I Laughed So Hard I Cried

I love reading review books and galleys on my Kindle and often do at night before I go to sleep.  Often my husband falls asleep before I turn off my Kindle, so those times, I try to be quiet which is facilitated by the Kindle's noiseless page turning.

But when I read Spark by Posy Roberts, I couldn't contain my laughter at various places throughout the story, places I'm not sure Roberts was going for humor.  One particularly funny spot, which you can read about in my review at AAR, caused me not only to shake the bed but to wake my sleepy husband and read the pages to him.

While he didn't find them as funny as I did since he had no context and was admittedly sleeping before being awakened, I was still laughing about this particular passage the next morning.

I'm fairly sure that Roberts didn't mean the passage to be so funny since the men were supposedly overcome by lust and hurrying home to have sex.  But I guess in the end I can use this passage as an example, when readers accuse gay romance of being wall-to-wall sex, that the couple in all gay romances are rushing to have sex.

(Oh, yes, what's that thing on the cover?  Is it a sleeping bag snail?  Uninstalled insulation?  And what significance does it have to anything in the book?  I have no idea.)

Sabotaged by its Cover

Even having worked for a publisher at one time, I'm still flummoxed by how editors and art directors can undermine their own products by using completely subversive covers.  My review of Deirdre Martin's Hip Check running on the front page of AAR today gets into this problem a little bit.

I mean, look at the cutie with the hockey jersey used as a dress.  She's having a lot of fun, right?  And then there's the veteran hockey player, not a scar visible, who's holding his stick like he's a cut-out.  Sparks are flying, and everything's cool.  (Okay, bad hockey jokes.)

But the book itself?  Martin's story?  Well, that has to do with the death of the happy-go-lucky cover guy's sister.  He's become the single-parent uncle of his niece.  And the woman on the cover?  The no-nonsense nanny. 

Now take a look at the cover again.

Do you see the still grieving Finn?  The playboy turned responsible adult superstar hockey player?  No?  Me either.

How about the responsibility-laden former teacher turned nanny?  The woman who's concerned with a grief-stricken child?  Yeah, I'm missing her too.

So if you're a reader who's looking for a light, fun read, how cheated would you feel picking up this book and getting a story that, while really good, subverts your mood?  Would you venture into Deirdre Martin territory again?  Or would you be very wary?

So true!

Take heart, book lovers!

Mysterious Sculpture Left at Library

I interrupt this log of books I'm reading for review to add a little whimsy.  Someone in one of my online art groups included a link to a blog which tells of a mysterious sculpture left in an Edinburgh library.  Great stuff!  As someone who makes miniatures as well as reviews books and has a library degree, I now have something to aspire to doing.  I think every library should have mysterious sculpture left in it!