Bitchin' Blog Posts
May 26, 2012 | Saturday at 3:40 am | 0 Comments
Time to thank the folks who advertised here for the month of May. If you noticed or clicked on the ads, you helped support advertisers who want to target romance readers, and the upkeep and general mayhem that's part of hosting, postage-ing, and creating content for the hot pink palaceof Bitchery. And if you've been looking for an ad for a past month, at the bottom of the ad column is an archive of the advertisements. Thank you to the advertisers, and to you and your marvelous self.
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May 25, 2012 | Friday at 4:20 am | 80 Comments
Here's another question that sprang from a random query on the SBTB Facebook page: What's the longest period of time you've ever spent reading, nonstop?
I think my record is 6 hours. I've been on longer flights, but I think I made myself sleep. What's your record? And what were you reading?
What's the longest stretch you've ever read nonstop?
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May 25, 2012 | Friday at 1:35 am | 5 Comments
Via henofthewoods comes this awesome product ad - and I confess, I'm now pronouncing the company name the way the voice actor does:
Link!
I hope your weekend leaves you feeling awesome without any need for hue and saturation adjustment, or clone stamping!
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May 24, 2012 | Thursday at 11:07 am | 8 Comments
This review was written by Katherine This story was nominated in the Best Historical Romance category.
The summary: Captain Hugh McAlden is working on a top-secret mission to bring down enemy spies living in England. After seeing a young woman perform a brilliant bit of pick pocketing on the London streets, he impulsively decides to hire her to help him. The only name she'll give him is Meggs, and she refuses to tell him anything about her background or how she ended up on the streets. But as Hugh tries to unravel her secrets, he also finds her harder and harder to resist...
And here is Katherine's review:
This could have been a really good book, instead of just a better than average book. It coulda been a...oh wait, it is a contender. Who's responsible for making these nominations, anyway, and what are they drinking? Still, I liked Danger of Desire enough to read the previous book in the series, Pursuit of Pleasure, which as it happens was a…
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May 24, 2012 | Thursday at 12:56 am | 2 Comments
This review was written by Karyn This story was nominated in the Best Contemporary Single Title Romance category.
The summary: Fifteen years ago, Garret Sorensen's family, trust, and heart were destroyed when Thea Celik betrayed him and married his brother. Now they are divorcing. Garret's ready to finally mend his relationship with his brother. But being back in Newport, Rhode Island, triggers a lot of memories-all leading back to Thea. Thea's not ready to let go of the Sorensens-even if it means being around Garret. As they cautiously circle around each other-finding themselves drawn together-they realize following their hearts could cast them adrift.
And here is Karyn's review:
I wanted to love Slow Dancing on Price’s Pier, by Lisa Dale, or even like it a lot, I just couldn’t.
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May 23, 2012 | Wednesday at 11:11 am | 12 Comments
There are some ebook sales on some popular authors, plus coupons from here and there and things Not Bookish, so hang on to your wallet, and please don't hate me too much.
First, Books!
1022 Evergreen Place by Debbie Macomber * $1.08 * A | BN | K | S | ARe 1105 Yakima Street by Debbie Macomber * $1.70 * A | BN | K | S | ARe This Matter of Marriage by Debbie Macomber * $3.44 * A | BN | K | S | ARe Hannah's List by Debbie Macomber * $2.23 * A | BN | K | S | ARe Family Affair by Debbie Macomber * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S | ARe Ready for Romance by Debbie Macomber * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S | ARe The Perfect Christmas by Debbie Macomber * $1.31 * A | BN | K | S | ARe Ready for Marriage by Debbie Macomber * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S | ARe On…
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May 23, 2012 | Wednesday at 12:30 am | 2 Comments
This review was written by Lindlee. This story was nominated in the Best Contemporary Series Romance category.
The summary: Clay Gregory's known Megan Briggs her whole life, and he's been plenty worried about her while she's been getting medical treatment. Now she's back home and hiding away on the family ranch. Knowing the stubborn cowgirl won't accept his help willingly, he invites her to a family wedding to help him avoid his aunt's matchmaking! He plans to remind Meg she's still the girl who can beat him in a horse race! But as she steps out in her curve-hugging red dress, her skills on a horse are suddenly the furthest thing from his mind….
And here is Lindlee's review:
How a Cowboy Stole Her Heart starts when Megan returns home after going into remission from breast cancer. She lived in Calgary, a few hours away from home, while she was undergoing treatment. Coming back is difficult, but it is during this time that Clay and Megan’s friendship turns…
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May 22, 2012 | Tuesday at 12:44 pm | 2 Comments
This review was written by Sarah Elsewhere. This story was nominated in the Best First Book and the Best YA Romance category.
The summary: Tessa doesn't believe in magic. Or Fate. But there's something weird about the dusty unicorn tapestry she discovers in a box of old books. She finds the creature woven within it compelling and frightening. After the tapestry comes into her possession, Tessa experiences dreams of the past and scenes from a brutal hunt that she herself participated in. When she accidentally pulls a thread from the tapestry, Tessa releases a terrible centuries old secret. She also meets William de Chaucy, an irresistible 16th-century nobleman. His fate is as inextricably tied to the tapestry as Tessa's own. Together, they must correct the wrongs of the past. But then the Fates step in, making a tangled mess of Tessa's life. Now everyone she loves will be destroyed unless Tessa does their bidding and defeats a cruel and crafty ancient enemy.
