Reading Challenge – Lessons Learned

On the long list of foolish things I’ve done so far this year, joining a reading challenge ranked fairly high.  Luckily, the risks were low as it was on PBS and all that was at stake was a few credits.  The 5 week long challenge allowed for print books only and rereads didn’t count.  Neither did books you started, didn’t like, and tossed to one side.  (Page counts were not included)  Naturally, I read several ebooks and did a few rereads.  No, I’m not being contrary, just business as usual.  What shocked me most was the fact that I read 6-7 print books a week fairly consistently.

I was NOT the most prolific reader.  Yes, there people who read more than I do.  I find that comforting.  I was feeling like the world’s biggest book addict for awhile now and I’m reassured that others are actually worse than I am.  It was also run during tax season, which cut reading time for a lot of folks.  What did I read?  Well, let’s take a look.

Week 1

A Perfect Match	Shelly Bradley
If You See Her	Shiloh Walker
Highway 61*	David Housewright
Fire Engine Dead	Shiela Connolly
If Looks Could Chill	Nina Bhruns
Heat Rises	Richard Castle
No such Thing As a Good Bind Date	Shelly Fredman

Week 2

Protector	Catherine Mann
Bear Meets Girl	Shelly Laurenston
Wanted: Undead or Alive	Kerrelyn Sparks
Taming an Impossible Rogue	Susan Enoch
Afterglow	Cherry Adair
Generation 18	Keri Arthur
Penumbra	Keri Arthur

Week 3

Bad Boys Do	Victoria Dahl
A Devil is Waiting	Jack Higgins
The Art of Duke Hunting	Sophia Nash
50% Off Murder*	Josie Belle
Werewolf in Seattle	Vicki Lewis Thompson
The Taking of Libbie, SD*	David Housewright

Week 4

Blood on the Bayou	Stacey Jay
About That Night	Julie James
The Calling	Kelley Armstrong
Something About Witches	Joey W Hill
Let Them Eat Stake*	Sarah Zettel
Betrayal	Christina Dodd

Week 5

A Bite Before Christmas	Sands and Frost
The Probability of Murder	Ada Madison
Devil’s Punch	Ann Aguirre
Kill Me if You Can*	Patterson and Karp
If You Know Her	Shiloh Walker
Taking a Shot	Jaci Burton

Most of the books I bought myself, but a number were through PBS.  What did I learn from this exercise?  Well, first, my favorite author can write lemons (Shelly Laurenston), a not al all favorite author can write a good book (Kill Me If You Can) – though in fairness, Marshall Karp’s humor gave it positive edge and the plot was could have held more surprises, and the vast majority of the books I read are average to good.  David Housewright made it all the way up to very good, but not a single book in 5 weeks made it to my Keeper Shelf.  Not one made me sit up and go – WOW!  The best of the lot?  Those are marked with an asterisk.  There were a few that just missed, Stacey Jay’s Blood on the Bayou, Kelly Armstrong’s The Calling, and Richard Castle’s Heat Rises.  I found Heat Rises much better than expected and The Calling disappointingly unsatisfying.  Blood on the Bayou had many of the same problems as Dead on the Delta, namely a choppy writing style and ‘heroine’ that is difficult to like or care about on so many different levels.  So 32 books and not one of them blew me away.  David Housewright’s two MacKenzie books came closest.  His writing style in mature, with lean prose, wry wit, sardonic humor, and lots of twists and turns in his plots.  They are what really good mysteries should be.  James Patterson take note.   Not that he cares given he’s now James Patterson, Cottage Industry Bank and Trust.

A few of the books above were reviewed in previous entries here, the rest probably won’t get reviewed.  Mystery fans, buy David Housewright!!!!!!!  Sarah Zettle’s Vampire Chef mystery is worth watching and reading.  Jenn McKinlay – writing as Josie Belle – is getting formulaic in her mysteries.  Her Cupcakes mysteries are still the best.  Christmas stories that include killing a long lost relative just aren’t my idea of festive fun and make me wonder what the hell the editor and author were thinking.  And Vicki Lewis Thompson needs some new ideas.  By the way, the ebook, Beneath the Skin (de la Vega Cats 3) by Lauren Dane gets a big thumbs up from me as well.  One of my favorite series by her, this entry is new and available as ebook only at the moment (so not listed above).  Try the Samhain web site or Amazon.

So, that my report for the month.  READ ON!

Authors After Dark – In Retrospect

Well, it was quite a weekend.  There were a ton of authors and what a great group they were.  Unfortunately, Bianca D’Arc didn’t make it due to a sudden issue with her mother, which I gather was not good.  Then Jacquelyn Frank went dashing down the hall, caught her foot somehow and took a bad header.  She was taken to the hospital and spent the night there.  When I left around noon today she hadn’t made it back, but they were expecting her to be released.  I skipped all of last night thanks to a horrible headache triggered by the smell of the chemical sanitizer used in the hotel bathroom.  I understand I was not alone in developing a nasty headache, so maybe it was something in the ventilation system.

