Sunday Soup, January 3

In The Soup This Week... Thea Harrison, Alyssa Day, Kristin Higgins, Robin D. Owens, and Aaron Michael Ritchey

Soup Dish:  Happy New Year!
✽I hope everyone out there in RomLandia had a happy and safe holiday, however you choose to celebrate.  Ours was very low-key, just the four of us in my nuclear family. I think my kids are getting pretty bored with low-key though, so next year I might need to plan more.

✽There are so many lists out there! So many. I spent several hours yesterday sifting through "best of" lists, and I don't know about you guys, but I'm a little burned out on lists. I have three goals for 2016 around reading and blogging though:

1. Read twelve non-fiction titles. I am seriously so oppositional about this. I have the hardest time reading non-fiction where there are no emotions and no dialog and, idk, just everything I love about reading is missing from non-fiction. But there are topics that I am interested in and I need to train my brain a little better. I'm too young to stop learning stuff.

2. Burn down my enormous pile of physical books. Not literally. I'm going to try to make a rule for myself to read two physical books from my stash for every new book I acquire, electronically or physically. I just seriously do not have room for what I've got and it's becoming a bit of a problem. I bought Thea Harrison's Shadow's End and read it yesterday, so next up is two physical books. I've had this series for some time, and seems like the right time for it now:

Oh no! I'm missing #2! so I have to buy it, right? Right.

3. Post two real review posts per month. I'm pretty comfy in my mini-review groove with these Sunday Soup posts, and I'm glad that I've been able to talk about the books I've been reading in a way that doesn't feel like work. But I get a good sense of accomplishment from writing a real review too, even though it's a little more effort.

✽As a consolation for not posting a list of lists, here's a great article about a list.  Hmmm. I love spreadsheets; isn't it kind of weird that I don't track my reading that way?  Hmmm.

What I'm reading
December for me is 3 weeks of increasingly frantic activity and then a week of laziness. And by "lazy," I mean, I read a whole bunch.

✽I went on a small Thea Harrison binge this past week, starting with the three novellas in the Dragon Family Album, and then I really really wanted to read Liam Takes Manhattan, but it said in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that I needed to read Shadow's End first, so I ask you, what could I do? I mean, I really had no choice. So I downloaded and read Shadows' End for my New Year's Day read. It was fantastic. Harrison's paranormal highs are so high, and the lows so low. There may have been a few tissues involved in this read. I haven't gotten to Liam yet, but I'm glad I read Shadow's End first.

✽OK, in keeping with my 2:1 goal, since I bought Shadow's End, I picked up a stash book next, which was HeartMate, by Robin D. Owens.  It was OK. I'm not sure I really want to binge on the whole series though. The beginning was a little clunky, but I liked it better by the end. The worldbuilding... some of it was really interesting; I liked her treatment of the Passages (a physically demanding dreamquest sort of experience), but not being a cat lover, I found her talking cats to be not-quite-equal-parts irritating/endearing. I am probably in a minority here, so that might be the thing that other people love the most. I'll give it one more book before I decide about the series as a whole, since I have them already (I bought 4 books for about a dollar at a thrift store awhile back).

✽Before I started on Thea Harrison, I had already pre-ordered Alyssa Day's new shifter novel, Dead Eye, so it showed up for me like a Christmas present. First in a new series, it has wonderful characters, Day's trademark wisecracky irreverent humor, and plenty of paranormal action. Quick, fun read.  Looking forward to the next one, already available for pre-order. I'm going to have to get cracking on my stash books to earn this purchase.

✽I read three paranormals for the March RT edition, and I liked them all quite a lot, but looking for a change of pace, I bought Kristan Higgins If You Only Knew and loved it. Higgins is a bit of a Sure Thing for me, and this was no exception. A little different than most contemporaries, it makes a strong statement about what marriage should be, and reads quite a bit more like traditional "women's fiction" than romance for at least the first half of the book. The romance element is more unsure than usual, more like real life, and the hero is really quite remote. I connected immediately with the characters, which was good because I had to overlook the first-person present tense--a huge turnoff for me.

✽Lastly, I got an ARC from RUDC author Aaron Michael Ritchey that is well out of my usual reading but OH MY GAHD it was an incredible read. I don't want to give much away here as I'll be doing a full review on it but it's kind of like Jules Verne meets Calamity Jane meets Little House on the Prairie and whoa. I loved it a lot.

