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Willaful Review: The Marrying Kind

The Marrying Kind by Ken O’Neill. Published by Bold Strokes Books.

Sensuality rating: mildly risque candyfloss

I’m mostly a genre reader, so I tend to want to classify what I read. The Marrying Kind is a toughie — like the recent book The Bro-Magnet, it sort of cries out for a category called Dudelit, with its first-person narrative by a lovably flawed protagonist on a slightly over-the-top comic journey of self-discovery. Except unlike most chicklit protagonists, Steven isn’t looking for love; his problem is that he’s found love, but it’s not recognized.

Steven Worth has a pretty much perfect life, with his partner Adam and their cat “kids.” They’re even thinking about real kids someday. But despite his current state of well being, Steven doesn’t feel that far removed from the fat kid known as Steven Worthless he once was, and he tends to be diffident and conformist: “My idea of bucking the system is insisting on saying ‘large’ instead of ‘venti’ when I order my Starbucks coffee.” (more…)

The Best Revenge

The Best Revenge

Thursday, June 21, 2012
Posted in: Fucked Up People, willaful

Does reading comments on the Internet make you want to slit your own throat in despair at the fate of humanity? Yeah, me too.  But next time I see someone comment “kill the retards” on a post about disabled children or “get AIDS and die, faggit” on a post about gay marriage, I’ll just remember this and say, “thanks for the suggestion!”

(NSFW)



Link: Thank You Hater

Michelle Reviews: Stranded and One-Two Punch

 

Stranded by Eve Vaughn

Heat Level: Blistering

MFM black female, white male, Latino male

Note: As I’m reviewing multicultural books, I think it would be remiss of me not to list the character’s ethnicity. Sometimes covers can be deceptive, and though that’s becoming less of an issue, I still think it would be a disservice to leave that out. So I’ll be doing that going forward.

Until I sat down to write this review I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed this book. Eve Vaughn is a writer I’d read before, so when I decided to try a triad, I picked up one of hers. Vaughn in some ways reminds me of Linda Howard; when she’s on nobody’s better, but when she’s off, God help you. Fortunately with this book she was awesomely on.

The story is fairly basic, India, the heroine, decides to take off on vacation after breaking up with her fiancé. Rafe and Grant are best friends who are vacationing together to recover from Rafe’s bad marriage and subsequent divorce. During said marriage they discovered that they enjoy sharing a woman, and are actively looking to form a triad. They meet en route and are immediately attracted to one another.

As the title would suggest, they’re stranded on a desert island as the only survivors of a horrific plane crash. And this island is no paradise, for one thing they suffer from a lack of food, and as none of them are survivalists, the situation quickly becomes acute. The scenes on the island are where Vaughn really shines. I liked the way she showed the relationship between the three developing. They’re walking wounded, battered by difficult lives. Rafe and Grant both come from broken, abusive homes. India is from a home that should’ve been broken. Because of this, it’s easy to understand why they would choose an unconventional relationship.

Of course, they’re eventually rescued and returned to civilization. And this is when the real conflict of the story occurs. For one thing, they’re a media sensation, and India, in particular, begins to doubt the legitimacy of their relationship.

India, the heroine, is probably the weakest note of this story. Though within the context of her home life and the battering her self-esteem had to have taken in that atmosphere her choices make sense, I still found myself screaming at her at times. Other than that, this is a very deftly told story. Stranded is available here.

One-Two Punch by Katie Allen

One-Two Punch by Katie Allen

Heat Level: Blistering

MMF white female, white male, biracial (black/Japanese) male

Katie Allen is a new to me author, though she has quite an extensive backlist. After I read Stranded, which is a MFM story, with absolutely no sexual contact between the two men, I wanted to try a MMF story. Much to my surprise I discovered that I like the sex scenes in the MMF story better. Male-to-female anal sex squicks me out, and DP just sounds painful. However, male-to-male anal sex doesn’t bother me at all. Yes, I know that’s crazy, but hey, I never said my reviews would make sense. In the MMF stories the men have more than one avenue to sexual pleasure and frankly anything that leads to less DP is full of win for me.

My overall sense of this book is that it’s just cute. The story has some humorous scenes, and an overall sense of fun that I really enjoyed. That’s not to say that there aren’t any dark issues; Ky, one of the heroes just left the military with a case of PTSD. There is also an issue with a stalker and that’s never a good thing.

