I hate it when I mention something  I want and then find out it doesn’t happen…ah well…it’s only a book by one author….I guess I was hoping for a really good, steamy, historical for May. I’ll have to see what else is out there.

That’s usually the phrase I have going in my head after I read a book by an author  I like, but maybe don’t like as much as I used to. A good sign that an author is fading in my mind is when I read her latest book and forget the title.

Case in point, the recent Gaelen Foley ( who I often get the spelling of her name wrong, but I made the extra effort to look up for this post since I’m feeling a little guilty). See, I usually like Foley books, but the last few have been a little too purple prose for me, a little too overly dramatic in places that shouldn’t be. Her latest, and unfortunately I’m too lazy to look up the book name, was just….okay. (for me anyway).

Georgiana Knight was sometimes a bit TSTL in the first half of the book, but I liked the setting. I was a bit put off when the author changed the setting and went to England. What was a bit ironic to me what that I wasn’t a big fan of the heroine in the first half, and liked the hero more, but then when they got to England, I liked Georgiana more than I liked Ian.

Another little quip I have is the sex in the book. The author goes in to plenty of detail for almost there but not quite all the way sex scenes, but when it comes down to the actual deed it’s barely there, and not even worked up to, and where’s the fun in that?Then it’s towards the way end (which isn’t really unusual for this author anyway, but I was hoping for something a little different).

It’s a readable book, but not one that I would say stands out over her others. I’d remember  the title better if it did. I think it would have been kind of fun if she’d had Georgi be a little edgier, and flirty. For someone who has read the Kama Sutra and liked it, you think she would have had some experimentation in her past. In the end, she wasn’t much different than her previous heroines, and neither was Ian as a hero.

 Looking forward to Lisa Valdez, supposedly in May. Her website isn’t updated, but Amazon still has the book set for May….and I don’t want to hear it if she’s pushed off the date again….don’t spoil my party.

I’m back and forth on Ice Blue, the latest in the Ice themed books by Anne Stuart. I like many parts of it, but dislike many others. I kind of get the feeling that she likes to put her heroines through hell in all her books.lol. Taka is definitely a hero to remember. Not so sure if Summer is anyone I would remember though. She’s kind of blagh.

I read the latest Nalini Singh (sp?). I liked it, she’s a new to me author, so I may look up her back list.

 Other than that, nothing. My life is one big boring mass of boringhoodness.

I did re-read Ride the Fire by Pamela Clare. I have to say, though, I liked Surrender better. But, I do seem to like RtF more each time I read it. I’m not a huge fan of her contemporaries. I tried them, and just didn’t find them very interesting. I’ll have to wait patiently for her next historical, since judging from her website, that could be some time.

Still waiting for Lisa Valdez…I know she had some personal stuff going on in the middle of writing Patience, but I’m looking forward to that one coming out. Last I heard was May…..maybe.

Went to the bar down the road from where I live last night. It’s a little place called Cowboys out in the middle of nowhere, and used to be a barn. I like to think of it as a redneck cheers. Did a little Karaoke. Didn’t drink though, so I was probably more of a downer than my friends wanted me to be. Hey, I’m saving money, I can’t afford to buy a bunch of drinks. Though, the bartender likes me and gave me a free mixed drink with peach schnapps and sprite. (jackpot).

What struck me as funny was when my friend told me I sang “Love Can Build a Bridge” wrong. ….This from a girl who when she sings “Amarillo by Morning” where it’s supposed to be “Bucking At the County Fair” makes it sound like “Fucking At the County Fair” when she’s drunk. Hm. 

Well, I had gotten up early this morning and posted a mini rant about my life and about a few of the books that I’ve been reading, but for some reason when I went to publish, it didn’t save. Probably a good thing, because if anyone in the family happened across it, I’d probably be persona non grata for a few days, since they wern’t very nice thoughts.

So about those books,

I finished Sugar Daddy, by Lisa Kleypas, and found it to be a pretty good read. Not my favorite Kleypas to date, but not because it’s a contemporary. I really don’t like first person accounts, and the book kind of spent too much time in Liberty’s early years, and not enough time in her adult years. I also didn’t understand the big deal on Hardy. She gave him the lions share of the book in Liberty’s teenage years, and pretty much nothing towards the end. I felt like he should have been there for more of the end to make a bigger impact on her decision to be with the right guy. I did like Gage a lot, I just don’t think he stuck out as much as he should have.

I just finished Atlantis Rising, by Alesia Day. This one I’m kind of conflicted on. I liked the hero and his warriors, but the women in the book just seemed a little too pissed off at the world, and that’s a turn off for me. It sort of had a Sherrilyn Kenyon feeling too it, which could be good or bad depending on how you feel about Kenyon.

