You know, there are some book reviews that you skim past, reviews that barely have you raising an eyelash, let alone actually inspiring any interest. They do the job, but they don’t pull you in hook, line and sinker. I can never say the same about JenB’s reviews at I Just Finished Reading…

She just reviewed Anne Stuart’s Cold As Ice, and let me tell you, if I hadn’t bought this book already, her review would have had me running, not walking, to the nearest bookshop to get this.

She has a wonderful way with words… so GO READ!

BTW Jen, I love the fact that my swearing is soooo rubbing off on you. (g)

I finally finished Laura Kinsale’s Flowers From The Storm. For some reason, this book took me forever to read, although it probably didn’t help that I was reading about four other books at the same time.

I very rarely read one book at a time. I find that if there is more than one book that I’m excited about, I’ll attempt to read them simultaneously. I get this really exciting feeling in my chest, and waiting to read one book, whilst I finish another just seems too much like hard work.

For instance, whilst reading Laura Kinsale’s book, I was also reading Hide and Seek, by Cherry Adair, (sucked arse), Just For Kicks by Susan Andersen, (total snoozefest), The Hunter, by Gennita Low, (disappointing) and Project Eve (fabulous book) by Lauren Bach.

Is this something everybody else does, or am I alone in my weirdness?

Incidentally, I totally loved LK’s book. I really liked the hero, Jervaulx, (pronounced Shervoh) and even Maddy (the heroine) didn’t piss me off with her freakishly religious leanings. It was a tad long, but I didn’t mind that in the least.

You’ve got just two days to vote in the latest AAR poll. I’ve just voted, and this is what my list looks like. I’m sure I’ve missed loads out, but I put down the books that came to mind, rather than trawling through my book shelves.

Top Ten Sexy Mainstream

Passion, Lisa Valdez (even if she’s taking too long with the next book)
The Winston Brothers, Lori Foster
Jamie, Lori Foster
Murphy’s Law, Lori Foster (I’m a Lori Foster Fan Girl)
Again, Sharon Cullars
Standing In The Shadows, Shannon Mckenna (Guilty pleasure)
Sophia’s Lover, Lisa Kleypas
Beyond Seduction, Emma Holly
The Pregnancy Test, Erin Mccarthy
Houston, We Have A Problem, Erin McCarthy

Top Ten Erotic Romance

Promises Prevail, Sarah McCarty (As always)
A Fine Work of Art, Shelby Reed (I just love The Reedster)
The Fifth Favour, Shelby Reed
Elizabeth’s Wolf, Lora Leigh (Love this book)
Soul Deep, Lora Leigh
Undressing Mercy, Deanna Lee
My Best Friend’s Lover, Shiloh Walker (Again)
A Night To Remember, Eve Vaughn (Loved this)
The Empress’s New Clothes, Jaid Black (good campy fun)
No Escape, Jaid Black

Top Ten E-books

Promises Prevail, Sarah McCarty
The Sweet Gum Tree, Katherine Allred (Kick-ass book)
A Fine Work of Art, Shelby Reed
Slave To Sensation, Nalini Singh
The Fifth Favour, Shelby Reed
Elizabeth’s Wolf, Lora Leigh
Betting Hearts, Dee Tenorio
Bone Deep, Bonnie Dee (So bloody original)
Rico’s Garden, Eve Lilas

Looking at this list, it seems to be the usual suspects, time and time again. Anyone wish to add to this list, or violently disagree with any of my choices?

Rumour has it that Michael J Fox, intentionally exaggerated the effects of his Parkinson’s disease on an ad campaign. He was endorsing some bloke who’s running for the US senate. Apparently the ad was talking about the importance of stem cells.

When I heard this on the news today, I went straight to YouTube to watch the ad for myself. Erm…does that make me a sicko?

Anyway, I couldn’t decide whether he was putting his acting skills to good use, or if that’s how he genuinely is these days. Apparently Rush Limbaugh felt that it was exploitative, and manipulative. You can also catch what Limbaugh had to say about the ad campaign at the end of MJF’s little message.

Anyway, like I said, I couldn’t decide, so I’ll let you guys judge for yourselves.

As for NaomI Campbell, she’s either very unlucky , and everybody’s out to get her, or she’s a psychotic ho, who would benefit from doing some time in prison.

Guess which one I’m going for?

Some of my girlfriends came round to our house for a vodka, cheese and grapes night on Friday evening.

It was very messy.

I kept trying to turn the conversation onto books that we’d all read, but my friends are effing heathens, and don’t read that often. Apparently they have busy lives or something? Fuck knows.

Anyway, somehow the conversation got round to TTG and That North Eastern Freak Heather McCartney.

We all pretty much agreed that she married him for his greens, but this led onto the discussion of whether or not any of us would ever marry a man even if he was dirt poor.

