Day 4

Today, I wrote.

And we're heading out to go see Green Lantern in about 15 minutes. Then we'll grill fresh tuna outside when we get home. (Does tuna live in the Gulf of Mexico? Wondering just how fresh it is...)

Got yelled at at the paper today by somebody on the phone. She called, wanting to know how to get in touch with the people conducting a recall of the city mayor. When I didn't know, because I didn't write the article, she called me stupid. Made me mad. The newspaper isn't recalling the mayor. I personally don't think he ought to be recalled, and when I said that, she said I didn't have a right to have an opinion. Not while I was at the newspaper. Which made me even angrier. Because I'm neither a reporter nor an editor. I'm an editorial assistant.

I put other people's pictures into the computer and correct their crappy grammar. I put letters to the editor in the system, and correct their even worse grammar. I do not change what they're saying, other than fixing the grammar, and I make them sound better and more intelligent than they did to start with. I do not report stories and I certainly do not keep track of all the information that the newspaper prints. Can y'all tell I'm a little incensed, still, at being called stupid? Oh, and then she threatened to report me to the publisher, and I should expect to be called on the carpet. I seriously doubt that will happen, but if it does, I don't much care. Don't get paid enough to put up with abuse.

Okay. End of that rant. I shall calm my ranty self down and get ready to go watch Ryan Reynolds and his six-pack.

Still writing (Day 3)

I did write last night, over 100 words. And I have written already today (at lunch).

See, the way the "100 words" thing works, is--you write at least that much every day, no matter what. And if you write, you get to post. You get to count the day, and add the days together. If you write more, great! But you don't get to brag about how many words you wrote, just that you wrote 100 words.

But if you miss a day, you have to start over on Day 1.

I am on Day 3. I posted to my 100 words loop that I was almost afraid to post, for fear that I would jinx myself. I'm hoping it will work the other way, though--which is why I'm posting here. If I post my writing days on my blog, I will be embarrassed to post that I didn't write anything. Or to ignore it and not post at all. I'm hoping that y'all will keep me honest. Even just the Idea of y'all.

And yeah, mostly, I will probably do just a little post. Or tag something at the end of a larger post about something else. And it's possible (maybe even probable) that I will not get around to actually making a blog every day. If I'm writing late at night, I may be just too tired to come to the blog and post. Or whatever. But I am going to try. Every. Single. Day.

Even weekends.

See me gritting my teeth in determination? Yeah. That.

So...

It's summertime. Summers can go fast, and they can go really, really slow. Sometimes both at the same time. It's like your brain slows down in the heat (and believe me, it can get REALLY hot here), and the world slows down too. And yet, there's more stuff to cram in those slow, leisurely hours. People coming to visit. Going to visit people elsewhere. Etc., etc., etc. It's exhausting. (The picture is my Twitter icon picture--it's from a while back, but the beach is pretty much the beach...)

We have deliberately not filled up our summer. I'm not even going to the RWA national conference this year, though I went every year for a while there. It's so exhausting. This year, we have the Dallas grandboys coming for a week of Seacamp (Texas A&M-Galveston has a fabulous program). This year, we signed them up early enough to get into Pirate week. (Arrrr.) But if their father doesn't get their paperwork back pretty darn quick--I may have to spank him. Or something. Anyway--that's pretty much all we have scheduled.

And I still haven't made it into the water yet. Beach-type water, I mean. The wind's been kicking up pretty strong, which makes the water rough, and dirty. I keep waiting for it to glass out for me.

Oh hey! It RAINED today. This is big news, because it hasn't rained here pretty much since, oh, October. (That one little thunderstorm doesn't count. One rainfall in 8 months? Nope. Doesn't count.) Of course, I left the dog outside, and can't get the boy up to go let her in, and she panics like the princess pitbull she is. So who knows where she is right now. Hopefully, she hasn't eaten another hole in the fence...

Yeah. Boring blogpost today, but I'm trying really hard to get better at this blog posting thing. Not succeeding a whole lot, but I'm trying.

Oh! I started writing something new yesterday. It's been a while since I've actually worked at writing anything, so it's kind of exciting to be interested in doing something new. I'm going to give this 100 words a day thing a try again. I did get 100 words yesterday. I'll have to report back today.

Y'all take care, and I hope you're having exactly the kind of summer you want.

TBR Challenge: Hellbent & Heartfirst

The Book: Hellbent & Heartfirst by Kassandra Sims

The Particulars: Tor Paranormal Romance, mm paperback, 2008, Out of print, I think; not available digitally.

Why was it in my TBR pile? I picked it up at some RWA conference or other...where was the conference in '08? I don't remember. Nor do I really know why I haven't read it yet...

The Review: Okay, so when Wendy the SuperLibrarian (Really. She's RWA's Librarian of the Year.) mentioned on her blog earlier that this Wednesday (today) was the TBR Challenge day, and I realized that, not only have I not read anything from my TBR mountain, I hadn't read much of anything at all this month, I wandered over to my bookcase with its two shelves of TBRs (I have others stashed elsewhere.) and perused the contents. And that's a long-ass sentence. Anyway, this was the book I plucked therefrom, because I've already read pretty much all the short, easy, series contemporary romance novels on it, and I hadn't actually looked to see what the suggested read was for this month.

And I pretty much read it yesterday. I started about 3:30 p.m. when I went home to wait for the plumbers, and finished it this morning. I enjoyed it, a lot. And I think there will be spoilers in this review.