Other than that, not much memorable reading. I did read the latest J.R. Ward, but I think my glow is gone where Ward is concerned. I’m not sure if it’s a case of overhype, or the language in the story. How they speak drives me nuts. “My brother”. Spare me…..But, you know I’ll be buying the next one.lol.

Hasta!

I had to take a break from the Super Bowl, though I like the Colts, I’m a Bears fan back from the Super Bowl Shuffle, and watching them lose after waiting so long is paining me.

Originally, I was going to make my first post on annoying heroines, but I got side tracked by the lack of American based romances earlier in the day.

Yesterday, I had a book in my hand, I think it was the Nymph King by Gina Showalter (sp?). I threw the book a few yards from where I was reading it after the first few chapters, which kind of surprised me, because I’m not usually a book flinger.

The heroine in the story starts out as a complete grouch, bordering on unrepentant bitch.Yeah, she had reason to be the way she was, and readily admitted that other people tend to not like her, but the backlash was that I didn’t like her either.

I get that the author was trying to make it a personality issue for her, but at the same time, if no one else who is human wants to get close to her, why should the reader? To be fair, I actually ended up reading the rest of the book, and found it fairly readable. The heroine calms down a bit towards the middle, and I found her more likable as I went along, but not by much.

I have a problem with bitchy heroines, the same way I do with ass hole heroes. Authors set out to show off a strong female character, but instead create a very hard to like heroine with too many hang ups. It’s as though they are saying, they are strong because of all the bad things that have happened in their life. Why can’t someone be strong just because they are confident in themselves?

Same with some alphas. Like chocolate, I love me some Alpha, I admit, but there has been many a hero who has skated such a thin line between Alpha and Asswipe that I wonder why the heroine would have anything to do with him in the first place.

I like the women I read about to be strong and smart, and not roll over and play victim all the time. But, I also like them to be nice people. That doesn’t mean they should be weepy or girly girl, but I’ve seen a whole lot of the ”I have a chip on my shoulder cuz all my men have done me wrong” type of woman in contemporary fiction lately, and it’s starting to ware thin.

The typically hard headed heroine usually puts herself in situations that she obviously cannot handle on her own, and then bitches about having to be rescued in the aftermath. There have been times while reading a Heather Graham book where I’ve thought to myself, the hero would have been way better off leaving the heroine in enemy camp, found himself a woman who wouldn’t bitch him out for doing a good deed, and lived a happy life.

I’m hoping the new SEP release will not leave me wanting to throw it across the room after the first few chapters. I hear the heroine is kind of hard to deal with, but I liked her last one enough to think about giving this one a try.

I think authors today listen too much to their fans, and not enough to their creative muses (or whatever they want to call it). Or maybe they listen too much to their publishers who think they know what the fans want, but really don’t have a clue. 

I miss the days when a historical romance could stand on it’s own, instead of having to spawn 20 gazillion spin offs. I’m tired of the brother of the hero in the first book hooking up with the cousin of the best friends sister by the 13th installment of a series that should have stopped four years ago after the first one came out.

I don’t mind trilogies, or stories that sort of have a connection, but don’t you think there should be a point where the storyline stops and a new one comes in to play? Do we really need a spin off to the Wallflowers series with a whole new set of Wallflowers? Do we need Bridgerton or Knight cousins to have their own endless array of stories?

Okay, so I liked Cam in Devil In Winter, but I could have waited a while for him to have his own story.  I cannot express how happy I was to see Lisa Kleypas step out of her zone and write an American Contemporary Romance, and to have it be in first person (kind of cringing on that one, but I think if anyone can pull it off, it’s Kleypas). 

I have read all the Bridgertons, but I don’t need any more. I’d really love Julia Quinn to try something different (and no I don’t mean a contemporary), say in America, somewhere. It doesn’t even have to be in the old West, what about Revolutionary War time America, or The Gilded Age?

As far as Galen Foley and her Knights turning in to new Knights, I think she could have made them Smiths or Knickerbockers, and they would have sold just as well. They didn’t need to be cousins, or friends to the previous characters.

And don’t you find it ironic that most of the stuff that is put out for historical romance is all in England or Scotland, and 99% of the authors published in America are all, er…..American. What the hell happened to writing about our own country. The US is filled with so much drama in it’s past to pull from, and it’s all going to waste. Instead, we are treated to more regency era romances, more Vampires from Ireland, more secret agents who work for Westmorland. Blagh!!!

People, we had a civil war, a Mexican War, a Gilded Age, a Gold Rush, an American Revolution, WW1, WW2, Native Americans, African Americans struggling to make it in a world of slavery and post Civil War oppression, The Dust Bowl, The Depression, Earth Quakes and huge ass fires. Do you know who dared to write about all that stuff? Authors from the 80’s and early 90’s. Old School. So eat that wussy English historicals!

I Am The Cheese!