I stole this Dilemma Friday from the Creole In DC blog:

You’re divorced, and your hubby has re-married. You have children together, and you retain a good co-parenting relationship.

You and his wife get on well enough, and you don’t have a problem with her.

During a family celebration, you overhear your ex’s wife talking about something that happened when they first started dating. You realise that the wife thinks that you were legally separated at the time. In actual fact you weren’t. You also recall that your husband was always travelling, supposedly for work. You realise now that he was really going to see her.

This happened more than ten years ago, but you still feel a little hurt, because he was obviously lying to both of you the whole time.

What do you do? Do you A, confront your ex about his lying, B, do you tell his new wife about his lies, or C, do you leave it alone seeing as it was over ten years ago?

So, the other day on Twitter, I mentioned that I don’t see the point in MMF books. Interesting conversation ensued.

In the majority of MMF books that I’ve read, the women seem to be surplus to requirement.

If I’m honest, I don’t really get why a gay couple would decide that they need a female to complete them. I’m meant to believe that they aren’t into any other females, except that one special vagina, who helps make them whole? Really?

I think you can tell when an author has no interest in writing a book that includes female interaction, because all the emotional connection seems to be between the two males, yet the reader is expected to suspend disbelief, and buy that all three parties are in love? I struggle with that. I really do.

Every time I’ve read an MMF book, I’ve felt distinctly let down by the lack of connection with the female. I then go and check the author’s backlist, and lo and behold, they turn out to be predominantly MM writers.

I understand the need to branch out, but I’m a huge believer that authors shouldn’t write books that they don’t enjoy, and in my experience, some of these books have felt like more of an obligation than a labour of love, on the part of the author. Like they were trying to cater to the MF Reader dollar, if you like.

JMC mentioned a Lorelei James book that we’d both read. It was an MMF book, where the two penises had engaged in sexual activity, then one of the penises decided that he was in love with a vagina, and so then married the vagina. When the other penis eventually came back, he basically presented him to the vagina, and confessed to being in love with the penis.

Confused? Yeah, me too.

While the writing was fine, I’m afraid that I just didn’t buy the HEA for one minute. I know that we have to suspend disbelief in a lot in erotic romance, but for me, I couldn’t see anything but years of misery and heartache for all of the genitalia involved in that particular relationship.

Anyway, as it happens, LJ is one of the writers who doesn’t have a backlist full of MMs, but somehow – in my opinion – Rough, Raw and Ready managed to concentrate more on the emotional connection between the two penises, than the emotional connection between both the penises and the vagina. Actually, as I recall, I distinctly remember a lack of connection between Penis No. 2 and The Vagina.

For me, this seems to have been the story of my MMF reading life.

What say you?

Loose-ID-Watch: This week, 1 MMF, 2 MMs, 1 MF & 1 extra MM)

Broken Wing, by Judith James

Ms James’ debut novel, Broken Wing is a historical romance set during the Napoleonic wars. The action covers a number of years and countries, mainly following the fate of its hero, Gabriel St Croix.

I first fell for this title because of Kristie(J)’s review. She has a way of making people crave whatever she has loved. However, around the time I got a copy (courtesy of Ms James herself, through a giveaway at Romance Novel TV—if memory serves *wince*) I happened to read this review by our very own Super Librarian. Yikes!!! Conflicting reviews ahoy, both from people whose tastes I trust!

So I put it on the TBR mountain range, knowing that sooner or later I would just grab and read it. Then orannia came up with a nifty little challenge and… here we are.

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I guess you’ve all heard by now, that Darla, the ex assistant of author, Laurell K Hamilton, is attempting to pen her own book.

She has an excerpt up on her My Space page.

It’s…. interesting.

Let me give you a snapshot:

I was dreaming, and something was off. Something was poking me on the side in my dream and it didn’t really fit. Not that I ever remember what I dreamed right after I wake up. Just that I had been and it had been off. I am not my best right after I wake up. It takes me a while to get going. I do however have a good time sense even half asleep. I figured it was close to three AM by the feel. The poking continued. Wow, what a dream, the poking was following me in to wakefulness now too. That was definitely a first for me.

More pokes. Definitely not asleep now, so it had to be really happening. I could only hope it wasn’t a rat or some other vermin. Some of the nicest hotels will have issues if there has been a natural disaster nearby causing the wild life to seek refuge where they can. Such is life.

I cracked open my eyelids to look at the clock I knew would be there. Yup, I was right. It was 2:38 AM and black toes nails. Even to my befuddled mind that made no sense. I don’t keep black toe nails on my nightstand.

