Toe in the Water

December 31, 2002

laurielikesbooks Blog for December 2002

laurielikesbooks.blog-city.com — December 2002

(Mostly) Kasey Michaels

The dreaded sinus infection never did go away. Last week my daughter had it, and by the time I sent everybody on their way after Thanksgiving, it returned to my head with a vengeance. That said, I managed to have a nice weekend; on Saturday night we watched the Mavericks beat the Bulls. The Mavericks are no longer undefeated this season, but are still in first place in the NBA. The game, while closer than their game against the Pistons a few weeks earlier, was not as exciting, although things did pick up each and every time Maverick's guard Steve Nash was in the game. Ladies, I wish I could report that he's an incredibly hunky guy, but I can't, at least not when he's playing, although there are some photos in his gallery that aren't bad....

Yesterday I had one of those The Jimmy moments again when a friend sent me the link for Mrs. Giggles' latest rant. She hadn't read my latest blogging when she wrote it, but she captured my frustrations extremely well. I haven't heard back yet from RWA about whether they'll allow me to send in a letter to the editor of their newsletter, but we'll see.

Now on to some book talk. Last week I managed to get in a little reading when I wasn't doing Thanksgiving prep and/or spending time with my mom. I read Silk and Secrets by Linda Madl (not to be confused with Silk and Secrets by Mary Jo Putney. I've enjoyed Madl in the past - her Whisper of Violets, published back in 1997, was quite a good read.

Her new book was somewhat of a disappointment. It had all the qualities of a good read - interesting lead characters, a gothic-like premise, and tantalizing hints of chemistry, but none of the parts added up to much of a whole. The BYRON blurb isn't particularly helpful; it reads: "An American heiress finds a hedgehog in her slipper, nettles in her bed, passion on a tiger skin with a brooding lord, and murder on the Cornish moors." When I think about just why the book failed to engage me, the most I can come up with is that the gothic-undertones created too much of a separation between me and the hero. That might explain it, except that the book isn't written in the first person. In the end, I can't really think why I didn't enjoy it more - I just didn't.

More enjoyable was the reissue of Kasey Michaels' The Beleaguered Lord Bourne, which I finished yesterday. Originally published as written by Michelle Kasey in 1986 and just reissued, this traditional Regency is the first in a series of three (followed by The Toplofty Lord Thorpe and The Ruthless Lord Rule), all just reissued. My grade for Lord Bourne is a B-, although it's almost a C+. I enjoyed it perhaps the least of all the Michaels' traditional Regencies I've read this year primarily because the heroine and hero have such a tremendous age difference - she's 19 at most, and he's 30. It wouldn't have been a problem if the hero hadn't called the heroine "infant" and "kitten" all the time, but even so, Michaels gets the benefit of the doubt w/her usual sparkling wit and dialogue. Particularly humorous are the large cast of secondary characters. The heroine, in hiring servants for the house, cannot resist a stray. And the hero comes to handle it all w/much aplomb.

Although I recently posted this list on AAR's At the Back Fence Message Board (I'm not giving a link as the message will only be online for two weeks, until the next ATBF column), I thought I would share the titles of the Kasey Michaels traditional Regencies I've read this year and enjoyed so well. Many were reissued this year and are available. I've decided I definitely prefer her traditional Regencies more than either her historical or contemporary romances, and AAR Reviewer Jane Jorgenson agrees.

What separates Michaels from the pack for me is her handling of conflict; her heroes and heroines bicker back and forth from beginning to nearly end of each book, and yet every word of dialogue between them sparkles with wit. The barbs are sent w/laser-like accuracy, and yet there's no feeling of "I hate you...I love you." You know each couple is falling in love, but it's fun to see how it happens because of their arguments.

The Anonymous Miss Addams, first published in 1989 and reissued earlier this year. This is my favorite of all the Michaels' reissues thus far; my grade is B+. The fact that I enjoyed it as much as I did considering the amnesia storyline amazed me; if I can handle this type of device, I know the book's got to be good!
Here's the BYRON synopsis: The damsel has caused HIM distress...GENTLEMAN ROGUE: He was London's most eligible -- and outrageous -- bachelor. But although Pierre Standish didn't give a whit for polite society, he could not deny his father's latest request. To prove himself a true gentleman, Pierre had to perform a random good deed. The task proved unimaginatively easy when, en route to London, Pierre came upon a damsel lying in the road. Her clothes bespoke her an urchin, but although his anonymous Miss Addams had lost her memory, Pierre was certain she was a well-bred lady. A lady whose innocence and plight might just ensnare the ton's most unattainable rogue.
The Playful Lady Penelope, published in 1988. This one has not been reissued. My grade is B-. There's no BYRON synopsis, but the book is one of three in which Lucinda Benadict, a woman who has a literary saying for everything, plays a supporting role. In this book, a hoydenish tomboy is sent to live with her Aunt Lucinda; if she can stay out of trouble, her father will not force her to marry. Little does she know that her Aunt is a veritable magnet for trouble and that daddy has set her up knowing this fact.
The Questioning Miss Quinton, first published in 1989 and reissued this year. I am wondering whether this is an error on BYRON's part because this book follows The Anonymous Miss Addams. My grade is B-. Here's the BYRON synopsis: Murder her, or marry her...? SUITOR ASTOUNDED: Patrick Sherbourne, eleventh Earl of Wickford, had been unwittingly charmed by the feisty Miss Victoria Quinton. Her bespectacled appearance belied her femme fatale persona -- one he almost dared to covet, until the vixen accused him of her father's murder!
Not one to allow his good name to be sullied, Patrick found his only recourse was to aid Victoria in uncovering the real criminal. But the earl had to act fast. For not just his family honor was at stake... spending a prolonged period in Victoria's company might mean the end to his beloved bachelorhood.
The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane, first published in 1982 and reissued in 1988. My grade is B. There is no BYRON synopsis for this one. The heroine is a "gentlewoman" forced to become a governess. She is waylaid on her way to her new position when she rescues a young, young woman who has decided not to elope after all. When the young woman's older brother - a duke - sees how the tenacious Miss Tamerlane handles his sister, she is invited to be her companion. Lucinda Benadict appears in this book as well; Miss Tamerlane may be the only person who can trade saying after saying after saying.
The Mischeivous Miss Murphy, first published in 1987 and reissued in 1988. I mentioned this book in the December 1st ATBF because the heroine is a con woman. My grade is B. Here's the BYRON synopsis: THE MADNESS OF A MARQUESS...Candie Murphy was the most beautiful girl Tony Betancourt, Marquess of Coniston had ever seen... and this rakish aristocrat considered himself an expert on lovely women. He certainly expected this one to be grateful after he rescued her scalawag Uncle Max from jail. Instead, the cheeky Irish miss heatedly refused his invitation to share his bed!
Then the charming Candie Murphy soon became part of the London ton, posing as one of the Donegal Murphys, descendants of kings. For once, Tony had met his match in wit and mischief -- and he couldn't resist a wager that could lead him into the arms of the lovely Miss Murphy. A dangerous gamble... for with one sweet Candie kiss he might win his bet -- but forever lose his heart!

I realize that one B+, 2 B's, and 3 B-'s might not sound like the best grades, but it's very rare for me to find six books by a single author and never grade them below a B-. I am taking a break from her right now because the next logical Michaels for me to read would be The Toplofty Lord Thorne, and it sounds like more of a mystery a la The Questioning Miss Quinton than a straight Regency, or one w/a minor mystery/suspense sub-plot.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Rumors and Reality

Those of you reading my bloggings know that I've been in contact with RWA regarding the December issue of their RWR Newsletter. I described the situation in detail in a previous blogging, and was given the green-light yesterday to prepare a letter to the editor of no more than 350 words. Considering my general verbosity, that was a challenge, but I spent a considerable amount of time yesterday writing, editing, and reconfiguring my letter so that it came in at precisely 350 words. I am told it will be included in the February 2003 RWR, and at that time I will publish it here.

Something is going on on our At the Back Fence Message Board, though, that directly relates to the original RWR article, and it's made me so mad you can almost see the steam coming out of my head. Some background first.

This ATBF MB corresponds (in part) with the November 22 ATBF issue. A segment in this issue talks about recent message board threads quite vehement in their dislike of Suzanne Brockmann's online demeanor, her November release, the fact that a future book will be published in hardcover, etc. Because I had never seen such vehemence directed toward an author who was moving into hardcover - and was shocked at the overall hostility in many of the posts in all these threads - I asked whether or not there might not be some sort of backlash against her at this time.

Discussion has continued on and off on this backlash idea, when yesterday a reader posted that Brockmann had snail-mailed postcards to every RWA member and readers asking them to vote for her books for RWA's 2001 Favorite Books of the Year and that it was because of this campaign that three of her books landed on that list.

After Brockmann herself visited our MB to refute that, I thought about it, and this morning made the following post:

It is simply not possible for both you and Suzanne Brockmann to be correct on this point regarding snail mailing of postcard ballots. Often times two people will present two different views and it's easy to say, "Well, the truth is in between the two stories." This cannot simply be the case in this instance - either Brockmann snail mailed postcard ballots or she did not.
After having recently stood up for AAR and said we do not countenance the spreading of gossip or rumors, I've got to ask you... did you receive one of these ballots, or did you simply hear about it? If you heard about it and never saw one for yourself, it seems likely that the story presented to you as fact was not true.
I say this because Brockmann herself has emphatically denied doing so, quite publically, on this MB. It would be incredibly stupid for her to say this if in fact she sent out 8,400 snail mail ballots (that's the membership of RWA) because SOMEONE would likely pop in here and call her on it. Most adults, when caught w/their hands in the cookie jar, will not say, "No, mom, I haven't touched the cookies." And the logistics seem impossible; I could see her having access to RWA members' snail mail addresses, but how would she have access to the snail mail addresses of thousands of readers? Email addresses... perhaps - I know she has three thousand plus members receiving her newsletter, but snail mail addresses are a whole other thing.
I think you've leveled a very serious allegation here and am very interested in the proof you've got for it. This is not simply stating an opinion - this is stating something as fact and needs to be substantiated.
So I'll open this up beyond (the poster). Did any of you received this postcard ballot?

Neither the original poster nor anyone else has so far actually seen one of the alleged postcards, but in case you're wondering why I bring this up here at all, I'm coming to that directly. Because, you see, in response to my post was this one made by another poster, and given the timing of the December RWR newsletter, well... you read it:

_____ isn't the only one who heard these rumors from credible, trusted sources. Who knows, perhaps these sources themselves were mislead by credible, trusted sources.
But last year, when the furor was flying over RWA's favorite book of the year award, Suz Brockman's postcards were pretty much all the loops were talking about.
We all know how rumors can take on a life of their own and become excepted as truth. We've also all witnessed some of the damage such rumors can cause.
That whole distastful rumor that resulted from the article with Robin Lee Hatcher is a perfect example of the power of rumors. At the time I remember your readers stringing poor Robin up and Vehementaly attacking her. In fact, if I remember right, Lori Fosters appearance on this board was in an attempt to defend Robin against the attacks directed toward her. And at the time, Robin Lee Hatcher was denying the rumor. (emphasis added)
Until today, this is the first time since the postcard rumor started, that i've heard Brockman address the issue one way or another. And I lurk on over a dozen links full of yammering RWA members. It is a shame when a rumor is excepted as fact. But when thousands of people are talking about it, and the one person who could set the rumor straight doesn't speak up, well-- it becomes a mightly easy trap to fall into.
And I'll admit that I'm one who fell into this trap. I only wish Brockman had spoken up sooner.

As you can imagine, my jaw dropped when I read this...clearly the "party line" adopted as a result of the RWR article has been accepted, hook, line, and sinker by many authors. As I stated in my reply to this individual:

I'm totally confused as to what RLH rumor to which you refer. RLH was interviewed by a respectable newspaper and we provided a link to that article from one of our message boards. There was no rumor involved whatsoever. The newspaper neither printed a retraction nor did they publish any letter that may have been sent to them by Ms. Hatcher. In fact, when queried about it, the newspaper's official response was this: "Robin Lee Hatcher and I have talked personally regarding this article. That conversation is private, between Robin and myself, but both of us were content with that conversation and the matter has been resolved between us to both of our satisfaction." She added, "You could go to our website and discover that nothing else has been printed on this matter. I assume that would fill in any blanks for you."
I'm afraid I see no connection between a message board discussion of an actual event - the interview w/RLH as printed in the Idaho Statesman - and the promulgation of a rumor that appears to have no basis in reality.

Then I asked again whether anyone had ever seen any of those supposed postcards? And I ask you, (this is becoming my favorite refrain): what the hell is wrong with people?

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Correcting Yesterday

Slight correction here regarding yesterday's entry - RWA's Favorite Books of the Year poll is limited to RWA members. Further posts on the ATBF MB indicate that it is very unlikely to impossible for an RWA member to have access to the mailing list for all of RWA. Which doesn't change the main thrust of my argument - I still maintain that it is highly doubtful Brockmann would have emphatically denied snail-mailing postcards to all RWA members in hopes that they would vote for her books if indeed she had done so. And it seems nobody has come forward to say they actually saw one of those postcards. Sort of reminds me of those "letters in my pocket" we heard so much about during the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas debacle. There's also the question of why Brockmann would have felt the need to send such postcards, but that's another argument....

As far as my refrain from yesterday (what the hell is wrong with people?), my faith in humanity seems restored. There were some reasonable posts on the MB seeing the clear difference between stating an actual fact and forwarding a rumor in terms of comparing the RLH situation to that of Brockmann.

