Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

This week I am reading Living With the Dead by Kelley Armstrong, one of my favourite authors. I just love the way she writes! The teaser comes from page 285:

Throughout the fight, she kept control. And it was glorious, the purest adrenaline and chaos rush possible.

Upcoming author visit!

I am very excited about an upcoming author event here! Tuesday March 10 marks the start of the virtual tour by Ann Aguirre for her next release, Blue Diablo.

The tour kicks off at The Book Smugglers today, and you can see all the tour stops here! Ann will be stopping by my blog on April 10. I can't wait!




Edited to add all the tour stops:

Guest blog & ARC giveaway at Novel Thoughts — February 25
Guest blog & ARC giveaway at Romance Bookwyrm — March 4
Guest blog & ARC giveaway at The Book Smugglers — March 11
Guest blog at Jennifer’s Random Musings — March 25
Guest blog at Magical Musings — March 26
Guest blog at SciFi Chick — March 27
Guest blog at Angieville — March 30
Interview at Lurve a la Mode — March 31
Guest blog at Babbling about Books — April 1
Guest blog at Fantasy Cafe — April 2
Guest blog at Stacy’s Place on Earth — April 3
Interview at Confessions of a Romance Addict — April 6
Guest blog at The Book Smugglers — April 7
Guest blog at Writer Unboxed — April 7
Interview at Cynthia Eden’s blog — April 8
Guest blog at The Thrillionth Page — April 9
Guest blog at Reading Adventures — April 10
Guest blog at Urban Fantasy Land — April 13
Guest blog at The Book Binge — April 14
Guest blog at Ramblings on Romance — April 15
Guest blog at Fantasy Debut — April 16
Guest blog at The Discriminating Fangirl — April 17
Guest blog at Cubie’s Confections — April 20

Desperate for comments

I must let my excitement show a little more than I thought when I get comments on posts here at the blog.

Tonight, I thought my son was asleep, when I came in for one final check of my email etc. I was checking away when I heard a voice from his bedroom say "Have we got any compliments yet?".

No baby. No comments either.

Goodness only knows what messages I send to that child subconsciously! LOL!

Indulging my son

It is a public holiday here this weekend because it is Labor Day. So what do you do on a day off when you are not feeling 100%. Well, you make wrestling videos with your child! Bear in mind that the video is taken with my very old digital camera, and that the camera person is not very experienced if you watch them!

Can you tell who my favourite is out of these two wrestlers???





I never actually realised how scary it must be being a wrestler! It would have to given that there is a giant hand that comes into the ring to do the count, as evidenced by this next video:




We are getting very technically advanced now! We even have entrance music! Unfortunately it is only saved on my son's Ipod so it's not the best sound quality, but still!





We don't mention the fact that one of these wrestlers has lost his head before he even gets into the ring! And we won't talk about the fact that I really hate listening to the sound of my voice when it is recorded, even when I am not all nasally like I am today.





Later we even figured out other ways to add music, but I will spare you all the torture of those videos....for now!

I haven't uploaded video to Blogger before. It was pretty easy, but oh my goodness, it took forever to upload! Oh, and I have noticed that when I am at home with my son, I say oh my goodness a lot! If I am at work I use other words! LOL!

And to finish....the star of the show. In the background you can see how perilously overstacked my bookcases are. All the shelves are double stacked with others stacked on top as well! I really need to get a new one or two!

We can't talk about the hair either. He wants to grow an afro, and while he definitely has the hair to pull it off, I have a different opinion!

Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas

A devil's bargain

Easily the shyest Wallflower, Evangeline Jenner stands to become the wealthiest, once her inheritance comes due. Because she must first escape the clutches of her unscrupulous relatives, Evie has approached the rake Viscount St. Vincent with a most outrageous proposition: marriage!

Sebastian's reputation is so dangerous that thirty seconds alone with him will ruin any maiden's good name. Still, this bewitching chit appeared, unchaperoned, on his doorstep to offer her hand. Certainly an aristocrat with a fine eye for beauty could do far worse.

