On Hiatus...

Making it official. I have decided to take some time off from blogging. Well, blogging here, anyway. I'll still be over at The Good Bad and the Unread, as Sybil's newest bitch duckie. How can I resist the lure of the ARC? Lots of cool stuff coming up, so please stop by.



I'll also be continuing my monthly gig at Access Romance: Reader's Gab. Amanda has a post up about Irish romance. Got any recs for her?

Also, debut author, Mark Henry, is giving away a copy of Happy Hour of the Damned (which I reviewed here) at Bam/Dionne Galace's. Go forth and comment. He funny.

So I shall be around, and returning to my regularly scheduled program of lurking and making incoherent comments at other's blogs. See ya'll around the Internets!

Come to The Good Bad and the Unread. Or else face the wrath of the devil duckie.

Vote Early and Vote Often...

So this is an essentially meaningless poll, but I've always wanted to do one. The dilemma that I have been pondering is this: lately I have not had nearly the time to devote to blogging that I like. Some of this is just plain busyness, and some of was caused by "reader's block", if there is such a thing. I was having trouble finishing books. You know the drill. I haven't been blog hopping either, one of my favorite pastimes. So I have been wondering whether or not to fold the blog. Gasp! But of course I must waffle, and overthink, and now subject any visitors to it as well. So, out of curiosity, what would you do if you were me?

Zombies are sexy too!

Over at The Good, the Bad and the Unread, check out my review of Happy Hour of the Damned, the debut novel by Mark Henry.

If you are amused by the thought of zombie chicks breaking into a funeral home to steal makeup (for the industrial strength full coverage), and repairing injuries with liquid leather, then you might enjoy this book. If the idea of the supernatural world as a place of kitschy-cool nightclubs, complete with themed cocktails, wall to wall with bored, gossipy creatures makes you grin, then give HHotD a try. It is unapologetically full of snarky humor, label dropping, pop culture references and other things I usually hate, but it fits so well with the silly, almost satirical tone, that I gave it a pass. Though at first I hated the narrator with a passion, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

Blog Slut

I got some decent reading done in the past week and a half. First off, Demon Night, by Meljean Brook. Loved it. Ms. Brook writes great characters and dialogue, and always a hot romance. Read my review here.

I also read two great non-fiction books: Sex With the Queen and Sex with Kings by Eleanor Herman. Very readable, totally absurd history. As you may have guessed, these books focus on royal adultery. Crazy shit. Those poor kings and queens, not only were they forced to marry complete strangers, they were also pretty sad cases themselves. All the inbreeding led to unattractive, weak-minded and stupid monarchs. I enjoyed Sex With the Queen a bit more. Queens definitely got the rawest deal. Very ruled in their own right. Most of them had to leave behind family, friends and country for a place with an unfamiliar culture and language, to be treated poorly by husband and in-laws. It was interesting to read how some of them grabbed happiness (and sometimes a bit of power for themselves) by taking a lover. Don't expect dry academic writing. Herman is very dramatic, almost purple-y. Take a passage like this, about Henry VII's ill-fated fifth wife, Katherine Howard:

Let us imagine the queen's duties in the royal four-poster. The king would likely have suffocated his petite bride if he had perched on top of her. He must have required her to ride astride him, careful not to disturb the stinking wound on his thigh....We can picture the happy king,perfectly sated, snoring, as his young wife lay silently beside him, her heart sinking (Sex With the Queen 79).

Hee. Fun. Read more about the books in Dirty Sexy History.

Now I just have to get something reviewed for this blog.