I'm crawling back to bed now... this second sinus infection on top of the first one that never really went away is yucky.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

The Bachelor and Untameable

I read a considerable number of series romances. Before I started to read them, I would argue against them. Now that I read them, I argue for them as comfort reads. They read quickly and go down like fast food. Perhaps not particularly nutritious, th

Carly Phillips writes both series romances and single title contemporary romances. I liked Simply Scandalous, a 2000 Temptation, and I watched as she made her big splash earlier this year with The Bachelor, her first single title. Remember how it was chosen to as a Reading with Ripa selection? Kelly may have enjoyed it, but AAR Reviewer Jane Jorgenson did not. I agree with Jane myself; this is one contrived read.

"Contrived" is a good starting term for what's wrong with The Bachelor. I agree (more or less) with Jane's grade of D, but get there in a slightly different fashion. Phillips has an easy-to-read style that's engaging, and she doesn't indulge in purple prose. Unfortunately, this book had no business being a single title release; it's got "series title premise" written all over it. In other words, while I quite possibly would have read this book as a series romance, reading a single title contemporary based on the premise that a widow fakes heart disease in order to induce her three single sons to marry and give her grandchildren didn't work for me. Not only is the main premise unbelievable, the secondary premises aren't any more realistic. But let me give you some more detail.

Roman Chandler's lost the coin toss; he's got to find a wife, marry, and produce children before his beloved mother succumbs to heart disease. This gorgeous journalist spent his adult life traveling the globe writing fabulous news stories; he plans to marry and impregnate a woman but not change his globe-trotting ways. The trouble is Charlotte Bronson, his one-time high school fling, who's moved back to town and opened a fancy lingerie store. She's the one who makes him tick, and yet how could he force upon her this life, knowing she deserves a loving husband?

Charlotte and Roman had a "thing" in high school, but once she knew he planned to leave town to become a big-time journalist, she broke it off with him, loathe to be in love with someone who would love her and leave her, which is what she believes her father did to her mother. In fact, her parents remain married, but live on opposite coasts of the country. Her mother exists in a funk except when daddy dearest comes to town. Two-thirds through the book the local doctor diagnoses the woman as "depressed." For some reason this comes as a major surprise to everyone in town. It certainly never occurred to the woman's wandering husband that abandoning his wife might not have been a kind thing to do. Hello! This is 2002, when everybody and their uncle is taking Zoloft, Prozac, or Wellbutrin. At the very least, the town's water supply needs dosing with "get a clue" meds. And, of course,

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

it turns out that her mother wasn't so much abandoned by her father as she herself was simply too selfish to make the move with him. So this sub-plot is not only unbelievable, but it's a stupid big secret and mean to boot. Yuck!

Another of the book's sub-plots involves the hand-made knitted panties Charlotte fits and makes for her customers. Somebody's breaking into houses and stealing them - only them - from their owners. And because Roman once engaged in a panty raid, he's considered the culprit. While his brother - the police chief - knows he's not guilty, all the women in town are lining up for Charlotte to knit them a pair so he can steal them. Beyond the ludicrousness of the thievery, can you even imagine wearing knitted panties?

What do all these story lines have in common? A total lack of reality. Which means 336 pages filled with unrealistic story. I can handle a series title that is based on an unrealistic story-line; I've read and enjoyed many "let's marry to make so-and-so happy/let's pretend to be engaged/let's pretend to be married" series titles before. As Silhouette Desires, they can be fun, but add two equally unbelievable sub-plots and what was a fun if contrived read is now a disastrously stupid excuse for a single title release.

Carly Phillips has two more books in this series. I don't plan to read them although I do plan to read her new series romance. I pity the women whose introduction to romance came via The Bachelor as a result of Reading with Ripa

The Bachelor was a bummer, but Untameable, a Regency Romance anthology out in October, hit the spot. Untameable features three stories of which I read two. The first novella is Catherine Blair's The Rogue's Wife. I hadn't read Blair before, and her two reviews at AAR are mixed (B+ and D-). I think I liked this novella, but I'm not quite sure. The second story is Kate Huntington's A Breath of Scandal, which I have not read and likely will not - both her AAR grades are in the C range. The third story - A Rogue's Rescue - is the story I read first because it is by Donna Simpson, one of my favorite authors of Regency Romance. I liked this story, but haven't yet decided how much I liked it. The premise is quite unique and, as always, Simpson's created interesting characters.

The Rogue's Wife marries a seemingly plain and quiet young woman to a total rogue - she to get away from an overly familiar brother-in-law and he because it's time to make an heir. He plans to settle her on his country estate to brood while he continues along his merry way, drinking, gambling, and wenching. The heroine is humiliated a couple of times because of the hero's behavior and decides to give him the life he wants. As a result, their first party includes his gambling buddies and (ex) mistress.

The hero is intrigued by his new wife, but she's closed herself off to him to avoid being hurt. How they dance around their predicament and resolve it is at the core of the story. Again, I think I liked it, but think it would have been effective had it been slightly longer.

A Rogue's Rescue begins when the hero thinks he's saving a plain spinster from the clutches of a ne'er-do-well out to swindle her money. Little does he know that she knows about the con and that she's encouraging it to gain payback for a friend of a friend. The hero's constant interference is annoying, and what about his horrible reputation? Could it be that he's after her money? As for the hero, why does the heroine seem to simper at times while at others she's extremely perceptive and well-spoken?

Even after they join forces to work together, there's no diminishment of the chemistry between this couple, and the fact that neither are good-looking is a plus. Though the resolution to the sub-plot required a second read, the final few pages of the book more than made up for it. Simpson can put a nearly fairy-tale ending on a book and I'll believe it.

Before I sign off for the day, let me add that although this particular blogging shows little evidence, I'm trying to limit the amount of passive voice in my writing. It's hard, harder because until my husband showed me with a red pen, I didn't know it was a problem. Damn!

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Mother Russia

I first read Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K Massie when I was in the 9th grade. I fell in love with the entire story, the shy tsarina, the love match between Nicholas and Alexandra, the children, the tragedy of hemophelia, the dark foreshadowing of Rasputin's sway over the tsarina, Nicholas' incompetence in domestic and international affairs, and Russia's humiliation in foreign arenas. For years I imagined what their "mauve and white Hepplewhite" furniture looked like and wondered whether Princess Anastasia had made it out of Russia.

For some reason, however, I didn't make the mental connection between this Russia and the Russia of my ancestors. True, my first Broadway play was Fiddler on the Roof, and I knew of pograms from studying Russian history in college. But oddly enough, it wasn't until this past weekend, when I read The Night Journey by Kathryn Lasky (1981), that it dawned on me; the ineffectual Tsar Nicholas is the same man whose Imperial troops ran rampant in Jewish villages, killing and burning and pillaging and looting and raping. Somehow I doubt I'll be I re-reading Nicholas and Alexandra.

The Night Journey is actually a book my daughter and I are reading for a monthly book club that begins this weekend. This has truly been my year to discover Young Adult Fiction, and I'm very glad I read Lasky's book. Written in 1981, the book contains a story with a story. Rachel is 13, lives with her parents and her Nana Sashie, who is so old her father carries her downstairs in the morning and upstairs at night. Nana Sashie sometimes falls asleep in the middle of talking, and doesn't always know who she is, but one day she begins to recount the story of how she and her family escaped Russia during the pograms.

Nana Sashie's story is very exciting, filled with "characters" and danger. She made her experience come alive not only for Rachel, but for me. By the time Rachel was setting her alarm for the middle of the night to hear more of her nana's story, I was unable to put the book down myself. Those looking for a plucky protagonist will love Sashie, whose ability to plan and think on her feet helps her family escape a terrible time and a terrible place.

Rachel's story outside of hearing her nana's story is merely a frame, and yet it too has something to offer girls my daughter's age. I'm not one for "message" books, and while this one has one, it's offered gently. The ending isn't sugar-coated, but it's sentimental enough that I'm glad it was chosen for this first mother-daughter book club offering.

I've always been interested in Russian - and Soviet - history. One of my favorite professors in college was in the diplomatic service during the Cold War and shared many of his Soviet experiences. He not only taught Soviet history, but Russian history as well. I still have my well-worn copy of Hedrick Smith's The Russians from his class, and will forever remember his recounting how the Soviet analysts with him in the diplomatic corp would search every article and picture in Pravda in order to read between the lines and determine which member of the Politburo was moving in or out of power.

While I'm on the subject of Russia, I'll also mention two other items. I'm not much of a biography reader, but one of my favorites is Catherine the Great by Henri Troyat, translated by Joan Pinkham (1980). I learned more about Voltaire from reading this book than in any literature or philosophy class I ever took. The other item is silly really, but I fell in love with Anthony Hopkins during junior high school while watching his secondary role in The Girl from Petrovka (1974). The movie, which featured Hal Holbrook as an American correspondent and Goldie Hawn as a Soviet ballerina, isn't one many people have seen, but it's one of those movies you see while a teenager that remains in memory. Holbrook's character falls in love with Hawn's, but the relationship is doomed. Hopkins is - if I remember correctly - a Soviet friend of Holbrooks whose matter-of-fact efforts at explaining the Russian soul to his friend aren't well understood.

I have no idea whether anything in this movie is realistic, but it struck a chord with me growing up. I may have soured on the tsar and tsarina, but my fascination with Russia remains.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Jayne Ann Krentz

Jayne Ann Krentz came up as I was editing the upcoming At the Back Fence column. Since she's been a major comfort-read author for me both as JAK and Amanda Quick, I thought I'd share my grades for the 29 Krentz/Quick books I've read (her main link at AAR, to all her reviews there, is http://www.likesbooks.com/jak.html). Not including in this list is the book she edited - Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women (this link is to an in-print hardcover copy; the paperback is out of print). A copy sits on my desk, next to my dictionary and thesaurus. My grade for this book is B+; it ties as the highest grade I've ever given her work.

Of her books, my grade for roughly half have been B's (B+ thru B-). Most of the remainder were C's (C+ thru C-) while four received D+'s. I've still got 15 or so of her titles TBR, and even though I find her series reissues spotty, I continue to buy them. However, I no longer buy her new releases; she jumped the shark for me back in 1999. Some of our more recent reviews indicate she may be back on track, but at this point I'm not inclined to try.

Overall, she's an iconic figure for me as far as the genre is concerned. I also think she's an excellent story-teller with a wonderfully humorous voice who manages to take me away to a different time and/or place easily. Indeed, when my daughter was hospitalized and extremely ill last year, I read many of her books while I sat vigil. That said, her refusal to do interviews with sites that post "negative reviews" seems odd; I can't imagine her turning down a NYT interview. That bit of editorializing aside, here's my list.

(All hyperlinked titles are to books in stock at Amazon.)

Rendezvous	1997	B+	Quick
Mischief *	1996	B	Quick
Mistress	1994	B	Quick
Scandal	1991	B	Quick
Seduction	1990	B	Quick
Trust Me	1995	B	JAK
Between the Lines	1986	B-	JAK
Dangerous	1993	B-	Quick
Grand Passion	1994	B-	JAK
Lady's Choice	1989	B-	JAK
The Pirate	1990	B-	JAK
Surrender	1990	B-	Quick
The Waiting Game	1985	B-	JAK
Whirlwind Courtship	1980	B-	JAK **
With This Ring	1998	B-	Quick
The Main Attraction	1987	C+	JAK
Ravished	1992	C+	Quick
The Ties that Bind	1986	C+	JAK
True Colors	1986	C+	JAK
The Wedding Night	1991	C+	JAK
A Woman's Touch	1989	C+	JAK
Mystique	1995	C	Quick
Witchcraft	1985	C	JAK
I Thee Wed ***	1999	C-	Quick
Zinnia	1997	C-	Castle
The Family Way	1987	D+	JAK
Man with a Past ****	1985	D+	JAK
The Test of Time	1987	D+	JAK
Uneasy Alliance	1984	D+	JAK

* After I read Mischief I read Deception, published three years earlier by the same author. I was dismayed at how similar the two books are. Both stand alone as B's, but together they read as though Quick plagiarized herself.

** Originally released under the name Jayne Taylor; later reissued as JAK (my copy is in a 2-in-1 w/Dara Joy's High Energy, a terrific B+ read.

*** Although I still have many JAK/Amanda Quick books on my tbr shelf, she jumped the shark for me with this book.

**** Incredibly surprising to me was the scene in this book that verges on rape. This from a Krentz hero?

As for the remainder of the D's, they are extremely out-dated and old-fashioned. You'll note that none of the reissues done of her Stephanie James titles even made my list. I could not finish a single one because I found them so dated and written with such an old-fashioned hand.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Catherine Coulter

It was so helpful for me to go through my grades for JAK/Amanda Quick that I thought I'd do the same for Catherine Coulter. After briefly trying romance novels in college, I abandoned them for many, many years. When I next tried a romance novel in th

I'm one of the few readers I know who continues to enjoy Coulter's European Historicals - at least some of the time - and though I find many of her heroes thoroughly obnoxious, sometimes I like them in spite of myself. Case in point: her most recent historical, Pendragon. Our reviewer correctly noted the hero's obnoxious behavior toward the heroine; there's even an intimate encounter during which he behaves abominably, and though my final grade for the book was a C+, it was almost a B-. I can't recall whether or not the hero in this book used the "infamous cream," as I refer to the cream too many of Coulter's heroes seem to rely on when taking their wives' virginity, but I'm glad that at least the hero didn't perform oral sex after popping his wive's cherry, which is what the hero did in The Deception (a re-write of her traditional Regency, An Intimate Deception).