But Evie's proposal comes with a condition: no lovemaking after their wedding night. She will never become just another of the dashing libertine's callously discarded broken hearts -- which means Sebastian will simply have to work harder at his seductions...or perhaps surrender his own heart for the very first time in the name of true love.

I am finding it somewhat curious that my reading patterns seem to be changing a bit. How you may ask? Well, this is a reread, and I don't really do rereads as a rule. Last year, I only reread one book and that was Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. The only reason I reread that one was because the library had it on audio book and I wanted something to listen to, so I picked that up. I didn't reread anything in 2008 or 2007, and in 2006 there was only one book - The Summer of My German Soldier, which I had originally read when I was back in high school - some twenty years before.

Every now and again in the past I have thought about rereading other books, and even a couple of times I have reborrowed a book, but in the end I never got around to reading it. At the moment, I have one book out from the library that I read and loved last year and I am intending to read again soon, and I just finished one book last week, and I am already listening to the author read it which counts as a reread.

I originally read this book about two and a half years ago, when I was madly glomming anything I could find by Lisa Kleypas. These days I have to wait for each new book from Kleypas, as there are only two books from her backlist that I haven't already read because they are a bit hard to get hold of here. I read this book in one sitting and loved it, with just a small issue in terms of the suspense subplots. This time, instead of racing through it, I took a little bit more time to savour the relationship that develops between Sebastian and Evie, and to take note of the little things in their relationship development. Whilst I still remembered the big scenes in the book (the billiard room scene and the scene where Evie makes Sebastian lose their bet for example), there were many smaller scenes that were the stepping stones to those marquee moments in the book that were worth revisiting.

Even though I think that I enjoyed different things this time around, the book itself still stood up well to the reread, and I still rated it at 4.5/5. Evie and Sebastian still go through the wringer (d'uh - the events in the book haven't changed at all!) but I didn't mind so much this time around. If there was one scene that seemed redundant this time around it was the scene between Daisy and Cam Rohan. It was a fun scene and all, but given that I have now read both of their books it didn't seem to need to be there. It is but a minor quibble though.

Now I can go back to just revisiting the 'good' bits until it is time to reread the whole book again.

Excuse the static

So we have had radio silence on the blog here for a few days, and it really isn't for any reason.

I have loads of things I want to post about - and by that I mean I have about 10 posts running around in my head writing themselves.

But I also have the dreaded lurgy germs running around in there as well which isn't really conducive to getting something from the head to the screen!

Hopefully tomorrow.

Library Loot!

I was doing okay at keeping the number of books out from the library down, but this week there has been a bit of a blowout! The number has just creeped back to over 40. I will have another book to return tomorrow but still....

The books I borrowed this week were:

Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich
Ladies Who Lunch by Linda Francis Lee
Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom
A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander
Dawn Encounter by Jennifer Blake
The Master of Verona by David Blixt
A Hollow Crown by Helen Hollick
The Gilded Web by Mary Balogh
The Pagan Stone by Nora Roberts
You're Out, Dinner's On: the Ultimate Slowcooker Book by Gina Steer


Master of Verona was one of my favourite books of last year, and is Book of the Month over at Historical Fiction Online and all the discussion has given me a yearning for rereading it! Given how rarely I do actually reread we will see if it happens or not!

The weather has changed here temporarily at least, and so I started thinking that I wouldn't mind making some stews and soup type meals, so I borrowed the slow cooker book to hopefully get some inspiration!

****Library Loot is a weekly meme hosted by Alessandra from Out of the Blue and Eva from A Striped Armchair

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

This week's teaser comes from page 158 of Norwegian author Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses:

He ran back and threw himself onto his motorbike and immediately stamped hard on the start pedal, but damn it the motor would not start, and he tried again and again and again and then once more, and it suddenly came to life like a shot, and he bent over the handlebars and roared down the farm road and swerved on to the main road with the empty sidecar rattling on the outside in a spray of snow. Coming round that very bend was Jon, on his way home from school with his school bag under his arm, and he heard the motorcycle, and only just managed to throw himself into the ditch to avoid being run over and maybe injured for life.

