love how she takes a near-fantasy encounter for both of them and pushes it into a Happily Ever After.

✽I picked up Beauty from Pain by Georgia Cates, based entirely on the title (make of that what you will).  Well, that and the freebie pricing, I suppose.  It turned out to be not quite what I expected.  Overall I didn't love it, but it had some good moments.  It had a cliff-hanger ending which annoyed me, a la 50SoG, and I probably won't pick up the follow-up.

In non-contemp reading...

✽The Sekhmet Bed, by L.M. Ironside. I picked this up because a friend of mine knows the author, and told me, "she writes your kind of books."  I was sort of expecting a romance, which this wasn't, exactly, but I did like it quite a lot.  There are three more books in the series, but this one chronicles the marriage and rise to power of a particular Pharoah's wife.  I am not at all an expert on Egyptology, but the author writes convincingly of everyday life in 1500 BC Egypt. 

✽ Beyond Addiction. Kit Rocha delivers again.  I can't say enough good things about this series.  If I gave ratings, I'd give the whole series six out of five stars.

Outlander Watch... Och. Jamie and Claire onscreen-- it's here, it's here!!
Would you laugh at me if I told you that part of my home-improvement spate this summer is about getting the TV room into a condition that I can stand, so that I could watch this show?  Well, go ahead and laugh. ;-)

I've fixed up the lighting, cleaned up a mess of accumulated junk, done a long-overdue update/swap of our cable boxes, added a console table behind the sofa (because the configuration of the room doesn't really allow for a coffee table, and bought a rug. We have a wire storage shelf in the room with a collection of things with no better home, and I very cleverly attached a pretty shower curtain all around the edges with S-hooks.  It sort of looks like we have a shower stall in the corner of the room now, but at least the junk is hidden.  Also I stole the matching ottoman back out of my husband's office. Next up, is a good scrub of the floor, adding in the rug pad (it arrived 4 days after the rug), and putting up some art on the wall.

I'm finding that I don't really need to dissect and analyze and share about watching this show.  I'm enjoying it tremendously.  I'm glad I re-read the book last month and I think the casting and the chemistry is amazing.  I don't want to dissect it and nitpick it. I don't want to argue with people who aren't enjoying it; I'm sure there are faults to be found, but DON'T CARE. I'm not interested in rational, measured discussion and really, I'm not particularly interested in OMG SQUEEEE DON'T YOU LOVE IT TOO!?

So if you've been wondering what I think of the show, now you know.  And you know where I'll be at 9:00 pm on Saturdays for the next few weeks.

Sunday Soup - March 30 edition

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...
✽The most interesting discussion I've been involved in recently, I came to late by way of Pamela's excellent post, which includes all the good links leading up to it by Sunita and Janet and Laura and others.. I often feel kind of at sea in these discussions, as a non-academic and a non-publishing-pro.  Perhaps I just lack the power of conviction, but watching so many people make declarative statements about How Things Are, and what Can and Can't happen These Days is always a bit bemusing.  To me, there are a thousand different ways to be a blogger, and a thousand different ways to be an author, and a thousand different other ways to be involved with the romance genre. Do what works. If it stops working, you can stop doing it.  The beautiful thing about people doing stuff on the internet that you don't like, is that you don't have to be a consumer of it.  Vote with your feet.  Or your clicks, if you will.

Though one result of this rich discussion is that it is making me want to get out of my feedreader more and participate in the discussions.  Like in the Old Days. 

What I'm reading
It's been a busy couple of weeks around here; either I haven't been reading very much or I can't remember what I've read... I don't know which is worse!

✽Vixen in Velvet, by Loretta Chase. (eARC provided by HarperCollins Avon.) All I'm going to say right now is, if you are a person who preorders-- go ahead and do that.

✽Between the Devil and Ian Eversea, by Julie Ann Long. The latest in the Pennyroyal Green series, and an absolute winner. Sharp and sweet. Also, one of my favorite titles ever-- doesn't it just make you smile?

✽Beyond Jealousy, by Kit Rocha. I completely love this post-apocalyptic world. As always, the erotica is hot hot hot, but the world-building is deepening too. I like how the series arc is building up.

✽Too Hot to Handle, by Victoria Dahl. One of my favorite contemporary authors. I'm not very far along, but it's fun so far.

