TV: I checked my DVR last night, I have twelve, count them twelve episodes of TV on it that need to be watched. And that's after I watched Private Practice (why am I sticking with this show when it's perfectly wretched?!) and an episode of The Big Bang Theory last night. I also just read that How I Met Your Mother was renewed for a sixth season. Is anyone else starting to really think it's time to, you know, actually MEET the mother?
the review is going to be tough for me to write. Unless my level of interest in the story increases. Anyway. To combat the listlessness I feel about this book, I keep picking up OTHER books. First was Kristan Higgins' new release The Next Best Thing. I quite enjoyed it. But it's not my favorite by her. I believed the heroine's issues, but DAMN the hero was perfect and she was all "no thanks, I'm good" which I found frustrating (as usual). Now I'm finally reading Hard to Hold by Stephanie Tyler. And no surprise, I find the hero, Jake to be delicious. I love, love, love me some Navy SEALs. Thank goodness I've got the second book sitting on my shelf.
I find Diane Kruger to be very hit or miss. Besides the fact that she does have delicious arm candy (Joshua Jackson), she can sometimes go a little far out. This dress is lovely. Beautifully fitted and she looks very statuesque in it. I'm not sold on the color, but think that it probably doesn't translate as well in photos as it did live.
ETA! I totally forgot Christina Hendricks. This dress was actually chosen by fans. This isn't the most flattering picture of her, but she looked absolutely luscious in it.
She's young, and she has a glorious body, but I just don't understand why Anna Pacquin is constantly in the plunging necklines. This one in particular left me a bit cold. The shoes are fantastic with the dress. But again, I dunno, I just, didn't love it.
I think this dress is risky. The fabric is such that every bump and nook and cranny shows. And there was a shot from behind Kate Hudson on stage where I was like, "Her ass looks kind of lumpy", which of course, it's not. I like the look of it, and I think that it's lovely, I just wish the fabric had been of a different material.
I think Julianna Margulies must be kind of shocked at how well The Good Wife is being received. It's one of my favorite new shows on TV. But I'm irritated with the fact that she continues to choose dresses that do nothing to flatter her seriously bangin' bod. This dress is just wrong. Good color, wrong fabric, weird neckline = Unflattering
Memo to Carey Mulligan: Contact Keira Knightly's stylist immediately. No seriously. Because even if you don't love Keira Knightly, the girl knows how to dress on a red carpet. This dress looks like she pulled the curtains down from her living room windows and attached a brooch to them. It's a very, very bad look on a tiny, waiflike girl who is definitely adorable.
Oh Julie Bowen. Oh Julie. What am I going to do with you? This dress is unflattering in the extreme. Did you buy it off the rack? Is that why it's fitted so badly to your bod? Which I happen to know, having just seen you in your undies in last week's episode of Modern Family, is FANTASTIC! So, why? Why would you do this to yourself?
Drew Barrymore is known for doing a "look" on the red carpet. And I sort of get what she's going for here. But doesn't her dress look a bit like the rings of Saturn? And did she have sex in the limo on the way over? Why does her hair look so bad. I'm just, at a loss.
I finally did it.
I mentioned before that I love romance Top 100 lists. Not too long ago, Dear Author's Reviewers chose their Top 100 romances. Number one on the list was To Have & To Hold by Patricia Gaffney. This is a book I'd been hearing about for literally years, but still hadn't picked up. I found a copy on Half.com and bought it, thinking I'd finally have an opportunity to see what the hoopla was all about.
Suave, cynical, and too handsome for his own good, Sebastian Verlaine never expects to become a magistrate judging the petty crimes of his tenants and neighbors. Nor can the new Viscount D’Aubrey foresee that, when a fallen woman appears before him, he’ll find himself beguiled against all reason to alter her terrible fate....Rachel Wade has served time in prison for her husband’s violent death, but she soon discovers that freedom has its own price. For no one will offer her a second chance but a jaded viscount who needs a housekeeper. Scorned by the townspeople of Wyckerley as D’Aubrey’s mistress, tempted beyond her will by the devilish lord, Rachel risks all she had to claim a life of her own...and a love that will last for all time.