Mental Meanderings

I regularly cruise blogs and forums on books and recently joined GoodReads.  It’s interesting to see how differently people view a book.  I made a HUGE exception to my ‘No Silhouettes Desire’ and got The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride from PaperBack Swap.  Why?  How could I be suckered in like that?  Simple – Maya Banks.  I can now plainly state that even in the able hands of one of the better writers out there this series is trite, formulaic, and unoriginal – in short, exactly what Silhouette and the Desire line readers wants.  On Good Reads it had anywhere from 5* to DNF.  I gave it 3*, mostly for the quality of the writing, not the plot or the characters.  I’m sure Ms Banks is being well paid for her trilogy, of which this is the middle book – and she should be.  Like many popular authors of full length novels, she has a living to make and these short books are perfect.  The story lines are constrained by the publisher so little innovation is possible, or welcome by readers, so they are far easier to write, yet sell well – if briefly.  Desire is and has been a hugely popular Silhouettes line for exactly that reason, so they’ve found a niche and authors and audience alike get to enjoy it.  Except for some of us who sit and wonder how anyone can read more than one of these a decade.  Naturally, the folks who DO read Silhouettes Desire line wonder how the hell I can slog my way through hundreds of pages of murder and mayhem, so to each their own I guess.

BOOK REVIEW: Ready, Willing, And Able – The Mercenaries Series by Lucy Monroe

In an effort to reduce my horrifyingly large TBR pile, I am making a concerted effort to read books that have patiently for me for some time. I read the first book in this series, Ready, last year and for some reason never read the next two. I picked up Ready and realized it was in the wrong pile, and read Willing instead then moved directly to And Able. Game, set, match! That’s 3 more off the pile!

Lucy Monroe writes romantic suspense in much the same style as Jill Shavlis and Linda Howard. In fact, one of her major plot elements in the third book of this series seems to be borrowed from Howard’s Kiss and Tell, though it’s been used in various forms in many action thriller and romantic suspense novels and movies. The Mercenaries Series is part of The Goddard Project that is the over-riding element linking many books, though they read just fine as stand-alones. In this case, Ready, Willing, And Able are sequential, but other than the relationships, no other plot elements evolve over the books, so there’s no difficulty following the storylines. They tell the story of 3 former Army Rangers turned mercenaries that friends as well as comrades in arms: Texan Joshua Wyatt, aka Wolf, Sioux Indian Daniel Black Eagle, aka Nitro, and Brett Adams, aka Hotwire from Georgia.

Erotic Romance and Ménage

Racy Romance Reviews had an interesting post about Polyamory, Ménage, Erotic Romance and Culture. I was one of a few erotic romance readers to respond.  I listed some of my favorite erotic romance to illustrate good writing that includes ménage.   Lauren Dane, author of several of the book on my list, chimed in that she tended to write her ménage in settings other than true contemporary to get away from the hurdle that contemporary has for making the story believable.  That kind of got me thinking about the ménage stories I’ve read and how I reacted to them.

Ignoring the fact that I read Thea Divine and Susan Johnson years ago, I only tried erotic romance by accident last year.  I had several cross-country flights for business and needed books.  One of the books I bought, thinking it romantic suspense à la Suzanne Brockman, was Dangerous Games by Lora Leigh.  I’d never heard of her or her books, but the cover looked like my kind of thing, so what the hell.  On the way out I read The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson (a good book for all you espionage/intrigue fans), an impulse buy at the airport bookstore, and finished it just before we hit the ground.  While there I read several mysteries, keeping Dangerous Games for the flight home because it was a long book.  As is my custom I carried extras, but just 1 shorter ‘back-up’ book was left, so Dangerous Games was the designated primary read.

A booklover’s quandry: What do you do with books you hate or just don’t want?

My whole life I have struggled with a quandary of my own making.  I am a voracious reader but often find I do not like a book or simply have no intention of ever reading it again.  Sometimes, I actively hate a book.  Simple answer, throw it out – put it in the recycling bin.  Well, no.  You see, books are not meant to just be discarded.  Even awful books – books so badly written you wonder how they ever made it to print.  Books whose content leaves you enraged.  Books that are so freaking boring they should come with warning labels.  Books with content utterly unsuitable for any under 21 or with more than 3 operating brain cells.  The pages are too small to wrap trash in them and contrary to The Day After Tomorrow, burning books in a fireplace is no easy thing.  That’s why they have bonfires and use wood!  The pages are too tightly packed together and tend to self extinguish or smolder.  And some books I might not be interested in, but others might, especially non-fiction books.