January Stash Reads: 1
January Bought Reads: 1*
January Non-Fiction Reads: 0

*I'm only counting the Thea Harrison full length here. Everything else I already owned as of 12/31/2015.

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.

All I Ever Wanted, by Kristan Higgins - Review

Again With The Tissues
This book made me laugh out loud, cringe in embarrassment and sympathy for the main character, and yep, made me cry.  Not the first time for this author, I might add. Ms. Higgins is becoming my go-to author for those times when you just need sweet romance with a side of salty tears.

Callie is my favorite Higgins heroine yet.  She's smart, funny, confident, and generally just really good at life -- except when it comes to men.  Even then, she knows that she's "doing it wrong," even when she can't help herself.  Emotion is pesky that way.

This is a story that crackles with fantastic dialog and vivid secondary characters.  At times the secondaries might veer near the edge of caricature, but the important ones are grounded with the kind of telling details that make their relationships with Callie very real, whether they're her sister, her BFF from fourth grade, a scheming co-worker, or the drinking buddies at the bar.

Higgins' heroines have bordered on the farcical in the past, but I felt like this book marked some kind of leap in the author's ability to create a character that was whimsical and quirky but still felt real and not too much like the 80's sitcom wacky neighbor.  For instance, the dogs in this book had some personality and lent some character insight, but there was no 120-lb mastiff in heat careening through the streets with the heroine trailing, wackily, behind [Just One of the Guys].  I mean, it's possible that I just liked this heroine and this book better, but I think there's a developing maturity in Higgins' characters that has me really looking forward to the next one.

The hero is a little out of the ordinary for a modern romance.  All the right bones are there -- wounded past, emotionally distant, sort of anti-social [read: an asshole] at first. The biggest difference - and some reviewers had issues with this -- is that we don't get much time inside his head, so he is pretty distant to the reader, too.

In some ways I like this, because it puts the reader in the same vulnerable space as the heroine, when you don't quite know what's going on with that guy. But it does make him a bit less sympathetic to the reader.  What I liked best about this slightly damaged, slightly angsty hero is that, while the bubbly, friendly heroine does help heal his wounds, his more taciturn nature enables him to see under Callie's facade and gives her a space where she doesn't have to be "on" all the time.  In his words, she "doesn't have to try so hard. Not with me, anyway."  It was a terribly awkward moment for both of them when they have this exchange, but it becomes a real turning point for Callie, and-- besides raw chemistry-- the real reason that he is The One for her.

Around the Blogosphere
Lusty Reader
The Allure of Books
Dear Author
The Book Pushers

Scattered Thoughts

I mentioned earlier that I've had the cold from hell. Seriously, I feel like I've been sick for months, and not just a little sniffly. It's been distracting and tiring and unfortunately the blog is behind kids and job in priorities, and there hasn't been much left over. Fortunately, I'm finally starting to cautiously think that maybe I'm almost better. Almost. I mean, I am much better, but not quite all the way better. You know?

As I look over my last few posts, I keep thinking of things I meant to talk about but forgot while I was actually writing. Rather than go back and do a lot of editing, I thought I'd do a little round up.

Giveaway Deadline
First order of business is my giveaway. I uh, forgot to put a deadline on it. How about, midnight Friday (the Thirteenth!) and I'll announce winners over the weekend. Sound good? OK.

Linkages
I really wanted to get some posts up but I was lazy about linking in the last several posts (as they say in the scrapbooking world, "Done is better than perfect" -- and I got them done!). I've got nothing to Amazon, nothing to the author sites, nuthin' to nowhere. I'll go ahead and add in links to reviews around the blogworld, and as always, if you have also reviewed the book, please feel free to leave your perma-link in comments.

More Thoughts on Demon Forged
Next up, I wanted to go back to the Demon Forged review for a minute. I meant to point out a couple things about Irena's names. So first of all: Irena... Iron... get it? I got it. <grin> . And while I was reading about her talent for metalworking, my mind did wander over for a moment to the Dirk & Steele story about another heroine with a psychic metalworking ability -- Dela Reese, from Tiger Eye. Short snip, pulled from Marjorie Liu's webpage :

Those weapons offered her nothing. She knew quality when she saw it, age and history when she felt it. A simple thing, when one worked with steel as much as she did. When it sang its secrets inside her head.