Phew...long sentences! And I have to say even though I am 75 pages in I have no idea what is going on. I know who Jon is but I have no idea who 'he' is. Guess I will just have to keep reading!

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen

Ever since she was a child, Rebecca has been enchanted by her grandmother Gemma’s stories about Briar Rose. But a promise Rebecca makes to her dying grandmother will lead her on a remarkable journey to uncover the truth of Gemma’s astonishing claim: I am Briar Rose. A journey that will lead her to unspeakable brutality and horror. But also to redemption and hope.

I added this book to the my TBR list when it was reviewed by Rhinoa last year. I am pretty sure that I have also seen it around the place, and talked to a few other people about it as well. This is a Young Adult book, a story about trying to find your identity as well as a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale but instead of the Disney version that we are so familiar with these days, this tale is set in the context of the Holocaust. It was originally published as part of Terry Windling's Fairy Tale series and I have to say that if this is an example of how good that particular series is then I will be reading more of them.

The main character is Rebecca, a young journalist who has always loved listening to her grandmother Gemma's telling of the story of Briar Rose - a version of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. Shortly before her death, Gemma askes Becca to never forget her story and this plea is reiterated when Gemma repeats over and over "I am Briar Rose" on her deathbed. The difficult thing about never forgetting Gemma's story is that no one really knows exactly who Gemma is, what her real name is, or how it was that she came to be in America.

Not long after her grandmother's death, the family finds a wooden box that they have never seen before, and inside there are a few photos and some newspaper clippings that seem to provide some clues as to those unanswered questions. Rebecca is determined to put the pieces together and so she embarks on a journey much more haunting than she could ever have imagined, and meeting new people who can provide some kind of background to her grandmothers life. She is aided in her research by her boss. If there is one weakness with this book it is in this relationship, particularly with the ending. Perhaps this was an effort to echo a fairy tale type relationship but this is one aspect that didn't work for me.

Despite the fact that it is a relatively short book, and there is a sparsity to the writing, there is depth, there is historical detail. In short, there is a really fascinating story that is well worth reading.

It was interesting that Yolen chose to use the Chelmno extermination camp as her main prison camp setting, especially seeing as there were so few people who made it out of that camp, but perhaps that is part of the reason for doing so - the pure horror of the camp cannot be avoided when you read anything about it.

I read this book for both the War Through the Generations Challenge and Bang Bang Reading Challenge and highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in WWII fiction.

Rating 4.5/5

Other Blogger's Thoughts:

The Written World

January and February reads

I am no longer as good as I used to be at writing reviews of everything I read. I have loads and loads of half written reviews sitting in draft. Some of them may see the light of day at some point, but others will languish there in draft form forever! So, it seems like a good idea to do some kind of monthly round up of the books that I have read. This month I will post both January and Februarys reads but going forward it will be just one month. I will link where I have actually posted a review. If there are any books that you would really like to hear my thoughts on, leave a comment and I will do my best to complete the reviews and post them.


The books I read in January were:

The Bleeding Dusk by Colleen Gleason 4/5
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry 4/5
Naughty Neighbour by Janet Evanovich 4/5
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 4.5/5
The Leopard Unleashed by Elizabeth Chadwick 4/5
The Last Queen by C W Gortner 4.5/5
To Seduce a Bride by Nicole Jordan 3.5/5
Secrets of Surrender by Madeline Hunter 4.5/5

February reads were:

His Wicked Kiss by Gaelen Foley 4.5/5
The Water Horse by Julia Gregson 4.5/5
Signora da Vinci by Robin Maxwell 4/5
It by Stephen King 4/5
The Founding by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles 4.5/
Foul Play by Janet Evanovich 3.5/5
Grimspace by Ann Aguirre 4/5
Snowy Night with a Stranger anthology 4/5
Portrait in Death by J D Robb 4.5/5
Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik 4/5
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen 4.5/5
Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach 4/5
Life as we knew it by Susan Pfeffer 4.5/5
Moon Called by Patricia Briggs 4.5/5
A Fool's Tale by Nicole Galland - DNF


As part of the I Suck at Challenges challenge, it is time for the February update.