What I refuse to read from Coulter are her medievals, and I hated the one contemporary I tried by her, the original Beyond Eden. I've now read 25 books by her (there are a few I began but never finished, including Mad Jack and The Offer), and it seems as though there are equal numbers of books I loved, liked, disliked, and despised. I was lucky enough to interview her back in 1996, and though she bothered many readers with some of her responses, I myself found her forthright and fun.

The listing below may be slightly difficult to follow; I didn't sort by grade as I wanted to present all the connected books together. I hope it's not too confusing. Also, there are some titles for which an AAR Review has been written but not linked to. Because my blog is not an "official" AAR feature, I included links to DIK Reviews written when the site was still "The Archives of LLB," LLB/TRR Reviews, and AAR Reviews I wrote.

(All hyperlinked titles are to books in stock at Amazon.)

Midsummer Magic	1987	DIK Review	first in series
Calypso Magic	1988	DIK Review	second in series
Moonspun Magic	1997	DIK Review	third in series
Night Fire	1989	DIK Review	first in series
Night Shadow	1989	Grade of B	second in series
Night Storm	1989	Grade of D+	third in series
The Sherbrooke Bride	1992	DIK Review	first in series
The Hellion Bride	1992	Grade of B	second in series
The Heiress Bride	1993	Grade of D+	third in series
The Courtship	2000	Grade of B+	fifth in series
The Scottish Bride	2000	Grade of B-	sixth in series
Pendragon	2002	Grade of C+	seventh in series
The Wild Baron	1997	Grade of B
The Deception	1998	Grade of B-
The Duke	1995	Grade of B-	(guilty pleasure)
Devil's Embrace	1982	Grade of C+	(embarrassing)
Midnight Star	1982	Grade of C+	first in series
Jade Star	1982	Grade of D	second in series
Wild Star	1982	Grade of F	third in series
Chandra *	1984	Grade of F	first in series
Fire Song	1985	Grade of D	second in series
Rosehaven	1996	Grade of D	fifth in series
Lord Harry	1995	Grade of D
Beyond Eden **	1992	Grade of F
The Rebel Bride ***	1994	Grade of F

* Enhanced and published as Warrior's Song in 2001

** Enhanced and published under the same name in 2000

*** The version I read back in 1994 was the enhanced version of Coulter's second book, a traditional Regency published in 1979 by the same name

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Best & Worst

Even though nearly all of my DIK's are listed and/or reviewed on AAR's Desert Isle Keepers page, I thought I'd list them here. Why? Because I really want to list all the books I've given grades of "F" and don't think it would be nearly so "nice" to do that w/out sharing the flip side. First up? The "F's," followed by the "A's." As in previous bloggings, I'll include links to reviews I've written for these books, as well as links to any that are DIK's. Since I haven't awarded any "F's" this past year, I'll omit any Amazon links, but for the DIK's, I'll include them.

Also, my list of DIK's is not complete; while it lists all my favorite romances, it also lists a few but not all of my favorite non-romance novels. My Anne Rice favorites, for instance, are not listed, nor are any non-fiction titles. If this gets at all confusing, email me and I'll re-work the list.

All My "F's":

The Beauty of the Mist	May McGoldrick	1997
Beloved	Stella Cameron	1996	4th in a series
The Best Laid Plans Backfire	Leta Nolan Childers	2000
Beyond Eden	Catherine Coulter	1992
Bogus Bride	Emily French	1997
Bringing Up Baxter	Peggy Webb	1997	2nd in series
Butterflies	Martha Goldhirsh	1999
California Moon	Catherine Lanigan	2000
Carried Away	Sue Civil-Brown	1997	1st in series
Chandra	Catherine Coulter	1984	1st in series
The Cowboy	Joan Johnston	2000	part of several series
The Dream Hunter	Laura Kinsale	1994
Dream Lover	Virginia Henley	1997
Heart's Desire	Monica Jackson	1998
Holding Hands	JoAnne Cassity	1995
House of Four Seasons	Abigail McDaniels	1992
Indiscretion	Margaret Allison	1996
Love in a Chinese Garden	Rachel May	1997
Love, Remember Me	Bertrice Small	1994	2nd in series
Maybe Baby	Elaine Fox	2001
Memory's Embrace	Linda Lael Miller	1986	3rd in series
Night Fever	Susan Kyle	1990
The Nonpareil	Dawn Lindsey	1986
One Christmas Knight	Kathleen Crighton	1998	1st in series
Paradise	Judith McNaught	1991
Rapture's Mist	Cinnamon Burke	1993
The Rebel Bride	Catherine Coulter	1994 *
The Rose of Blacksword	Rexanne Becnel	1992	1st in series
Scandalous Suzanne	Glenda Sanders	1996
The Scottish Bride	Peggy Hanchar	1996
Search for a New Dawn	Billie Douglas	1982
The Sex Test	Patty Salier	1996
Shadow Play	Katherine Sutcliffe	1991
A Single Thread	Barri Bryan	2000
Sips of Blood	Mary Ann Mitchell	1999
Something About Cecily	Karen Kendall	2001
The Spitfire	Bertrice Small	1990
While the Moon Looked Up to Heaven	Terri Stellini	1997
Wild Star	Catherine Coulter	1987

* The version I read was the enhanced version, not the original Regency Romance published in 1979.

All My DIK's:

All We Hold Dear (a)	Kathryn Lynn Davis	1996	Amazon
The Bargain	Jane Ashford	1997
A Basket of Wishes	Rebecca Paisley	1995
The Beach House	Mary Alice Monroe	2002	Amazon
Bewitching	Jill Barnett	1993	Amazon
Born in Fire (b)	Nora Roberts	1994	Amazon
The Bride (c)	Julie Garwood	1989	Amazon
Calypso Magic (d)	Catherine Coulter	1988	Amazon
Castles (e)	Julie Garwood	1993	Amazon
Chesapeake Blue (f)	Nora Roberts	2002	Amazon
Day Dreamer (g)	Jill Marie Landis	1996	Amazon
A Dove at Midnight	Rexanne Becnel	1993
Dream Fever	Katherine Sutcliffe	1991
Fairy Tale	Jillian Hunter	1997
A Fire in the Heart (h)	Katherine Sutcliffe	1990
The First Time	Joy Fielding	2000	Amazon
The Gift (e)	Julie Garwood	1991	Amazon
Guardian Angel (e)	Julie Garwood	1990	Amazon
Honor's Splendor	Julie Garwood	1987	Amazon
How to Marry a Marquis (i)	Julia Quinn	1999	Amazon
I Know This Much is True	Wally Lamb	1998	Amazon
Indiscretion	Jillian Hunter	2000	Amazon
Jewels of the Sun (j)	Nora Roberts	2000	Amazon
A Kingdom of Dreams	Judith McNaught	1989	Amazon
Lady be Good (k)	SEP	1999	Amazon
The Last Rogue (l)	Deborah Simmons	1998
The Lion's Lady (e)	Julie Garwood	1988	Amazon
Lord St. Claire's Angel (m)	Donna Simpson	1999
Love Lessons (n)	Donna Simpson	2002	Amazon
Midsummer Magic (d)	Catherine Coulter	1987	Amazon
Mrs. Mike	Benedict & Nancy Freedman	1947	Amazon
Moonspun Magic (d)	Catherine Coulter	1988	Amazon
My Favorite Bride (o)	Christina Dodd	2002	Amazon
Night Fire (p)	Catherine Coulter	1989	Amazon
Once an Angel	Teresa Medeiros	1993	Amazon
Prisoner of My Desire	Johanna Lindsey	1991	Amazon
The Prize	Julie Garwood	1991	Amazon
Rebellious Desire	Julie Garwood	1986	Amazon
A Rose at Midnight	Anne Stuart	1993
Saving Grace	Julie Garwood	1993	Amazon
Scoundrel	Elizabeth Elliott	1996	Amazon
Sea Swept (f)	Nora Roberts	1998	Amazon
The Secret (q)	Julie Garwood	1992	Amazon
The Sherbrooke Bride (r)	Catherine Coulter	1992	Amazon
Somewhere Lies the Moon (a)	Kathryn Lynn Davis	1999	Amazon
Splendid (s)	Julia Quinn	1995	Amazon
Tallie's Knight	Anne Gracie	2001
Then Came You (t)	Lisa Kleypas	1993	Amazon
To Love a Dark Lord	Anne Stuart	1994
Too Deep for Tears (a)	Kathryn Lynn Davis	1989	Amazon
Too Hot to Handle	Elizabeth Lowell	1986	Amazon
Velvet Bond (u)	Catherine Archer	1995
The Vicar's Daughter (l)	Deborah Simmons	1995
A Well Pleasured Lady (v)	Christina Dodd	1997	Amazon

(a) Kathryn Lynn Davis trilogy: Too Deep for Tears, All We Hold Dear, and Somewhere Lies the Moon (Too Deep for Tears is my all-time favorite book

(b) Nora Roberts trilogy: Born in Fire, Born in Ice and Born in Shame

(d) Catherine Coulter trilogy: Midsummer Magic, Calypso Magic and Moonspun Magic; no other Coulter trilogy received all DIK's from me

(e) Julie Garwood quartet: Castles was my first Garwood. It is also my favorite. I read this quartet backward; the correct order is Lion's Lady, Guardian Angel, The Gift, and then Castles

(f) Nora Roberts quartet: Sea Swept, Rising Tides, Inner Harbor, and Chesapeake Blue

(g) Jill Marie Landis duo: Day Dreamer is followed by Just Once

(h) Katherine Sutcliffe duo: A Fire in the Heart is followed by My Only Love

(i) Julia Quinn duo: To Catch an Heiress is followed by How to Marry a Marquis

(j) Nora Roberts trilogy: Jewels of the Sun, Tears of the Moon and Heart of the Sea

(k) SEP duo: Lady be Good is preceded by Fancy Pants

(l) Deborah Simmons quartet: The Vicar's Daughter, The Devil Earl, Tempting Kate, and The Last Rogue

(m) Donna Simpson trilogy: Lord St. Claire's Angel, Lady Delafont's Dilemma, and Lady May's Folly

(n) Love Lessons is from the My Dashing Groom Regency Anthology

(o) Christina Dodd series: Rules of Surrender, Rules of Engagement, Rules of Attraction, In My Wildest Dreams, Lost in Your Arms, and My Favorite Bride

(p) Catherine Coulter trilogy: Night Fire, Night Shadow, and Night Storm

(q) Julie Garwood duo: The Secret is followed by Ransom

(r) Catherine Coulter series: The Sherbrooke Bride, The Hellion Bride, The Heiress Bride, Mad Jack, The Courtship, The Scottish Bride, and Pendragon

(s) Julia Quinn trilogy: Splendid, Dancing at Midnight, and Minx

(t) Lisa Kleypas duo: Then Came You is followed by Dreaming of You

(u) Catherine Archer duo: Velvet Bond is followed by Velvet Touch

(v) Christina Dodd duo: A Well Pleasured Lady and A Well Favored Gentleman

While my DIK list only shows one novella - Donna Simpson's Love Lessons - I've actually loved two other short stories, one by Morgan Llywelyn, and another by Roberta Gellis. The former was in Irish Magic, the latter in Irish Magic II

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Comments

'Laurie Gold' left this comment on 7 Jul 05

Jennie -

This particular blogging is of my favorite and least favorites romances at the time I blogged. I'm not a Sandra Brown fan, which is why her books are not on this page. Sorry.

TTFN, LLB

'A visitor' left this comment on 29 Jun 05

Hey, I didn't really understand what to get from this site. I read Sandra Brown books alot and I didn't see any listed. I have read alot of the others also.

My Sh_t Fit

There's no getting around it - something happened Friday night that refuses to let go. I'm working on the problem, but it's hard to say whether it'll be resolved to my satisfaction. Here's the deal. Last month Pat Holt and I did reciprocal segments for each others' columns. If you haven't read my segment in her column, you can link to it here. Well, an author chose that entree to write a letter to Pat Holt Uncensored that appears in her December 20th column (in the letters section) complaining about AAR even though her topic is wholly unrelated to what I wrote for the Uncensored column.

I read this letter Friday evening and, to put it mildly, had a sh_t fit. My husband, who returned from a business trip to New York at 1 a.m., was shocked to find me still awake, and still at my desk, where I was busily composing a letter of my own to send to Pat Holt. And I'm sure she appreciated my phone call to her first thing Saturday morning... not that I can go into the details of my response to this letter because I'm not sure what form it will take at the Holt Uncensored site. But I'm looking for a resolution within the next few days even though Pat's supposed to be on vacation because that's what she promised.

I strive mightily to keep behind the scenes crap off of AAR's pages, but some of our staff think it might be a good idea to bring this one to our readers. I'm definitely thinking about it.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas, one and all. I hope that by the time the new year is upon us that this will have been settled.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

"Marianne, Marianne, Marianne"

It may be a Merry Christmas for most of you, but it's a sad day indeed for me. The first major fall-out from the letter I mentioned in my last blogging has occurred, and it's very sad. A reviewer and editor who has been with AAR since the very beginn

It may be a Merry Christmas for most of you, but it's a sad day indeed for me.

The first major fall-out from the letter I mentioned in my last blogging has occurred, and it's very sad. A reviewer and editor who has been with AAR since the very beginning has decided to prematurely end her association with AAR, and I believe it's because she doesn't want that association to taint her chances of being published.

That's right - Marianne Stillings - whose reviews are brilliant and whose editing of other's reviews is equally brilliant, has resigned from AAR and I've accepted her resignation, effective the first of the year.

This last is important because Marianne has tried to resign in the past, and I've always been able to talk her out of it. This time I didn't even try because I know she's thisclose to being published, and I couldn't live with myself if AAR were the cause of holding her back. Because then it would be my fault. She's been writing romances for a few years now, but signed with an agent not long ago and has a fabulous book just waiting to be published. So now it's "serious."