And here is Sarah Elsewhere's review:
…
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May 22, 2012 | Tuesday at 12:21 am | 14 Comments
This review was written by Jenny D. This story was nominated in the Best Contemporary Series Romance category.
The summary: With her family business in crisis, Polly Prince does her best to keep calm and carry on. But hard work alone can't save her London company from a takeover by the infamously ruthless Damon Doukakis…or her traitorous body from the lethal sensuality of her boss! As his new apprentice, Polly accompanies Damon to Paris to negotiate the most challenging business deal of her life! Worse still, Polly must at all costs resist Damon in the most dangerously romantic city in the world.…
And here is Jenny's review:
A Review of Sarah Morgan’s Doukakis’s Apprentice in 250 Words Even Though That’s a Really Tiny Amount of Words
Let’s get the bad things out of the way up front:
Bad Thing #1: The title. Seriously. Is it a rule that all HPs have absurd titles that don’t match the plot?
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May 21, 2012 | Monday at 4:10 pm | 0 Comments
This review was written by Phyllis. This story was nominated in the Best Romance Novella category.
The summary: In Carly Phillips's Compassion Can't Wait, two high school sweet hearts are reunited years later, as if by fate, and discover that if you believe in yourself and each other, anything is possible.
And here is Phyllis' review:
This is a nice, sexy story of old flames reunited.
As a kindness to a teenage boy whose brother's suffering from advanced leukemia, the heroine, a hospital social worker, contacts her ex-boyfriend, now a star baseball pitcher, to meet the boy.
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May 21, 2012 | Monday at 11:45 am | 35 Comments
First, via Katiebabs and KatiD on Twitter: More from Plagiarism Chutzpah!
YA Author Sarah Cross has a guest blog about plagiarism and how it sucks a lot (which it does). It's not a bad post, as it discusses the different types of plagiarism.
But it's a guest post on Kristi Diehm's site, The Story Siren, where plagiarism occurred last January, and was discovered last month. Unfortuantely, this guest post, if you're keeping score at home:
1. includes as a description the exact thing Kristi Diehm did when she lifted content from fashion bloggers Beautifully Invisible and Grit and Glamour.
2. includes, as pointed out by AnimeJune, a copyrighted, trademarked, and totally uncited image from Disney's The Little Mermaid… four paragraphs north of the phrase "ARTISTS ARE PEOPLE, TOO."
3.. includes no commentary or introduction from Kristi Diehm offering context for the post, which is a breathtaking display of chutzpah, as Jane Litte described it, on its own.
4. has already attracted plenty of WTFBBQ posts in the comments
I emailed Sarah Cross about the post, to ask if…
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May 21, 2012 | Monday at 2:51 am | 11 Comments
Beguiling the Beauty is a late Victorian era romance that meets my geek criteria because of its use of science, specifically the study of fossils and the rise of evolutionary biology. My husband is an evolutionary biologist, so needless to say I was thrilled when I found out that Sherry Thomas' new book has an evolutionary biologist hero. I'm a huge Sherry Thomas fan and this book did not disappoint. In fact, it is by far my favorite book of hers, in no small part because it features the line, "Thank you for dinner. And thank you for the pleasure of the tetrapodichnites".
I'm trying to avoid gratuitous spoilers, but if you are super spoiler-phobic, you should stop reading this review and just start reading the book. It's great and you'll love it. For the rest of you, MILD SPOILERS AHEAD:
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May 19, 2012 | Saturday at 1:12 am | 29 Comments
I'm going to do two things I rarely do. One, I'm going to write a review for a book a few hours after I finished it. Two, I'm going to post a review for a book that has been appearing in digital and paper format slowly - and I hope it is available at your preferred retailer when this review goes live. I also hope this review inspires a few libraries to add this author to their collection, as I really liked this book.
This book was originally published in Sweden (and thus, in Swedish) in 2005 under the name Små citroner gula, which means "Small yellow lemon," if Babelfish isn't steering me wrong. It was translated into several languages, and is now available (somewhat) in the US.
Let's start with the one sad thing about this book. Tthe US cover is so horribly, terribly, no good, very bad awful.
There are no cupcakes in this book that I remember. Are cupcakes a waning fad in other countries the way they are here? Little overpriced cakes from specialty shops that individually cost as much as a dozen regular old still-delicious…
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May 18, 2012 | Friday at 10:10 am | 6 Comments
Via Maria Popova and Brainpickings comes this marvelous piece of NSFW grammar rap:
Link!
I hope your weekend is wonderful for you and yours!
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May 18, 2012 | Friday at 7:54 am | 13 Comments
Should I infict the clown cover upon you another time? Yes, I think I shall:
She's got pigtails and a considering expression on her face.
He's, well, if you have a clown phobia, he's the most terrifying ever. If you don't have a clown phobia, he's still kind of terrifying.
So who wins the caption that cover HORROR EDITION?
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