romance

A week!

Moriah

I cannot believe a week has gone by and I haven’t posted. Tax Deduction #1 just went into kindergarten and I find myself being forced by the school district to keep a schedule. (Blech.) Being a WAHM is its own precious kind of insanity and my chaos is getting beaten into submission. Thank heavens I still have Tax Deduction #2 to keep my days a little off balance. I just don’t know what I’m going to do when he goes to school, too, and we’re all perfectly regulated and scheduled by default.

FYI, I thought y’all might like to know what editing a book (for me) looks like:

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That stack of papers is one manuscript. Take about 100 pages off the top and that’s about how much of a dent I’ve made, which isn’t, admittedly, that much. Once I got through crying over all the bloodletting, though, I’ve started to have a lot of fun.

I’ll admit that when I’m under the gun like this (or otherwise preoccupied with Fun Stuff*), my blog reading goes way down (oh noes! missing drahmah!) and obviously, so does my posting. Hopefully I’ll be back on track in a couple of weeks and with any luck, I’ll get to start really cranking out the pages for book #2 in the Dunham series.

*So in the last week, Fun Stuff has consisted of reading. A lot. I finished a couple of erotic historical romance author Pam Rosenthal‘s books, which I enjoyed for their voice and odd cadences, but didn’t find terribly erotic. Both books were remarkable for how they took people from different classes and had them work to reconcile their thought processes and worldviews. To me, the sex wasn’t terribly descriptive anyway, so I don’t know why they’re billed as erotic. They’re fairly cerebral books. I liked The Slightest Provocation better than I liked The Bookseller’s Daughter. Almost a Gentleman was the one I couldn’t finish because I figured out the whodunnit a quarter of the way in and, again, the sex wasn’t enough to sustain the story if you already had it figured out.

I’m reading a (published) book by my crit partner. I’m reading a book by Rachel Ann Nunes (because really, how can I pound LDS lit into the ground if I don’t read it?), but I have to admit it’s just not holding my attention. I made an order to Deseret Book because I figured out that two of the books I bought in Nauvoo 2 weeks ago (yeah, I’ll post about that) are sequels (WHY don’t they put this on the cover?).

I was, uh, gifted with boxes and boxes of old LDS books, some of which are old-timey LDS romances and some others of which I think might be valuable, so I’m looking into that.

Hey Sam Weller’s. Call me!

Book Review: Married to a Rock Star

Moriah

Married to a Rock Star
by Tami Parrington
published by Prairieview Publishing via Lulu

I read a great review of this book and went immediately forthwith to purchase it. I don’t know whether I’m more upset with the book or with the review, but let’s just say this would’ve been a wallbanger had it not been on my precious ebook reader. I shouldn’t have finished it, really, but I kept reading because I thought surely, somewhere along the way, the heroine would pull her head out of her ass.

Alas.

I wanted to like this book. Really. I thought I would like this book because of the real-life fantasy of it (as in, not elf- fairy- magick-type fantasy). It’s independently published and I want and need to support that community. Thus, I’ve been sitting on this review for several days, thinking about whether I wanted to post it or not.

Here’s the summary:

Out in the country, Karen and her two teenage children have a new neighbor-Isaiah Highland, who is anything but the farm type. Isaiah is a rock-star looking for peace, starving for privacy, and he’s found them both…and a whole lot more. Swept into a world of fame, fortune, and betrayal, Karen finds herself in a world far removed from her little farm.

Two separate worlds….

Worlds bound to collide…

When they do Isaiah and Karen will have to choose between their own versions of paradise…and each other.

Good points:

1. It’s readable.

2. Great concept.

Bad points:

1. Consistent homonym, spelling, and grammar errors that should’ve been caught by a proofreader.

2. Kansas City errors. If you want to get detailed with a city, please know what you’re talking about.

a. There are no stockyards and haven’t been since 1974.

b. Kemper Arena is not a stadium and is not referred to as such by locals.

c. Bryant’s (the one on Brooklyn, which is the one referenced in the book) isn’t a restaurant; it’s a sleazy, nasty, dirty BBQ diner (which was a lot sleazier, nastier, dirtier when Mr. Arthur Bryant was alive and sitting in his straight-backed metal chair with his arms crossed over his chest, right next to the BBQ pit, overseeing the operations with an eagle eye) which does not take reservations and there is no cutting in line and most definitely not at midnight and I don’t care who the dignitary is (uh, with the exception of Jimmy Carter when he was president; I think Clinton chose Gates). Considering I worship at the altar of Arthur Bryant, this is an affront.

3. A 40-year-old 1-year-widowed heroine who:

a. becomes a rock star’s groupie in front of her 15-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter,

b. drags said teenagers back and forth across the country to follow this guy around,

c. tolerates his milieu’s dismissive treatment of her,

d. tolerates him screaming at her in front of Princess Stephanie of Monaco for talking to reporters when she has no idea what the word “groupie” really means,

e. takes the advice of aforementioned 17-year-old daughter who says, in effect, “If you don’t fuck him, the groupies will,” so she does,

f. goes back to him after he’s abandoned her 90 miles from home with no cash and slaps her (in front of aforementioned teenagers and his entire milieu),

g. tolerates the groupies anyway,

h. seems to have no grasp on how her behavior can/will affect her already angst-ridden children (their father died barely a year ago, remember) and if she does, doesn’t seem to care, and

i. doesn’t seem to love the guy in the first place, or at least if she does, I see no reason why she should and she never indicates by thought, word, or deed that this is anything but an exciting fling for her, no matter how degrading.