At the beginning of the story Beth sees Harry through the window of the gym he owns and thinks he’s uber-hot, so she feigns an interest in learning to box, and he becomes her trainer. The two of them become lovers very quickly. In a bit of foreshadowing Beth asks Harry if he’s ever been with a man, and he tells her about being attracted to one in the Army, but never acting on it. (This whole scene just rang false with me, I can’t imagine ever asking a man whether he’s been with a man. And Harry’s low-key response just doesn’t sound like any hetero male I’ve ever met.)

I like Beth, and I like Harry, but until Ky shows up this is a rather generic romance: Sassy blonde meets rugged ex-GI ho-hum. Ky and Harry served in the combat together and there was sexual tension between the two, but given the close quarters it never came to anything. Now, back in the States with a Mental Health discharge Ky comes looking for Harry after having an ugly dust-up with his father over his sexuality. Beth is instantly attracted to Ky, who is apparently so beautiful he can literally stop traffic. (I pictured Ky looking somewhat like Tyson Beckford who I think has the same heritage as this character, so I could understand her reaction.) Beth is already living with Harry and Ky moves in.

I like the way the story slows down at this point and the relationship evolves. If all three had just jumped in bed together this probably would’ve been a wallbanger. And frankly, given the speed at which Beth and Harry got together that’s what I expected. Instead, we see three characters with fairly realistic responses: Beth is thinking she’s a bit of a slut for lusting after two men. Harry is questioning just what his sexuality is. Ky already knows he’s just wild about Harry (sorry!) but is somewhat surprised by his attraction to Beth. I do have to point out that this is definitely a “gay for you” story. When Beth quite reasonably questions Ky’s attraction to her despite his sexual orientation he tells her, “If wanting to fuck you means I’m not gay, then I’m not gay.” Actually I guess that’s a case of “straight for you.” Or is it? Hell if I know. Just thought I’d point that out.

There is a bit of paternalism as well, though it’s not racial. Harry is nearly a decade older than both Ky and Beth and feels somewhat protective of them. This is incorporated into a couple of sex scenes and it’s very effective.

And for the record, the scene where Ky explains their relationship to his father, the cop, is worth the price of the book. Maybe it’s because I have a black father of my own, but I laughed out loud at that scene. One-Two Punch is available here.

Meet Harvey Specter...My New Crush...

I discovered Suits last week. And I loved it. But I love, love, love Harvey Specter more.

You have to watch the show to get his appeal. Seriously…

Here’s Gabriel Macht, who plays Harvey, explaining Harvey. Total swoonfest!

You can buy a copy of the Season One DVD of Suits at Amazon.com here.