I had the pleasure of hanging out with Ms. Brook one evening recently, and one of the things we talked about was Liu's writing and worldbuilding, so I know she's a fan. And you know how sometimes rockstars give each other little nods in their songwriting? Like how the line in Hotel California that goes "they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast" is supposed to be a tribute to Steely Dan? Anyhow, it made me wonder if Irena's fake FBI identity -- Irena Steele -- was a little shout-out to Marjorie Liu. It made me smile, anyway, to think it might be.

More Thoughts on Just One of the Guys
You may have noticed that that particular review is a bit of a stylistic departure for me. I asked a couple of friends to look it over for me and tell me if my faux grouchiness was obviously faux or if it just seemed kind of asshole-ish, cuz I can be a little insecure about my attempts at humor (it cracked ME up, but, you know. I can hear my tone in my head, and it's not always a sure thing that you all can, too). Anyhow, I was reassured on that front, but one of them mentioned, um, Nicola? What the hell is the story about?

As a rule I don't spend a lot of space on synopses, but hell, I didn't even put any links in that one. So here ya go. Jeez--I didn't even get the title quite right. In case you were undecided by my review and would like to know more about the book in my own personal words, this is what I told her:

The protagonist is a woman with 3 older brothers, plus a foster brother. Her dad and all the boys are firefighters. She also rows, faints at the sight of blood, has a huge lazy part bloodhound mutt (I don't know whytf there's a beagle on the cover) and works at their local hometown newspaper.

She's had a longtime crush on the foster brother but neither of them think they should act on it.

The secondary romance is about her mom finding someone other than her dad, who is a workaholic and refuses to retire.

I also meant to say but forgot, that the third wheel in the secondary romance? Bowed out with such grace and fineness of character... well. Again with the tissues.

Bringing It Around
Sunday I was at our local grocery store and wanted a magazine to flip through while sipping at my pre-shopping, fortifying latte. And they were having a 3-for-2 sale on paperbacks. AND they had Tessa Dare, whose first book I finally picked up (and loved) so OF COURSE I need the other two. I noticed that a couple of the Guardian books were on the shelf and I was glad to see they were getting shelf space even though I was already caught up. And then I saw Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh and thought the same thing. It took me two more circuits of the paperback section before it dawned on me that THIS IS THE NEW ONE AND I DON'T HAVE IT YET!! D'oh! Scattered thoughts, people, I'm telling you. Anyway, I started it today and hey! I haven't quite figured out what's going on yet, but there's another psychic metalworking thing going on:

Gritting his teeth, he sought out all the metal in the house. The cool kiss of iron and steel brushed his mind, invaded his limbs. It wouldn't last long, not with Katya's slight form resting trustingly against him--but he'd use the calm while he had it...

I don't know what this means! But I'm intrigued. I'm amusing myself with imagining a reality show where these three characters would get together and have some kind of sculpt-off, or forge-off, or something-- like, one big lump of metal and they have a psychic battle to shape it their way. (Welcome to my brain: it's mostly harmless but mind the gaps). And I'm also wondering if any psychic metalworker could ever possibly top Meljean's scene with Irena's statue. O__O

That's It For Now
There's a strong likelihood that shortly after I post this, I'll think of two or three other Very Important Things I meant to share with the internet. For that moment though, I think that's everything. Thanks for bearing with me!

_________________
photo credit goes to Mary Elizabeth Williams. Isn't she awesome?

One of the Guys, by Kristan Higgins - Review

NOT A ROMP.
Ms. Higgins, I have a BONE to pick with you.

You are supposed to be light. You are supposed to be a romp. That's what everyone says: a romp. You are supposed to be sweet and happy and bubbly and frothy.

You know what I got from this book, Ms. Higgins? Soggy kleenex is what.

You made me cry like a little bitch, Ms. Higgins. I'm talking weepy, sniffly, unattractively moist sobs and hiccups. That bittersweet secondary romance? The way you spun out the tension on our poor Heroine, tighter and tighter and tighter until the HEA was in real, true, serious jeopardy? ROMPFAIL.

Hmpph. I do not read romance because I like sobbing into tissues.

And really, it's the rare author who can accomplish that. So, okay, you're an AWESOME author who writes a FANTASTICALLY emotional romance.

Fine. Be that way.

___________
Disclaimer: Purchased at retail.