So--the heroine is a college professor who's gone home to the Biloxi area after Katrina to recover from her divorce and aimlessness by helping others, or something of the sort. She meets a guy at a bar--he's younger, drop-dead gorgeous and out of her league, but he seems somehow attracted to her. She's trying to help reunite people with their missing children, and there's a woman in hysterics because her little boy was staying with her aunt, and now the aunt says he was never there. Turns out that the guy's in town chasing boogey-men--a lamia, actually--snake woman that eats children and messes with people's minds--and the missing child is probably a victim. He tells the heroine what he does, and there's some scenes with her trying to wrap her mind around the fact that things that go bump really do. She goes with him to a voodoo witch and takes part in the magic that lets them track the lamia, and they kill it and run. I think the "hooking up" scenes take place before they visit the voodoo people.

She's astonished that he's interested in her, 'cause he's younger and so good-looking. And she has this luck--it swings from astonishingly good to horrifically bad, to balance out overall--and she's sure that the luck of having a guy like him will end in a horrible breakup. Then the book jumps ahead eight months.

Jimmy Wayne's been on the road for five of those months, and Jacyn (which I never really knew how to pronounce, and kept pulling an 'L' in it, and thinking Jaclyn) has moved to Nashville to room with an old friend and get over JW being gone. He called frequently, but never made it back to town. But she's still longing. He's longing too, and sure he's really screwed things up with her, and it breaks his heart, and he doesn't know why he hasn't gone back to her, but he hasn't, and can't seem to, and he's somewhere in Tennessee to meet a witch. Not a human who messes with magic, but a different species. And she breaks a compulsion that was put on him. One that was intended for Jacyn, but hit him instead (because of her luck, they assume), and has driven him away from her. And she tells him the murderer he's after is in Nashville. Where of course the murderer is hanging out with Jacyn, and they stumble across each other again. Of course. (Her luck acting again.) They defeat the bad guys--but I'm not sure exactly how, or exactly who does what. This part was really vague and confusing.

I liked the book. Sims writes some really beautiful, evocative stuff. But the paranormal elements... weren't real paranormal. The descriptions tended to be vague, which was strange, because Sims was so vivid about most everything else. She did describe the imp pretty well, but what Jacyn thought about the magic wasn't clear. And in the grand finale climax, the magic seems to be done by somebody who's been present (I'm not absolutely sure he's the one doing the magic), but his magical ability pops out of nowhere, hasn't even been foreshadowed. And Jacyn does some big magic, but what happens, or what she thinks/feels about it is really vague. Honestly, her feelings for Jimmy Wayne and his feelings for her are the only things that feel real at the end of the book--which may be what Sims was going for. I'm not sure about that either.

All of which sounds like I didn't like the book, but I did. Really. It wasn't until after I finished it and started to think about it and about what I would write here that it occurred to me that the magic stuff was kind of vague and unreal and confusing. And that this may have been Sims's intent. Either way, it was an enjoyable ride, and it would be interesting to read more books in this universe, more about Jacyn and J.W., but who knows if that's going to happen.

I just realized I've read another Kassandra Sims book, "Falling Upward." It also confused the heck out of me, and despite that, I enjoyed it. I'd be willing to read more Kassandra Sims--but hope that she'll quit rushing her endings.

Visitors in town

So, writers go to conferences and stuff. And they get to know each other, and sometimes they don't live very close to each other, so they don't actually see each other very often. And on the rare occasions when they're in the same place, they tend to like to get together. At least, I do.

So, when I tell you that a writer friend of mine was in Houston last night--which isn't exactly in town, but is a heck of a lot closer than Auckland, New Zealand, where she lives--I drove up to spend a little time visiting.

Nalini Singh is a NYT bestselling author, who's just had her first book published in hardcover. Kiss of Snow is a great book, and I'm delighted that she's doing so well. Still, the idea of driving into Houston--not through it, but onto the streets and trying to find a particular address and then a parking place, gave me the heebie-jeebies. I handle freeway traffic much better than I do streets with traffic lights, especially when I'm not real sure where I'm going. I almost backed out. More than once.

But I really wanted to go. I'm not going to the RWA conference this year--mostly because I just didn't get around to signing up--and the thing I miss most is seeing all the friends I only see once a year. So I gutted it up, and took the Beast (my vehicle is a very large SUV. Very. Large.) into the big city--and I actually found the store! And a place to park!! And I didn't get lost!!!

I got there quite a bit early, because if you don't get off the road by 5 p.m. or so, you have to deal with a LOT more traffic. But there were other paranormal romance fans at the store, and it was fun to chat with them about books and authors. I was even able to recommend my books to a couple of people. I didn't want to do too much of that, because it was Nalini's night and I wasn't going to steal any spotlight (not that I could...).

The plane was a little late--she had to come straight to the bookstore, but it was great to listen to her talk about her books and writing process. Then we went out to dinner and got to chat some, which was great. Then I had to go home. It was getting late, and it's close to an hour to get back to the island--without traffic. It was a great evening. I wish she'd had a little more time in town--she flew out this morning--but it was fun.

A little bit of news

And it's news about my writing.

First, I have run out of patience. I'm hoping to have some news about a publishing date for Heart's Magic before too long. The publisher is going to have to either publish the book, or give me the rights back. They can't sit on it any more. I am going to find a way to publish this book, one way or another.

Second, I'm looking seriously into getting into the self-publishing arena myself, not with backlist books--I don't have that many, and don't have my rights back on most of them. But I do have a fair number of books that I have actually never submitted for one reason or another--some because the "big boys" don't really like books about hockey players unless you're Diedre Martin or Rachel Gibson, others because--well, I did submit, but never, ever, ever heard back.