Rachel is has been released after 10 years in prison, but is arrested again for indigence. She claims to have been robbed of her money, and was returned to Wyckerley, the site of her first trial to stand trial again. Sebastian is immediately fascinated by this woman. She's tall and thin, she has dark hair, except for a thick strand of gray at her temple. She refuses to make eye contact, she's practically concave, she's so determined not to offer any offense. More than that, she shows absolutely no emotion. She's a blank slate. And with that, Sebastian finds his newest distraction. He decides to take her into his custody as his housekeeper. There she'll work off her fine and report to the sheriff once a week to check in on her parole. But more than that, Sebastian will seduce her, and toy with her, and make her his entertainment.
Rachel is fully cognizant of his plan. She realizes that by accepting the posting, she will be subject to both Sebastian's whims and to his use of her body. She feels she has no other choice, despite the fact that she has no experience as a housekeeper. She agrees to his offer, and they travel to Lynton Hall.
They begin a tortuous relationship, with Sebastian constantly pushing Rachel to do things that make her uncomfortable, constantly trying to break down that facade of emotionlessness. It's all a game to him. Except that there is the tiniest inkling of interest in him, which of course, he squashes.
Rachel suffers from nightmares about prison. One night, when she wakes from one, she goes to the library to find the dullest book possible to put her to sleep. Sure enough, the book works, but when she awakes, moments after falling asleep Sebastian is there. And with little to no feeling he tells her that it's time. And then he rapes her. The scene is brutal, horrible, and truly shocking. The entire time I was reading it, all I could think was, "You bastard!" and "No possible way Gaffney can redeem him."
As regular readers of this blog know, I'm a proud member of the romance old school. While I understand the complaints that many readers have about forced seduction scenes, I love many old school romances that have forced seduction in them. But this scene pushed at my limits. There was no emotion. No eventual capitulation. Rachel never felt anything except horror at what was happening to her.
Soon after this, Sebastian invites some of his most dissolute acquaintances from London to visit him. He forces Rachel to act as his hostess. One of his guests, Sully, is actually the heir to Rachel's dead husband. And quickly, the guests begin looking at Rachel as a game. Sebastian allows them to toy with her, asking horrible, invasive questions, and forcing her to answer. Until Rachel finally flees the room. Sully asks Sebastian whether Rachel is his, to which Sebastian answers no. And Sully leaves to go find Rachel, to force her to have sex with him.
No one spoke for a moment, then they all spoke at once, in low voices full of lewd enjoyment and manufactured shock. Sebastian couldn't hear the words over the soft buzzing in his ears. Something was tearing inside. Something was coming completely apart.[...]
He felt the tear down the middle of himself widening, and that was wrong it shoudl have been narrowing. He'd just done a thing to make himself whole again. [...]
Something happened then. He wasn't on the piano bench with Kitty on his lap. He was halfway across the room. He heard a snap in his head, exactly like a bone breaking, and at once the eerie fugue state evaporated. His past and his future had broken cleanly in two. This, now, was the present, a violent limbo he had to smash his way out of to survive.
And with that, Sebastian goes and rescues Rachel from Sully's attempted rape.
It is after this, Sebastian realizes what a bastard he has been. And he slowly, gradually begins to attempt to befriend Rachel. For her part, Rachel has literally never had someone take an interest in her. Her experience with her husband and in prison has left her emotionally scarred and bereft. Sebastian begins to woo her. By apologizing for his treatment of her, by giving her small gifts, by nurturing a friendship that would encourage her to confide in him. And as they get to know each other, their attraction grows. Soon they are lovers again, and are both truly happy and are falling in love. Rachel knows that Sebastian will leave Lynton Hall at some point, and she keeps telling herself to enjoy what she has now. But Sebastian keeps pushing at her barriers, and wants to know Rachel completely. And soon she's fallen for him utterly.
Hey everyone!
Jane Morgan had a tough childhood. Her mother was something of a prison groupie. Marrying Jane's dad, who was in prison, and then, when they divorced, marrying another man, Big Mac, who had also been in prison. Jane's stepdad, Mac is more of a father than her biological father ever was. Jane spent most of her young teens behaving very, VERY badly. Acting trampy and attracting the attention of completely inappropriate boys. As an adult, Jane is horrified by her youthful actions and has swung the extreme opposite direction. She's an accomplished professional, and has modeled herself as conservative and quiet. She only dates the "right" men, and wants a quiet, unassuming life.
