Vixenwriter

Wow are there a lot of great books out there right now!

First up - Liz Maverick’s WiredI’m a huge fan of cyberpunk and Wired does the job not just ably but most fabulously!

Roxanne finds herself walking to the convenience store in the middle of the night, not quite knowing why when her life is suddenly turned completely upside down. Repeatedly.

Wired keeps the reader guessing just as much as Rox is guessing. The first person POV lends an intimate air to the story, keeping you in Rox’s head as she’s trying very hard to figure out just what is going on and who to trust.

Maverick is clever and witty and her dialog and storytelling are even better than the very high bar she’s set for herself in the past.

Shomi is off to a great start with Wired and I can only hope for more of this sort of breathless new world of novels when Marianne Mancusi’s Moongazer comes out next month

Linda Winstead Jones’ Raintree: Haunted

I’m thrilled with the direction Nocturne is taking as a line. The middle book in the Raintree Trilogy only confirmed that for me.

Winstead-Jones creates a world for Gabriel and and Hope that is believeable even in the midst of a fascinating paranormal universe.

Howard had the task of setting up the world and Barton will have to tie it all together but Haunted has the sweet spot and Winstead-Jones used it to her advantage with this really wonderful, thrilling, sexy ride.

Gabriel is a fabulous hero, dark and wounded and Hope is a woman who overcomes her doubts to accept all that Gabriel has to offer.

The bad guys are very bad and this is not a book for the fainthearted in certain parts. The romance and chemistry are heatstroke inducing and very well written and paced.

I loved Haunted and I can’t wait to pick up Barton’s book tonight to see where Sanctuary takes me.

Allison Brennan’s Fear No Evil
Wow. Brennan pulls no punches with a truly scary look into the head of a serial killer. She gives us the POV of Kate - a former FBI agent on the run, Dillon, the brother of the kidnapped girl slated for murder, Lucy, the terrified yet strong victim and Trask - the sociopath.

This is the last in the triology and IMO, the best of the bunch. I can only hope Brennan can get herself another contract so we can read the stories of the remaining Kincaid siblings.

The action is dark. These are not happy, shiny people and Kate is guilt ridden for her perceived failure of Trask’s other victims including her partner. Lucy is kidnapped by a very evil man and the things she endures are not for the fainthearted and they are detailed.

The romance storyline doesn’t take a lot of page space. This is Kate’s story more than anything else and in Kate, Brennan has given readers a truly multi dimensional character with lots of baggage to overcome.

The switches between character POV are well done and necessary.

Overall, Brennan delivers a dark, scary but really well done thriller in Fear No Evil.

Stephanie Rowe - He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot
Rowe delivers a winner with this quirky paranormal romance filled with funny dialog and a lot of heart.

Great twist on the genre, I absolutely adored her version of Satan. Nice glimpses of characters from past books. Fabulous tension between Nick and Becca and the drawing of Becca’s character as unique is done skillfully and with humor and sweetness as well.

Loved it.

Thirteen Favorite Pearl Jam Songs

Thing is, Pearl Jam does not make very many videos so I’ll have to do a mixture of youtube fan videos and the official ones. This is in no official order, my favorites change from time to time. In six months this list may look different.

1. Release

2. Grievance (so very relevant today)

3. Do The Evolution (my favorite video ever)

4. Long Road

5. Corduroy (Live because to me, this song is sort of the soul of PJ live)

6. Bushleaguer (they took a lot of heat for this song - guess what, artists get to have an opinion too. If you disagree, that’s your opinion - ain’t America wonderful?)

7. Crown of Thorns (god I love, love, love this song)

8. Inside Job (this one is going into the “always on my favorite list” status)

9. Indifference

10. Insignificance

11. Army Reserve ( this is a fan video and it makes me cry every time I watch it.)

12. Whipping - I couldn’t find a good video of this one although I have to say the live footage made me smile because I was at a few of those shows. “Don’t need a helmet, I got a hard, hard head, don’t need a raincoat I’m already wet”

13. Nothingman - I’ve been to a number of PJ shows. I’ve heard some rarities I’ll never forget but for cripes sake I’ve never heard this one live. Gah! Anyway, another fan video but I wanted the sound quality for the lyric clarity.

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I’m in the midst of a Depeche Mode binge. Funny how I listen and it totally captures a specific time in my life, a specific person I was then.

This song in particular - Shake The Disease
Here is a plea
From my heart to you
Nobody knows me
As well as you do
You know how hard it is for me
To shake the disease
That takes hold of my tongue
In situations like these

Oh the angst! Understand me.. God

I was in my early teens when I discovered them. My friend Wendy had an older brother who introduced me to so much fabulous music. The first time I heard Dead Kennedys was through him, Black Flag, etc. And then punk began to fade and Depeche Mode found its way to his record player (yes, record player my young friends).  People Are People. It was 1984, I was 16.