February was actually a pretty good month for challenges. I finished the Bang Bang book challenge and the 2009 Sci-fi Experience and the Medieval Challenge.

I also read one book for the Chunkster Challenge (The Founding at 527 pages), two books for the Art History challenge (Tulip Fever and Signora da Vinci), one book for the War Through the Generations challenge (Briar Rose by Jane Yolen), one for the Pub 2009 challenge (Signora da Vinci by Robin Maxwell). So far for the 100+ Reading challenge I am up to book number 19 for the year, and in the Library Challenge I have already read 14 out of the 50 books that I set as a target for the year.

I am currently reading Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn and that one fits for two challenges so I already have a bit of a head start for March. .

PC Nursery Rhymes

Today we went into the city to a community concert that was being put on by the ABC (our public broadcast service). There were two parts of the concert. In the morning there was the children's concert and in the afternoon concert which was featuring artists such as Mark Seymour, John Schumann and the Choir of Hard Knocks as well as some ABC celebrities and comedians. We didn't plan to stay for the afternoon concert, because our idea for going was really for my nephew who is just about 18 months. The characters who were going to perform at the concert were Dorothy the Dinosaur (friend of the Wiggles), Bananas in Pyjamas, The Fairies (who I had never heard of before) and a few of the Play School presenters. While we didn't stay to the end because my nephew was getting a bit cranky we were able to revisit many of our favourite kids songs. It was a bit unfortunate for my son, who at 10 is way too cool and jaded to actually have fun at an event like this and so spent most of the time being bored!

Anyway, one of the things that I have thought about before, but came up again today was how some of the words of nursery rhymes have been changed. For example, today they were singing Miss Polly had a Dolly. The words I always knew were:

Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick
So she phoned for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick.
The doctor came with his bag and his hat
and he knocked on the door with a rat-a-tat.

He looked at the dolly and he shook his head.
And he said, "Miss Polly put her straight to bed."
He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill.
"I'll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill."

Apparently, nursery rhyme performers have figured out that there are no doctors around anymore who will defer payment until after treatment because the last line as performed at the concert today was "I'll be back in the morning. Yes I will, will, will".

For another example, not too long ago I was reading my nephew's nursery rhyme book and we got to Three Blind Mice. Here are the words I remember:

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?

Now admittedly it is pretty gruesome, and like so many nursery rhymes is actually based on events from history, but now the words just seem really tame:

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they spin, see how they spin,
They pin the tail on the kitty cat
While wearing silly party hats
Have you ever seen such a thing in your life
As three blind mice.

I am sure that there are plenty of other examples out there but these are just two that I know of.

As we were leaving one of the Playschool presenters, Jay Laga'aia was singing a version of this song which I really enjoyed. Like so many of our Playschool presenters, Jay is quite a versatile entertainer. He has appeared in many TV series, and even in Star Wars. This isn't Jay singing but it is still a beautiful song.

Bang Bang Book Challenge Round up

So I signed up for the Bang Bang Book Challenge back in August and nominated the following books to read:

Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
Winston's War by Michael Dobbs
Flashman and the Dragon by George Macdonald Fraser
Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig
The Birth House by Ami McKay

and I even managed to read all of those books except for one. I substituted Briar Rose by Jane Yolen for Winston's War. Where I didn't go so well is in writing the reviews! You know, good intentions and all that.

The challenge finishes on 28 February, and I still intend to write at least a couple of those reviews because I have only finished the last couple of reads in the last few days, but for all intents and purposes I am finished with this challenge as well.