The Oatmeal vs FunnyJunk and Charles Carreon, via Dear Author

Cross posted with full permission from Dear Author

~~~ * ~~~

The Oatmeal is a satiric cartoon site run by Matthew Inman. About a year ago, he noticed that his content was being uploaded without attribution to a site called “The FunnJunk.” The FunnyJunk is a site that contains user generated content. This means that account holders post things that they like from all over the internet. Maybe a pre-Pinterest sort of site. The Oatmeal writes to the FunnyJunk requesting that the information be removed.

FunnyJunk took down the comics but proceeded to create a mirror image of The Oatmeal’s website. The Oatmeal responded by asking his readers what to do.

The FunnyJunk responded with a call to action to its own users asking them to inundate The Oatmeal’s inbox and facebook page. The FJ’s users responded in droves using their arsenal of retorts such as gay slurs and incoherently misspelled sentences to insult The Oatmeal and his biological predecessors for having the gall to procreate and, I guess, learn how to spell and draw.

According to Ars Technica, after the furor died down, the FJ admin acted somewhat responsibly, possibly realizing that its site could be in jeopardy due to all the copyrighted material illegally reposted there. (more…)

On J.R. Ward's Use of The Hip-Hop Culture, Sans The Blacks...

A reader posted this comment on on an old AztecLady thread about JR Ward’s BDB books, and I found it very interesting.

Reader ‘Maggy’ writes:

I’m falling away from this series due to the OBVIOUS case of severe internalized misogny J.R. Ward has. Her females are bland Barbie dolls who are almost always damsels in distress. It’s like they’re token characters and nothing more. An excuse to show the male protaganist naked.

As for the whole Black subculture thing, oh I agree whole heartedly. A goodreads.com group I’m part of has debated this issue before, the lack of anyone who isn’t white… or Catholic in this series is ASTOUNDING. And everytime you think you may be looking at a Hispanic character… NOPE… turns out to be Italian.

Oddly when she seemed to have a bolt from the blue about this she made up a subspecies called Shadows who are cannibalistsic vampires from Africa and the Middle East. There goes her nattering on about how there are no races in the vampire world. Though… why did she need to make the Black and Arabic people in her series… CANNIBALS?

Oh note: Her TWO Black characters don’t really talk all that much like the Brotherhood. I’m sure that says something, but at 2am, I’m not sure what that is.

I don’t think the whole appropriation of the black sub-culture thing used to bother me so much, but I find that the older I get, the more I’m annoyed by it. It’s not to say that J.R Ward is anywhere near being racist, however, I’m ready for some of her BDB characters who aren’t cannibals to be black. Enough’s enough already.

And yes, her whole ‘there are no races in the BDB world’ argument is a total cop-out. If it looks like a chicken, and squawks like a chicken, it’s probably a chicken. Just sayin’.

Willaful Review: The Theory of Attraction

The Theory of Attraction by Delphine Dryden. Published by Carina Press.  Sensuality rating: Blistering

Dryden did something really interesting here — created a hero who is clearly somewhere on the autism spectrum, with the accompanying literalness, rigidity, anxiety, and lack of social skills, but who’s also the world’s best Dom.

Camilla has been attracted to her geeky neighbor Ivan ever since she saw him respond calmly during an emergency; the hot bod he shows while running past her window — “6:30 in the morning, out for a run each and every day” — doesn’t hurt either. When Ivan enlists her help in learning how to behave appropriately at an important social event. Camilla is happy to have the chance to get closer to him. What she discovers when she does is quite a shock — far from the inexperienced virgin she envisioned, Ivan is an extremely adept Dom. And he has a lot to teach her, as well. (more…)

Hello, My Name is Michelle...

…and I love multicultural books. Apparently I bitched at Karen one time too many about multicultural reviews because as often happens she told me to either write them myself, or shut the hell up about it. So, here I am. I’ve been a romance reader for a very long time, and my taste is eclectic. I really enjoy unusual, offbeat stories. I prefer books with a black heroine, but I read other ethnicities and will be reviewing those too. Historicals are my favorite, but it’s hard to find those in multicultural. I also like all manner of contemporaries including paranormals and romantic suspense. I don’t care for inspys, and while I have liked some menage books, and my next review will be one, I won’t be reviewing any M/M, though I might review F/F if I come across any I like. Why? Because I want to promote books that don’t receive much airtime, so to speak, in Romancelandia. So, if you know of any books you’d like to recommend hit me up at 1blackwomansopinion@gmail.com. Thank you very much.

Great Book Alert: KarenS Review: Easy by Tammara Webber

KKB Sensuality Rating: Steamy

I’ve just read a fantastic college romance book called Easy. It was a rec from Jane over at Dear Author.

I started reading it a couple of nights ago, and I found it really hard to put down.

Here’s the blurb from Amazon:

A girl who believes trust can be misplaced, promises are made to be broken, and loyalty is an illusion. A boy who believes truth is relative, lies can mask unbearable pain, and guilt is eternal. Will what they find in each other validate their conclusions, or disprove them all?

When Jacqueline follows her longtime boyfriend to the college of his choice, the last thing she expects is a breakup. After two weeks in shock, she wakes up to her new reality: she’s single, attending a state university instead of a music conservatory, ignored by her former circle of friends, stalked by her ex’s frat brother, and failing a class for the first time in her life.