We always knew this day would come - the day Marianne signed a deal would have been her last day as a reviewer and editor for AAR - but I can't help but believe her decision to leave earlier than planned came as a direct result of this latest attack on AAR, particularly since the Holt Uncensored column is so widely read throughout the publishing industry.

This is a catastrophic loss for AAR - not only was Marianne here since The Archives of LLB became AAR, but her reviews are so incredibly well-written and such a delight to read that she can never be replaced. For the first year or so (at least!) of the site's existence, she was our one and only editor, if you can believe it, and those skills too can never be duplicated. Having read her manuscript, I can only say her talents are wasted in technical writing (she's been a technical writer and editor for years).

Marianne has written a letter to be posted at AAR, but I'm going to post it here as well.

Dear AAR Readers:
I've asked Laurie to post this note so I can have a chance to say good-bye to you all. The end of 2002 marks the end of my reviewing days here at AAR. I've been with the site since it's inception five years ago and have written over 200 reviews; I just can't leave without saying so long.
Because I'm going to be pursuing a writing career of my own, I feel it would be inappropriate for me continue reviewing. To my mind, that would constitute a conflict of interest, and I never want the integrity of my reviews, or of AAR, called into question.
When I first began reading romance novels, I was ecstatic to find a site that offered honest analysis and opinions about the huge number of books available each month. I wanted to be a part of what I considered a viable service to readers. Over time, I have occasionally been shocked to hear accusations that AAR reviewers are nothing more than a covey of unprofessional frustrated mean-spirited writer wannabes. As a former insider at AAR, I want to state that nothing could be further from the truth.
Readers and authors have no idea how much thought goes into each review, and how each reviewer agonizes over posting a negative one. Each book we open, we hope will be a DIK. If the reality falls short of that, then we feel obliged to say so, just as we would if you were our next-door neighbor and we were chatting (as Laurie likes to say) over the back fence. I have never worked with a group of people more dedicated, more thoughtful, or more honest in my life than those here at AAR (and in case you need a credibility check, in Real Life, I have been a technical writer/editor for the past fifteen years).
The term "professional" in the Real World simply means that a person gets paid for whatever he/she does. The fact that the staff at AAR does not get paid, but writes reviews as a service to the genre's many readers, should make it obvious how dedicated they are to helping you make an informed choice. If AAR were a monthly magazine delivered in print format, it would undoubtedly get the respect it deserves, but the fact that it's an online publication doesn't detract a bit from the quality of its reviews and articles, or the sincerity of its staff. And, it's free, delivered on a daily basis. Is life good or what?
I'll miss being a part of the AAR Family more than I can say, but it's time for me to move on. I hope you've enjoyed reading my reviews as much as I've enjoyed writing them, and I wish you all, and Laurie and the staff at AAR the very, very best.
Be well and happy ---
Marianne Stillings

Several months ago I asked Marianne to start a journal so that when her book is bought and published, we'll have a way to share that experience with our readers. She will continue this after her association with AAR ends. If there's one silver lining, that's it.

I wish my friend Marianne the best. Her voice will be missed at AAR.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Patience

Well, now I just need to be patient. After working through five drafts in response to the letter I began to talk about in my December 24th blogging, I've finally written a version that strikes the right tone. I've heard from Pat Holt that once she's back online after the first of the year, she'll either include it in the Letters section of her column and respond to it there or she'll preface it and use it in her column itself.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

A Poll

It's driving me absolutely crazy not to respond to the thread(s) on AAR's Potpourri Message Board regarding the Pat Holt situation, but my response needs to come through the Uncensored site and not AAR. Keeping this blog separate from AAR is important lest I turn into one of those online whiners who posts things in public that should be kept private. That's why I never name names when I'm whining about something here and why you'll never read about the worst behind-the-scenes stuff at AAR itself. You see, one of the reasons I have "issues" with certain authors is that they use public forums to air dirty laundry and complain about sites like AAR in a manner I think isn't "fair."

So one of the reasons I set up this blog was to give myself a place to rage against the injustice of it all while continuing to maintain a professional demeanor at AAR. That works just fine as long as discussion about my blog doesn't spill over onto AAR, but it has spilled over a few times so far, and I'm increasingly uncomfortable about it.

Those of you who are keeping up w/my blog have already noticed there are no links at the end of the entries to any AAR Message Board - there are only email links to me. And yet posts are being made on our Potpourri MB occasionally about my bloggings while very few people actually email me. Should I set up a Blog Board? On the one hand, if I did that, I could better keep blog stuff off of AAR. On the other hand, that's a bit much, isn't it? I started this blog to share behind the scenes things, and to share some personal stuff as well. A MB seems altogether too formal and conceited, but I'm going to poll you all for your thoughts. Frankly, I can't imagine many bloggings would be as insane as this latest incident has become, but who knows?

THIS POLL NO LONGER FUNCTIONAL

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Handling my Dilemma

The poll I set up in my previous blogging has somehow malfunctioned. In the interim, two people voted that they thought a Blog-specific MB was the only way to stop postings at AAR on my blog entries, and a third wrote me that while she agreed with th

This is indeed what worries me, and yet I continue to be worried by additional posts on the Potpourri MB related to the entire incident. One poster even asks who Marianne Stillings is! I think the one and only solution since I believe I absolutely cannot respond on AAR's MB's to blogging posts is to inform readers in the introductory text for the Potpourri MB that blogging posts will be removed in the future and that any comments readers wish to make must be emailed to me privately.

The quandry suggested by this reader is as follows:

"Personally, I think that the *only* way to keep your readers from commenting on your blogs on the AAR bulletin boards when things like this (negative public comment on the site, you, or the reviewers) come up is to have some sort of separate MB, but something about that feels wrong to me. It isn't that I don't want to know about these things when they happen; I certainly do. And I also want to know how you've responded. But a message board where readers of the site comment would end up being a vehicle for cheering for you (not just you personally, but you the AAR website, its' reviews, etc.) attacking those who've been negative, and perhaps hurting the AAR site's reputation as a place where one can have a spirited but civil discussion of romance, learn about authors, the genre, and the publishing industry, and participate in polls, parody writing, and recommending titles to others. It also seems to me that it might open you to more attacks of the kind ______ has mounted."

I'm going to make that MB adjustment now. Thanks, Juliet, for helping me think this through.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

November 30, 2002

laurielikesbooks Blog for November 2002

laurielikesbooks.blog-city.com — November 2002

Being Sick (but also) a Trip to the Highlands

If you've ever had sinus surgery, you know that they pack your nose with tampon-like wads of cotton for a week thereafter, which makes breathing out of your nose an impossibility. It also makes sleeping incredibly difficult because your lips and mout

I've had two sinus surgeries (and a tonsilectomy for chronic tonsilitus - about 20 infections in a single year) in the last 8 years. I've got allergies and narrow sinus passages, so I take allergy shots and irrigate my nose and take enough different nasal sprays to start my own pharmacy. When the plumbing is a problem and you've got allergies as well, there's not necessarily a lot they can do to attack either problem on its own, and when both act up at the same time, you may as well surrender.

Which is what I did over the last week. After taking home one upset 10-year-old girl last Friday night and settling in to read Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour, I finally fell asleep around 2 in the morning. By mid-day Saturday, the right side of my face felt as though it were under seige. Breathing was difficult and my forehead was pounding from a sinus headache. By the time I tried to go to sleep, I could not breathe at all and I had a fever.

Saturday night was endless; as bad as having tampons in my nose. At around midnight I tried sleeping in my "glider" chair, which is in my study. Why? Because it's one of two high-backed chairs in our house and I felt if I could sleep sitting up, I might be able to breathe. It might have worked...had I not startled myself awake every time I dozed off. At around 1, I moved to my desk chair (the other high-backed chair in our house) but again startled myself awake every so often. At 2 I finally gave up and decided I'd have to try mouth breathing. Because I think I was suffering from feverish delusions, I was afraid that if I breathed through my mouth I would unwittingly close my mouth during the night and suffocate.

Obviously I survived, but Sunday was even worse as the fever lingered and the sinuses on both sides seemed glued shut. I didn't die Sunday night either, and on Monday went to the doctor, who confirmed a bad infection and seemed surprised at how quickly it hit. And so my string of not having had just a plain old cold since I was 17 has continued.

I went home with strong antibiotics, strong decongestants that make me hyper, and a renewal for my two long-term allergy/sinus nose sprays. I didn't die Monday night, but I didn't breathe through my nose either, and after I drove my daughter to school Tuesday morning, I went home and took a three hour nap. When I woke up I realized my mouth hadn't dried out - apparently one side of my face drained into the other while I slept. I took naps every day this week, except for those mornings when my husband heard me try to speak, commanded, "Go back to bed," took our daughter to school, and on those days I slept in...until noon. Considering my day usually begins at 6:30, this gives you an idea of how badly I felt.

That woozy feeling you have with a sinus infection or head cold sometimes makes it impossible to concentrate; I couldn't read a book or a magazine, leaving nothing but television, which is another reason I'm sure I slept so much this past week.

My nose is better now, but my sinuses are still draining quite a bit, and my cough, which has always been my Achilles heel, is so explosive it's gross. I'm trying to keep this from turning into bronchitis, which I suffered chronically for several years, and spent most of last night coughing instead of sleeping. Maybe tonight will be okay?

Throughout all this, my husband has been wonderful. He refused to let me play the martyr and schlep our daughter around. So I've mostly slept, blowed my nose, and coughed, although I was able to get some work done on Thursday and Friday.

But cancelling the November 1st At the Back Fence was tough; in 6 1/2 years, I've never not posted a column out of illness. The one time I was sick in the past, author Julia Quinn wrote a guest column. And, because I was sick for the last part of October and had been out of town for the first part of the month, we posted fewer reviews than usual.

Being the nervous sort, I worried that our readers would leave in droves, but was actually too sick to care. And mostly too sick to read. I did manage to concentrate enough to finish Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, and then last night around midnight watched the Scotland episode of his A Cook's Tour.

In addition to eating fried pizza and a fried Mars bar in Glasgow, he ate haggis in Edinburgh (which he found delicious! and remarkably similar in terms of ingredients and preparation to French cuisine), then journeyed to the Highlands for a stay at the Cawdor Cottages, on the estate of Cawdor Castle. He fished, hunted rabbit, and enjoyed the food prepared with local ingredients by the estate's chef.

We've not done a Castle of the Week on Cawdor Castle, so I'm going to include a few photos here, as well as a bit of history.

Although he didn't mention it on the show, Cawdor is quite close to the battlefield of Culloden. Part of Shakespeare's MacBeth, Cawdor Castle was originally built in the mid-1400's as a private fortress by the powerful Thanes of Cawdor. Built around an oblong keep, the medieval tower rises four stories, and protects a legendary holly tree.

The Legendary Holly

The Medieval Tower

Additions were made to the castle over the centuries, but many were made during the 1600's. Unlike many a castle in the UK which now lie in ruins, Cawdor remains the home of Scottish gentry and is its interior is filled with the type of art you'd expect to see in a manor house.

The Great Hall

The Great Hall dates from the 16th century or before, and has been frequently remodelled, the last major alteration being the insertion of the plain, splendid fireplace in 1684, embellished with the Calder family emblems of the stag's head and buckle. At the opposite end of the room is a minstrel's gallery. Calder was an old spelling of Cawdor.

The Tapestry Bedroom contains the Family Marriage Bed of 1662. The gilded and silvered Venetian headboard is original. The Flemish tapestries are woven from wool and silk. They are hung directly over unplastered walls for both warmth and decoration. Their cost in 1682 was of Â£483, which, according to the handy Economic History Resources website, would be the equivalent of Â£49029 today.

The Tapestry Bedroom

I hope you've enjoyed this mini-vacation to the Highlands, even though you had to endure my gross infection to get there. Thanks to everyone who sent their best wishes, and to the many of you whom I know are also suffering the sinus infection from Hell, please take care and get well soon!

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Women, Heroines, & Age

Not long ago we did an At the Back Fence segment on the age of heroines in romance novels. The idea for talking about it came from a conversation I'd had with author Stef Ann Holm, who, after years of writing Americana romance, had her first contemporary romance published. A primary reason for doing this was because, as she got older, she found it more and more difficult to write about 20-year-old heroines.

Which prompted me to wonder how far this spread in both directions. In other words, did 40-ish/40+ women want to read about heroines 18 - 25 and did teens and young women want to read about heroines pushing 40 or over 40? Most of us, regardless of our age, have read romances for years featuring young heroines, particularly if the romances are historical. Why, I was shocked to be reminded not long ago that the heroine from a favorite Garwood romance - Saving Grace - was 15. Of course, readers of contemporary romance are more used to reading heroines who are in their 20's and even 30's, although 35 or so seems the cut-off, and though these heroines are often chronologically older, they are often only so superficially (living in small towns and being virgins and so forth), particularly if in series romances.

Before single title contemporaries developed as a sub-genre, the vast majority of contemporaries were really category or series romances, and generally featured younger, inexperienced women and older, more sophisticated, and often slightly menacing men. Harlequin/Silhouette has always lagged behind popular culture, and my sense is that when they began to "loosen up" in terms of this, they didn't loosen up all the way. But in single title contemporaries, which seem to me to have grown up outside of the Harlequin ideal of contemporary romance, there was more latitude, and as more people began to read these books, Harlequin has been forced to catch up, although I believe they still lag, even in their Blaze line - Harlequin and erotica seem more an oxymoron to me than anything else.