Kati says: I've had the pleasure of knowing Monica Burns for more than five years. When I first met Mon, we were just two posters over at Romance Buy the Book, Michelle Buonfiglio's blog. But as years have gone by, we've become good friends. Monica is not just a good friend though, she's a superb author. Her newest romance Kismet is out on shelves now, and I can tell you without equivocation, that it's one of the strongest Sheikh romances I've read in ages. And look at how gorgeous the cover is!
It was a gamble she was born to make…
Raised in a brothel at a young age, Allegra Synnford quickly learned that survival meant taking charge of her destiny. Now, a renowned courtesan skilled in the pleasures of the flesh, she chooses her lovers carefully—vowing never to be vulnerable to any one man. Until a mesmerizing Sheikh strips that control from her…
With a man who wasn’t used to losing.
Sheikh Shaheen of the Amazigh has been hiding from his past for a long time, but not enough to forget how another courtesan made him abandon his life as the Viscount Newcastle. It’s why the yearnings this dangerous temptress ignites within him are so troubling. Worse, thoughts of Allegra pervade every fantasy, threatening to undermine his cover. With old enemies circling, experience tells him he must resist her charms at all cost. In fact, he’s betting on it. That’s a risky wager when it comes to a woman of pleasure. But Allegra has her own reasons for playing games…with a man who can’t afford to lose.
What happens between them is Kismet…
delicious as a powerful Sheikh. Then there’s Oded Fehr who played the Arabic Medjai warrior in the Mummy movies. The hero in my book Mirage was inspired by Oded Fehr . So I guess you could say that I have a thing for the desert and hot-blood alpha males dressed in flowing robes.
finds not only alluring, but it arouses his protective instincts. The push and pull between these characters is something I love. Check out my excerpt for an example.
I remember a few years ago, when I hung out regularly at Romance Buy the Book, that Ann Herendeen visited while promoting her book Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander, which was some sort of a bi-sexual romp, where a woman marries a man who is bi-sexual and ends up being part of a threesome. I'll admit that I own the book (I won it) and have never read it, so I can't speak to the writing or the story. Anyway, Herendeen mentioned at the time that she was seriously considering writing a bi version of Pride & Prejudice, where Darcy and Bingley were lovers.A Pride and Prejudice for the twenty-first century.
Jane Austen's most popular novel has enthralled generations of readers, as proud Mr. Darcy meets his match in witty and prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet. But only now can the hidden story be told, of the two parallel loves that complicate this ideal romance: Darcy's controlling affection for the gentlemanlike Charles Bingley; and the sympathetic intimacy between Elizabeth and her more practical friend, Charlotte Lucas.
Pride/Prejudice "fills the gaps" in Austen's story, daring to imagine the full truth suggested by the original. What is Darcy's real motivation for preventing Bingley's marriage to Elizabeth's beautiful and virtuous sister Jane? How can Darcy reconcile his desire for Elizabeth with his determination to save his friend from a similar entanglement? And what is the disturbing history behind Darcy's tortured relationship with his foster brother, George Wickham?
Now P/P brings to light all the buried secrets, weaving a tale of intertwined passions that must be resolved through honesty and forgiveness, the humbling of pride and freedom from prejudice.
In this retelling of a classic work, love truly conquers all.
I think most of us can agree, I'm a relatively exacting (some would say pain in the ass) romance reader . When I love and author, I LOOOOVE them. And when they disappoint me, no one is more public than I am about my disappointment. I will almost always give an author two chances to screw up and then, I heartlessly dump them.
A month or so ago, Dear Author published their Top 100 romances list (as chosen by their review staff). I've always waited with baited breath for All About Romance's Top 100 (which is chosen by their readers), so I read Dear Author's list with interest. The thing that struck me was how many romances I'd never heard of. So, I resolved to read a few of them. I promptly ordered two of the books that were on the list: To Have and To Hold by Patricia Gaffney, which I've been hearing about for years, and Till the Stars Fall Down by Kathleen Gilles Seidel.
Happy New Year! Question: Is it "Twenty-ten"? Or "Two Thousand Ten?" I don't know. In my head I read that "Twenty-ten."