Her econ professor gives her an email address for Landon, the class tutor, who shows her that she’s still the same intelligent girl she’s always been. As Jacqueline becomes interested in more from her tutor than a better grade, his teasing responses make the feeling seem mutual. There’s just one problem–their only interactions are through email.

Meanwhile, a guy in her econ class proves his worth the first night she meets him. Nothing like her popular ex or her brainy tutor, Lucas sits on the back row, sketching in a notebook and staring at her. At a downtown club, he disappears after several dances that leave her on fire. When he asks if he can sketch her, alone in her room, she agrees–hoping for more.

Then Jacqueline discovers a withheld connection between her supportive tutor and her seductive classmate, her ex comes back into the picture, and her stalker escalates his attention by spreading rumors that they’ve hooked up. Suddenly appearances are everything, and knowing who to trust is anything but easy.

Loved, loved, loved this book! I don’t read college set romances very often, but I read the blurb for Easy after it was recced to me, and I was hooked. (To be honest, it was lucky that I was able to see past the somewhat atrocious blurb).

There are so many things that I loved about this book, that it’s hard to know exactly where to start, but I have to say, it was great to have two protagonists who were equally likeable. Lucas was a hero to die for, smart, protective, strong, yet sensitive, ( mostly due to the traumatic events of his past) the kind of guy you wish you’d met at college. Jacqueline was a fantastic heroine, very relatable, and just an all round good person. I liked that all the characters were fully fleshed out, and even the ex-boyfriend wasn’t your usual cookie-cutter bastard. Of course he was a dick, but for all intents and purposes, he was a dick who as it turned out genuinely cared about his ex girlfriend.

Although there’s an attempted rape and an actual rape in this book, I felt it was handled very sensitively, and when the rapist finally got his come-uppance, I actually cheered out loud.

To me, Easy was a book about survival, overcoming personal tragedy, sisterhood, and falling in love. A good ingredient for any romance methinks.

You can read Jane’s full review of the book here, and download Easy from Amazon.com here.

Michelle Review: Buttercup by Sienna Mynx

Buttercup by Sienna Mynx. Self-published, 2010. Erotic Romance very steamy.

Let me start by saying that I was immediately drawn to this book because the cover is absolutely gorgeous. The 1930s setting makes it unusual for a romance, and it’s a time period I really like. Gangsters, bank robbers, and carnival hooch dancers definitely are the ingredients for my kind of book. Back in the day carnivals were definitely not entertainment for the kids. Men paid money to come in, drink liquor, or “hooch” and watch women get naked. For a little extra money sometimes the dancer would grant sexual favors. This is the line of work in which Buttercup is employed when she meets Silvio the leader of a band of bank robbers. Their first encounter results in him being wrongfully incarcerated for rape. So when he returns everyone, including Buttercup, believe he wants revenge, what he’s actually come for leaves the entire carnival in an uproar.

The author does an excellent job of capturing the time period and her descriptions of the carnival lifestyle are vivid and engaging. I could all but smell the aromas and see the cheap, tawdry costumes. The sense of urgency and hard lives lived fast and furiously leap from the page.

 The warm fragrance of sweet kettle corn and roasted apples blew in from the midway through the loosened flap at the front of the tent. Carnies taunted townies to test their luck, get their fortunes read, or become one of the chosen few to bear witness to the never seen before oddities of man. However, here under the cover of a patchwork carnival tent, it was just Buttercup and him–alone. Silvio swallowed. His nerves, a ball of conflicting emotions had lodged in his throat as he stared on, riveted. He had found her. Beyond a stage curtain made from tattered wash-worn sheets strung up by fishing wire, she called for him, seduced him, damned him.

These characters are true-to-life, rough edges and all. Buttercup has had sex for money. Silvio is a bank robber and gangster. People have died as a result of his actions. The author doesn’t make the mistake of trying to soften the rough edges for us. These were tough times and she shows them for what they were. This is 1930s America, so racism is definitely an issue, but it’s not the central focus of the book. It’s simply shown as a fact of life that doesn’t slow them down one bit. The gritty realism of the characters make their love story all the more believable.

For me there were only two flaws to this story; it was two short, and the villain’s motivations were a bit confusing.  By my account, Buttercup and Silvio only had two days together. They were two action-packed days, and the author does such a good job of drawing the reader in that I didn’t realize that they were together so briefly until after I sat down to write the review. But I think the story would have been well-served by more scenes of the two of them together. At one point I thought the villain wanted Buttercup for himself, but by the end of the book, I wasn’t sure what his deal was. That could’ve been fleshed out more. All in all, I absolutely loved this book.

You can download Buttercup for Kindle at Amazon.com here.

I recently read her newest  Harmony, which is another interracial story set in the same time period, but with the Cotton Club and Italian mafioso. I’ll review it later.

Willaful Review: The Sleeping Night

Sensuality rating: lightly steamy

The Sleeping Night by Barbara Samuel. Published by Bell Bridge Books, 2012.

World War II is over, and lives will never be the same. For Isaiah High, the end of the war means knowing he’ll never be able to belong in Gideon, Texas again.

He’d understood that his service had changed him. Until he’d been forced to board the colored car at the Mason Dixon line, he had not realized that it might be impossible to return to the Jim Crow South, to fit himself back into rigors of a system that now seemed antiquated and peculiar.