✽Here's one of those exceptions to my new "no review copy" policy: I have Nalini Singh's Shield of Winter in my hands right now and brrrrrrr, IT IS SO GOOD. Soooooooooo good.

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

✽I'm a long ways from being the most obsessed fan of Outlander out there, but I've subscribed to the Starz newsletter, and follow a number of folks on Twitter who are involved with the project, and keep up in several ways. Out on the internet, there are a fair number of shirtless Jamie photos, beautiful images of the Scottish countryside and the castles involved in shooting, but somehow this is the most haunting image I've seen lately.  Outlander is about modern sensibilities crashing into historical ones, and while this is a different modernity than the book and neither Jamie nor Clare is in it, it is wholly in the spirit of the book on several levels:

Courtesy of writer/producer Matt Roberts' Twitter feed.

Thursday Thirteen, Edition 32: The #RT14 Countdown!

You guys, I'm getting so excited about the RT Booklovers' Convention!  It's in New Orleans, which is one of the absolute best US cities to have a party in.  I've been counting days since October when I registered (47 to go) -- I have plane tickets, my seats reserved, my room reservation... what else do I need to do?

1. Get new Moo cards made
2. Hem up the sparkly dress for Mardi Gras World Carnivale party
3. Figure out shoes for same
4. Buy an O'Kane For Life tee-shirt
5. Book a discounted shuttle trip from/to the airport
6. Follow up on a blogger swag idea
7. Get a haircut
8. Make up my list of authors to stalk, er, um, I mean, authors I'd like to try to meet (I'm harmless, honest.) Schedule some meetups.
9. Follow Jackie's "Look Who's Going to RT" feature religiously
10. Start following the bloggers who are headed to the book blogger con one day ahead
11. Break in the new shoes I bought
12. Remember to pack the anthology that I want to have signed
13. Read something from each of the 700 authors that are attending.... uh oh.

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Find more Thirteeners at Thursday-13. Participants are welcome and encouraged to leave links in comments.

Sunday Soup - February 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...
✽Although I don't really consider myself a writer, I have squeezed myself into a corner of the world of writing and publishing, and have read a lot of essays by writers, about writing. None have moved me quite as much as this from Kelly Gregory.

✽Given that my specific corner of this writing and publishing world is particularly focused on women's fiction, it shouldn't be surprising that I find myself following conversations about women's issues, about women in media, and diversity in general. It's too bad that a project like this is needed, but on the other hand, really great that it exists: 44 Stock Photos That Hope To Change The Way We Look At Women.

✽Arranging Your Books by Color Is Not a Moral Failure: an article that caught my eye and took me on a fun little link-hop through half a dozen articles on the topic proper, as well as a side trip about what the physical aspects of a book bring to the literary experience. The implications of this question and the range of answers of course, is undergoing a massive change with the advent of ebooks, but I was not really aware of the debates that have gone before - the Slate article, What Will Become of the Paper Book was a fascinating glimpse into that topic.  I'm a bad bibliophile because I never knew any of that before.

In the Observer article The Taming of the Hue: Ailing Hardcovers Find a Fashion-Fun Niche, one designer says:

“I have too much respect for books,” said interior designer and author of Fifth Avenue Style Howard Slatkin. “There is nothing that gives a house more warmth and personality. But when people take books and arrange them by color or stack them and put objects on top and treat them as mere decoration, I find it offensive.”

I can't say I find it actually offensive... but I might judge you a bit. I might assume that your books are a pretense and you might actually have no idea what their titles or contents are. And I might be wrong! but that is the impression that I might get, particularly if I didn't know you much before I was introduced to your rainbow bookshelf. I just think it reduces a book to its-- very, extremely-- most superficial aspect.

The Paris Book Review is a fun read on books as decor in upscale mens' clothing stores.

Apartment Therapy raises one good point:

For the visual thinkers out there, organizing their books by color might just be the easiest way to find what they're looking for. You might not remember who wrote that great novel you read last summer, but the bright blue cover could easily stick in your mind.

But then reveals the true motivation:

Admit it: it looks good.  The whole point of this look is to make a visual impact with your books; to make art out of everyday items.

which I have to admit, I judge. I don't think it constitutes good art to reduce a literary work to the color of its jacket.

Now this notion, When Books Become Art Objects, is a whole different idea.  To have the physicality of the book enhance the theme or emotion of the book... that I can get behind. I don't see this as the same thing at all though -- it's the very opposite of going to Half Price Books and buying classics by the yard.