There's one I submitted that went all the way to the wire--they almost bought it...and then bought someone else's book. At the time, I was depressed, but given how things turned out later (the someone else, I consider a friend--or at least friendly acquaintance), I think maybe it was for the best. Anyway, I want to get that book up too, sometime. But later.

There's a different book I want to start with. It's a contemporary romance. No paranormal/fantasy elements whatsoever. (I started out in contemporary romance, if y'all didn't know. My first two books were series romance for Silhouette Desire. I still like to read it.)

I started writing this book without having done ANY research into one of the areas the book was about. I did do the research as I was writing, but that means I need to revise the first part of it. Actually, there are some revisions needed through the whole thing, because I wrote it long enough ago that cell phones weren't as ubiquitous as they are now. (How's that for a $5 word? Look it up. I had to when I read a Phillip K. Dick novel years ago, (which I still don't quite get) and now I can use it. :) )

I may need to do some tweaking here and there on the whole story--shade the emotions a little more carefully, that sort of thing--but when I read it, I laughed at the funny parts, sighed at the tender parts, and just enjoyed the heck out of it. And I wrote it. So hopefully other people will enjoy it too.

So, I am not taking the plunge into self-publishing, but I am sticking my toe in it. I'm a real wuss when it comes to swimming at the beach or a lake. I've been spoiled by Texas--the water needs to be about 80F or so, and if the air is over 90F, all the better. I want it warm, baby, WARM. If not hot. Here's hoping the self-publishing water is just right.

More as the adventure continues.

TBR Challenge: The Pride of Jared MacKade

The Book: The Pride of Jared MacKade by Nora Roberts

The Particulars: Contemporary Romance, Silhouette Special Edition, Dec. 1995. It was apparently SSE #1000 (Series romances are numbered, ya know.)

I chose this book as my TBR challenge book, because yesterday, I realized (when SuperWendy tweeted about it) that today was the day to post my TBR challenge, and I hadn't read anything in the past week or so that might constitute a TBR book. (I've been working really hard on my "reading all the RITA nominees, plus a few Hugo/Nebula nominees, plus some of the Edgar finalists" challenge thing.)

BUT there was this book. It's been under the futon in my office a while--who knows how long? I'm pretty sure I bought it at my RWA chapter meeting. And I read it in the past few weeks. It's not a marriage of convenience story (which is one of my favorite hooks), or pretend engagement or arranged marriage story, but I don't care. It's been hanging around the house, and I read it.

So. The Review: (Short, as usual) This is a pretty early Nora. The MacKade brothers live on/near what was once a Civil War battleground, so that history--stories about what happened back then, and maybe even ghosts--play a part in the stories. The hero is a divorced lawyer who's come home to build his practice there. Heroine is a single mom who's finally found a place to call home and raise her son. She's prickly and determined not to depend on anyone. He's got issues with pride (duh), though he does seem to work through them pretty quick. I liked the heroine's characterization as a tough woman who's willing to try again, and I liked the hero who takes being smacked upside the head (Not so much literally, but sorta) pretty well and is willing to admit that he's being a dumba$$ once he gets it. And the more I've thought about it, the better I like it. And I liked it a lot. I gave it 4 stars at GoodReads.

And there you have it. I have some other things I want to say--both here and on my website. (Geez, I haven't updated in Soooooo long.) But I will see if I can figure out how to schedule a post--Blogspot's supposed to let you do that these days--and have it post tomorrow or Friday or something. Whenever I get it written. I shall leave this review more-or-less pure.

Romance and Academia

So, I mentioned in my last blogpost that I was getting ready to go to the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association meeting in San Antonio...

I was sitting here thinking, "Gee, no wonder I'm not posting much on my blog. I can't ever think of anything to blog about." And then I remembered that I had not ever blogged about the trip to San Antonio.

Oh, and hey--I did a workshop last night for "BAWL" (also known as the Bay Area Writer's League--as in "Houston Bay Area"--except it isn't Houston Bay, it's Galveston Bay, but the Bay goes way up to Houston, and a long way from Galveston, which is where it starts, so it's usually called the Houston Bay Area, because it's the area of Houston around the Bay...). Anyway--

So I was hanging around on Twitter one day, and made the comment that "Oh, the PCA is meeting in San Antonio. I like San Antonio. It's a cool city." And up pops Sarah Franz, one of the academics behind Teach Me Tonight and the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, who says "Want to come to PCA?" And I said--"Ooooh cool! I've always wanted to listen to smart people talk about romance like it was Important Litrachur." So I did.

I went to the meeting, dear readers, and I even took the spouse. We got a room in a "boutique hotel," or a B&B--however you want to define it--a couple of blocks from the conference hotel, and across the street from the River Walk, called the Riverwalk Vista. A seriously cool place to stay. It's an old, converted warehouse. I will put up pictures when I get home to the computer that has the pictures on it.

We ate Mexican food. We went by the Alamo. (We've been inside many times before--my grandparents lived in San Antonio.) We hung out with smart romance people. I went to several of the panels where graduate students and professors and others presented papers. It was very cool. I enjoyed hearing people talk about the link between romance novels and poetry, or how romance is used in advertising (romance, as opposed to sex).

Occasionally, I had trouble following what a presenter was trying to say--more because some of the academic language was unfamiliar, and some of these people talked Really Fast, than because I really didn't understand what they were saying. I didn't know what the words meant. And sometimes, I didn't know what the word WAS, because holy crap! some of those people talked fast. Yes, I realize I'm a Southerner, but not all of us talk slow. Still...