4. No comeuppance for the, ah, “hero,” who begins the “I love you” business as a bargaining chip.

And you know, I could’ve gone with it and had snarkworthy fun with it had not children (impressionable teenagers, yet) been involved in her rapid and willing debasement. For that, I felt dirty after reading this book and I finished it wondering if the reviewer (whose recommendation I took) and I read the same book.

“Little Lion Face”

Moriah

Thmazing posted this poem by May Swenson (1919-1989), Mormon poet, in April. I don’t usually “get” poetry, but I sure as heck got this and it is…beautiful. I’m going to have to invest some time in her work.

Little lion face
I stopped to pick
among the mass of thick
succulent blooms, the twice

streaked flanges of your silk
sunwheel relaxed in wide
dilation, I brought inside,
placed in a vase.Milk

of your shaggy stem
sticky on my fingers, and
your barbs hooked to my hand,
sudden stings from them

were sweet.Now I’m bold
to touch your swollen neck,
put careful lips to slick
petals, snuff up gold

pollen in your navel cup.
Still fresh before night
I leave you, dawn’s appetite
to renew our glide and suck.

An hour ahead of sun
I come to find you.You’re
twisted shut as a burr,
neck drooped unconscious,

an inert, limp bundle,
a furled cocoon, your
sun-streaked aureole
eclipsed and dun.

Strange feral flower asleep
with flame-ruff wilted,
all magic halted,
a drink I pour, steep

in the glass for your
undulant stem to suck.
Oh, lift your young neck,
open and expand to your

lover, hot light.
Gold corona, widen to sky.
I hold you lion in my eye
sunup until night.

Pretty women

Moriah

feminine but businesslike pink shell and chunky necklace, with understated pinstripesDisclaimer: I can’t stand Hillary Clinton. At all. But… I find her very attractive in this picture. I’m not even going to chalk it up to the hair (very nice) or necklace (meh—not a fan of chunk jewelry). Perhaps the smile? Yes, that’s it. It looks…genuine. Happy. Even as much as I despise her, I didn’t like the constant yammering on her looks. On the other hand, if she’d let this side of her show more often, would she have gotten farther?

Then there’s this picture of Dame Helen Mirren who, at 62, is totally rockin’. I wouldn’t have posted it because Karen already did, but it’s stuck with me for 3 days. To me, it’s an illustration that Mother Nature doesn’t necessarily punish us XX types for having the audacity to turn 40. Or 50. Or 60.

And the last 2 ladies in today’s lineup are Alfre Woodard (56) and Diane Keaton (62). I don’t guess I have any commentary because, well, look at ’em. Obviously, I don’t know which ladies have had what work done, if any, but still.

Over at Teach Me Tonight, Laura Vivanco discusses the topic of older women in romance vis a vis Charlotte Lamb’s novels. She also points out RfP’s post at Access Romance and about young heroines who don’t really seem young and Robin Uncapher’s post about the time warp in romance.

Well, I’ll tell you. I didn’t really feel like writing an ingenue because at my age, it’s just silly and I was never an ingenue when I was that age. I wanted to write people who had some experience with life. Now, Susan Elizabeth Phillips writes older romance, but always within the context of having the older couple as a secondary love plot.

Mine aren’t 50-ish, but they are 40-ish and as the series progresses, they age. In book #2 (Stay), the hero and heroine (Eric and Vanessa) are youngish by my standards (late 20s and early 30s, but this is a challenge I set for myself). By book #3 (Magdalene), the oldest of the original characters are on the wrong side of 45 and still going strong. Mitch and Cassie, the hero and heroine of Magdalene, are on the wrong side of 45, with grown/almost grown children and possibly a grandchild or two.

So along with my other crimes against romance, you can add major characters in their 40s. Gee, how many other ways can I bend this genre?

More steampunk, please!

Moriah

I read a lot of Neal Stephenson’s stuff and the only thing he’s written that I cautiously suspect might possibly could be classified steampunk is Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, but I still don’t know if that makes it steampunk because it’s set in the future with Victorian aesthetics instead of in Victoriana with modern technology. (Great book, BTW, but I really really liked The Big U.)

I’ve been meaning to get into it (really!), especially after looking at sites such as Steampunk Workshop and Kit Stolen‘s site (and oh, isn’t he a beautiful man; you know I had to make a character out of him).

But this limits me because to me, steampunk is eye candy, as in goods: Pretty clothes and pretty things and gorgeous textures–all DIY. I mean, really. Look at this stuff. It begs caressment.

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And oh, various steampunk keyboards are for sale at Datamancer, FYI.

Anyway, I’ve been reading a short story by Eva Gale, which is post-apocalyptic for one and steampunk for two (steam engines? of course it is). The story is from Phaze anthology Fantasy IV and is called “Scorpion’s Orchid.” And now my appetite for steampunk fiction is whet and I want more, but SF/F is a foreign land to me. Obviously, I’m going to take suggestions off of Steampunk Workshop’s site, but help me out here, folks. Good steampunk (with or without utopian/dystopian elements) suggestions being solicited.