Life as we knew it by Susan Pfeffer

No shops. No TV. No Electricity. No Daylight. No idea if your family is alive or dead. Could YOU survive? When a freak asteroid knocks the moon from its orbit, horrific tides engulf parts of the globe, and life on earth changes overnight. For 15-year-old Miranda as power, communications and food supplies start to break down, a desperate battle for her family's survival begins.

I first heard about this book at Becky's Book Reviews around a year ago when she interviewed Susan Pfeffer and I immediately added it to my TBR list. I may have heard of it before that, but that was the post that made me add it to the list. One of the things that I try to do with any reading challenges is to pick books that are already on my list so when Carl announced this year's Sci-fi Experience, I figured that this would fit the bill. I have to say, I am really glad that I chose this as one of the books for the Experience.

This is a young adult book told in a journal format, and our main character is 16 year old Miranda who lives with her mother and brothers in Pennsylvania. Like everyone else in the world, Miranda and her family are transfixed as they watch the coverage of the moon being hit by an asteroid. It is a major news event but everyone is reassured by all the experts who are commentating on the event and life is expected to go on as normal. Sometimes though, the experts get things wrong, and in this case they get things very wrong.

With the moon off it's axis, the tides are effected, and the first sign of trouble comes in the form of huge tsunamis around the world, but not long after there are earthquakes and long dormant volcanoes erupting causing massive death tolls. There are increasingly regular power outages, to the point where it is more common to have no electricity than to have it, and the weather is also effected, going from one extreme to another throughout the period of the book.

As soon as Miranda's mother realises that there is a chance that things won't get better they set about stockpiling anything and everything that might help them get by but the biggest worry as things get worse rather than better is that despite all the preparations, there is not going to be enough for everyone to be able to survive.

Reading Miranda's journal as the events go on, we are exposed to her emotions and see how they change. At first it is very normal sixteen year old girl emotions about boys, and in particular her favourite ice skater, about the prospect of learning to drive, fights with her mum and a little confusion about the events in her family with her dad announcing that his new wife is now pregnant. Miranda goes through a range of emotions from anger to despair to acceptance to resignation, and yet throughout the book there are also enough moments of hope (for example the family's first Christmas since the fateful night when everything changed) and love. Pfeffer touches on several different topics such as first love, the way some people might turn to religion during such a time, vigilantism and death of loved ones, and large scale death such as we saw with the tsunamis. In some ways this felt a bit close too home given everything that has been going on here with the bushfires recently.

I normally have one book that is my reading on the train book, and another that is my reading at home book. I started this one on Friday morning when I was not far from work. There was then a problem on the train so I was stuck for half an hour or so so I was able to get a really good start on it. By the time I got home, I just wanted to get to the end to find out what happened. There was no way known that I was going to be able to wait until I got on the train on Monday to finish this book.

It was in turn moving, chilling, realistic and scary and totally worth reading! I was all ready to request the follow up book, but apparently it is not going to be released here until 2010 which is a very long wait.

Reading this book did make me wonder how my son and I would survive in this kind of situation, and the short answer is not very well. I don't know that I would have the presence of mind to be able to get things together, let alone the ready cash that Miranda's mother had. The other thing is that there is just the two of us and so we wouldn't be able to divide the jobs up, but at least I wouldn't have to look at my kids and decide which one had the most chance of survival and therefore give them more food. That and the fact that as Australians we wouldn't have the foggiest how to survive in blizzards or even just temperatures that cold! Brrr!!

When I was looking for the cover image, I had a look at her page at Fantastic Fiction, and I was surprised to see that this author had written so many books over quite an extended period of time. My library doesn't have any of the others, which is a bit disappointing because I will definitely be reading at least the next book!

By finishing this book, I have now completed this year's Sci-Fi Experience. I really enjoy this experience as it does make me read outside of my comfort zone a little, and I enjoyed both books that I read this year.