Being the slightly materialistic girl that I am, I of course said no. My girlfriends the poor idealistic fools were appalled.

My argument was that it was as easy to fall in love with a rich man, as with a poor man.

I like to think of myself as a romantic pragmatist. Sure, I like to read stories about rich debutante’s falling in love with poor-as-a-church-mouse heroes, but that’s just fantasy.

If you’re a go-getter, how likely are you to fall in love with somebody who thinks it’s a good idea to sit around the house in their smelly undies all day? Whose idea of ambition, is to make it to the off-license (liquor store to you Americans) before closing? How long is that relationship likely to last?

I do realise there are ambitious women out there who have hooked up with such deadbeats, Britney’s K-Fed but that was never going to be the story of my life.

Whilst I probably wouldn’t ever marry just for money, I think I can safely say, that I would have never hooked up with a guy who couldn’t afford to pay for dinner. Harsh, I know, but hey, I had three jobs whilst I was at university, and if I wanted something, I worked damned hard to get it.

The thing is, my attitude has less to do with the actual money, and more to do with a person’s work ethic, or lack thereof.

If a man doesn’t believe in hard work, how is he going to help look after my babies? If he doesn’t believe in self-improvement, what kind of example is he going to set for my children?

It’s ok to be poor, many people are, but it’s not ok to not want to do better.

If you read e-books, make haste and get yourself to AAR. They have a couple of mini-polls running until 29th October.

You just need to list, A, your top ten mainstream sexy books (e.g. Lisa Valdez’s Passion, Shannon McKenna’s, Standing In The Shadows, Alison Kent’s SG5 books, etc etc.)

B, your top ten erotic romance books, (e.g anything from Elloras Cave, and other erotic romance publishers, as well as authors like Cheryl Holt)

And C, your top ten fave e-books, regardless of whether or not they fall into the above categories. (erm, I think)

LLB wants more ballots, especially for the e-books poll, so go vote!!

The thing is, the blurb sounds really interesting, but the cover just screams ‘Sucks Great Big Hairy Donkey Balls’ to me.

Somebody should have told this guy that breasts on a man is slightly off-putting. Is it me or is one boobage bigger than the other. I thought only women had that problem?

And what’s with the thatch of hair, just above his you know what? I sure could have lived without that little detail. Pubic hair is soooo 1990’s dahhhhling…

I read Anne Stuart’s Black Ice a while ago, and I actually meant to blog about it at the time. I freaking loved it.

How fabulous was Bastien Toussaint? I love me bad boy anti-heroes. There’s something very sexy about borderline psychotic, sadistic, manipulative heroes, who generally have no heart, and no soul. They’re the ones who often fall the hardest. Bastien kinda reminded me of Diaz from Linda Howard’s Cry No More. Know what I mean?

I even liked the heroine, and in any other author’s hands, she would have been as annoying as a fly that lands on your food, after rolling around in dog shit.

You’ve got to love a romance author who’s able to push the envelope as much as this woman has, and after reading her interview at AAR, I think I actually might love her, even if she does like to use the C*NT word.

There was that hoohah a while ago about her creating a sexually ambiguous hero, but I couldn’t be arsed getting embroiled in the argument, because I actually thought that it was a bit of a non-issue. I think that most people who read erotic romance books, where anything goes, probably felt the same as I.

I’m not adverse to a hero who likes a bit of cock now and then, so I’m really looking forward to reading Cold As Ice. (Yes, I know that the hero, Peter Jensen is only Gay For Pay.)

Moving away from Anne Stuart, I’m currently on a Tielle St Clare glom. Even though she’s an EC veteran, I’d never read any of her stuff, but I read Matching Signs, the other week, and really liked it. So as I generally do when I discover an author I like, I went to EC and picked up all of her other full length books.

What I like about her books, is that if you take away the sex, you’re still left with very readable stories, unlike some that I could mention Fletchina Archer.

My fave book of hers so far is Christmas Elf, which is basically a twisted take on Dickens’, A Christmas Carol. The main difference being that, instead of the ghost of Christmas Past, Future etc, etc, we have a whinging elf, who gets kicked out of Lapland (or wherever the hell she lives) for being too crabby and sarcastic. In order to be allowed back home, she has to teach another crabby soul, the joy of giving and love, etc, etc by Christmas Day. Very funny book, and hot too.

If you don’t like sexually explicit books, or books with lots of sex scenes in them, you probably wont like Tielle (pronounced ‘Teal’) St Clare’s work, but if you don’t mind the odd use of c*nt, p*ssy, and cock ok, these words are used a lot, then you’ll have a good time. I did. nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Erm, one more thing, if you’re looking for War and Peace, you might want to refrain from purchasing her books, because she does fluffy very well, and her characters tend to be a little one dimensional. Normally, this would be a bad thing, but I found that I was able to happily bypass the flaws, of which there were more than a few.