I can actually still remember taking the record home and putting it on. That funky beginning, I’d never heard anything like it before. And then Get the Balance Right, Leave in Silence, Everything Counts - I listened to it over and over and over. I was in love by the end of the next day.

Help me understaaaand….

Tenth grade. Wow. I had really big hair. My first real boyfriend who loved the Thompson Twins. Oh Sean th his name was. The only blond boy I ever dated. I remember going to a dance at his high school and dancing with him to Just Can’t Get Enough which, if I remember right, was like an import record at the time.

And then there were The Smiths

1984 was a big music year for me, much like 1980 and then 1990. The cassette of The Smiths landed in my hands and I heard Reel Around The Fountain. I’m shrugging because I still get all breathless rememebering hearing Morrisey’s voice for the first time. Meat is Murder came out the next year and it’s one of “those” records much like I discussed “those” books last week. It came out in February, near by 17th birthday. On my back in the park, probably chemically enhanced in some way, looking up at the stars listening to How Soon Is Now.

And then I graduated from high school to The Queen is Dead. Some months later I met my husband and pretty shortly thereafter we got an apartment together and I listened to the cassette nearly every day when I drove home from work.

I can’t promise I won’t write about music again, I can’t help it, I love it so much and it’s such a huge part of my creative life…

Yesterday I made my daily pilgrimage over to Smart Bitches because well, I love them and they are made of awesome. They’re intelligent, funny and quite often are a great news source for what’s going down in romancelandia (and not in a negative sense)

So I see this link to a sort of “From the Right/From the Left” Column in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about romance novels entitled “Harm in Reading Romance?”

Right Leaner (and total kook) Shaunti Felhahn says with alarm!

I was concerned to learn that many romance novels are not as harmless as they look. In fact, some marriage therapists caution that women can become as dangerously unbalanced by these books’ entrancing but distorted messages as men can by distorted messages of pornography

Gasps! Dangerously unbalanced! OHNOES! But wait, it’s worse. Worse because you’re reading soft core porn and promote an unattainable standard of maleness

The male heroes are all strong, rugged and breathtakingly handsome, yet sensitive, patient listeners and utterly unselfish.

And ladies, step away from the porn, because it’ll make you want a husband who listens and that is not okay. Further, you simply cannot be trusted to know the difference between fact and fiction. You are too soft headed, your brains rotted from all the porn you’re reading in those NASCAR romances and the secret baby books you hide under the mattress. YOU CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH REALITY!

So Shaunti, being the giver she is, tells you about a book by a an author who knows women who are addicted to those books. Instead you should read the doctor’s book about submitted wives. And whatever, you know, if that’s your thing, good for you. If you choose that life, I support your choice. I just wonder why it is these folks are always trying to limit everyone else’s choices. Anyway, I digress - what I want to say is that if women escape for a few hours into a book, that doesn’t make her addicted or dissatisfied.

Not to be outdone by Shaunti’s disdain of romantic fiction and the women who choose to read it instead of setting up a shrine to her husband’s dirty socks or whatever, we get Diane Glass “from the left” who is less annoying and offensive but sadly, quite condescending.

Boys and girls -

Harlequin novels may not be like reading Maya Angelou, but at least women are reading.

At least they’re reading! Even if it isn’t real literature like Maya Angelou writes. *Diane pats our heads and smiles gently as to not upset our low intelligence and simple nature*

She does go on to make the important point which is that women aren’t idiots and they know the difference between real life and what they read in books and she also gives us permission to like romance because it isn’t porn *whew*

Gets out of chair and stands on soapbox:

First if all - women don’t need permission to like or read romance. They don’t need permission to like sex in their books either. They don’t need “acceptance” from women who think they’re better than other women and are somehow qualified to tell us what we can or can’t do.

Second of all - sex is not bad. Liking sex isn’t bad. Liking sex with your partner in a multitude of ways is not bad any more than liking sex in just a few ways is bad.

Third of all - wanting a partner who listens to you is a GOOD THING. If women learn that from a romance novel, good. Still, I’d wager women know that anyway.

Fourthly - don’t write a column if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t write about something like an expert when you’re going on what your friend’s brother’s wife told you about a romance novel she read ten years ago.

The thing that gets me about both these women, is that neither one of them appears to have actually READ a romance since 1972. And while some suggest they shouldn’t actually have to understand the subject they’re writing about, I disagree.

We aren’t stupid. We aren’t nymphos. We aren’t going to leave our husbands because we read romances.

Ah, I love Mondays. Behind a text cut as always. 18 and over Please.

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