So tolerance for varying ages of heroines, it seems to me, depends on where you came to romance from, and how old you are. I came to romance in my very early 30's via the historical romance and didn't read either series romances or contemporary romances until my middle 30's. Now that I'm 41 and my husband is 47, I'm still more accepting of younger heroines than I believe others may be, particularly those who came to romance via single title contemporaries.

In fact, I'm not only accepting of younger heroines, I have a bias against older heroines - and heroes too. I had a severe problem with Suzanne Brockmann's The Admiral's Bride because the hero was in his late 50's, and when I recently picked up Donna Simpson's A Matchmaker's Christmas, I was initially put off because the main heroine is nearly 40 and the hero is 47. Too close to home? Perhaps, but something about reading a traditional Regency Romance with such "old people" (roughly my age and my husband's age, and I don't consider us old at all!) unnerved me. I mentioned this on the Regency discussion list I'm on, and to members of AAR's staff, only to learn that those who'd read the book found it wonderful. And so I pressed on.

Ultimately the age of these characters didn't matter; I enjoyed the book and continue to believe Donna Simpson is one of the best romance writers around; she's going to begin to write longer historicals in addition to traditional Regencies, and though I wish her success, I hope she still writes trads because I like her voice for them. As for the age of heroes and heroines, I think I'd still prefer to read about women and men in their 20's and 30's. As we all saw when Jamie Lee Curtis let it all hang out in More magazine earlier this year, as great as women now look today when they are "of a certain age," part of the reason I read romance is for the fantasy of it. While I enjoy the occasional deviation from the norm, I'd rather read romances featuring beautiful men and women, and particularly in historical eras before plastic surgery and make-up as we know it today, 40 in 1815 doesn't much resemble 40 in 2002.

I have much less trouble reading about heroes and heroines who are 40-ish in contemporary romances - I'm currently that Stef Ann Holm book I mentioned earlier - Girls Night. The heroine is 38 and the hero is in his mid-40's. But I think that's roughly the cut-off point for me. I can't imagine that when I'm 50 I'll want to read about 50-ish heroes and heroines, but then I'll probably still be annoyed to continue to read about 25-year-old contemporary virgins. Will I still want to read about heroines considered "on the shelf" at 24? I honestly can't say. I do know, though, that demographics play a large part in determining what is published, and therefore what's written. Whether I'm going to match a demographic publishers want is unknown at this point; I'd imagine that publishers are going to continue to want to pull in younger readers, and yet my age group, and the women slightly older than me (I'm the last year, I think, of the Baby Boom), is such a large demographic that there's always going to be some market that I'll find appealing.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Girls Night, Old School Heroes, and Jerry Seinfeld

I've taken to writing fan letters to authors whose books I enjoy. Recently I've written to Donna Simpson and yesterday wrote to Stef Ann Holm, whose Girls Night I'd just finished. About a month ago I read a funny article in RT that Stef's daughters had contributed to as a way to "kick off" the sale of Girls Night. I thought the girls were hilarious and for some reason was expecting the book to be equally funny.

For some reason that was what stuck in my mind about the book even though we'd done both a Pandora's Box and a DIK Review of the book...and Ellen's wonderful review enumerates the dark side of the book, which is the internal demon Vince (the hero) fights once he discovers the the subject of his new "real crime" book planned his serial murders so that Vince would later write about them. Brilliant!

Some of what I most enjoyed about Girls Night was what wasn't there - namely a suspense sub-plot. So many contemporary romances feature suspense sub-plots that it's hard to find one that doesn't. And yet there's plenty of strong material to fill the book, including a sweet secondary romance between Vince's dad (who's been a widower for years and years) and a neighbor; well-written secondary characters such as Jillene's (the heroine) daughters Faye and Claire; and best of all, two wonderful lead characters.

Holm's previous books have mostly been Americana romances (it's hard to believe she once wrote a pirate romance entitled King of the Pirates!), which is a sub-genre I don't read, so this is the first of her books I've read. I'm so pleased she'll be writing more contemporaries because she has a wonderful voice for them, and I imagine the love scenes, which were luscious in Girls Night, are a lot "stronger" than she'd written in the past.

I recently wrote about Old School Heroes in the At the Back Fence column. An expressive word to describe an "old school hero" would be "gentleman." Vince is a gentleman - in the best sense of the word. Jillene was lucky to find him, and, luckily for the reader, she deserved the happiness she found with him. There are some great moments in the book, and never does author Holm take the stereotypical way out. The could-have-been "other woman" isn't, the kids aren't obnoxious or bratty, and the serial murderer doesn't escape and come after Vince and/or Jillene. Instead, there are wonderful moments of serendipity, such as the visit of a certain actor to Jillene's coffee house, Java the Hut, and sweet moments when Vince and his dad talk to each other that illustrates how much father loves son and the son loves his father.

And Jillene, whose business isn't bringing in as much money as she needs to support her family, has to make very difficult lifestyle changes. It's rare in a romance to read about a heroine who can't take her daughters out for fast food because she can't afford to do so without scrounging beneath couch cushions for loose change. It's one thing to cancel cable to save a few bucks, but what to do when you can't make your health insurance premiums? This is the stuff of real life and I'm grateful that Holm wrote about it in her book. The Dale Chihuly chandelier is just icing on the cake, as far as I'm concerned - yes, I'm a Chihuly fan girl from way back.

And now, on to an entirely different subject. (How's that for a segue?)

No matter how often I grown about bad author behavior, I realize that writing a book and putting yourself out there for other people to criticize is incredibly difficult. I have an even stronger appreciation today than I did yesterday, because last night my husband and I saw Comedian, a documentary about the creation of Jerry Seinfeld's new comedy routine. I'll say this, though. It's one thing to have people read your work and criticize it. It's another to have people watch you work and know as you're working whether they like it or not.

I watched Seinfeld from the beginning, before anyone knew who Jerry Seinfeld was, or had figured out the show. I remember telling my husband about watching this oddly funny show (he was out of town at the time) featuring a scene wherein a guy and his friend stake out a building's lobby to meet up with a girl he'd met. For those who are Seinfeld fanatics, this is the first episode wherein George uses the name "Art Vandaley."

It would be safe to say I became a Jerry Seinfeld fanatic myself. I own an episode guide of his show, bought Seinlanguage - in hardcover - right after it was published. I still have my copy of EW when they did the Seinfeld episode guide, and bought three or four (at least) commemorative magazines that were published when the show went off the air. I don't get much chance to watch the show in syndication, but whenever he's on Letterman or Regis or whatever, I try to watch. His first appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman after he'd retired his act and gone into show business hibernation was one I made sure to watch, and as I watched an excerpt of it in his documentary last night, it struck me anew how wonderfully he seems to flip words backwards and forwards to make a joke, which is what he did in describing how difficult it is to do "nothing" and how easy it is to fall into doing "something." Frankly, if you're not a fan of Jerry Seinfeld and/or Seinfeld, that probably doesn't sound the least bit funny, but it was.

After Seinfeld went off the air and he went off to make American Express commercials, Jerry Seinfeld retired his act. His HBO Special featured not only his last performance of the act, but a funeral for the act, attended by droves of comedic luminaries. I watched, thought it was fun, but until last night really didn't appreciate how radical a move this was. Because once a comedian retires an act, he literally has nothing, and it takes months, as I learned while watching last night, to craft even five minutes of material.

Comedian follows Jerry Seinfeld as he creates a new act for himself. Remember, this is a man worth $100 million dollars and never has to work another day in his life. What's he do? He goes to open-mike nights at comedy clubs like every other schlub wanting to make it big and goes on stage with tiny snippets of material (although most of them don't have the luxury of travelling by private jet to East Bumf_ck, Ohio). And he doesn't always succeed - one night he forgets where he is and simply dies on stage. Another night he's heckled by someone wanting to know if "this is his first gig." He slowly, tortously, creates an act throughout the course of the movie, minute by minute, until he's got enough material to actually have his agent book him a paying gig.

While all this is going on, the audience learns about the comedians he's admired, including Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Robert Klein, and Richard Pryor (there's a great scene at the Museum of Television and Radio where he cracks up watching Richard Pryor clips). The audience learns which comedians Seinfeld pals around with, including Colin Quinn, who used to be on SNL, Klein, Jay Leno, Shandling, Chris Rock, and George Wallace. There's a wonderful scene with Seinfeld and Leno, who I liked just fine until he took over The Tonight Show (what can I say? I'm a Letterman over Leno person.), and a funny scene with Seinfeld and Shandling. There's also a great moment wherein Seinfeld relays a story to a comedian named Orny Adams (whose struggle to get a development deal is a sub-plot of the documentary) about why entertainers entertain when regular people have regular lives and regular jobs.

The sub-plot involving Adams adds an interesting texture to the film. Adams makes Alvie Singer look well-adjusted. At one moment he is on a cocky cloud nine after having been invited to the Montreal Comedy Festival - it takes just four minutes for his mood to deflate into one of abject depression. And when he reveals to the camera all the material he's written in the nine years since he's been working on his comedy, the sheer amount is devastating.

There was likely too much Orny in the film, but there's a reason for it. It's easier to watch Orny be by turns "king of the world" cocky, then so wracked with self-doubt you can imagine (excuse my French) his balls retreating into his body, then funny, then scared, than it is to watch Jerry in these same moments. Seinfeld has his mask on - Orny doesn't.

Seinfeld spends a few minutes with one of his idols at the end of the documentary - Bill Cosby - who still does two shows (each over two hours) a night when he's performing. Whether Seinfeld loves Cosby for the same reason I do - he makes comedy look entirely effortless - it's clear that when Cosby tells him "he done good," the validation was worth all the torture Seinfeld put himself through to become successful.

Comedy is very, very hard, both in its creation, and because of what comedians have to do to share it with the audience. This documentary showed all that, but it was also so very funny, because Jerry Seinfeld is so very funny. If you are the type of reader who loves reading because you love words, Seinfeld is a master wordsmith.

I hope you'll catch Comedian in your city; it's a great time. And if you haven't read Girls Night, please consider it. It's good.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Reigniting a Love Affair

I grew up a tremendous fan of basketball. We had season tickets fifth row from the floor my entire youth for the Los Angeles Lakers, and until I went to college, we spent most Sunday nights eating at The Forum Club, then watching the game from our terrific seats. They were so close you could hear the players grunt and argue with the referees...now I'll bet you could hear the players curse. We were there throughout much of the Lakers' 1971-72 winning streak of 33 straight games, and the capper to this exciting year was when the Lakers won the NBA championship. As my father had recently suffered a heart attack, his doctors felt his attending the game would be so exciting as to be dangerous for him. So he gave two of our four tickets to close friends, and they took my sister and I to the game. It was fantastic, and exciting. In those days people didn't set cars on fire when their teams won national championships. The most dangerous thing that happened was that as the audience came down on the court to celebrate, I lost one of my shoes - my mother to this day doesn't believe that I could possibly have lost a shoe in the crowd, but I did.

I was so serious about basketball while growing up that I regularly read non-fiction books about basketball and basketball players - a favorite was a history of the Harlem Globetrotters. The year I first saw them play, I already knew most of their gags from reading about them, but I was fascinated about their humble start, the racism they faced, and some of the interesting factoids about some of the original players, like the fact that Goose Tatum's arms were so long they reached his knees. I was quite thrilled to tell my daughter the year we took her to see the Globetrotters that one of my friends from SMU undergrad had played for the team upon graduation. And I loved watching them do some of the old comedy bits they've done for decades - everybody should see the Globetrotters play at least once in their lives.

Not only did I read about basketball, but I collected autographs of my favorite Lakers. Elgin Baylor may not ring a bell today, but he was my idol back then, and I loved him, Jerry West, Gail Goodrich, and Happy Hairston. I was more ambivalent about Wilt Chamberlin even though his offices were in the same building as my dad's company because he was such a horrendous free-throw shooter. But god help the nights Mel Counts came off the bench into the game! If ever there was a stereotype of a lumbering white basketball player, he was it, and I hated him. Listed on a page about him is that he "played 12 years in the NBA on different teams from 1964 to 1976." Hardly a ringing endorsement!

I was such a ferocious fan that I can remember shouting at the referees if they made a bad call, "Don't walk down a dark alley at night!" This from a ten-year-old girl, if you can imagine.

I loved watching basketball live and in person, but never really enjoyed watching it on television, so when I moved to Dallas, I lost interest. Oh, when the Dallas Mavericks became an expansion team, I was excited, but after their first couple of years, they settled into their place near the bottom of the barrel. I was in college, graduate school, then building a career. For fun we had season tickets to the Dallas Theatre Center, and except for those Ibsen plays that invariably put my husband to sleep on a Friday or Saturday night, we enjoyed watching this repertory theatre company. Some of their more experimental productions were fantastic, but we dropped our subscription after our daughter was born. I imagine once she's 13 and able to stay home without a sitter, we'll once again subscribe.

But back to basketball. It's my favorite sport. I also grew up going to UCLA college football, and attended a fair number of Rams games when they were in Los Angeles, but basketball was immediate, easy to follow, and fast. I've never liked baseball - whether in person or on television - and other than keeping up with which teams are doing well so I can talk to people at social gatherings, I've no interest in it.

And so when my husband makes a trip out to The Ball Park at Arlington, he takes our daughter. For her it's more about "daddy time" and the chance to eat so much crap it makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it. A few weeks ago we were offered a couple of Dallas Stars hockey tickets; I told my husband that as long as we made our daughter guilty about the fact that I was going to stay home so she could go, she could go. I actually enjoy hockey, but decided they needed the time alone. And, since the Herbst device recently installed in her mouth to help align her lower jaw no longer hurt, I knew she was dying to eat tons of junk food. I knew the evening had been a success by the amount of crap she'd eaten when they came home.