However much he and his fellow soldiers had changed, it was clear the South had not. Companions warned him with stories of the beatings that soldiers received when, after long years away, they forgot themselves and tipped counter girls or filled paper cups with water from white water fountains.

As he passed though Gideon proper, he kept his gaze fixed firmly on his path so that he wouldn’t be required to speak to anyone, wouldn’t accidentally meet the eyes of anyone who’d take offense. It shamed him to do it, after so long walking like a man in the world. (more…)

"...romance as a pop-culture entity–fucked me up pretty severely." - Romance Is Damaging?

I saw this post courtesy of RRRJessica this morning, and I have to say, it gave me food for thought, as well as pissed me off a tad. There’s nothing I hate more than people who bang on about feminism, whilst trying to minimise my right to choose.

The blogger writes:

…I’ve been reading Dear Author. This is my Big Chance granted to the romance genre: I wanted to see if my prejudices against it were unfounded. While I don’t have exact statistics to wave in anyone’s face, I think it’s no distortion of the truth to point out that most of the content discussed and reviewed on Dear Author is a matter strictly white and middle-class and western–American mostly, with a daub here and there of the Irish or Scottish to liven things with a little exotica; sometimes books about characters of color will be reviewed, but those are overwhelmingly books written by white people. A limited, vanishingly small quantity of lesbian material is reviewed once in a blue moon (the latest under this tag? May 2011). M/M is reviewed now and again, but only those with reality distortion fields on will insist M/M as a genre is about the advocacy of gay rights.

[…]

I imagine a lot of us grew up internalizing homophobia to hell and back. I imagine a lot of us didn’t even know we were in the closet, because it’s easy to believe you are straight when everyone is straight and tells you it’s the normal thing to be. Haruka and Michiru weren’t enough to combat everything else; neither were Anthy and Utena. I thought yuri manga was dirty (although, to be sure, I was also repulsed by yaoi) and I avoided it like the plague.

So, I don’t know about other queer women, but to me the prevalence of romance–not as a genre by itself, but romance as a pop-culture entity–fucked me up pretty severely. I didn’t grow up on romance exactly, but I did consume my share of shoujo manga. I consumed my share, later, of urban fantasy. You and I know this shit is everywhere. The heteronormative hegemony. The automatic recoiling at any mention of the gay. It’s not to be pinned onto any one genre, any one category, anyone form of media.

But if you’re telling me that romance is categorically feminist, you’re contributing to this large damage in an insidious, silencing way. The proponents of romance-is-feminist school of thought like to pass such fiction off as inherently progressive because it is written mostly by women and targets women as an audience: it pushes the idea that reading these books is liberating and sex-positive and, what’s more, reading them is good for you. Because feminism! Liberation from the yoke of repression and sexual dissatisfaction!

Tell me this and I’ll kick you in the fucking teeth.  (more…)

Are There Any Authors Pleased With Their E-Publishers?

I spend a fair amount of time reporting about authors who are unhappy with their publishers, so I’m gonna open up the blog to any authors who are happy with their e-pubs.

So roll-up, roll-up, are any of you lot out there actually happy writing for your current e-pub, if so, why, and what have they done for you lately?

Whiskey Creek Press Love Their Authors Like Victoria Beckham Loves Complex Carbohydrates Part 1499...

Yet another satisfied Whiskey Creek author left this comment on an old Whiskey Creek Press blog post:

I also had a bad experience with WCP. They did not publish my book until one year after I signed the contract. A month before it was supposed to be published the editor contacted me and I had to rush to look at everything.

A second editor completely ignored the changes and sent me a galley with errors in it. When I asked if we could correct those errors she called me up and said that I was a horrible writer and she is confused about why the company ever took me on. After berating me for ten minutes she suggested I buy out my contract because I had a bad attitude (all because I wrote a polite e-mail pointing out that a few things were missed.)

She said I was much too young to be doing this. What company accepts a manuscript and then their editor calls to berate the author? Then when it came time for royalty payments, I never got them. They said “We will get you next time around.” Does this sound unprofessional to anyone?

I’ve got a few questions in response to the above:

A; She obviously knew the publishing date, why didn’t she query it in the first place, if she wasn’t happy with the length of time it would take for her book to hit the public? I have to say, a year sounds pretty reasonable to me.

B: Why was she rushing to get the edits in a month prior to publishing? She’s just complained about the length of time she’d been given between signing her contract and having the book published.

C: Why would an editor tell you what an asshole you are, just because you asked for the changes to your book to be implemented? Do we think she’s missed a whole chunk out of information out here? (Mind you, this is Whiskey Creek Press after all, so you never know…)

D: Did she actually sell copies of her books? What are the payment terms over at WCP?

I never know what to believe with these epub authors, I just assume that anybody who has this much trouble with their publisher isn’t the brightest bulb in the picnic hamper. It sounds like she’s been dicked around, but honestly she doesn’t sound overly bright, so my sympathies are limited. Harsh, I know, but hey, what are ya gonna do?