As I said, I am not my best right after I wake up and it took another minute for me to remember I was not home, snug in my own bed but at FictionConWest with Miriam. I was sleeping on the floor of the living room part of the suite. I needed to be handy in case Miriam needed me, which meant camping out on the floor. But that was okay with me. However, the time and the toenails were not.

I needed to roll a bit to see who it was. Both Miriam and Howard had their toe nails painted black. I should know I made them the appointment at the manicurist before we left Kansas. The edge of a black silk robe was no help either. They both had identical ones. No, nothing to do but keep letting my bleary gaze travel upward to see which of them was poking me.

It was Miriam, holding a pillow. Well, that was new. Was she planning on sleeping in here with me? Had she and Howard woke up and decided to fight? Though usually when they fought, it was Howard who wandered off to lick his wounds.

So, do we think that Miriam is LKH? *g*

For more, just click on this link.

The authors…

The bloggers…

The bottom line: madness

edited to insert links for slide shows to expedite loading of the blog (sorry ’bout that!)

So many cool things happened during those action packed days, that I’m positive I’m going to omit some of them, but here’s a smattering of what I remember (in no particular order):

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Huge apologies because I can’t remember, for the life of me, how I found this–I just know it was a chain of links from one blog to the next.

edited to add: Found it! Thank you to Jordan Summers for the first link.

The best month ever! July 2009 goes down as the best month of my life, bar none. Here are some reasons:

• My firstborn turned 21—which perhaps should make me feel a bit old (and in truth, it occasionally does) but hey! He’s a productive member of society who’s earned a full scholarship to CalTech (California Institute of Technology for those who don’t know) for the third year in a row.

• My second and youngest talked her way into two summer medical programs for the second straight year, with minimal financial help from her father. For a kid who struggled like you wouldn’t believe in 8^th grade, this young woman has managed a sea change in her studies in the past two years. She wants to be a surgeon and by golly, no one and nothing will get in her way!

• I spent 20 days in Maryland and DC with the love of my life. It’s true that he had to work during the week, but that meant I got to sightsee and read at my leisure, and we spent every second we could together. I am so in love with him, it’s probably sickening to see—not that I care, mind

On top of that, said love of my life did two of the sweetest things ever done:

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This week’s dilemma is as follows:

You’re engaged to be married to the love of your life. You’ve been together for nearly five years, and at last the big day arrives. You’ve invited all your friends and family, and you can’t wait till they witness your marriage to the man you love.

You get to the church, and your fiance hasn’t arrived yet. You ask the best man where he is, and he has no idea.

You wait, and wait, but he doesn’t appear. It’s clear that you’ve been jilted on your wedding day. You’re absolutely devastated. The whole wedding has to be cancelled.

A few weeks later, your ex-fiance returns to the house you share. He tells you that he’s sorry that he let you down, and begs for your forgiveness. Apparently he got cold feet, and he felt overwhelmed by everything so he ran away. He also asks you to marry him again.

What do you do? Do you forgive him for not showing up on what was supposed to be the best day of your life, or do you tell him that it’s over?

What would you do?

Of course it’s sad, but it isn’t new.

The latest epsiode of white-washing a book cover, involves author Justine Larbalestier’s YA book, Liar.

As you can see, the cover clearly features a white girl, with long hair, however, apparently Larbalestier’s lead is a black girl with very short hair.

Here’s part of the Galleycat article:

When YA fantasy author Justine Larbalestier gave her fans a first look at the American cover for Liar, back in April, she was understandably excited: “This cover was so well received by sales and marketing at Bloomsbury that for the first time in my career a cover for one of my books became the image used for the front of the catalogue,” she blogged. “Apparently all the big booksellers went crazy for it. My agent says it was a huge hit in Bologna. And at TLA many librarians and teenagers told me they adore this cover.”

The love, however, is not universal. Earlier this week, an unnamed “outraged, nauseous, [and] flabbergasted” children’s book editor blogging at Editorial Anonymous took issue with the cover, noting that Liar is about a young girl who is “black, with very short hair, and is mistaken for a boy early on in the book by teachers and fellow students,” which is pretty much the exact opposite of the model who has wound up on the dust jacket…

As Alicia, a YA librarian blogger, frames the question: “Did the publishers not want to put a black girl on the cover for fear of not selling enough books to their white customers?”…

To address these complaints, Larbalestier has written a new blog post, revealing that she fought that cover every step of the way: “I never wanted a girl’s face on the cover,” she says. “Bloomsbury has had a lot of success with photos of girls on their covers and that’s what they wanted. Although not all of the early girl face covers were white, none showed girls who looked remotely like Micah. I strongly objected to all of them. I lost.”

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