One thing that did annoy me no end was the fact that she doesn’t have a website. How can you be an e-book author and not have a website? Totally ridiculous if you ask me, or other e-book readers.

Tod Goldberg gets the best hate mail. Go read, then check out his hysterically funny response.

Sacked for refusing to renove her veil whilst teaching kids

Today, this teacher lost her discrimination case. She was sacked for wearing a veil to school, so she took her case to an employment tribunal.

She was asked to remove the veil whilst teaching school children, and she refused.

I completely agree with the ruling, but I’m not a lily-livered liberal when it comes to shit like this.

Being an ethnic minority person myself, I think I’m well within my rights to say that wearing such a veil, whilst teaching non-Muslim children, is utter bullshit. I have no respect for religion, so my views probably shouldn’t be so surprising.

I don’t give a toss how good a teacher she is, if I had a child in her class, I’d complain as a parent. I pretty much hate all organised religion, but I think the emphasis when it comes to this case, is more on the veil itself, than the religious connotations. It’s a barrier to teaching, pure and simple. And nobody will be able to convince me otherwise.

The liberal lefties are of course up in arms about it, as you would expect them to be. How dare they take away her right to wear what she wants? How dare they disregard her religion in such a fashion? It’s all fucking bullshit. Even the Muslim Council of Britain said it was wrong for her to insist on covering her face.

She can wear what she wants, but not whilst teaching my kid. I’d say the same thing if a teacher decided it was a good idea to wear a miniskirt that showed her crack to all and sundry. It just isn’t fucking cricket.

What say you? It’s ok if you disagree with me, my views can be pretty radical to say the least.

You know, as time has gone by, I’ve grown to actually hate the press more and more.

For the past two days, one bit of news has been grabbing the headlines. Can you guess what it is? Hmmm, let’s see:

Is it the fact that North Koreans are blithely exploding nuclear weapons left right and centre, even though they know they aren’t supposed to?

Is it that everyday we have soldiers in Afghanistan dying, and nobody seems to give a shit?

Is it that everyday thousands of children are starving to death in the poverty stricken corners of our world?

Is that everyday, children are suffering sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their relatives?

Nope, nope, nope.

The biggest news for the past few days has been the fact that Madonna adopted a baby.

What the fuck?

Do I really give a flying arsehole if she’s only doing this for attention? Do I really give a shit that she’s used her fame and fortune to speed up the process? Do I give a shit about the fact that she’s white, and the child isn’t?

NO I FUCKING DON’T.

And quite frankly, in a fucked up world like ours, what she did was a good thing. Let’s face it, the kid would have probably died of AIDS by the time he got to his teens anyway, if he’d stayed in Malawi.

The BBC have a forum up, asking who should adopt African Orphans. My answer? Anybody who gives a shit, and can afford to look after them.

Catherine, from Malibu, disagreed, she wrote:

Madonnas doesn’t do anything for the glory of god but for the glory of Madonna. In Malawi she looks likes she was shopping to keep up with the trends.

There is no doubt she picked this boy simply because his name is David and that fits HER (not Gods) religous image and the adoption craz.. Growing up in Madonnas paparatzi is a greater suffering for this child. I support The Eye of the CHild to prevent Maddona from shopping for children and removing them from their hoemland.

Catherine from Malibu, do you know what you are? You are a fucking moron, who deserves to have her head shaved bald.

So let me repeat, I don’t give a toss that Madonna adopted a child, I really don’t. There are far worse things happening in the world, than giving a parentless baby, a real future.

The press and media are getting as bad as those fucked up human rights, tree- hugging, yoghurt knitting, vegans, who condescend to tell us how the fuck we should lead our lives.

They all need shooting.

Rant over.

(OK, finally managed to get all the photo’s added now)

The Hyatt Regency Newport Beach

Shamu


Shamu at Seaworld San Diego



Venice Beach


At Universal Studios


The house that Guess built (Beverly Hills)

I love Shirley Maclaine

Huntington Beach

Waterworld at Seaworld

Pretty flamingoes…

The seal show at Sea World

Dolphins can jump too…

49ers lose to Philly Eagles

At Monster Park

Baby and Papa Rice…

The bad men of Alcatraz

The Bird of Alcatraz

Alcatraz Island

Fisherman’s Wharf – San Francisco

Good old Ford Explorer…

The golden Gate Bridge

Our Las Vegas room with a view…

Our room with a great view…

The Bellagio water show – sooo pretty!

In the desert…

He likes big butts…

The Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas

Toni Braxton in Vegas

TTG on The Golden Gate Bridge

Murphy’s Law – Last Years Lori Foster book was Say No To Joe?

“Have you ever looked at a picture of yourself and seen a stranger in the background?
It makes you wonder how many strangers have pictures of you. How many moments of other people’s lives have we been in? Were we a part of someone’s life when their dreams came true? Or were we there when their dreams died?”