Rating 4.5/5

Other Blogger's Thoughts:

Things Mean A Lot
An Adventure in Reading
Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-holic
Bookfoolery and Babble
Rosario's Reading Journal

Strange coincidence

I don't think I have ever read a book where people eat tulip bulbs. Yesterday, I read about it in two separate books! Admittedly one was an episode where it was eaten by accident, but I was most surprised when I read it again in the next book!

Tulips are my favourite flowers, but I don't think I will be eating them anytime soon.

Feed my Inbox assistance?

Is anybody subscribed to this blog through the Feed My Inbox widget that I have in the sidebar?

If yes, can you tell me do you receive an email every day, regardless of whether I post something new, or only when I do post something?

I have added this widget to a blog which is only getting updated once or twice a month but apparently it sends an email every day regardless of whether there is new content or not, which is understandably a bit annoying to subscribers, and I would like to figure out if this is what is meant to happen or if it is an anomaly.

Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

By all accounts, Sirantha Jax should have burned out years ago…

As the carrier of a rare gene, Jax has the ability to jump ships through grimspace—a talent which cuts into her life expectancy, but makes her a highly prized navigator for the Corp. But then the ship she’s navigating crash-lands, and she’s accused of killing everyone on board. It’s hard for Jax to defend herself: she has no memory of the crash.

Now imprisoned and the subject of a ruthless interrogation, Jax is on the verge of madness. Then a mysterious man breaks into her cell, offering her freedom—for a price. March needs Jax to help his small band of rogue fighters break the Corp monopoly on interstellar travel—and establish a new breed of jumper.

Jax is only good at one thing—grimspace—and it will eventually kill her. So she may as well have some fun in the meantime…

I first heard about this book over at Ramblings on Romance just about a year ago, and even though I knew that it would be something very different for me, I bought the book. Since then the book has languished on my bookshelf waiting for the right moment to be discovered!

That moment came when I needed to nominate a book to read for the Sci-fi Experience. With the cross genre combination of sci fi and romance, it seemed to be a perfect fit. Since reading this book I have bought another sci-fi romance novel by Susan Grant, so it is a good thing that I enjoyed this one!

Sirantha Jax is a jumper, or at least she was, and she thinks she still is. At the opening of the book she is being held prisoner by her employer, with interrogators trying to find out what happened during the fatal crash that killed many people, including some dignitaries and her co pilot and lover Kai. When a group of mercenaries, led by the enigmatic March, break Jax out of her captivity, she has no idea what they want from her other than her skills as a jumper. She soon finds herself drawn into a plot against the government, and one that has her travelling from one world to another.

Jax is a complex character. She can be harsh and bitchy, emotionally brittle, but she is also intelligent, strong and very entertaining. She is a woman who has been pushed to the edge of her limits and has managed to hang on. She is also someone who at first is being forced to move on from a past that she is not yet ready to let go of.

As a hero, March is pretty darned good! He is dark and broody, damaged and aloof and yet highly principled and prepared to do what it takes to firstly get the job done but on his terms, and also to provide as much support for Jax as she is willing to accept, always knowing when not to push her too far. This is a delicate balance because the relationship between jumper and pilot has a much higher degree of intimacy than just crew member to crew member would normally entail.

I loved the secondary characters, particularly with the introduction of Velith towards the end. The action moves through several different worlds, and there was enough information to be able to separately identify the worlds and their individual dangers without there being an info dump in terms of descriptions of worlds and aliens.

The end of the book was wrapped up very neatly, but I am sufficiently engaged to want to read the next one! I should also point out that Aguirre has the first book in a new series coming out soon, called Blue Diablo, and you can see the ticker in my side bar!

Rating 4/5

Pancake Day flashback

This is exactly how I felt after lunch on Pancake Day - and I wasn't alone I can promise you! There were several of us in the office who were in a similar predicament!


more animals

Reminiscing about ARRC09 - Saturday

Before I get too far into this, I need to make the following comments!