But it was FUN. It was totally cool listening to these guys talk about stuff. And I got to hang with my friend Theresa, and I got to meet Sarah face to face, and Eric Selinger and some of the other academics whose blogs and papers and things I've been reading online. I was just kinda blown away.

I also got to meet Sherry Thomas, and Louisa Edwards, and Skyler White, and Tracy Wolff--I did not know they were all from AUSTIN. Just up the road. (Or, well, as up the road as anything is in Texas...) I need to get them down here to talk to our RWA chapter.

And then, on Saturday, the fella and I strolled the River Walk, and rode on the boat tour, and had lunch next to the water, and then drove home again. It was lots of fun.

Then I came home and finally got all the revisions done on the ms and shipped it out. And I did the workshop for BAWL. It was on "Worldbuilding 101." I talked a little bit about building the worlds for a contemporary or a historical, but mostly I talked about how to do it for spec fic. (It gets tiring, saying fantasy/science fiction/paranormal/steampunk....) I think it went pretty well. I enjoyed it, anyway. :)

I probably ought to get my brain into the writing of a new book sometime soon. Maybe I'll clean my office first...

TBR Challenge: Good Grief

I was on track to keep up with the blog posts, and then the wind changed.

It's not like in Mary Poppins, where the wind only changes when she leaves town. The wind changes a lot in Texas, especially this time of year. And every time it changes, it blows in something else that somebody in our house is allergic to. This time, it's me, and it's got me trying to cough up a lung. I don't know if I'm light-headed from the coughing and dripping (yeah, the nose is going too), or from the meds I'm taking to stop it, but I can't turn or stand up quickly without having to grab onto something.

And I'm leaving town tomorrow for the Popular Culture Association meeting in San Antonio! I get to play author for one of the romance track panels, and hang out with smart people who love romance. What could be more cool?

Anyway, it's been hard to motivate myself to write blogs or anything else while I'm coughing so hard. But I did read a book I decided would qualify as a TBR challenge book.

I'm pretty sure it hasn't been on my TBR shelf more than a couple of years. We've only been in this house for three, and I'm pretty sure I didn't move it here, but it's been waiting for me to read it long enough to get moved several times and eventually wind up under the futon where the grandboys sleep when they come to visit. So, here goes.

The Book: GOOD GRIEF by Lolly Winston

The Particulars: Paperback reprint of a hardcover released by Warner Books in 2004. It's a "Women's fiction" story.

Why do I have it? Who the heck knows? I saw it, thought it looked interesting, and brought it home. I'm pretty sure I bought it used--maybe from a writer's group exchange, maybe at a Friends of the Library sale...

What did I think? The book is about a woman's recovery from the death of her husband. It begins several months after the funeral, and continues past the first anniversary of his death. It is sad and funny and poignant and at times I wanted to give the woman a hard shake. Not so much for "get over it already," but for--well, idiocy. Yes, she was grieving, and maybe not entirely sane (she wears her bunny slippers and robe to work at one point--hence the cover), but there are several points where she's so totally clueless about the people around her that I thought she needed a little shaking. But then, I guess that's what those people are doing--shaking her up. It was a pretty good book, but wasn't exactly what I was looking for when I read it. There was a bit of a mismatch between my mood and the book. Still, it was a good read, especially if you're in the proper mood for it.

And I'm not finishing this review the same day I started it. I had to catch up with the dayjob, then I had to get ready to leave town. I will make a BIG effort to get a post about the PCA/ACA conference and about the trip to San Antonio up this week. I don't have anything else to do this week...well, except finish my revisions and get the ms off, and start work on a world-building workshop for next week...

That book I couldn't put down--

I finished it. So, I figure I ought to tell y'all what I thought about the whole thing. I never could put it down.

And the little things that bothered me so much at the beginning of the book? Not so much as I got into it. I got used to "the blonde" popping up to do things, I guess. The near-caricature-ness of the characters began to change. The dumb one wasn't so dumb as she seemed--though she's still got a LOT of room for growth, this is apparently only the first book of a series--and the "too-good-to-be-true" one wasn't. The evilly-evil one stayed over-the-top evil, but--well, I'll try not to be spoiler-y.

In the end, I liked the book. There were things I wish had been done differently--some people died that I wish hadn't, things like that--but this is an epic fantasy. People die in epic fantasies, and sometimes it takes a REALLY long time for character growth to occur. Sometimes I don't have the patience to wait for that growth--but we'll see.

The Night Holds the Moon was a pretty good read. The central character--though this follows epic fantasy pattern by having more than one POV character--is something of a wanton, who is the "chosen" of a goddess, by being the one who can play the magic flute, and when she plays it, things happen. Weird things. She's kind of a go-with-the-flow girl, who tends to be somewhat gullible, and perhaps trusts unwisely. She's not really into politics, so when politics get all stirred up around her, she lets other people take care of things. There's a cross-country trip, magic, betrayal, politics, death--you name it, it's in here. Lots of twists, more than one of which surprised me. Pretty good stuff. Give it a try.

Contest finalists and me

‘Tis the season for literary awards, or the genre awards, anyway. The Edgar Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America, will be announced April 28. The Nebula Awards of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, will be announced May 21. The Hugo Awards, presented by the World Science Fiction Convention, just passed its deadline for nominations March 26. 

And on March 25, the phone calls went out to the finalists in the RITA Awards, presented by the Romance Writers of America. So of course, I had to zip on over to the website and see how many of the books in the finals I’d read.