My husband, who is, as I've said many times before, a wonderful man, decided a couple of weeks ago to buy us a partial season of tickets to see the Dallas Mavericks. This past Saturday was our first of ten games. The Mavericks just moved to the new American Airlines Center, along with the Dallas Stars. This brand-spanking-new arena has all the bells and whistles, two different levels of luxury suites, huge video screens, a platform for a live band, etc. I grew up on fifth row seats at the Forum. No doubt season tickets cost a fair amount in the 1970's, but there's no comparison to what is being charged today. For our second-row-from-the-top seats at the American Airlines Center we are paying nearly $40/ticket. We had a fabulous time at the game, and I loved explaining things to my daughter, such as the difference between a center, forward, and guard, and the number of points earned by shooting a free throw, a basket, or a 3-point basket (if anyone can tell me when they started awarding 3 points for long shots, please let me know - I know it happened several years ago, but would love to know precisely when, as well as why they felt the change was necessary).

I'm very excited to be going to some games again; it's also great fun to remember things I hadn't thought about in years. But I did notice a few things, both Saturday night, and at the other few Mavericks games we've gone to in the past few years.

If you're like me, you've read any number of articles about the high cost of today's sporting events. No kidding. I'm sure that's why there are so many "add-ons" at today's events, but there's so much going on at times it's hard to focus on the game. When did it become necessary to catapult t-shirts into the audience, fly mini-blimps around the arena, and play the dot game? I know that Mark Cuban, the owner of the Mavericks, is a cutting-edge kind of guy trying to modernize the basketball "experience," but I felt as though I were suffering from ADHD during parts of the game. The game is enough for me.

Frankly, Cuban presents an interesting story himself. Many people know he became a billionaire selling his streaming media technology to Yahoo, but what fewer people realize is why he had the technology created altogether: he wanted some way to hear his beloved Indiana college basketball team's games, and his company, Broadcast.com, is the company that put radio stations on the Internet. Brash and opinionated, he has infuriated the NBA's commissioner as well as other team owners, and as a result has been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars since he bought the team. Very visable in his ownership of the Mavericks, the 149th richest man in America (and not altogether bad looking!), recently married.

Well, I think I've rambled on long enough today. The Mavericks creamed the Detroit Pistons, and I got a bonus - making my daughter roar with laughter by calling that mini-blimp "retarded" in the same Boston accent Rachel Dratch uses when she plays "Denise" in those skits wherein Jimmy Fallon plays her boyfriend Sully. All in all, a good time was had by all on Saturday Night.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Harry Potter Fangirl

If for no other reason than it caused my daughter to fall in love with reading, I love J.K. Rawling's Harry Potter series. Right before book #4 - the behemoth - was released in the summer of 2000, I began to read the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, out loud to my daughter. She was eight at the time, and while a good reader, she didn't yet really, really love reading. It was such an entrancing book that I stayed up through the night finishing the book myself, and she was so energized about the series that she gobbled up the first three books in a matter of days. Which was important to her because the fourth book was being released over the very next weekend and she wanted it as soon as it was available. In order to encourage this excitement over reading, we took advantage of Amazon's offer at the time, which was that they would assure free delivery of the book the day of it's release.

The book did indeed arrive that Saturday and my daughter read it - all 734 pages of it - immediately and all through the night. There was no school the next day, and if she wanted to follow that age-old tradition of furtive reading in the dark with only a flashlight, who was I to stop her? She still thinks she pulled one over on me and has no idea I was happy enough about her joy to break the bed-time rules.

Since the summer of 2000, she's read each book in the series at least - and this is not hyperbole - 63 times. Every Internet trivia quiz on the books is too easy as far as she's concerned. Did I mention that I had to buy a third set of the books to keep hidden in my study because she's read the first set so often, and in the bath, that the books got waterlogged (but still, as far as she's concerned, fine)? A second set, which I made her buy herself, is in bad shape too, but at least it hasn't fallen apart, which is good as that third set is going to remain pristine for all eternity...after all, it's for me. And for those looking for a Clue-like game for Harry Potter fanatics, may I recommend the Harry Potter Mystery of Hogwarts board game?

We saw Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone the first night it opened in theatres and saw it again shortly thereafter. I thought it was fantastic, and though it seems heresy to say so, I actually preferred it to Lord of the Rings. What can I say other than that I'm wild about Harry?

We were pretty much first in line to buy the video of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when it was released this past May, and in the weeks before my daughter went to sleep-away camp in July, we watched it often. It wasn't just her asking to watch it over and over...it was me. The last time we watched it, in fact, it was at my behest, and she actually asked if we could turn it off about mid-way through because she'd finally seen it enough. The night after she went away to camp, my husband put up with watching it yet one more time.

My daughter's not as into Harry Potter as she once was; now it's Neopets that occupies her spare time, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still read the books and occasionally go on Harry Potter binges.

I bought tickets online Wednesday for Friday's opening night of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - she invited her best friend to watch the movie with us, and then sleep over. Luckily this friend is another Harry Potter fan. I honestly don't know which of us was more excited about seeing the movie; it may well have been me. Although Entertainment Weekly gave it a good review (I brought the magazine in my AAR Bookbag so I'd have something to read in line), Newsweek did not. And as for the sad passing of Richard Harris, who played the character of Dumbledore to perfection, I'm not sure who they should cast in the third installment of the series. My husband thinks Christopher Lee would be good; I don't think he has the sort of avuncular irony necessary to play the role and would rather see Ian McKellan in the part. Although it's hard to say how many years either of those two actors have left, so we'll have to wait and see.

I can't remember the last time we actually had to wait in line to see a movie. We picked up the tickets an hour before show time and then took our places in the middle of a line that wrapped around half the 16-plex before sitting down to watch the movie.

I made sure to sit next to my husband as I knew I'd be grabbing him when the spiders and snakes made their appearances. He got grabbed often during the nearly-3-hour movie, which flew by very quickly. The only time I got at all antsy was close to the final, epic half hour, and only because I knew it was going to be edge-of-the-seat exciting. It was.

The children actors are better this time around, most particularly Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who play Hermoine Granger and Ron Weasley. The computer-generated Dobby brings some wonderful comic moments, and Jason Isaacs as Draco Malfoy's father - Lucius Malfoy - is wonderfully menacing (the dark-haired actor sports a beautiful mane of platinum blond hair in this movie and though I'm not one for blonds, thought he was fantastic looking!). Kenneth Branagh is terrific as well as in a role that seems at times to be a parody of himself. Isaacs, in fact, is quoted in the EW article as saying that director Christopher Columbus' job during many of their scenes together seemed to be to stop he and Branagh "from trying to out-ham each other."

Most critics (and people I've talked to since yesterday) believe Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was better than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I honestly can't say because I loved the first one, but then, I also loved The Phantom Menace.

My daughter and I are both trying to be patient for J.K. Rowling to finish the fifth book in the series. At times I wonder whether she'll be able to write all seven, but my daughter has no doubts at all. Until then, we'll just have to wait. As for me, I'm off to check out the Internet Movie Database for historic buildings used in the Harry Potter movies. We've used both Gloucester Cathedral and Alnwick Castle as previous Castles of the Week, but there are other possibilities....

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Thanksgiving Prep

Well, it's exactly one week from Thanksgiving... let the count-down begin. I actually have less than a week to get my act together as my mom is flying in early - Monday afternoon to be exact - so she can attend Grandparent's Day at our daughter's school. This is very exciting because it'll be the first time a grandparent has been able to attend Grandparent's Day. Unfortunately it means I've got to get the house ready between now and Monday and it's in horrendous shape.

My study has gotten so bad over the past several months that it's literally impossible to walk through most of it - the only part that isn't filled with papers and books is a small, narrow path from the door to my desk chair. I was supposed to have cleaned this room up over the weekend. Looks like I'll be doing that today and tomorrow. Then there's the kitchen, which first needs to be straightened out, then set up for silver polishing and massive amounts of cooking. I'm not much of a cook, but do have a delicious Thanksgiving menu that I make every year - except for last year when we decided not to make Thanksgiving because we were all still recovering from our daughter's illness. It was very depressing; this year we're back among the land of the living and will have a house full of family.

Actually, I don't make the entire meal. My husband, the wanna-be chef, makes the turkey (truly the only moist turkey I've ever eaten) over a two-day period and his fabulous pumpkin biscuits - he's been making those biscuits for nearly 20 years now, and they're so good I'm almost salivating just thinking about them. I make these wonderful mashed potatoes that actually taste good when re-heated - it's likely the combination of massive amounts of butter, cream cheese, and sour cream - cranberry sauce that our daughter loves so much she gorges on it for days, a hot fruit compote that I gorge on for days (whether it's the sherry or the butter or all the sweet fruit that makes it so good I can't say), a from-scratch chocolate cake, and the best damn pumpkin pie I've ever eaten.

Though I'm not a good cook, I watch a lot of cooking shows on TV because my husband loves them, and recently picked up a tip I hope will work. I always hand-whip cream for topping the pumpkin pies and learned from watching either Good Eats or Food 911 that if you melt a marshmallow and add it into the cream as you whip it, it won't deflate for several hours.

We're having such a big crowd this year that our dining room table won't be big enough, and I refuse to jerry-rig two tables together and try to find a tablecloth to fit. I had the brilliant idea of renting a table, chairs, and linens instead. It won't please my mother, who thinks the table should be set several days in advance, but I'm actually quite proud of myself for coming up with this idea. What I particularly like about it is that I ordered a jade-colored table cloth and napkins, which means I can have fun over the weekend shopping for a centerpiece and decorations. Since I hate autumnal colors, I never do the burnished gold and russet everyone else does; my last extravaganza was more of a stark winter setting with garlands of cranberry-like beads and silver polished stones strewn across the table, along with many gorgeous white apple-shaped candles set into silver trays. I may not be a cook, but I can decorate!

My mom's going to be in town for almost a full week, which means lots of fireworks potential. She's the one who taught me that guests, like fish, start to stink after three days. But time is so precious with her now that she's getting older, and I'm going to try to not get hurt feelings when she tells me everything I do is wrong. And with my husband's parents coming too (and his mother has been known to take out two daughters-in-law and two granddaughters with one single barb), well, who knows what'll happen?

Actually, I hope everyone behaves themselves - most particularly the grandmothers - so that the grandchildren will have fond memories of all the Thanksgiving dinners at our house. All three of my sisters-in-law understand it, most particularly the one who lives locally (she and her husband and two kids are our most regular Thanksgiving guests and we all get along extremely well, which means we try to get together whenever we can). It's nice that she appreciates it, because neither her husband or his brother, my husband, "gets" how important it is to have these family get-togethers. Oh, they think it's swell that the kids get along and enjoy each other's company, but I've decided it's a genetic thing that keeps them from understanding the importance of bringing together family and making memories.

Earlier this year, for instance, our daughter decided she wanted to have a birthday party at Smashing Times, a mosaic studio, just for her special auntie, her two cousins and their parents (the above-mentioned aunt and uncle), and her dad and I. Watching her uncle, who thinks he lacks any creativity in the craft arena, make a mosaic-covered card holder was worth the price of admission, but really, it was so wonderful doing this together, then walking across the shopping center for dinner at the Purple Cow restaurant, with the blue ketchup and heavy-duty milkshakes.

Doing mosaic work turns out to be even better for me than painting pottery. I've enjoyed making trivets for family, made a quite lovely vase for the den, and currently am working on a tissue-box holder for my mom. It's an excellent way to de-stress and because all you need to do is glue pieces of glass (or tile) onto a surface, then finish with a color-coordinated grout - not a tremendous amount of skill is necessary, although if I do say so myself (and I do), I've got a knack for it. Since I've only managed to buy her two gifts in my entire lifetime that I know she loved, I've decided to quit while ahead (the family tree pillow I had made by a woman I discovered at a craft show last year was a big hit!); this year for her birthday I decided to make her something. Never one to be left behind, so did my daughter. Hers is ready to be picked up today, but I've got to make time between now and Monday to finish mine... and then grout it.