At any rate, thanks to  Mary Beth Williams for sending me down this little jaunt via her twitter feed.

What I'm reading
✽In the middle of Alexa Egan's Demon Curse. This is the first book of the Imnada series.  I managed to read the second one first but either way, I'm enjoying the series.  Really creative and dark mythology.

✽I finished Lexi Blake's "The Dom Who Loved Me" -- her offering in a 6-book set that I picked up a little while ago. I did get all the way through it but I can't recommend it. I find her narrative choppy and "telling" rather than "showing."

✽Sped through Kit Rocha's novella Beyond Temptation. I love this world. There were a few places where I really wanted a bit more characterization for Noah, but it is the nature of a wonderful novella to wish there was more of it. I'm a fan, what can I say.

Outlander Watch... Och. I canna wait for Jamie and Claire onscreen.
✽A delightful analysis from USA Today's Heroes and Heartbreakers column on why exactly, Outlander is so compelling.

✽The photo of the week was posted by Starz as a Valentine's gift to fans. THANK YOU STARZ.

Sunday Soup - January 26

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...
✽The most interesting articles I saw this week were again on the topic of niceness in reviews.  I think about this a lot. In What Do We Even Want From Book Reviews Anymore?  Jason Diamond makes a compelling argument against "niceness:"

Amid all the discussion about what critics should or shouldn’t do, it’s rare to hear any substantive debate over what criticism actually is — and, specifically, what function it currently serves for readers. There are plenty of talented book critics whose work we should be talking about, many of whose jobs are in constant peril, yet we seem more interested in arguing about what tone or approach the profession as a whole should take than these writers’ specific reviews and the books considered within them. This is what’s so troubling about the level of abstractness with which we approach book criticism these days. Not only is it weakening the already shaky position of the book review, but it’s making us forget why the form is so important in the first place.

And I think he has some good points. I would far rather hear about a specific post that made well- or poorly- supported comments about a book, than generalized complaining about "online tone."  He references this Slate article, which strikes me as a bit more whiny about the good old days, but makes the point:

Reviewers shouldn't be recommendation machines, yet we have settled for that role, in part because the solicitous communalism of Twitter encourages it. Our virtue over the algorithms of Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and the amateurism (some of it quite good and useful) of sites like GoodReads, is that we are professionals with shaded, informed opinions. We are paid to be skeptical, even pugilistic, so that our enthusiasms count for more when they’re well earned.

Which I agree with, but I am mostly happy to cede that responsibility to professional critics and stay mainly in the role of recommending stuff I love. Tackling hard questions and fixing problems is something I do in my professional life, but I am not obligated to take that on for a hobby I love.  I will say that I would be sorry to see the role of a professional critic go the way of the buggy whip. It's a brave new world in publishing and it's disrupting so many elements-- I hope the professional critic makes it through to the other side.

✽This review of Why I Read, by Wendy Lesser, is reviewing a book which is about how to read books, so it's a bit recursive in nature. I found the quotes from the book intriguing and enticing and they made me want to read it.  The swooning editorialization about the book was everything that Jason Diamond and Jacob Silverman bemoan, including the supercilious quote:

Lesser has nothing to say about social media, because for the true bibliophile there’s nothing to say about social media.

Pretty much all the quotes made me want to read the book, and all the original material in the article made me want to slap the writer of the article.

✽Loved this post from Kaetrin on the default characters in our heads, and what it takes for an author to put their own character there.

✽I saw a tweet linking to this article, filled with righteous outrage, and followed it to the source.  To be honest I don't really understand all the outrage. C S Lakin (a pseudonym) discusses how she analyzed the construction and marketing of a niche genre e-book.  And seems to have met with pretty good success.  I didn't see condescension or lack of respect-- but maybe it's distressing to hear about an author who can succeed at writing a genre that she herself doesn't love?  Interestingly (to me, anyway), Lakin doesn't seem to understand that the key to her success is more about how she managed the keywords and the Amazon positioning than how she wrote the book.  I read a page or two from the preview and wasn't particularly impressed (it sounded a lot like my own attempt to write an historical romance, and you'll just have to take my word for it that that is NOT a compliment). Seems to me that there is good stuff to learn there, and if you don't like the "attitude" of the writer, then you don't have to take on the attitude to see what she's done to succeed in marketing.  I think it might be interesting to read the book, and then read the Catherine Anderson title that she says she used to analyze the structure... but I'm not sure I can be bothered; it's two genres I don't love (sweet and western) in one package. 