There are 12 categories for the RITA awards. There are only six Nebula categories, including one for short story, novelette, novella and screenplay, but then the science fiction/fantasy market is about half that of romance.There are 15 categories in the Hugo, but three are for people, and a bunch of others are for screenplays and stuff. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had read quite a few of the RITA finalists.

I've read five books in each of the historical romance categories In Best Historical Romance, they are: The Forbidden Rose by Joanne Bourne;  His at Night by Sherry Thomas;  A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James; Last Night's Scandal by Loretta Chase, and  A Little Bit Wild by Victoria Dahl. And in Best Regency Historical Romance, I've read: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean; Provocative in Pearls by Madeline Hunter; Twice Tempted by a Rogue by Tessa Dare; When Harry Met Molly by Kieran Kramer, and The Wicked Wyckerly by Patricia Rice. That leaves three books unread in either category. 

In the Best First Book category, I've read When Harry Met Molly. 

In the Contemporary Series Romance category, I've read Christmas with Her Boss by Marion Lennox and Dare She Date the Dreamy Doc? by Sarah Morgan.

In the Contemporary Single-Title Romance category, I've read Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts and Nothing But Trouble by Rachel Gibson.

In the Inspirational Romance category, I've read Maid to Match by Deeanne Gist.

In the Novel with Strong Romantic Elements, I've read The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn and Welcome to Harmony by Jodi Thomas. 

In the Paranormal Romance category, I've read Immortal Sea by Virginia Kantra. (I know! I can't believe I haven't read more of them, or else that more of the ones I read didn't make the finals!)

In the Romantic Suspense category, I've read Two Lethal Lies by Annie Solomon. 

I haven't read any of the books in the Young Adult, Novella, or Contemporary Series Romance: Suspense/Adventure. I just haven't got around to the YA books. I don't care for novellas, because they're too short, given how fast I read. And I'm a real wimp when it comes to suspense books. The only reason I read the Annie Solomon book is because I got it free--from GoodReads, I think. It's a very good book--but I am such a wimp, it scared me really bad and I had a hard time reading it. I'm just too much of a scaredy cat. Probably because of those years working for a prosecutor. When you've looked real sociopaths in the eye, it's really not much fun to read about them.

Anyway, I have now put most of the RITA finalists on my TBR list--and have already picked up and read Lead Me On by Victoria Dahl, which is a Contemporary Single-Title nominee. I'm not going to make myself read the RomSus books, because I wallow in my wimpitude. And if the books cost more than a paperback, I may see if I can get them at the library. But I'm going to give it the old college try. Maybe even try to read them before the RITA ceremonies in New York in early July.

And since I put all these RITA books on my list, I bebopped on over to the other lists to see what they had. I already have some of the Nebula Books on my list, and I own The Native Star, by M.K. Hobson, but I haven't read any of them yet. (Sigh.) And since they're announcing soon, I'm not even going to try to read them before then. But I'm going to put a couple more on my list, or at least try to figure out where I can read the shorter stories, even though I really don't much like short form fiction. I also added a few books from the Edgars list, though  I’m wary of those, given my wimpitude, but I did add a Young Adult mystery, Dust City, by Robert Paul Weston, about a young werewolf at the Home for Wayward Wolves. I think I added a book from a series about Freud & friends as detectives. And when the Hugos finish tabulating their votes, I'll probably snag a few to-reads from that list.

You’ll find the Nebula nominees at sfwa.org, the Edgar nominees at www.theedgars.com and the RITA nominees at www.rwa.org. The Hugo site is www.thehugoawards.org. Surely they’ll have their finalists up fairly soon. Most of the sites have a prominent link for their latest awards nominees (You kind of have to hunt for the Nebulas, which is why I linked directly). Go forth and find yourself some good books to read.  

Tell me which ones you've read--or which you really liked, and which ones you're tempted to try... 

 

It just grabbed hold!

I'm reading a book, one co-authored by a friend of mine in a genre new to her. Co-authoring is also new to her, I think.

I'll be honest--the book isn't the best written thing I've ever read. (And I feel bad saying that, because this co-author IS a friend, and I've read other things by her that are very well written.) But it grabbed hold of me, and I'm having a really hard time putting it down, even to go to work.

Overall, the writing isn't horrible. Though--once the main character is named, she needs to be referred to by name, pronoun, or title--like if she's 'the queen' or 'the priestess.' Something more generic, like 'the blonde,' just jerks me right out of the story, because I wonder if it's the barmaid or something, who just happens to be blond. It's just too generic to be used to name the main character, once the main character is named and described.

I'm also finding the characters almost caricatures--this one is supposed to be carefree and fun-loving and maybe a bit ditzy--and she's SO ditzy, she's on the verge of stupidity. That one is not only evil, she's fat and disgusting. This other one is a total snob with no redeeming characteristics. This one is too good to be true. That one is so focused on scholarship there's no connecting with people. Caricatures. And yet--and yet...

I cannot put the book down.

I HAVE to see what happens next. It's an epic fantasy published on Smashwords (and other self-publishing e-book platforms) about a girl who's chosen by the magic flute to be its player. There's an evil queen and her suckups, and a noble count who wants to help the girl, but also maybe use her to save his country--and maybe the whole land--from the queen, and things happen, but we don't know why they happen or what they mean, and the magic-flute-player is supposed to be a virgin, but this girl SO isn't, and...

Well, the book just sucked me in. I'm rolling my eyes at the extreme extremeness of the characters, and occasionally stopping to figure out just who, exactly, is doing or saying whatever (I mean, surely, there's more than one blonde in this universe), and gulping it down fast as I can. I sure hope the end answers all the questions raised and all the nasty bad guys get theirs and-- Well, I'll let you know.