1. I can not read my own writing! I did take notes on a few of the sessions, but not all of them. The big thing though is that some of those notes just look like scrawls! (Note to organisers - perhaps a note pad next time for disorganised people like me!)

2. I have spent years avoiding having my photo taken, so that now it is natural. Unfortunately that is probably not a great thing for events like this. The other thing about photos is that I either (a) need to learn to take better photos or (b) buy a new camera! I think you will be able to click on the image to make them larger and hopefully clearer!

3. I have been a couple of other people blogging about ARRC09 so there may be a couple of times where I direct you to other blogs for better details than I can provide!





The first ever Australian Romance Readers Convention (ARRC) officially began on Friday night, but I didn't attend the opening reception as I thought that I should probably spend that time with my son which kind of happened, but kind of didn't! (Book Thingo has some details about Friday night and general things about the conference) so Saturday morning saw me up and in the city by 7.30am. We won't talk about the fact that I struggle to leave by that time every morning during the week but that I was up and ready to go early for this particular event. Must be the motivation factor!

The room was packed to capacity as the conference proper got under way. The first speaker was Mary Janice Davidson. Once she realised that she was in Australia and not in Alaska, MJD was an awesome speaker to start the conference with. She was hilarious, talking about why being a writer sucks! Among the things she talked about were things like choosing to have the first Betsy book self published and then getting picked up by the New York publishers, about having limited control over things like book tours and covers. She also gave some really hilarious anecdotes about her own fan girl (or should that be stalker/deranged fan) behaviour towards Charlaine Harris, and an insight into a couple of her upcoming books and a future idea or two that sound great!

At this point it is probably right for me to confess that I have only read two of MJD's books, and they were both from the Fred the Mermaid series, and it's fair to say I didn't love them. I do think that perhaps I may give some of her other books a go, because now I have heard her speak, I think I can see how her humour is reflected in her writing!


Following this there was a panel discussion titled "What academics really think about romance fiction". Whilst this was a good discussion it had a very different tone to the opening talk. A few of the topics that were discussed were

• The idea of romance as emotional pornography
• The criticism of readers of romance who are predominantly female and the idea that these women should be doing something other than sitting around reading romance
• The role of media in terms of how they view the male/female relationship
• Books as a product, especially focusing on the covers, and titles.

The last point generated quite a lot of discussion, particularly around the Mills and Boon/Harlequin titles. It was at this point that the person who started off sitting next to me stood up to talk about titles - turned out it was Stephanie Laurens, talking about the way that there are certain words that sell books and therefore they are the words that marketing departments liked. She gave the example of an upcoming book of hers where the word Bride is in the title but there is no wedding in the book! Cristina Lee, Sales, Marketing and Publishing Director of Harlequin Australia, then reiterated those comments. As much as we may roll our eyes at titles like Ruthless Billionaire, Inexperience Mistress, (I didn't pick this for any particular reason, just needed to find a title to use as an example) the fact is that they tell the reader what they can expect and they sell!

During this discussion there was a slideshow of some romance covers from the 1950s and 1960s and there were some truly astounding covers and titles amongst them! (Click here to see some examples) One of the members of the panel was K S Nikakis. I had picked up one of her books from the library before mainly because she either does live or used to live in my area, but I didn't get around to reading it! Now I own it, although I will confess that I didn't buy it until Sunday afternoon and so it was too late to get it signed.

After morning tea, it was time for the first of the concurrent sessions, and I chose to attend the Paranormal session which was subtitled "The Immortal who loved me - why vampires, shifters and demons are so sexy". The short answer to this was basically because they are hot! The session was moderated by Kate Cuthbert (who runs The Australian Romance Reader website) on the far left and the participating authors were in order in the photo from left to right Keri Arthur, Sara McKenzie (who also writes historicals as Sara Bennett) and Mary Janice Davidson.


