Fat Ladies and Swans Sing

My life as a book reviewer at All About Romance, Booklist, and The Romance Reviews has come to an end. 

I pulled the plug a couple of weeks ago when it suddenly occurred to me that if I was going to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a published author, I needed to stop reading so much and start writing.

I'm sure to most people this sounds like common sense, but obviously I had to come to this astounding conclusion the long, painful way.

Truth be known, Dreamspinner Press can take a little credit for my decision.  I signed a contract with them for my novella, "What's in a Name?," to be published right after the first of the year.  It seemed like a conflict of interest that I was reviewing some of their books after signing the contract.

So after kicking the review habit and vowing to work on my fiction writing career, I also contacted my former colleague and friend Shawn Hansen and will be getting together with her in the near future to see what she has to offer as far as promotion is concerned, not only for the novella, but also for the first book in the Vampire's Food Chain series.

But what about the Swan Song, you ask.

A core collection list of gay and lesbian romance novels has gone public in the September 15, 2014, issue of Booklist.  I suggested running a list of "must have" books to editor Donna Seaman earlier this year, and she took my list of 15 proposed titles, whittled it down, added lesbian romances, and voila! a list was born.

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.

Another Stellar Performance

Shira Anthony's Encore is the latest in her musically inspired gay romances, and a bravura performance it is too.  Her novels make me want to attend the symphony and wallow in the music for hours.

Encore, however, is more than a melodic gay romance, but Anthony's given it even more operatic overtones than the others in her Blue Note series.  The lives of John and Roger encompass the highs and lows found in many Italian operas.  I happily recommend it to anyone who says that romances are all the same.

On another note, I was surprised that another TRR reviewer was working on the same book for review.  I haven't had this happen before without an editor telling me it was occurring.  I'm not sure I like this idea, so we'll have to see if it happens again.  Just goes to show, however, that no matter how long I'm working in a business, there's always a question I don't ask before I accept a job.