As you can see, I've got lots to do, so I'm signing off.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Weird Books I Have Known

For some reason while watching the most shocking episode of Monarch of the Glen earlier this week, I started to think about the most bizarre books I've ever read that I'd recommend to others. I make no apologies for enjoying them, particularly the second on the list, which is disturbing in a rather sick way, although disturbing in a different fashion from the final book listed. Here they are, complete with synopsis information discovered around the 'Net:

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa: Comic novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, published as La tia Julia y el escribidor in 1977. Vargas Llosa uses counterpoint, paradox, and satire to explore the creative process of writing and its relation to the daily lives of writers. One half of the story is an autobiographical account of an aspiring writer named Marito Varguitas, who falls in love with Julia, the divorced sister-in-law of his Uncle Lucho. Marito's success at writing and romance contrasts with the fortunes of Pedro Camacho, the protagonist of the other half of the story, who is a devoted but declining author of radio soap operas. (Merriam Webster Encyclopedia of Literature)
Reality merges with fantasy in this hilarious comic novel about the world of radio soap operas and the pitfalls of forbidden passion by the bestselling author of The Storyteller. Sexy, sophisticated, older Aunt Julia, now divorced, seeks a new mate who can support her in high style. She finds instead her libidinous nephew, and their affair shocks both famiy and community. (Ingram)
Mario Vargas Llosa, who ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990, has written many other odd books, including In Praise of the Stepmother. While I do recommend Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, I do not recommend Stepmother.
Punish Me With Kisses by William Bayer: A psycho sexual thriller charged with eroticism and menace, Punish Me with Kisses is the story of two sisters and the Mysterious Dark Man to whom both are helplessly drawn.
It begins in Bar Harbor, Maine, summer playground of the rich. Shy and sensitive Penny Berring watches as her beautiful sister Suzie puts on a bizarre display- flaunting herself bare-breasted beside the pool, having sex with dozens of boys beneath her parents' windows, taunting her lovers, humiliating them. And then ... a scream in night, Suzie is murdered. There is a sensational inconclusive trial. And an enigma: What really happened? Who killed Suzie, and why?
Three years pass. Penny is now living a quiet life in New York. Then it all starts again. She finds Suzie's "sex diary." It propels her on a strange sexual odyssey and toward a horrifying secret. (William Bayer's web site)
The Crying Heart Tattoo by David Martin: The main character, Sonny, narrates this story just days after the death of his life-long lover, Felicity Jones. His affair with Felicity, 20 years his senior, was kinky, unpredictable, irregular, and infrequent. Part of the attraction was a story that Felicity told Sonny in installments over the years. This saga paralleled their lives and gave vent to Felicity's hopes, dreams, fears, and despair. When the end of the story and Felicity's last words prove to be "the punch line" to a 30-year-long shaggy dog story, Sonny is the only person who can appreciate the joke. Martin writes well, alternating between living and imaginary characters, and humor and pathos abound. The tattoo ties it all together. (Library Journal)
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins: Jitterbug Perfume is an epic. Which is to say, it begins in the forests of ancient Bohemia and doesn't conclude until nine o'clock tonight [Paris time]. It is a saga, as well. A saga must have a hero, and the hero of this one is a janitor with a missing bottle. The bottle is blue, very, very old, and embossed with the image of a goat-horned god. If the liquid in the bottle is actually the secret essence of the universe, as some folks seem to think, it had better be discovered soon because it is leaking and there is only a drop of two left. (Bantam description)
The Bee Season by Myla Goldberg: There is so much pain in this powerful first novel about a family's unraveling that it often seems on the edge of unbearable. And yet, as we watch nine-year-old Eliza Naumann transform herself from underachiever to spelling prodigy, we endure the pain out of respect for one girl's courage and all-consuming love. Eliza's family is gradually breaking down in front of her: father Saul, whose self-absorbed passion for Jewish mysticism blinds him to the suffering of those closest to him; mother Myriam, whose quest for perfection leads her into kleptomania; and brother Aaron, who rebels against his faith and turns to Hare Krishna. Eliza attempts to put her family back together by an act of will, spelling her way to harmony, with an assist from her father's Kabbalah masters. Goldberg effectively mixes fascinating detail about spelling bees with metaphorical leaps of imagination, producing a novel that works on many levels. There is something of Holden Caulfield in Eliza, the same crazed determination to save her loved ones from themselves. An impressive debut from a remarkably talented writer. (Booklist)
La Cucina by Lily Prior: Since childhood, Rosa Fiore -- daughter of a sultry Sicilian matriarch and her hapless husband -- found solace in her family's kitchen. La Cucina, the heart of the family's lush estate, was a place where generations of Fiore women prepared sumptuous feasts and where the drama of extended family life was played out around the age-old table.
When Rosa was a teenager, her own cooking became the stuff of legend in this small community that takes pride in the bounty of its landscape and the eccentricity of its inhabitants. Rosa's infatuation with culinary arts was rivaled only by her passion for a young man, Bartolomeo, who, unfortunately, belonged to another. After their love affair ended in tragedy, Rosa retreated first into her kitchen and then into solitude, as a librarian in Palermo. There she stayed for decades, growing corpulent on her succulent dishes, resigned to a loveless life.
Then, one day, she meets the mysterious chef, known only is I'Inglese, whose research on the heritage of Sicilian cuisine leads him to Rosa's library, and into her heart. They share one sublime summer of discovery, during which I'lnglese awakens the power of Rosa's sensuality, and together they reach new heights of culinary passion. When I'Inglese suddenly vanishes, Rosa returns home to the farm to grieve for the loss of her second love. In the comfort of familiar surroundings, among her, growing family, she discovers the truth about her loved ones and finds her life transformed once more by the magic of her cherished Cucina. (book jacket synopsis)
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquevel: A first novel ("the number one bestseller in Mexico in 1990'')--liberally sprinkled with recipes and homemade remedies- -from screenwriter Esquivel. Set in turn-of-the-century Mexico, it tells the romantic tale of Tita De La Garza, the youngest of Mama Elena's three daughters, whose fate, dictated by family tradition, is to remain single so that she can take care of her mother in her old age. Tita has grown up under the tutelage of the spinster cook Nacha and has learned all the family recipes and remedies. When Pedro, Tita's admirer, asks for Tita's hand in marriage, her mother refuses permission, offering instead Tita's older sister, Rosaura. Pedro accepts, thinking it will be a way to stay close to his one true love. But Tita doesn't know his thinking and, crushed by what she sees as betrayal, she must make the wedding cake. Crying as she bakes, her tears mingle with the ingredients and unleash a wave of longing in everyone who eats a piece. It is just the beginning of the realization that Tita has special talents, both in the kitchen and beyond. As we witness the nurturing Tita's struggle to be true both to family tradition and to her own heart, we are steeped in elaborate recipes for dishes such as turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds or quail with rose petals, in medicinal concoctions for ailments such as bad breath and gas, and in instructions on how to make ink or matches. Eventually, Tita must choose between marrying a loving, devoted doctor or saving herself for Pedro, her first true love. Her choice is revealed in a surprise last chapter. Playful in its flirtation with magical realism and engaging in its folkloric earthiness but, nonetheless, light, romantic fare. (Kirkus)
Perfume by Patrick Suskind: In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift-an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and frest-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"-the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brillance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity. (Amazon)

Not included on this list are various paranormal books such as those featuring vampires, werewolves, and the like. Those are obviously odd, but in a more conventional manner, although Kim Newman's Anno Dracula does stand out as taking the vampire genre and twisting it entirely on its ear. He has written at least two sequels to this book. I was unable to finish the first, The Bloody Red Baron, and have not tried this author again.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Comments

The End of Innocence

Thanksgiving is over; I hope your family's celebration was as wonderful as ours. We had a lot to be thankful for this year, particularly that so many family members from far away could join my husband, daughter, and me as we hosted the one large event we host each year. I just returned home from taking my mother to the airport - she is currently winging her way back to Los Angeles, and my mother and father in law are also flying - to their home in south Texas.

Every dish cooked was delicious, particularly my husband's turkey, which was juicier than ever. The only blip on the radar was that the tablecloth delivered was in fact not jade, but more of a teal color, which necessitated a last minute return trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to exchange the jade votives for more cranberry-colored candles. I really did luck out w/the mini-cranberry wreath napkin rings, and if I do say so myself, the tables were lovely.

About the only not so warm and fuzzy feeling I have today comes from an article in the December edition of the RWA newsletter. Way back in April of this year, I was contacted by a reporter for Variety who had been asked to write an "article on news/rumors/gossip that spreads through the Internet." She was specifically interested in the Robin Lee Hatcher/Idaho Statesman episode and that now-infamous review we posted for Christina Dodd's Lost in Your Arms back in February. She asked me some questions and I provided a quite detailed written response in return.

After I learned the resultant article was finally in print, a copy was faxed to me. After my first read-through, I definitely had some thoughts, but was most surprised to discover, at the end of the article, that the author of the article was in fact the author of some historical romances under a different name. When I checked my file on all our correspondence, I found no notice that the author had identified herself as that pen name. And when I checked our archived reviews, I discovered that we had published a very negative review of this author's work back in 1999.

Had I know that the author of this article had been previously reviewed by us, particularly in light of the grade she received, I don't know that I would have agreed to participate in the article. And, after I read the article again, and then again, and then heard from people who had also read it, I began to believe that the article was perhaps less "just an examination of how the Internet is changing our lives," and more a piece with a particular slant to it.

That said, anytime someone - including me - participates in an article, there's always the possibility that the end result won't be the expected. I more or less repeated that over and over again during the RLH episode when I stated that anyone who has been interviewed in the past needs to be ever-vigilant about every word uttered. Indeed, when I was interviewed this summer by a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer, I spent quite a bit of time crafting my responses with extreme care.

I'm bothered not only by the fact that the author of the piece in the RWA newsletter never disclosed her pen name, but that the article led off by talking about how a rumor has nearly ruined a small business. After all, my linking to the RLH article wasn't a rumor - the article was a fact, the article was written in a reputable paper owned by a reputable company. And the fact remains that the newspaper did not print a retraction, which leads me to continue to believe that Ms. Hatcher did, in fact, say the things she is quoted as having said. Whether the interviewer provided the context is something about which Ms. Hatcher, having been interviewed many, many times in the past when she was president of RWA, should have exercised more control over during the interview process. Sitting for an interview is not like sitting down and having a conversation - the person being interviewed has a duty to measure each word, and to be clever enough up-front to know that the interviewer may have a "hook" in mind. When I responded to the questions for the RWA article, I knew there might be a slant, which is why I indeed crafted every response very, very carefully. Nothing I said in regards to the interview was taken out of context, although it does appear at times as though I'm responding to a direct allegation of mis-doing by either Dodd or Hatcher when in fact I was not.

I was also bothered that Natasha Kern was quoted in the piece, and yet her relationship to Ms. Hatcher (she is her agent) was never stated.

I have written to RWA asking if I may prepare a letter to the editor of their newsletter, which I would like to see printed in a subsequent edition. I'll let you know if this occurs, and if you have the chance to read the article itself, I'd love to know what you thought about it.

And for those who will have the chance to read the article, here are the questions put to me, followed by my response to the writer:

"You own a message board on your Web site so you see lots of stories coming through. With the Robin Lee Hatcher article, you posted the link to the board. In the process, many people attacked Robin personally, some claimed you were trying to get more hits to the site, some were glad you brought it to their attention, etc. But this was news.

"What is your position on this? Did you feel, as the Web site owner, what you were doing was justified as journalism, letting your readers know what was going on in the romance community? Do you monitor what people say in situations like this (and others) and take into account that someone may slander another person and evoke a law suit?

"In Christina's case and the report of plagarism - and forgive me on this, I've only heard bits and pieces so if you could enlighten me on this one, I'd appreciate it - was this more of a rumor that got out of hand?

"Also, in the Robin thread, someone accused you of lighting fires to get more traffic to the site. Can you comment on this?

"I'm looking at both sides of this issue. Was there an incident when news got out that was positive about someone, but not true? A rumor that they hit the best-seller list or won a Rita, for instance.

"Just so you know and feel comfortable with my questions, this is not an anti-message board article and I don't plan on rehashing all these issues. It's just an examination of how the Internet is changing our lives. And anything more you'd like to add, please do."

"I'd like to answer your question in a couple of different ways. It's true that gossip spreads like wildfire on the Internet, but gossip spreads quickest when there's a large audience for it. Here's an example: The May issue of Romantic Times featured a gossipy segment about a copyright infringement case we first reported at our site in February, which we did because we try to report news-worthy items to our readers whenever we can. I worked on that initial piece by doing research on the 'Net, calling lawyers for both publishers involved, and following up on leads. The resultant piece provided a lot of good information to our readers on an important topic (timely too, given the Doris Kearns Goowdin and Stephen Ambrose situations), including these things:

Cindi Louis' CRAZY THING CALLED LOVE had indeed been removed from distribution by Harper for copyright infringement after an agreement was reached w/Harlequin and an "unnamed author." Although the "victimized" author was not named by the lawyers, one of our sources close to the author provided that information, and though we didn't have a second source, we shared what we had learned, which turned out to have been accurate after talking to the lawyers again and mentioning the name "Linda Turner," and her book, THE PROPOSAL.
Harlequin doesn't file US Copyrights, which may, in fact, make it more difficult to protect its writers against copyright infringement.
How to determine which books are registered as having US Copyrights.

"We thought the story was done until we read the May RT and found they had printed something based on a phone call made by someone close to Cindi Louis, and this person was said to have a good 'reputation.' The RT article turned the tables and made it sound as though Louis was the injured party and intimated 'not-good' things about Linda Turner.

"So, as I reported again at AAR this past week, I started digging again - calling the lawyers, asking other category romance authors for information on timelines: how long does it take for Harlequin to approve a proposal for a book from an author they've worked with before; how long does it take to write a category romance; and how long is a book "in the can" before it is published? I also did research that determined - from information on Cindi Louis' web site and elsewhere - that she could not have written her book prior to - at the earliest - some time in 1997, which is after Turner's book would have been "in the can." I found out who RT's "author X" was as well.

"In short, I handled the story just as a reporter for my local newspaper would have, by doing research, checking facts, creating timelines, going to the lawyers, etc. My report was not gossip - it was reporting. As big as we are getting, though, RT has a whole lot more readers, and so a whole lot more people aren't going to know what really happened unless RT actually does the leg-work - or they report on what AAR already reported.

"But mainly what you'll find at AAR are discussion points - based on what we're reading, what we hear people talking about...and whenever we hear of an article about an author or w/an author in the mainstream that is 'news-worthy,' we report on it. A few years ago, there was a romance author killed by her either ex-or-soon-to-be-ex husband. Much of the reporting done in the mainstream played off the fact that this woman was the author of those lurid romances rather than the fact that she had been brutally murdered. We opened discussion on that too, on one of FIVE message boards, one of which is solely for the use of authors to promote themselves. When the Janet Dailey/Nora Roberts copyright infringment story first started to be known, we covered it, and covered it fully - I think we scooped just about everyone w/that story.