Yeah. So, if you want to take the chance of this book grabbing you by the throat (or the eyeballs--whatever), it's called THE NIGHT HOLDS THE MOON, by Colleen Thompson and Parke Roberts.

Oh, I am still working on the revising of the book. Making notes about large changes--haven't really reached the parts where I think it may need them, just reading through, marking small changes, and making notes...

TBR Challenge: Candy Apple Red

Wow. Looks like my last several blogposts have all been about the TBR challenge. Between the new grandbaby, and getting my dad settled in the nursing home, and finding all their paperwork to get sent off to the accountants for taxes, and then fighting off the bronchitis from !*@&#!, I haven't posted anything here, have I?

But I've been good. I realized the challenge was coming up, and went to my TBR shelves to see what I was in the mood to read. See, I didn't list any books as "intending to read" for the challenge. What I want to read depends on my mood, and if I'm not in the right mood, I can't get through things I might have had on my list. So, I just perused my shelves (and moved a lot of stuff around), and picked out CANDY APPLE RED by Nancy Bush.

So. The book is a September 2006 release from Kensington, book #1 in the Jane Kelly series.

Why was it on my TBR shelf? Because I got it free from an RWA conference, I think. 2006 was several years ago, and my mind does well to remember what I was doing last week. I'm pretty sure I brought it home because I thought I'd probably enjoy reading it, stuck it on the shelf, and never got much farther. Sigh.

It IS by a new-to-me author, which was the suggestion for March, so I succeeded there. It's not really a romance.

The Review: There's a blurb on the front cover from Lisa Jackson that says "Move over Stephanie Plum, Jane Kelly has arrived."   This to me would intimate that the book is slapstick funny, with lots of quirky characters and things blowing up. It's not. It's a pretty good read, but it's not slapstick. It's your basic cozy mystery with relationship issues and a single-gal protagonist.

Jane Kelly is what her married accountant friend Billy calls a "hatchery fish." Someone who takes the easy route, rather than struggling upstream. She moved to Portland, OR, following a man, and just sort of stayed when he moved on. She works as a process server, and does a bit of research for a private investigator. (She does get "treed" by a mean dog on top of her car and has to call her friend for a rescue, but her friend is not a Lula-type. She has more sense than Jane.) She's slightly attracted to the PI, but doesn't want to be. She's still hung up on the guy who moved on, Murphy.

There's an old mystery at the heart of all this. Murphy's best friend Bobby was accused of murdering his entire family--wife and 3 kids--and vanishing, several years ago. It's why Murphy left town--he didn't want to believe it. The cops think Bobby's parents--rich and divorced--have been supporting him. But now Bobby's Mom wants Jane to use her connection with Murphy to talk to Bobby's Dad and find out where he--Bobby--is. Jane doesn't want to. She wants to be over Murphy. Then Bobby turns up drowned in the lake.

This story has a lot of threads and a lot of subtext. It's complicated--and it's not. The thing about mystery stories--most of the story is about the character's everyday life, with, admittedly, lots of going here to talk to this person and there to sneak around that person's house. In this story, there was a lot of riding in boats to go drink at a restaurant on a lake, or going to eat at this other restaurant. There were a lot of clothes. Jane claimed not to care much about what she wore, but Nancy Bush spent a lot of time describing what she wore. There was a fair bit of mayhem. Bush did a good job hiding the identity of the murderer. It was a fairly interesting mystery.

I'm trying to come up with my main impression of the book, and maybe what I see as the main difference between this one and others of a similar type that I've enjoyed more. And I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, but...it felt like something was missing. It didn't have the brash voice of an Evanovich book, but I like a lot of series that don't. It felt... Dry. (For all the tootling around on--and in--the lake Jane did.) I know it's not a romance, or even romantic suspense, but the heart didn't seem to be in it. Her lingering obsession with Murphy seemed a tad academic, and her attraction to Dwayne (her boss PI) seemed to appear only when Bush needed it to. The emotion was played so far down, it felt dry.

So over all, it was an interesting read, it kept my attention all the way through to the end, without me yelling at the book for info dumping or researchitis or anything. But I don't know if I'm going to go out of my way to read any more by this author. This one's going to fall somewhere between "I liked it" and "It was okay."

I have drugs for the bronchitis. I sure hope they kick this stuff on its butt soon! I'm tired of feeling like crap.

IT'S A GIRL!

Okay, I've been busy lately. I've been reading. I've even been working on the book. But at the moment, I don't recall exactly what I've read, though I could, I guess, if I worked at it. However, I certainly couldn't recall whether the stuff I've read is old or not.

You see, my very first granddaughter arrived the day after Valentine's Day. We have three grandboys who are loved dearly, but balance is important. And now, Rocket Girl has come into the family. I haven't thought about writing a review or anything like that. So... I guess this is about all you get for my TBR review for Feb.

TBR Challenge: Cowboy Boss

I am once again attempting to take part in the TBR Challenge, this year MCed by Wendy the SuperLibrarian.

This year, I am not going to choose my books ahead of time. Who knows from January what books they're going to be in the mood to read come June? I am just going to go to my massive TBR pile, which now includes books 2 years old on my Reader, and see what I feel like reading. Therefore, so as to not fail this challenge in the first month, I have pulled the underbed storage box out from under the bed (the one that doesn't hold Christmas wrapping paper), and discovered that there are not as many books in it as I thought there were. But I found one to read. I am going to copy SuperWendy's format for the actual review--at least partly.