What I'm reading

✽Blazed through Kresley Cole's MacRieve this week. I thought the plot twists were a little bit pat, but the characters made up for it, for me. I wouldn't say it's my favorite title in the series, but a solid addition.

✽See, writing stuff down sometimes helps. I was browsing my stash for something to read, and after my Thursday Thirteen on historicals, I grabbed up a Jennifer Haymore title, Twice Tempted, to nibble on.  First in a series! Identical twin, lost at sea! But, no body found, so we know what that means, right soap opera fans? Am I right? Pretty sure I'm right.

✽And then sometimes I'm just in the mood for something a little grittier, so I'm also reading Beyond Pain, by Kit Rocha. Hot damn, I love this series.


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

✽Nice article with the latest gossip and the second version of the official series trailer, with a bit more of Jamie and Claire together.

Jamie pic of the week:

Sunday Soup - November 10

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...

✽To be honest, this week's kerfuffle about what authors are allowed to say and what reviewers are allowed to say just makes me go:

I feel like the same thing just gets re-hashed over and over again, and the line is not clear and never will be. If people criticize you or your work, take from it what you find useful and move along. Honest reactions should be respected.  Personal attacks are best ignored, IMO, but if you must respond, I would suggest limiting your response to ONE interaction, along the lines of "I saw what you wrote and felt it was uncalled for. I welcome honest critique of my work, but your attack on [ ] was out of line."  Then mute, block, ignore, step away.  Because if you're going to fling shit, no matter how much your target deserves it, you're going to end up smelling bad too.

Notice that I have suggestions, not prescriptions, for what Everyone Should Do, because everyone has a different tolerance for debate, flames, and what I would term negativity. Also, I have been at this internet thing long enough to know that my odds of changing anyone's behavior is vanishingly small, and I prefer not to waste my energy.

✽On a related note, if we could agree on a book bloggers' motto, what would it be?  Something short and pithy... I rather like: "I read, therefore I blog."  I was trying to get some kind of play on "veni, vedi, vici" with something like "I read, I opined, I blogged," but I don't think I can get that to work. :D  What do you think? do you have a motto?

✽Amazon has floated an offer to independent bookstores to carry Kindles. Reaction has been mixed:

• Melville Publishing House reports
• International Business Times.
• Publishers Weekly
• And my favorite, McNally Jackson's very succinct response.

OK, no, it hasn't been mixed at all. 

✽New to me: Bloggers Recommend - a bit more litfic/generalized that works for me, but if you're looking for a small number of standout titles, it looks like a good blog to check out.

What I'm reading
✽I was in the mood for a contemporary, so I picked up Kristan Higgins' The Next Best Thing, which fit the bill perfectly.  Light and sweet, Higgins ramps up the poignancy with a story of a young widow falling for her deceased husband's brother.

✽I hit the bookstore last week, as I imagine most of us did, with so many big names releasing the same week.  It's boggling really.  Have a look at Jackie's roundup, if you don't believe me. The new acquisition that has me hiding from my children this week is Devon Monk's Hell Bent, a new series spun off from her popular (and beloved by me, anyway) Allie Beckstrom series.  It truly is a different series though, as the Allie Beckstrom climactic ending broke up and changed all the magical rules.  A few years later, one of my favorite characters becomes the focal point for the subsequent fallout and realignment of power structures.  I'm about halfway through and loving it. I also came home with Thea Harrison's last two full length Elder Races books, which I'm just so behind on but adore.

✽On the electronic front, I had pre-ordered Nora Roberts' Dark Witch, and ordered a Laura Kinsale title (Prince of Midnight) that I somehow missed in my original Kinsale binge. Many of her titles are being released in electronic and e-format, so now is a good time to re-read or catch up. Shout out to Blithely Bookish for her review last September that I finally dug out of my feed reader. I also nabbed Driven by Eve Silver - it was on a discount price and I've been on a post-apocolyptic kick recently thanks to Joss Ware and Kit Rocha.


On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?

I've decided I need to watch my calories a bit closer, so I have to strategize a bit with my beer consumption. So for Friday's happy hour, I decided to go with a stout, which is heavy enough to slow down my drinking. Young's Double Chocolate Stout was just the ticket - it's rich and sweet; it's basically an alcoholic brownie in a glass.