Warning: The following post is not for the faint of heart. *g*

Seriously?

I’m pretty sure there must be females out there who ‘gush’ when they climax, but really, is this a common thing, because I gotta say, nearly every erotic romance book that I read seem to feature gushing heroines.

These days, it’s not enough that they’re wet, no, no, they have to erupt like fucking mount vesuvius.

What’s that about?

Whenever I come across a ‘gushing’ heroine, I can’t help but imagine a woman with a tap sticking out of her fanny. (a fanny in England is the vagina, not the arse)

You can imagine how that would kinda kill the moment.

Totally makes me want to giggle out loud, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the original intention of the author.

Just sayin’.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

Sir Winston Churchill

And just for the fun of it:

“I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

Sir Winston Churchill

A truly great man.

So, my lil’ sister’s been in the States for the past two months. She went to a Philadelphia camp, to work as a camp counsellor for the summer.

She hated it.

She compared the camp to a cult, actually. Apparently, nobody was allowed to voice a negative opinion, and those who did, were frowned upon. It was all a bit too happy-clappy for her (That’s my girl), but at least she met some like-minded people. (The Australians and the other Brits there, I believe. *g*)

She also hated the camp director, and couldn’t understand why such a person would want to work with kids, when he seemed to despise them. Apparently he was a bit power mad, another thing that grated on my lil sister’s nerves.

She’d only been there two weeks, when she started comparing it to a prison.

Anyway, she left the camp two weeks ago, (not prematurely or anything, so she managed to stick it out), and decided to go to New York, then Canada, then New York again, then Miami, before finally heading back to Heathrow yesterday.

I’m so glad she’s back, safe and sound.

Now, I’m gonna kill her for the £123 bill that she rang up on the mobile phone (that we’re paying for, mind), in July.

Hostage to Pleasure, by Nalini Singh

The most recent addition to the Psy/Changeling series, Hostage to Pleasure once again centers on one of the sentinels of the DarkRiver pack, while furthering the overarching story arc of the series through the introduction of his mate, a high ranking M-Psy whose path had once before crossed that of the leopards during the events narrated in Mine to Possess, the previous novel.

Ms Singh’s command of the world she has created is excellent. Without incurring any inconsistencies, each book reveals deeper layers in the relationships between the different groups of humans in this parallel future, the shifting of power, and the immutability of human nature. Once again, while this novel can indeed be enjoyed on its own merits, I heartily recommend beginning with Slave to Sensation, and reading the series in order, because there are a number of short passages which are more meaningful when knowing some events narrated in earlier books.

The back cover blurb:

Separated from her son and forced to create a neural implant that will mean the effective enslavement of her psychically gifted race, Ashaya Aleine is the perfect Psy—cool, calm, emotionless… at least on the surface. Inside, she’s fighting a desperate battle to save her son and escape the vicious cold of the PsyNet. Yet when escape comes, it leads not to safety, but to the lethal danger of a sniper’s embrace.

DarkRiver sniper Dorian Christensen lost his sister to a Psy killer. Though he lacks the changeling ability to shift into animal form, his leopard lives within. And that leopard’s rage at the brutal loss is a clawing darkness that hungers for vengeance. Falling for a Psy has never been on Dorian’s agenda. But charged with protecting Ashaya and her son, he discovers that passion has a way of changing the rules…

(more…)

I love the passion and conviction in her voice. Just love it.

I’ve never felt the need to cry because of a political speech before, but at least one tear escaped.

Maybe she should be president eh?

I can’t tell you how much I disagree with this.

Microsoft officials have confirmed that the company is to introduce a way for users to surf the Web anonymously.

As part of the upcoming Internet Explorer 8 release, Microsoft is incorporating ‘inPrivate’ - a mode that will not record visits to the user’s history and will not allow sites to place cookies on the user’s system. Apple currently offers a similar service with its Safari browser.

Sure it would be great to access sites without leaving a trail, but what about the bigger picture?

What about the fucking paedophiles?

Wanderlust, by Ann Aguirre

The second novel set in the Grimspace universe, Wanderlust starts a few days after the last events narrated in Grimspace. Like Grimspace, Wanderlust is narrated in first person, present tense by the heroine, Jax. While much more self aware at the beginning of this book than she was initially during the previous one, Jax is still very much inherently selfish and a loner by nature. Getting used to caring, and getting used to her own reactions to those feelings for others, take some doing.

Not that there is much space or time for introspection during the chaos that seems to follow Jax wherever she goes.

Sirantha Jax doesn’t take chances… she jumps at them.

Sirantha Jax is a jumper, a woman who possesses the unique genetic makeup needed to navigate faster-than-light ships through grimspace. Jax has worked for Farwan Corporation her entire career. But now word’s out that the Corp deliberately crashed a passenger ship, and its stranglehold on intergalactic commerce has crumbled—which means that Jax is out of a job.

She’s also broke due to being declared dead a little prematurely. So when the government asks her to head up a vital diplomatic mission, Jax agrees to do it. Her mandate: journey to the planet Ithiss-Tor and convince its inhabitants to join the Conglomerate.

But Jax’s payday is light-years away. First she’ll have to contend with Syndicate criminals, a stormy relationship with her pilot, man-eating aliens, and her own grimspace-weakened body. She’ll be lucky just to make it to Ithiss-Tor alive…

Without further ado, here’s the transcript of Issek and myself’s discussion of Wanderlust. (more…)

Folks, please help me welcome Ann Aguirre for a grilling session erm, interview.

How long have you written—one of those “since forever” or more of a “sudden epiphany” person?

I’ve pretty much always wanted to be a writer. When I was in first grade, we had Career Day at school. We got to pick what we wanted to do for a living from cards with job descriptions on them. I chose “freelance writer”. My teacher said, rather condescendingly, “That’s not a real job, honey. Why don’t you pick something else?” That should’ve prepared me for the row I had to hoe.

I never did pick anything else. I scribbled stories from age eight onward. In tenth grade, I wrote my first novel, 150 pages on an old typewriter: small-town girl meets a mysterious boy who works as the Winnie the Pooh mascot at Sears. Despite having led a boring life heretofore, our heroine saves the boy numerous times. Even then, I had no sense of what was proper behavior for a heroine.

My next ’serious’ attempt came in college. I was studying English Lit, which mostly bored the crap out of me. I discovered romance novels about this time. I ate those books like Cracker Jacks, especially the Loveswept line. I was a real sucker for the Romancing the Stone type story, where the city-bred heroine goes into the jungle with a survivalist hero.

And I thought, I can do this! How hard can it be?

Thus was born my deliciously bad would-be Loveswept romance. The heroine, Skye, was a stripper / heiress. She ran away from her father’s tyrannical control to dance topless and make her own way in the world. Her father hired former Black Ops military man, Stone, to retrieve his wayward daughter. I called it Heaven and Earth. Symbolism! Who says I’m not using my Lit degree? To my vast astonishment, Loveswept didn’t buy it. (more…)

When the bad guy is made to pay in the end? I really do. There’s nothing more satisfying in a book, than when the good guy, is allowed to exact his revenge on the bad guy.

None of this I’m-the-good-guy-so-I-can’t-kill-him crap, shooting the bastard between the eyes, works for me every time.

Just saying.

“It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.”

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.”

F. Scott Fitgerald

I really love that first quote.