I’m a huge fan of One Tree Hill, No dammit, I’m not too old to watch that programme! and in this week’s episode (Thanks to the magic of YouTube) the above speech is given at the end by one of the characters, Lucas Scott.

For some reason, it really resonated with me, and it made me think. I thought I’d post it on here, so that I don’t forget it. I think it’s well worth remembering, and could be the basis of a romance book too I bet… You never know…

It’s shit like this that makes me wonder what the fuck the judges within our judiciary system are smoking.

How does it happen that a ten year old boy can be attacked and left to bleed to death on a stairwell, and his murderers only get a measly eight years, with the understanding that they will only serve 3 years?

I still recall the smug faces of the boys who killed him as they were acquitted of this crime, the first time round. Key evidence was missed during the first trial. Evidence such as Damilola’s blood on the training shoe of one of the accused.

Whenever I hear about cases like this, I have to wonder if this would have been different if the little boy had been white, and had lived in Suburbia. Oh yes I went there.

I often compare this case to the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Ian Huntley, the sadistic bastard who killed them, is serving two life sentences, with no possibility of parole. That’s what I call justice. Why can’t Damilola have the same kind of justice?

Why couldn’t these two brothers have at least been given life sentences? Which Ejit looked at this case and surmised that this was manslaughter rather than murder?

He was stabbed in the leg with a bottle, and left to bleed to death. He was only ten years old.

Why does the judiciary system let us down time and time again? Would the presiding judges make the same rulings if this was personal to them? I think fucking not.

Who Is Your Fave Lisa Kleypas Hero?

I suspect this is just another endeavour to prove that Derek is the best boy, ha, well I loved him too, but I voted for Sebastian!

Go vote, ‘tis very exciting!

Google seems to be buying out the competition? Isn’t there some kind of monopolies ruling in place to stop all things from going Google?

God, I wish I’d thought of the YouTube phenomena, barely twenty months in, and those guys make $1.65bn from selling it? Why couldn’t I have been born a computer nerd…

A while ago, JaynieR (god rest her blog) talked about how heroines and heroes having sex with wolfie shapeshifters and the like, was not the same as bestiality. I pretty much agreed with her, but I came across this book at EC, and although it sounds marginally interesting, there’s something about a human having sex with a dragon (ok he’s half dragon-half man) that kinda makes me want to cross my legs in distress.

Here’s the blurb from EC:

“Planet Cordania is in dire straits. Seven long years of drought threaten Queen Jana’s people. Because of it, she will do the unthinkable. She will sign a contract with Mordovea’s King Renae. Twenty-four hours in the arms of a Dragcon ruler, a distasteful task but a small price to pay for her people’s survival when no other will come to her aid.

King Renae has finally discovered a way to be in the arms of the woman he’s loved from afar. Half man, half dragon, he knows that she and the people of Cordania have scorned his kind forever. They can never be together. But one night will be enough for him. Or will they realize that love does not follow a set course of rules?”

I didn’t get the same yucky feeling reading Nalini Singh’s, Slave To Sensation, and the hero was a shapeshifting leopard. I wonder if it’s because, I consider dragons to be ugly creatures, whereas wolfies, and leopards etc, are quite majestic looking? I realise that they will probably get horizontal whilst he’s in his human form, but still…

I shall go away and ponder this some more methinks…

Beverly Havlir (EC author) is thinking of writing a May/December romance, with the heroine being older than the hero. The thing is, she’s not sure what constitutes an older woman, or what sort of age gap would work.

She asks:

“Seriously, will a story about a fortyish woman in love with a younger man sell? Hmmm…”

Personally, I like younger man, older woman stories, but I’m not sure how well heroines in their forties are received in Romanceland. I’d say, make the woman 38, and the guy 28. I think ten years is enough of a gap.

What do you guys think? If you have an opinion on this, pop over to Bev’s blog and let her know what you think.

I’ve just finished reading Sharon… erm Maya Bank’s book, Colters’ Woman. In this book, one of the lead characters had been held captive (and tortured) in Iraq. I don’t know why, but for some reason, this totally me threw me out of the story.

I seem to hate Iraq related plot devices in romances, but I’m at loss to explain why. I can cope with other actual military operations such as Desert Storm appearing in books, but I just can’t stomach any mention of this particular Iraq war. Is this a case of trying to bury my head in the sand?

Any thoughts?

I see Millenia Black is suing. Good for her. I’ve been wondering if she was going to take the whole changing colour thing lying down. I’m not sure if she’ll win, but at least somebody’s taking a stand. It only takes one person to make a difference after all…

In other news, Jordan Summers tells us that she’s sick of sex. It’s an interesting column. Are you guys sick of overblown monkey sex in romance yet? Go read.