"Earlier this week there was a very interesting post on one of our Message Boards (regarding the Hatcher story) that said something that I think is critical to understanding AAR. This comes from Beverly Medos on our Potpourri MB (Beverley used to do a monthly column for AAR, but hasn't for 2 or 3 years now). She wrote, in reference to the Robin Lee Hatcher controversy:

"I almost posted on this earlier but had decided not to, however, now that someone else has brought it up I have to agree. I didn't read the original article because I wasn't interested in the topic but I did scan the threads in question and read some of the posts as things developed. And the entire evolution of the discussion was just weird. What I mean is that this site has never been a stranger to controversy but what many don't realize or appreciate is that the reason isn't because Laurie actively stirs it up. It's because she isn't afraid of it. It's a subtle distinction, but it is also a big one."

"I'm glad Beverly wrote that, because that's how I see it too. We are a large enough site - w/2.1 million hits every month and roughly 100,000 unique visitors every month, that we don't need to create controversy to bring in hits, particularly not to encourage advertisers, which, if you knew our revenue stream, would be laughable. What we do is encourage discussion - that's the long and short of it. The complaints we most often get are from people who are not regulars at the site, but come by when it's 'their' author being discussed (or a friend), and will turn a perfectly interesting discussion into a flame war.

"Here's a perfect example: last summer I started a discussion about the winners of 2001's RITA awards (top romance author awards given out by RWA). Since I'd heard lots of grumbling about certain of the winners from readers on our boards and two discussion lists, I basically said the following, after congratulating all the winners: 'Just like you may have an Oscar party to diss the winners of have a Miss America party to make fun of Miss Tennessee, which of the RITA winners did you think didn't deserve to win?' I even listed the few categories I had found surprising, given the buzz (or lack thereof) of certain books.

"One big name author who I named didn't think that was very nice, and she and I went back and forth on the MB, each clarifying our points. It never got ugly between us - we were professional about it. But some of our readers - including one who is the biggest fan of this author you could imagine, thought the author was trying to cut off discussion. This was not pretty to watch, particularly when this author's fans 'invaded' our board. It was like being fire-bombed and it didn't stop at our site until I posted a message saying we'd granted that author Desert Isle Keeper status (our highest honor) 'X' number of times. (And it continued at the 'fan' site - 500 posts, including a call by some of the fans to 'boycott' AAR until the author stepped in and they knocked it off).

"Even so, before that happened, several authors had come by AAR to talk about judging in the RITA contests. It was fascinating to me to hear one author talk about 'craft and technique' while another author talked about 'wearing her reader hat and voting for the book she liked best.' You don't find that kind of in-depth discussion at sites that don't invite these types of discussions, and since I'm utterly fascinated by what happens in the creative mind, I was pleased.

"The big name author and I continue to talk regularly; she reads every column I write and though she's not visable at AAR all the time, she continues to be a part of certain discussions. And though I thought the discussion led to the revelation of some really interesting stuff, she hated the whole thing. I realized that's because she's not used to being in such discussions daily while I, at this point, am. If you talk enough to enough people and encourage them to talk back, there's going to be disagreement...and some of it will get loud. Sometimes people forget that the act of reading a book and talking about it is NOT brain surgery, that we're not solving the Middle East crisis...they forget what we're talking about are books, a form of entertainment, and let their passion for a book or author get the better of them. Readers are people, and it's human nature once in a while to lose perspective, and a sense of humor.

"The home page of our site says 'AAR - the back-fence for lovers of romance novels.' Some people don't get that, think there's an ulterior motive behind it, or don't agree w/it - thinking we all have to be 'nice' all the time. I guide content at AAR only in that I ask the people who write for AAR to write about what's interesting to them, because it's bound to also be of interest to our readers if they're enthusiastic about it. I also ask that their writing be entertaining, as well as informative.

"Now, talking about the Robin Lee Hatcher thing specifically, a major author who apparently also lives in Idaho was appalled that a former RWA member would be quoted as having said the things she says in the article. If you read my final note - after Hatcher and the editor at the paper spoke - you'll note that the paper made no changes and didn't publish Hatcher's letter. This is a woman who's been interviewed many, many times, and just as I'm being careful in my answers to you, I assumed she was careful in her answers to that reporter. The spin she tried to give at our site some days later - and the spin of one author who really does not care for AAR - didn't come off as genuine to many of the other authors and readers who participated in the discussion. Most of the people who got angry about the discussion at all, and tried to change the focus, were not 'AAR regulars;' many were people who clearly had never been to the site before, including one poster who asked who the 'mysterious LLB' was.

"What happened, instead of commenting on the actual piece, was a discussion of whether or not I should have posted a link to it w/out going to Hatcher first. I found that discussion silly - still do - because the Idaho Statesman is a legitimate and non-tabloid newspaper. As I said on the message board, 'this is not a tabloid newspaper with articles about 100 year old women giving birth to 300 pound babies....' But for some of the people who posted, it was easier to focus on how nothing ever printed in a newspaper is believable. That's a specious argument to me but it made for a hell of a blow-up on the message board. What was most interesting to me during the discussion was how many authors came out and posted using their real names and said they found Hatcher's comments upsetting. Generally when a discussion gets as loud as this one did, authors stop using their real names.

I am careful in my reporting AND my commentary never to say anything that is libelous. I don't 'report' something false, and if I'm giving my opinion, I'm clear about it. But my personality comes through in both my reporting and my commentary - I'm like a dog w/a bone when I'm interested in something because I'll follow every lead exhaustively until I'm satisfied that I know all I need to know. I also tend to be not only a problem-solver, but a problem-finder, which means I automatically tune into things that are potentially interesting to our readers. What can I say...I'm an intense person, and that intensity spills over into the site. I can't control what our posters write, but if things get too out of hand and the discussion ceases to be useful, we have moderators who will delete a thread.

"As far as the Christina Dodd situation, here's what happened: our reviewer read her book, realized it reminded her of an earlier (and better) book by a different author, and thought about how to best approach that in her review. Most of us at AAR are tremendous fans of Entertainment Weekly, and they often print tables w/in their pages comparing and contrasting two things. So she decided to do the same. I thought it was absolutely brilliant because when we'd said in earlier reviews that one book was too similar to another, we'd get the 'that's too vague' complaint. By showing the similarities point by point, the reviewer was making clear that she found Dodd's book paled in comparison to the earlier release.

"This time, however, there were calls on the MB that by pointing out the similarities, we would 'ruin' the read for readers, that we were calling Dodd a plagiarist. We most assuredly did nothing of the kind; we pointed out that if someone wanted to read a story based on that premise, they'd do better to find that earlier release. That's what we do in our reviews - we inform AND entertain. I still think it's one of the best reviews we've ever done and I'm very proud of it, and the reviewer who wrote it.

"The only people who used the 'P-word' were some readers on our board, and we made sure to repeat over and over that we had never said such a thing and were NOT saying such a thing. Some other authors signed to that publisher emailed me privately; one author who'd gotten mostly great reviews from us said she'd gone to her editor to request we never review her books again because we were out to destroy Dodd's career. Never mind that we'd given Dodd top honors for several books in the past - and those top honors were controversial in and of themselves. My favorite book by her generated six weeks of material for this site because so many people found the book's handling of certain issues so troubling.

"Our site has grown exponentially for years now; we are in a period of tremendous growth yet again which started in September and has continued unabated ever since. Generally we go through one 'burp' a year that bumps us up to a higher level, but for the past several months, we've just had increase upon increase upon increase. MOST romance sites come and go; few stay online as long as we have, and some that have been around a long time are too conservative in their nature to suit me, which is why I think people like to visit AAR. And some exist only to provoke; they're fun to visit but mostly for shock value. I think AAR is dynamic, fun, and there's always something new to read or discuss. We also offer a depth of material you won't find elsewhere - so much original content, and so much scholarly work too. I've been extremely proud of our Historical Cheat Sheet since its inception; there's probably 70 articles in it now that teach history to readers.

"The 'traffic' argument goes like this: I create controversy so traffic will increase so we'll get more money from advertisers. I bet we lose more prospective advertisers BECAUSE of the controversy than we get. We could earn a lot more via our amazon links if we gave better grades in our reviews...but we don't, because we're not in it for the money. I've become convinced that unless you're selling porn on the 'Net, you're not going to make a living at it. If you can, I sure haven't figure out how.

"We would do the same 'work' we do now if we had fewer visitors. As long as those who write for the site and who visit the site are enthusiastic, then we'll do what we're doing. The material our staff originates fulfills my mandate of being informative and entertaining, and of creating points of discussion, of allowing our readers to have a voice. Many of our most popular discussions follow the human side of romance reading - how many books do you have in your tbr pile, do you sneak a peek at the endings, what are your favorite books, what are your reading idiosyncracies...? These questions help us come together as a community - if you can talk to someone else who has 300 books in their to-be-read stack, you don't feel isolated. Your neighbor may make snide remarks about your choice of reading material, that snotty clerk at the bookstore may look down his nose when you show up with five romances at his register, but you've got a place that encourages you to engage in intelligent discussion about what you love to read. We celebrate our hobby, our obsession with reading, our bookishness and revel in it...that's what this site allows. We believe we do more to promote reading through our content than we're given credit for.

"We consider ourselves organic in nature, talking about what interests our readers because we ARE readers. We not only allow dissent - we encourage it via our dual reviews (two reviewers w/different viewpoints on a book will sometimes both review it), our daily message board discussions, and the publishing of all sides of an issue in our commentary. The At the Back Fence column I write, now along w/two co-columnists - began in 1996 before I had message boards - it was me, the readers, and email. But we take advantage of the interactivity on the 'Net with our columns, our message boards, our polls, and the fact that if you disagree w/us, we'll give you the opportunity to voice your opinions...we'll even publish them.

"How anyone can have a problem w/that is beyond me.

"To my knowledge, nothing we've ever officially 'reported' was inaccurate. There are always statements on our boards that turn out to not be true, but we work hard to prevent what I call 'fraudulent' posts and ballot-box stuffing. You'd be amazed at how many people seem to think doing well in one of our polls is important enough that they'll go to the extreme of stuffing the ballot box. Sometimes they are authors, sometimes they are small publishers, and sometimes they are simply fans.

"If a visitor to the site posts something that turns out to be untrue, someone else will correct them asap. I can't remember a time when some sort of false rumor started at the site that wasn't ended immediately, either by another reader, or an author who's 'in the know.' Obviously there's speculation about this and that, but our readers are savvy enough to know what's speculation and what's real.

"A few weeks ago we posted a negative review of a book and suddenly there were posts all over the Reviews MB. Several of the posts were made w/in an hour and a half, at midnight on a Sunday night, purportedly from six different people. So I did an IP check and learned that all the posts were made from the same computer. A rabid fan of the author's felt the need to do this, why, I can't be sure. I ended up deleting the thread, although I reposted it in one lengthy post when readers asked to see it. But that fraudulent poster hasn't returned.

"I think message boards can be valuable tools; just tonight I got a lead to follow-up another copyright infringement case I covered a few years ago. Had we not been having a discussion of the Turner/Louis case, that lead would never have come my way. I expect to be contacting the two publishers' lawyers next week.

"I like to think of our site as a way to educate people - for instance, someone who posted on our message board about the Cindi Louis/Linda Turner case thought that Louis' book was pulled from distribution simply because Harlequin made a complaint about it. In my response, I explained that wasn't so - that a publisher does not pull a book from distribution over a complaint, and would never allow another publisher to say a book had infringed upon its copyright unless that had been part of the confidentiality agreement. If you don't ask questions, you don't get answers. One of our boards exists solely for readers and authors to educate one another. There are historical questions asked, questions asked about an author's backlist, or questions like this: 'I read a book three years ago that I can't remember now. The hero was name so-and-so, the heroine was such-and-such, and this is what happened in the book. Can you tell me the title and author?' Nine times out of ten someone will post a correct response, and usually w/in hours or a day.

"What I've noticed about AAR's message boards is this: authors (and readers) who come expecting everyone to agree and be positive about the books they're reading will not enjoy themselves. My philosophy is that in real life, people disagree - if we all thought the same things, we'd be incredibly boring. Am I always pleased at how a poster will comment on something she didn't like, from a book to a review at AAR? Of course not. Have I started some discussions in a manner I'd later wish I'd begun differently? Yes, upon occasion, although I RARELY 'lose it' because if I'm responding to a MB post, I'll sit there for a considerable period of time before hitting that 'post' button. Same goes for email. I think of AAR as a dinner party at my house; I do what I can to make sure my guests are having a good time, that they're being entertained, but I want them to participate. I try not to be rude to my guests, to be accomodating to their needs (our content is often reader-driven), but if someone breaks a vase on purpose, tells me my food stinks, or tells everyone to go to 'a better party,' I'll call them on it, gently at first, but then less gently and more forcefully.

"The Internet, because of its anonymity, makes people think they can say whatever they want w/out using the manners they were raised with, and I'm assuming these people were raised to have good manners because I was raised to have good manners. Which is why I'm careful...but I make no bones about my personality and the sensibility of the site. Sometimes we're tongue in cheek, sometimes we're sarcastic, but I think to our readers we're fulfilling our mandate.

"It's also easy to misinterpret what someone else is saying when you can't see their face or hear their voice. Which means there are limits to what interaction on the Internet can provide. But for romance readers, who have felt the need to be 'in the closet' because of what we love to read, AAR has provided a sense of community where any reader can say whatever she/he believes or feels. For many of our readers, that's a very valuable thing, and something they can't get in the 'real' (non-cyber) world. My main goal was to create that community; I think I've achieved it even if it scares others."

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Twitter	Goodreads
Google+	Pinterest
Huffington Post


Writer (current)	Blogger (current)	Member (current)

Reviewer (current)	Founder (96-08)	2005