Man Titty Fun Time!

So, I bought a 90's Johanna Lindsey romance novel at the charity book shop the other day.  The cover looks like this:

And then I flipped to see the splash page and...

Holy crap!  It's a genuine vintage Fabio cover!  I don't think I've ever actually read and/or owned one of those before.  Look at the man titty!!  And what the hell?  Is that a panther?  Why is there a panther?


Just glorious.  I really hope this book can live up to that artwork.

Weekly Reading Wrap-Up

Reading slump!!

I finished one solitary book last week.  For some reason, I decided I was being lazy by reading a bunch of quick romance novels.  So I decided to pick up a thick mass market fantasy novel off of my unread shelves and force myself to finish it.  This was a bad idea on a number of levels.  So, I spent the week mostly slogging through a book I couldn't muster much interest in even though I think I would have enjoyed it if I had read it at another time.  I haven't finished it yet, but I honestly have no desire to do so.  I think I'm going to consider it "read" at this point and throw it into the basement book storage for a while.  I'll finish it one day.

So, the one book I did finish?  A short romance novel, naturally.  Luckily, it was a great one.

"Once A Ferarra Wife..." by Sarah Morgan.

A Sarah Morgan book can fall anywhere on the spectrum between love and hate for me. This one was firmly on the "love" side. It's a great angsty reconciliation romance about a separated married couple who are both desperately in love with each other but also desperately afraid of screwing it all up again and getting hurt. This one's full of anguish and pain but in a glorious way.

The main characters have been separated for two years in the wake of a painful miscarriage.  The heroine has incredibly deep-seated trust issues and her husband let her down when she was at her most vulnerable.  The husband acknowledges that his behavior wasn't ideal but he's pretty pissed off at his wife for abandoning a solid marriage because of one single misstep on his part.  It takes a lot of back and forth to reach middle ground.

I really loved this book.  As soon as I finished it, I desperately wanted to read it again.


Next Up: Lusty steampunk werewolf wild-west vampire hunters... and a rather delightful regency romance.  Those two things have nothing in common.

Movie Trailer of Awesome

I feel like movie trailers have gotten completely uninspiring lately (it doesn't help that the actual movies have done the same thing).

So, imagine my complete delight when I stumbled upon the following while cruising around on the Xbox last night:



Love!

And here's a more normal trailer with a better hint at the actual plot:



Looks seriously promising come August.

Weekly Reading Wrap-Up:

This week's selections were pretty good.  And I spread the love around source-wise.  One was from the library, one from my e-reader, and one off the unread shelves.

First up...

Lucy March's "A Little Night Magic" is a supernatural chick lit novel.  Yeah, I know some people hate the term "chick lit" but I like it so I'm going to use it. 

This was a light book with some dark edges and lots of smart and funny quips.  I liked that the romance had already started before the book did.  The two characters already had a strong friendship established and I thought that base line was set up and then built off of really nicely. 

Overall, I enjoyed the book but I thought it could have been tighter.  Something just felt a little off and too loose with the plotting and storytelling and I'm not exactly sure what.  It was a fun read, and I'll definitely read the next book when it comes out next year, but I'm not sorry I borrowed this one from the library.

"Devil's Bride" by Stephanie Laurens was another $0.99 e-book deal that I had heard good things about.  I'm a sucker for a simple classic-style historical romance and that's exactly what this turned out to be.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The plot is basically: Duke meets classy governess.  He pretty much immediately decides that since she's attractive, smart, comes from a noble family, can definitely keep her cool in a sensitive situation, and doesn't appear to be at all intimidated by him... he's totally going to marry her.  As soon as he can convince her to say yes (this takes a lot of work on his part).  There's a very obvious whodunit murder mystery in the works too but the book is mostly wooing and post-wooing bliss.  I found it highly enjoyable.

Also, the classic euphemism-happy historical romance sexy times made me laugh (in a delightfully good way).  A lot.  My favorite bit was when they're making out at one point and the heroine thinks about how she wants him to "fill the molten void within her" and then a few paragraphs later the hero promises to "make that molten heat inside of you explode."  As soon as he said it, my first thought was "How the hell do you know which crazy euphemism she's using inside her head?"  Heh.  Too funny.

  
Julie James' "A Lot Like Love" was so very good.  Julie James kicks ass.  Her books are so slick and fun and they feature smart and sexy professionals who are good at their jobs. 