The Book: COWBOY BOSS by Kathy Denosky

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Silhouette Desire #1457, August 2002, Out of Print, but available in e-book format. :)

Why was it in my TBR?  I know Kathy. She's a friend of a friend and a nice person. When I see books by people I know, I tend to buy them.

The Review:  Back of the book:

Gentle-hearted Faith Broderick had come to the Triple Bar Ranch to start a new life, not to get involved in a matchmaking scheme intended to get Cooper Adams to cast off his bachelor coat-of-arms. But suddenly stranded with the seductive cowboy, Faith yearned for the domestic dreams she'd put aside. Soon neither could hide the passion that raged between them.

Cooper wasn't planning on heading to the hitchin' post. Yet, with her warmth, lovely Faith filled his home and the lonely corners of his heart. Cooper knew he'd better watch his step—because promoting Faith from employee to wife would be far too easy to do....

This is a nice book. Faith is nice, Cooper is nice. Even the stereotypical crusty old ranch hand who sets up the stranding plot is nice, if crusty. The story was a series of romance novel cliches to give the leads a chance to lust after each other--the "catch her naked in the tub" scene, and the "watch him do manly stuff without a shirt on" scene, and even the "falling on top of each other cute and sexy" scene. But that was about it. Everybody was so nice, there wasn't much conflict, and what angst there was seemed easily brushed over and set aside. I really wanted to like this book more than I did, because I like Kathy. But it was just too...nice.

So. Here is where I depart from SuperWendy. I don't give grades to books. (Okay, yeah, I do put stars on them over at GoodReads, but my stars are more shiny than most people's. The like is higher.)

And that's it. My first TBR Challenge review of 2011. I will try my darnedest to keep it up this year. We will have to see how that works...

In other news, all is quiet on the parental front--though that isn't necessarily a good thing. It's just a thing. And as I am going back over the Big Book I finished last year, I am discovering a lot of drivel, and also a fair bit of "Wow, that's really good. I wrote that?" So now the trick is getting rid of the drivel and making the good stuff still work.

Lazy week

It has been a lazy week. I am ashamed for being so lazy--and yet...

It felt so good! I sat goofing off with the laptop in the living room where I could at least be in the same room with the family, if not actually speaking to them. (I did not actually use my feet on the laptop...) I think sometimes it's fill-the-well refreshing to just be a lazy lump. And sometimes, it's just being lazy. The trick is figuring our which state you're in when.

I did have appointments three afternoons after the dayjob this week--two doctor and one to get my hair shortened. (I look lovely now, have no new skin cancers and will see what's wrong with the sore toe when the x-rays are examined.) That took up much of the after work time this week.

Next week, I am doing a workshop on writing action, so need to pull it out and spruce it up.

Oh-- We have an official due date for the new grandbaby. She (or maybe he) will arrive via C-section, because big brother did, on Feb. 16. I need to make my plane reservations so I can go up and help. Mostly chauffeuring big brother around, I think.

So I guess I'd better get all my work done between now and then, huh? Yeah, I'm just being lazy.

What's next?

So. The new year is actually here, and it's time I decided what I was going to do with it.

First thing I have to do is catch up with the parents' insurance and healthcare issues. That's ongoing, and complicated. And messes with everything else. But it has to be first. I'm their oldest child and that puts me in the organizational seat. And anybody who knows me knows that organization is Not my strong suit. (sigh) But they're my parents, and they took care of me, and now it's their turn for me to take care of them. That's just the way it is.

Next, I have to get my book typed up and revised and off to the agent. HAVE to. I'm almost a year behind when I thought I could get it to her. It's written. Just needs to get polished. And in readable format. That sort of thing. There are other book things I need to bring up with her, also.

After that--well, I want to get through the TBR challenge for a whole year. I always start out with grand ambitions, then things fall apart partway through.

I want to clean up my office. And I want to rediscover the joy of writing. Of plunging into a story that appeals to me, just for the fun of it. When I actually find time and energy to write, I do have it--fun--it's just that time and energy have been a little short to come by lately.

Oh. And I need to find time to get my Comcast e-mail straightened out. It doesn't work, hasn't for months, and it makes it a pain to do e-mail. Better put it on my list. If I don't, it will NEVER get done. I live by my lists. :)

There are the other, more usual first-of-year goals: Lose weight, eat healthier, enjoy the moment, etc., etc. And those are all in there too...but these others are the ones I want to give the weight of words. They are the things I need to do, for me.

How 'bout y'all? What's on your list?

A New Year!

I'm looking forward to it. Not that things are magically going to be better, but because--well, just because. It's new. And shiny. And that makes things more hopeful.

We had a good Christmas. The Texas grandsons came to visit--with their dad. ;) The boys are still here, but their dad had to go back to work. We have toys, shoes, candy, clothes and other little-boy paraphernalia strewn from one end of the house to the other. Ain't it grand!

I got a new laptop computer for Christmas. (So did the fella and the youngest son.) This is the first laptop I've ever had--and I need to find that wireless mouse I have somewhere, because using the touchpad is giving me mouse elbow... Don't know how moving my thumb and fingers makes my elbow hurt, but there it is. Still, I love it. It will go with me on the next trip to the parents'. Not that they have a wifi set up, but I can get a router to go on Daddy's cable. :)

I made pecan and buttermilk pies for Christmas, and yesterday, we went on a cookie-making binge. Well, actually, I started by making snickerdoodles (again), and then the boy's girlfriend, who's spending a few days with us, made chocolate chip cookies, and then broke out the gluten-free chocolate chip cookie mix. The gf mixes from Betty Crocker & co. are pretty good stuff.