This was another highly entertaining session with lots of laughs and some fun snippets. One of the interesting discussions was about following the rules that you create for your world, and what happens if you box yourself into a corner in your world, but also that there is a lot of freedom in that you want to do something that sounds really silly or different then there is nothing to stop you when you are the one creating the world. There was also some discussion about where ideas come from (Keri Arthur mentioned having dreams) and then the authors discussed whether they work on more than one book at a time (MJD) or whether or not they can only be working on one book at a time (Keri Arthur and Sara McKenzie).

It was at this point that I was wondering how the heck is it that I haven't yet read Keri Arthur in particular!

After lunch it was time for another concurrent session, and this time I attended the Historical Romance. Anna Campbell led a discussion featuring (from left to right) Alison Stuart, Stephanie Laurens and Sara Bennett.



There is a really good summary of the discussions from this session over at Book Thingo (about half way down the page) so instead of recovering the same ground, I thought I would mention a couple of things about the three authors! Alison Stuart's books were two that I brought and got signed over the weekend, simply because they sounded so great as she described them in this sessions. Romantic fiction set against the English Civil War - not a period of time that you often hear about. One of her books won an Eppie award as well (for books that are e-published), so I am really looking forward to a good read when I do pick them up eventually.

I do feel like I am letting myself down as a historical romance reader when I admit that I have never actually read any books by Stephanie Laurens. She is definitely passionate about this as a genre and had very strong opinions on many of the topics. One of the more interesting points she made was about the term "bodice-ripper" being used to describe the whole sub-genre. She pointed out that technically these types of books were published only for a very short period of time back in the late seventies and early eighties, but that the reputation still tarnishes the sub genre even now.

Sara Bennett also writes paranormal romances under the name Sara McKenzie, but it was obvious that these are both pseudonyms because everyone on the panel kept on calling her a different name! I wonder if remembering who they were was an issue for the authors at the conferences who do use pseudonyms!

The final keynote speaker for the day was Stephanie Laurens who spoke about "The books we love to read", specifically genre fiction, whether we are talking about romance, crime, sci fi or any other kind of genre fiction, as opposed to literary fiction or general fiction. The question she asked was do we love to read books for the story, for the language or the subject. In short, genre fiction is all about the story and therefore as a genre reader the main question we need to ask ourselves is "is it a good story" and if the answer is yes, then we are likely to be satisfied, especially seeing as we read for fun, enjoyment, entertainment and because it makes us feel good. Genre fiction provides escape, enables us to use our imaginations and provides affirmation of many of the important elements in life thus empowering ourselves. Of all the keynote speakers, Laurens was the most intellectual in terms of content.

Laurens then officially launched Tempt the Devil by Anna Campbell, and Anna explained where the term regency noir came from (courtesy of Stephanie Laurens).

There is still loads to tell, but it will have to wait until tomorrow night as I am still trying to recover from the weekend! Need to get some more sleep.

Library Loot

This week I have only been to the library once! Normally I go at least twice but I guess with being in the city all weekend I didn't really have time to go any more than I did! When I did go, I picked up three books:









Winston's War by Michael Dobbs - I have borrowed this book at least twice before, and I really want to read it because I have read books 2 and 4 in the series, but it just hasn't happened so far!








Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur - I had vaguely heard of the series that this book starts, but I was totally sold on the series as I listened to the author speak on the weekend!








The Dark Rose by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - Not too long ago I finished the first book in this series and I am definitely planning to read more!


****Library Loot is a weekly meme hosted by Alessandra from Out of the Blue and Eva from A Striped Armchair

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

The book that my teaser comes from today is one which I am reading for the Art History Reading Challenge, Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach (page 143). I am cheating today and posting a couple more sentences than I am meant to, but I think it makes more sense this way.

Just bags of onions, that is what they look like. For them, Jan has paid as much as he makes, with luck, in a year's work. How homely they look. Yet they are more valuable than jewels, than paintings, than gold. Stored within those bulbs, fattened by sunshine and rain, is his future.