This one involved an heiress/wine entrepreneur and a rough and tumble FBI agent working an undercover operation together.  Male love interest, Nick, could be a little jerky at times, but his constant deployment of his patented "don't-fuck-with-me-face" never ceased to make me chuckle.  Oh, and he was super adorable on the phone with his mother.  That was a definite plus.

The heroine, Jordan, was also great and I especially loved the loving yet sarcastic interactions she had with her family.  I am super excited that her "Twitter Terrorist" twin brother is the lead in James' next book.  I'm really looking forward to it.

Photoshop Fail

A "Lane Bryant" flyer arrived in my physical mailbox the other day so I nonchalantly flipped through it.

And the following made me yell "Holy photoshop!  That's not how boobs work."

Excessive airbrushing in bra ads is nothing new.  Every bra manufacturer wants you to think their bra will make your boobs look spectacularly globular but that photo?  That's some crazy right there.

Of course, I decided to do a highly scientific study to see how you would accomplish such spectacular boob definition with a plunge bra and a set of D-cups.  The answer?  A magical combination of extreme squishing and poor posture.

I think my work's been done here.

Weekly Reading Wrap-Up:

In an absolutely shocking turn of events, the romance reads were outnumbered this week!  Shocking!(And this post was 4ish days late... not at all shocking)

First up, I picked a book off of my unread shelves and dug into young adult dystopia with Isobelle Carmody's "Obernewtyn."  I'll give the book credit for doing a few interesting things but, for a book as small as it is, it moved superbly slow and was surprisingly dense.  Didn't wow me.  Not even with psychic powers, which I have a weakness for.  It's apparently the first in a series of seven.  I doubt I'll venture any further.

Back to romance!  I love sale books.  I bought the ebook version of Laura Lee Guhrke's "And Then He Kissed Her" last week for $0.99  because that's a price point I like, I read a single blog comment that said it was great, and the premise sounded awesome.  None of those things guarantees an awesome read, but an awesome read is what I got.

The book's set in Victorian England and the main character is a publisher's secretary/aspiring author.  When she finds out her total rake of a boss has never read more than snippets of the manuscripts she's been submitting to him over the years, she decides it's the last straw for her rather safe and stagnant life.  My favorite thing about Emma is that she doesn't make big decisions all willy nilly without thinking about the consequences first.  She makes tough decisions, follows through, and lives with the repercussions.  Emma's awesome.

Her love interest is pretty great himself.  Here are some of his best quotes:

"Why women put all those feathers on their hats nowadays is incomprehensible to me.  You look like you have an ostrich's backside on top of your head."

"Women of virtue are a pain in the ass."

"Tell me, at this point is it acceptable for the woman to dither in this fashion?  Isn't she supposed to just end the poor fellow's suspense and say yes so he knows he hasn't made a thorough idiot of himself?"
"No," she choked. "he deserves to suffer until she's convinced of the depth and sincerity of his affections."

After the awesome that was my previous read, I decided I needed to switch genres or anything I read would be a disappointment.  Perfect time for an Eve Dallas break!

I intended to just read one.  It'd been a while since I'd read one and the murder and mayhem can get a bit much sometimes.  Yeah, I hit a nice streak.  I read "Origin" and "Memory" back to back, took a quick break, and then devoured "Born."  There are babies in 'Born In Death!"  I could not help myself.  All three were really good reads and I can't help but be relieved that none featured psycho rapist/murderers whose only motivation is hatred of women (those are my least favorite cases and Roberts was hitting them often for a while there).

For the last read this week, though not chronologically since I read it on the aforementioned "In Death" break, I successfully got another book off of the unread shelves.  I found myself thinking "I have got to get some of these damn harlequins off the damn shelves" so I picked up "The Disgraced Playboy" fully expecting it to stink since the last few Harlequin's I've read bombed.

Consider me pleasantly surprised. It was quick and it was angsty and overwrought as all get out.  The heroine was strong as steel and I totally cheered when she was finally able to just not give a flying fuck about other people's judgements of her life.  Fun read.


Done for this week!  Expect far less books in the next wrap-up.

A Brief Interlude With Eve & Roarke

Weekly reading wrap-up coming up as soon as I finish the book I'm currently reading.

