A Reading from Short Order at the Lavender Library

Want to hear a snippet of me reading from the 8th Foothills Pride book, Short Order?

Well, click on this link to see me at the Lavender Library on Friday, December 8.

Here are the links to the other authors reading their work at the event:

Baz: https://www.facebook.com/groups/queeromanceink/permalink/1782136105412974/

Davin: https://www.facebook.com/groups/queeromanceink/permalink/1782142645412320/

Liz: https://www.facebook.com/groups/queeromanceink/permalink/1782176788742239/

Scott: https://www.facebook.com/groups/queeromanceink/permalink/1782176848742233/

Amy: https://www.facebook.com/groups/queeromanceink/permalink/1782176935408891/

Is Dyslexia a Deal Breaker?

As a lifelong voracious reader, I was intrigued by the premise of Z. A. Maxfield's Eddie: Grime Doesn't Pay.  Eddie, a dyslexic whose adapted to his inability to read quickly by using a number of electronic gadgets, falls for Andrew, a teacher whose father was a bookseller and who has shelves of books in his house.

I know that if my husband wasn't a reader (and writer) we would have never gotten married.  Being with someone who doesn't read would have driven me crazy.  Since I worked in libraries and newspaper offices, the chances of my falling for someone who wasn't a reader weren't large.  So I was curious to see if Maxfield could convince me that Eddie and Andrew might make it as a couple.

Fortunately, she did, and it was easy to give the book an "A" rating at All About Romance.  I think the thing that tipped the balance was that Eddie wasn't against reading, but knew there were many things he needed to read, like menus in restaurants for example, and found ways to work with his inability to decipher them.

As I read the book, I realized it wasn't someone with dyslexia that I couldn't have lived with, but someone who hid himself because of his inability to read well and who refused to find ways around his inability.

The Strong Silent Type -- Yippee!

After suffering through Emma Lang's Matthew, I'm not sure why I picked Brody to review.  But I'm sure glad I did!

Brody would be a real trial for any woman since he doesn't speak much and when he does he's pretty much barking orders that he expects to be obeyed immediately.  Getting him to treat a woman better than a dog would be a challenge.

Fortunately, tough as nails Olivia is up to the task.  She has none of the girly wiles that Brody has seen used over and over again.  Olivia will never want a piano in her parlour unless she plays the piano and enjoys it.  She will never ask Brody to do something impossible to prove that he loves her.  She's practical and down-to-earth, just what's needed in the Wild West.

Reading how these two get together was a joy that I'm really happy to pass along in my AAR review today.  I just hope the rest of Emma Lang's books live up to this one.

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?