I Want to Go THERE!

I wrote a blog piece that's posted today on All About Romance about some of the imaginary places I've always wanted to visit.  You know those places, the places where those lucky protagonists get to shop or hang out.

Many of them are historic houses in Great Britain, but more of them are scattered around the world.  There's a café in Paris that's featured in one of Shira Anthony's books and the bar in Virgin River in Robin Carr's books.

But the book that got me thinking about all of this lately is the wonderful, marvelous second-hand Cabbages and Kinks in Josephine Myles' latest, Stuff.  I reviewed the book for AAR and then subsequently wrote the blog piece.

Not only is the name of the place absolutely charming--and wouldn't Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson be pleased to have such an establishment named such?--but Myles' descriptions of the shop's contents and her character Mas' imaginative arranging of them is sublime.

It's the kind of shop I would want to visit with my art group and love to hear their comments about the various bits and pieces in it.

I can't decide what my favorite item would be, but I do know that I'd buy one of Perry's sculptures to add to my art collection.  I'd come back time and again to see what else he'd created too.

If you have a favorite imaginary place where you'd like to visit, I'd love to hear about it.

Buried Treasure -- Aaarrrrggghh!

One of my favorite yearly AAR features is the Buried Treasure recap that features the books and/or authors the reviewers think are wonderful but haven't had the press acclaim they need to bring them to the eyes of romance readers.

This year's group, like those mentioned every year, appears to be a motley collection of titles and authors.  The difference is that this year includes two M/M titles.  Like book in any of the romance subgenres, there is wonderful as well as mediocre and even awful fiction by talented and not-so-talented writers.

I wish I could have contributed more than just the two titles.  So in the spirit of sharing, here's a list of the A and B books in the M/M genre I've read this year:

A list romances:

The Cranberry Hush: A Novel by Ben Monopoli:  A 2011 book
The Nothingness of Ben by Brad Boney

B list romances:

Aria (Blue Notes) by Shira Anthony
A Better Man by RJ Scott and Jaime Reese
But My Boyfriend Is by K. A. Mitchell
Chase in Shadow by Amy Lane
Chaser by Rick R. Reed
The Coil by L. A. Gilbert
Coming Home by MJ O'Shea
Dex in Blue by Amy Lane
Drown by Alex Jones
End of the Innocence by John Goode (a compilation of novellas, I think)
Family Unit by Z. A. Maxfield
Good Fight by Andrew Grey
Kamikaze Boys by Jay Bell
Out by JW Kilhey
Papa's Boy by Sue Brown
The Party Boy's Guide to Dating a Geek by Piper Vaughn and Xara X. Xanakas
Second Hand: A Tucker Springs Novel by Marie Sexton and Heidi Cullinan
Shane and Trey by Auyta Sunday
Something Like Winter by Jay Bell
Tigerland by Sean Kennedy
Ty's Obsession by SJD Peterson
The Way Back by Carter Quinn
When One Door Opens by JD Ruskin

A Small Online Rant

If I'd written this to a newspaper and it had printed it, my AAR blog piece, A Slow Books Addendum, would be called an opinion piece.  When I worked as an editor at the Houston Chronicle and edited the op-ed page, I thought of the people who wrote in as the crazies.  They wrote impassioned pieces about sewers and transportation and what I considered everyday minutia.  Now, as Pogo would say, I are one of them.

But I truly am incensed that a person or group of people can decide what's good and right for the rest of us to read.  It was bad enough when the Literary Canon was compiled by old white guys, but even worse when feminists got involved and decided to be as didactic as their male counterparts.

Where's the new day, new millennium when children are allowed to read what speaks to them?  When we aren't told what's "good" for us and what's "bad" but are allowed to figure that out for ourselves?  So what if I don't pick something you think I should love?  We're both reading.  And thinking.  And that's really the point, isn't it?

Cupcake Crazy



Cupcake from Cake Wrecks blog

 I read one too many books featuring chefs who opt for making cupcakes as a way of life, so wrote a blog piece for All About Romance about how I don't get it.  As my day has gone from silly to absurd today, I didn't get to the AAR site until a few minutes ago.  Surprisingly, I found quite a few responses to the blog!  Readers are weighing in on the cupcake issue.  Who would have thought?

What's even more amazing is that so many people actually agree with me and don't get the cupcake mania.  Reviewing is such a solitary occupation, just like its other side--writing, that often I think I'm out of the loop.  So it's nice to know I'm snugly inside one loop, at least with AAR readers, that is!

Off on a Tangent

One of the nice things (among many nice things) about reviewing for AAR is the ability to go off on a tangent now and again with the daily blog or the daily After Hours blog.  Today I roll with the lie I used to tell myself about what kind of romances I prefer.

I do read a lot of Western romances, both historical and contemporary, as well as series and contemporary romances.  On my personal Top 100 book list are a smattering of everything as the top 10 books illustrate:

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: classic
2. Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh: Regency
3. The Temporary Wife by Mary Balogh: Regency
4. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: time-travel / fantasy
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: classic
6. Suddenly You by Lisa Kleypas: Regency
7. The More I See You by Lynn Kurland: time-travel / Medieval
8. The Older Woman by Cheryl Reavis: contemporary
9. She's Got It Bad by Sarah Mayberry: contemporary
10. A Reason to Live by Maureen McKade: Post Civil War America

So no one type of romance really rules, which I hadn't realized until I sat down and looked at my list.