In the meantime, as it's one of Nora Roberts' "In Death" books (and thus awesome) here's a fun exchange between Homicide Detective Eve Dallas and her husband regarding her best friend's baby shower the following day:

     "Okay, okay." She rolled her eyes. "I can handle it. But it stinks, if you ask me, really stinks, that you get to go out somewhere drinking beer while I'm stuck at Baby Central.  Just because you have a penis."
     "We'll think fondly of you over beer, me and my penis."
     She ate a little more, then smiled slowly. "You've still got to be in the birthing room when she pushes it out."
     "Shut up, Eve."
     "Your penis won't save you then, pal."
     He picked up a breadstick, broke it in half to offer her a share. "And are you playing games tomorrow? Will there be prizes?"
     She winced at his perfect delivery of the perfect stinger.  "Okay, I'll shut up.  Want to talk about murder?"
     "Please."

Cat Nuns For All

Just had to share.

So the family and I have been watching a lot of Doctor Who lately. They're watching it for the first time and I'm having a grand old time re-watching episodes I haven't seen in years. Everybody's enjoying themselves.

Anyway, we're watching the Season 3 episode "Gridlock" and the following image pops on screen:



I immediately yelled "CAT NUN!! YAY!!!" and everyone in my family looked at me like I had suddenly grown two heads.

What can I say? Apparently, I'm very enthusiastic about cat nuns.

Weekly Reading Wrap-Up:

I said I would probably do it. And I totally did. I reread Susan Elizabeth Phillips' 'Nobody's Baby But Mine."



My take? It's still an old favorite of mine but it's not one that's easy to recommend to others. It starts out rough with some remarkably unsexy sex, a heroine who goes completely off her rocker, and a vengeful and irate hero (his reaction is more than justified). But then it gets awesome. I love the interplay between Jane and Cal. As I previously mentioned, the "cereal killer" scene and the one where Jane locks Cal out of the house are classic. Just classic. And boy do I love that reconciliation scene in the hardware store.

It's a rough go at first, but I still love it. I'm even coming around on the new cover. That cherub one's still inexcusable, though. I'm not budging there.




Next up, I read two books about... ah yes, smutty smutty cowboys. What's not to love about smutty smutty cowboys?



I enjoyed the first two entries in Vivan Arend's "Six Pack Ranch" books. They have sexy cowboys and awesome loving family dynamics. The first one, "Rocky Mountain Heat", has a spunky heroine who decides it's time to quit waiting for the object of her affection to realize she's crazy about him and to push the issue. It was fun but the heroine was a little too perfect at absolutely everything in the world for my taste. It would have been nice if she'd had some flaws.




The second one, "Rocky Mountain Haven", was my favorite of the two. Middle brother Daniel pursues the nice widow with three young boys who just moved into a rental on their ranch. The widow's still recovering from the car accident that killed her abusive husband but is ready to move on with her life and hop back onto the sex wagon. Daniel is more than willing to assist with this endeavor. A really sweet and tender romance ensues. Not too much conflict, but overall a nice satisfying read.

Verdict? I enjoyed both books and am looking forward to the next one, especially since the brother in that one got dealt a shitty hand girlfriend-wise in the first two books and is more than due for a happy ending.

Note: These books are technically contemporary erotic romance rather than regular contemporary romance because of the smut level. I thought the sexytimes were pretty mild for "erotic romance" but I may be desensitized after spending so much time with Lorelei James and her Rough Riders (those men sure do love their rope, threesomes, and lube).



To wrap up the past week or so, and to cool down from the smut a bit... I caught up with Jill Shalvis' "Lucky Harbor" Series.

The Lucky Harbor Series starts out with three half-sisters who grew up separately from each other and who come to Lucky Harbor, a small town outside of Seattle, to deal with the dilapidated inn their free-spirited mother left them when she recently died. Jill Shalvis books are like comfort food for me. They don't usually wow me, but I nearly always leave me smiling. The Lucky Harbor books are no exception.



"The Sweetest Thing" is the second book in the series and it revolves around the relationship between a prickly southern belle and the man from her past she's unsuccessfully been trying to dodge for the past six months. And then the daughter they gave up for adoption 17 years ago throws herself into the mix. I liked this one better than the first in the series. I have a weakness for prickly (i.e. bitchy) heroines so Tara worked well for me, her rather annoying "I want him to not let me walk away" issues not withstanding. The birth daughter storyline was a tad cheesy, but I could live with it.





