Once again procrastinating (I’m a past master at this) I found an article about a 17 year old girl who used her marching band baton to knock the shit out of two men who tried to mug her.

After reading so often about women and young girls being victimized–either individually or by society at large–this made me cheer. Literally.

Whomever you are, you go, young woman!

I read Robin’s post at Dear Author re the remarks made by Michelle Buonfiglio during the Princeton Romance Scholarship Conference. I really wasn’t surprised by the tone and the passive-aggressiveness of her presentation. I’ve always considered her to be the perfect smiling assassin.

Robin’s column was well thought out, excellently written, and genteel in tone. As was SB Sarah’s.

It’s a shame girls, but I’m going to have to bring down the tone of this gentle discourse, and say what you were probably thinking, but were far too polite and politically clever to say, given her allegation that the rest of Romanceland are made up of vituperative whores. (more…)

So would ya?

Would you read a romance book featuring a ‘pleasantly plump’ hero?

Want to win $100 in free books?

To help promote her upcoming release, CHAINS, author Shiloh Walker is doing a dash through some of the blogs in romanceland, leaving behind excerpts.  If you’d like to get entered to win a gift certificate for $100 (your choice from the online booksellers), all you have to do is visit the blogs, read the excerpts and leave a comment.  The excerpts are in order, just go on from here to each of the successive blogs!

Chains

An all new novel of erotic suspense

They weren’t friends. They weren’t enemies. The only thing the three girls had in common was the high school they went to in Madison, Ohio-until one tragic night. Now, fifteen years later, they’re returning home where passion-and danger-await…

Renee Lincoln was the homecoming queen-with the perfect boyfriend and the perfect life. After that horrible night, she rebelled the only way she knew how: by submitting to her wildest fantasies…

Tall, blonde, and athletic, Lacey Talbot was a golden girl with a bright future. She’s found success as a photographer, but no man has ever been able to satisfy her. No man but the bad boy she left behind…

Sherra Salinger has always looked like a princess out of some fairy tale. The books she writes, though, stem from the nightmare of that one night. And she shrinks from any man’s attention-especially the one stalking her…

They’re coming back to Madison-and it won’t be happy reunion. There are three men, all dangerous in a different way. And when each of them surrender their bodies to the heat, when they succumb to desire, they’ll find the safety they desperately need…

Excerpt (part one) (more…)

I was there just a few hours and my ears still ring. Faces and names are swimming through what passes for my brain right now.

And my credit card is crying.

Moral: never let a book worm loose in a room full of authors sitting in front of stacks of their books to sell. Particularly if she has a credit card.

Next: the search for another overlooked hiding spot…

Isn’t it funny how couples in a lot of romance books can have full blown sex in an elevator, without A) Getting caught, and B) nobody else calling for the lift?

I can’t remember the last elevator ride that I experienced that A) lasted longer than 20 seconds, and B) didn’t have a stranger join me in the lift.

Just sayin’.

This week’s dilemma is as follows:

You and your husband (let’s call him Ian) have been married for nearly ten years, and you have two beautiful children.

One day, Ian comes home looking down and depressed. You of course ask him what’s wrong, and he takes a deep breath, and explains:

Apparently, the family is now bankrupt. Ian has been hiding a gambling habit, which has led to him gambling away your combined life-savings. He is in debt to the tune of nearly $300k, which leaves all of you desperate, and possibly homeless.

He begs you to forgive him, and tells you that he will get help for his addiction as long as you don’t leave him.

What do you do? Do you stand by him and help him through his addiction, or do you leave the man who brought you to financial ruin, and concentrate on finding a way back for you and your kids?

What do you do?

Procrastinating the morning away, I happened to find this promo article on msnbc’s Today (books) section: The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity is Hurting Young Women.

The article mentions many of the things that have made me gag or do a double take in recent years, from purity pledges to ‘born again’ virgins who undergo surgery to re-attach (re construct?) their hymens. All of these topics have been discussed, either in passing or at length, in many blogs–from Michelle Buonfiglio’s Romance B(u)y the Book to the Smart Bitches and others–and, from where I sit, it seems that the consensus is that it’s all fucked up to hell and back.

The thing that stopped me in my tracks, however, was this little bit:

More than 1,400 purity balls, where young girls pledge their virginity to their fathers at a promlike event, were held in 2006 (the balls are federally funded)

Hold it right there.

Federally funded? Federally funded????

Like,  you know, with my taxes and your taxes?

What the everloving fuck?

Comprehensive sexual education has been downsized, pretty much into non-existence, in many public schools because of budget restrictions, but there is money to fund purity balls? and for schools to hold abstinence rallies?

Pardon me while I go have a cow.

You know, if there’s one thing guaranteed to annoy me no end, it’s people who enjoy moaning and bitching about the number of flame-ups that erupt within the romance community (You know who you are).

Oh noes, why are people falling out? Oh noes, why can’t we get along? Oh noes, why are blog people so mean?

I say, belt the fuck up.

I probably wouldn’t be so annoyed if it wasn’t for the fact that so many of the complainants usually have no problem getting involved and slinging a bit of mud themselves.

The fact is flame-ups don’t actually happen that often. Seriously, they don’t, and the ones that do, generally only happen on a few blogs. This makes it pretty easy for people who hate blog spats to avoid them.

So yeah, you don’t like flames, and lovefests? Then don’t visit the blogs where they are more likely to happen.

Simple, no?

From the wayback machine, Issek and azteclady bring you…

Left at the Altar, by Justine Davis

An older category romance published by Silhouette’s Intimate Moments line back in 1994, Left at the Altar is still one of my favorites of Ms Davis’ earlier titles. While written under many of the constraints of a category romance (length, language, etc), it features one wonderfully fresh hero.

Physically, Sean is not a perfect man. He is an amputee, having lost his left leg in a car crash that also put finis to his ambitions to play football professionally. But where Ms Davis strikes gold is in depicting Sean’s self awareness and growth, from the events in his past to the events narrated during the novel. (more…)