There's even gf Bisquick! The fella got all excited, because he could finally, after nearly 30 years, have
chicken and dumplings again. We always made the dumplings out of biscuit dough or actual canned biscuits--totally wheat flour, which he can't eat. So he got busy last night, mixed up two boxes of gf Bisquick dough and made himself (and us) chicken and dumplings. Pretty good, if I say so myself.

In parental news, Daddy seems to be responding well to his new medication. Even he says he's not having so many "crazy ideas" or wild dreams. I did have to make the trip up twice last week, because Mother's next older sister was very ill, and passed away Tuesday evening. They had a quick graveside service on Thursday for family and close friends, and will have a memorial service in another few weeks. The fella and I drove up to get Mama & Daddy and take them to Waco for the burial. About every 30 minutes, Daddy asked where we were going, and where exactly we were again, but overall he did pretty good. He did have lunch twice. We got there early enough to eat at a Chinese buffet before the service, but my brother and his wife didn't, so we went with them to a Denny's afterward, and Daddy had a big hamburger. Mama and I shared dessert.

It was good seeing all the family we haven't seen in a few years--cousins and aunts and uncles. Daddy remembered some of them--didn't remember my brother's name, but remembered several of my cousins. Now of the four sisters, only the oldest and youngest (Mama) are left. Aunt Joyce is just as sharp as she ever was, which aggravates Mama half to death, because she has so much trouble remembering things. But we've been blessed to have them as long as we have.

Love your family as hard as you can while you can, because you don't know how long you'll have them. That's my motto for the new year.

Still scrambling

Well. Another busy, busy week. While on the road from south central Texas (SE of Austin) to the Texas Panhandle (about an 11-hour drive) for her father-in-law's funeral, my sister got a call from the home health nurse about our dad. Seems the nurse was present for one of Daddy's melt-downs and it worried her. She thinks it's time to see about moving Daddy out, possibly into an Alzheimer's facility. So Baby Sister called me, once she reached Borger and got out of the no-cell-phone access areas, and I got up Saturday morning and headed up to the parents'.

In just the two weeks since I was last there, the Alzheimer's has gotten worse. Mama hadn't taken her Aricept every day, but she was so thin it alarmed me. (Loss of appetite is one of the side effects of the medicine.) And I could scarcely leave the room without Daddy losing his temper about something. I wound up staying four days instead of the three I'd planned, because there was a doctor's appointment on Tuesday I needed to stay for. Plus, the nurse had referred the parents to their social worker who came by Tuesday and helped us get the claim started on their long-term care insurance policy, which will cover home care as well as a nursing home. (Best thing they ever did! Besides signing power of attorney forms several years ago.) So, we've got things started. We'll just have to see how it goes from there.

We haven't finished our Christmas shopping, and we need to get gifts mailed to Pennsylvania soon. We haven't even drawn names for my siblings' families. We've been too busy putting out fires. And yet--it's still Christmas. I'm trying hard not to get too stressed--and it's working somewhat. I'm just going to focus on family and the absolute necessities, and forget about everything else. (Of course, when the fella's volunteered our house for the Lion's Club Christmas party next Thursday... But I'm making him do the cleanup!!) Keep praying, y'all. We sure need it.

Wild and woolly

It was a wild weekend in Dallas/Fort Worth with all the in-laws, kids, grandkids--the whole horde. We were celebrating the fella's parents' 60th anniversary. The nephews were back from Australia--the one in grad school down there has finished his Master's degree in oenology biochemistry, and brought back wines he'd made. (Very tasty.) His brother just went down to visit. The daughter also came with her family from the "frozen Northland" (aka Pennsylvania), including the escape artist (aka her son).

That kid is really fast! The in-laws' house, where we were staying, backs up to a big park, with baseball fields visible from the house and a playground beyond them. Several times during the visit, Mowgli (he has autism, and occasionally behaves as if he were raised by wolves) would take it into his head that it was time to go to the park, and zip! He'd be out the door and dashing for the gap in the fence. And he was often faster than the adult chasing him, so his Mom would have to go out and yell at him and make him come back. I foresee a track star. If the coach can convince him to actually run on the track, and wait for the starting gun/bell to start running. Honestly, he was very good during the whole visit, except for one or two escape attempts. That's not bad for a week's visit not even at his own Gigi & Granddaddy's house.

We celebrated Thanksgiving, then we celebrated the anniversary. The daughter got everyone to tell a family story. ("Dad--we need a broom, and a bandaid." and "New constitutional amendment about green beans.") We took all the grandboys to the zoo where everyone had a great time. We took the little boys to see "Tangled." It went over well, once the action started. (The opening was a little talky.) We raked up a century-old pecan tree's-worth of leaves (plus I saw a few oak tree leaves in there) and let the boys jump in them. One tree made a ginormous pile of leaves. We even did a little Christmas shopping.

Now the older son has come to the island for a conference. We're going to Dickens on The Strand tomorrow. It's basically a street festival to celebrate Galveston's historic Victorian-era downtown, where people dress up in Victorian era costumes, pirate costumes, and even costumes from Dickens stories (like Jacob Marley from "A Christmas Carol") and hang out downtown. They're having steampunk stuff this year, along with the usual parades, street urchins, bed races, mummers, etc. I don't have a costume, but hey--it's fun. (I have stuff to make a costume, but... Good intentions and all that.)

Can't get into my office right now, with guests in town. I'll start revisions on... Sunday? Sounds good to me.