And then I read my new favorite in the series, "Head Over Heels." My first thought when I finished it was "Who knew asthma sex could be so hot?" Yeah. There's that to recommend it. There's also the super sexy stoic sheriff hero. He's gruff and a man of few words. Doesn't need them, though.



Alright, that's it for this week! Next week's reading wrap-up promises at least one non-romance read (I know, shocking!) and a historical romance I am just finishing up now but am loving so much that it just may get it's own post.

Cover Art Gripe

I follow romance author Susan Elizabeth Phillips on facebook because she's a hoot. Her avatar recently changed to the cover art for a new edition of her book Nobody's Baby But Mine.

I am very fond of "Nobody's Baby." It's got a strange and off-putting initial premise: Socially inept yet brilliant astrophysicist Jane decides she'd like to be a mother and she wants to make sure her child has a normal IQ so that he or she can have a normal life unlike the one Jane herself had. She then proceeds to pretend to be a prostitute to seduce a famous quarterback she assumes is a dumb meathead for the express purpose of getting pregnant with his neanderthal sperm. She succeeds. He finds out and understandably loses his shit. Romance eventually ensues.

See? Whack-a-doodle.

That premise shouldn't work. It does. Phillips is a master at that. She's also a master at dialogue and whip smart banter. The fight scenes in this book kill me with how funny they are. "You're a goddamn cereal killer." gets me every time. And the groveling? Oh, the grovelling. This book has one of the best "proves his love" scenes in any novel I've ever read. So good.


Uh? I got off track there and started to gush and ramble, didn't I? Yup. Sure did.

Anyway, back to my original point (yes, there was one). Cover art!

I'm a bitch about cover art. There, I said it. I get very attached to the cover art I'm used to, especially with beloved books, and tend to universally hate change.




I don't like this cover at all. I know why it exists. It's a sweet and pretty cover designed to attract new readers. It's much softer and gentler than the previous covers this book has had.

But, for me, that's not "The Professor" on that cover. Jane, the brilliant absent-minded professor who scrawls equations on her kid's diaper when she's not paying attention, would never wear that sundress. That annoys me. I have said my piece.




This is the cover I own and think of as "the right one." That's Jane dressed like a somewhat old fashioned high-class call girl. That ribbon's a significant object in the story. I like it. It resonates with me.


Ugh, and then there's this one apparently...




Cherubs!?! Just ugh. That is all that needs to be said about that.


Cover rant (sorta?) done. I'm going to have to reread this damn book soon aren't I? Yeah, most definitely.

Doing What I Damn Well Want To Do

I want to write, frequently. Then I second guess myself and don't do it all.

I thought that starting fresh with a new blog might help the situation but, honestly, I love this little neglected blog. I love all of the red. I love my silly tag categories. I love all of the posts about reality television.

The blog makes me smile.

So it stays.

And I am damn well going to write when I want to.

Taking back my "Wow"

Amusing anecdote:

Earlier (i.e. five minutes ago because the joke won't be funny in another five minutes), I'm fiddling around with a trivia game on my iPhone when the category "Physics" comes up. Surprised and a bit impressed, I think "Wow. Really? Ok, let's do this." and wait for the question.

"The study of animals is called what?" pops up on the screen.

I want my "Wow" back.

Old Jokes Are The Best Kind

Silliness today is making me think of the best "mishearing" that I have ever accomplished.

The conversation, from about 5 years ago, went as follows:

- Wait, what did you just say?
- "My Mommy think I'm cute."
- Oh, ok. That's makes a lot more sense.
- Why? What did you think I said?
- "My monkey says Fuck You."


One of my finest moments right there.

Song Loop!

Am I the only person who gets a song in my head and then happily listens to it over and over and over and over again on repeat?

I do it all of the time.

My current obsession?


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYn8a1ZVoNo)

Huey! Oh, I love this song. For the last year, it's been getting heavy rotation on one of the internet radio stations my uncle listens to in his office and every single time I heard it I would sing and dance along and declare "I NEED this song. I love it." Yet, I'm a fickle bitch so I did nothing about it.

Until today. Now I can play it to death on my ipod.

A Little Naked Pool To Soothe The Soul

Had a really tense and awful day on the back of weeks of tenseness and worry.

The bright spot of my day? This:












Community. Funniest comedy on television at the moment. Hands down.