Blogging Fixations – Amazon, eBooks and the Future of Publishing

Every blog has its own fixations. Some concern themselves with the lofty analysis of romance in ways only academics care about. Some focus on the nature of the hero and what makes him a hero – flawed, as he is. Some address publication in general and do so with great perceptiveness. I mostly review books with the odd editorial. One thing book blogs seem to have in common is very strong feelings about the impact of the business models of Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, Borders and other major retailers on publishing and book distribution, promotion and the growth of ebooks as a market segment. #Amazonfail and its ripples are still being felt, and the importance of Amazon and Barnes and Nobel rankings to authors and publishers even makes it into novels themselves. (Death and the Chick Lit discussed it as an author talking point at a fictitious conference.) The latest concern combines the two issues as Amazon expands its many tentacled empire building beyond being the most powerful estore seller of books into publishing as well. Dear Author expressed their concerns this past weekend with their AmazonEncore post.

The Booksquare blog just a posted column on ebook costs and consumer perceptions of ‘value’ in formats with regards to the pricing of David Baldacci’s latest release, The First Family, on Kindle, priced well above the $9.99 Amazon had promised for bestsellers – at least temporarily. (See the link to Mike Shatzkin’s blog on the Booksquare link above.) Mike Shatzkin makes some truly excellent points and more importantly, technically correct ones. But there is still a lot of pricing reality that must be dealt with.

Erotic Romance and ebooks – May Roundup Part 1

Here we go again with the popular erotic romance roundup.  As usual, we have a mix of good and bad, and a first for me – one I found so offensive I couldn’t finish it.   It was an odd mixture this month.  Some are real ‘keepers’ and others forgettable.  This month might be 3 parts as it seems I read more novellas/short novels than usual and fewer full length books.

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A Little Less Conversation by Rhyannon Byrd (novella)

This traditional little contemporary love story is about two everyday kind of people, Mark Logan, a womanizing bar owner and Melanie Green, the owner of a travel agency directly across the street from the bar in Foggy Bottom Beach.  They’ve been staring at each other and smiling for 6 months now.  Or ‘mooning over her’ as Mark’s older brother Cain keeps teasing him.  For the first time in his life, Mark wants more than uncomplicated sex, he wants …….. more.  Of course he won’t get anything if he doesn’t at least ask her out.

Melanie Green has been fantasizing about Mark Logan since she moved to Foggy Bottom Beach six months ago.  Despite some offers, she has no desire to date anyone – except Mark Logan, the drool worthy bar owner.  She’s damned tired of being such a ‘good girl’, the ‘dopey geek’ and longs for a walk on the wild side, and Mark Logan has the ‘wild man’ reputation.  But why would a guy like that be interested in her?  But finally, FINALLY, he asks her out!!!!!

BOOK REVIEW: Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

Rhys Bowen is an Agatha Award winner for her Molly Murphy historical mysteries and also writes the Constable Evans series, both period mystery series.  With Her Royal Spyness she tackles a different time period, the early 1930’s, and very upper class – impoverished royalty.  The story is told in the first person by Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, known as Georgie, is the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and 34^th in line for the throne, making her a very minor royal, but a royal nonetheless.  The Great Depression has hit Europe as hard as the US and bread lines and soup kitchens are a common sight.  Georgie’s older half-brother, Binky, the current Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch has even more financial troubles having the estate decimated by the combined effects of gambling losses by his father, the stock market crash and the death duties on his inheritance.

While sitting on the loo, Georgie overhears Binky and his wife, Fig, discussing a request from Her Majesty, Queen Mary, to entertain Prince Sigfried.  They haven’t the money and frankly don’t want the visitors.  It’s still snowing in Scotland and there just isn’t any way to entertain them with the usual activities like hunting.  The real reason for the visit is to try and get Georgie married off to someone of the right social station.  Knowing full well what the goal is, Georgie, who has no funds of her own, decides to do a bunk to London under the pretense of helping a friend with their wedding.

Paperback Swap – An Update on My Recent Experiences

Ok, I did an entry on my initial experience with Paperback Swap, the online book swapping site.  I shipped out 16 books, over half were trade paperbacks ($10-$14 ea) and all were in excellent to like new condition.

Here are my results so far:

First book (intro point) – excellent condition even though it was 4 years old.  Success!

Second trade (intro point) – such bad condition it should not have been listed. Worst failure to date.

Here’s what I did to avoid the issue in the future.  There is an area under the ‘Settings’ section of your account for ‘Requestor Conditions,’ where you can modify your book conditions.  Initially I required they be from a smoke free environment – I have severe allergies to smoke.  I rewrote them to add: “No broken, deformed spines or badly worn books.  No bookcrossing books.”  Surely this would resolve the problem, right?