Recommendations?

Okay, I had my Japanese oral final today, and I survived. I was literally shaking throughout the five minute conversation. Sensai Ishitawa and Fujio scare me sometimes. Usually when they make me speak Japanese. Now, I know that I will need some good ebooks to calm my nerves and relax me enough so that I can sleep after all the cramming and such.

So, does anyone have any recommendations? I like paranormals and fantasy books, but I just read some good comtemporaries by La Nora (I had never read her before but now I know why she is so popular) and Jennifer Crusie so if you want to throw some my way that would be great. Any lesbian or gay romances would be lovely, but I just love a good romance no matter what body parts are interlocking. Ebooks would be preferable.

Aren't I just a demanding diva?

Break From Finals Studying

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nIiC5yiNak

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When I saw this I thought of a few vampire heroes in some recent paranormals. This ring anyone else's bells?

FINALS!!!

Okay, finals are a week and a half away, so I will be getting into stressed out mode complete with swelled tonsils. So, I bid everyone adieu until finals are over and I stopped pulling my hair out.

Sela Carsen:

I liked the Virgin Courtesan a lot. There was a good sense of scenery. I couldn't imagine the story taking place anywhere else. The characters were likable. The villain was pretty 2-D, and the ending felt like a cop out. It was lacking in depth, but it was a fun read. It was a pleasant romp 1500s Venice. I would think that it would be a C+ or B+ depending on if you thought the ending was great or lame.

Peace Out!

What I Am Reading

I'm reading Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie and it's great. I'll have a review for that and the Virgin Courtesan up soon. Most likely by the weekend. I have a few university matters including a French-Canadian professor and the extreme hard Japanese language to master.

Good News: I already planned out my schedule for next fall.

Bad News: Finals are coming up in three weeks.

Bittersweet News: I ran out of Jellybeans.

Were-Armadillo

I swear on the sacred name of blogger that one day I will write a story where some secondary characters are a funny were-Armadillo and his wife. There must be a scene where the wife puts a upturned laundry basket over the husband when he is in his were-armadillo form because she gets annoyed that him and another paranormal creature were out fighting crime or something. I just had this random thought after reading a review for the Big Kahuna.

Ghostly Desire by Keziah Hill (Lesbian Rom. Review)

Ghostly Desire by Keziah Hill from Forbidden Publishing.

Ghostly Desire by Keziah Hill is novel that was dried out in the sun until it was sixteen pages. If you read it, you will understand why it has a raisin quality. Thea and Judith met when they were both fifteen at Thea's Uncle Osbert's mansion by the sea in Tasmania. Years later when Uncle Osbert dies, Thea inherits the mansion. Judith had been the daughter of the housekeeper, so of course she has strong ties to the house. Opposites personalities clash together in this story until a sexy showdown almost too neatly ties up the entire tale. Ghostly Desire suffers from its lack of length, and what could have been a great novel makes for a unsatisfying short story. I would give this story a very low C-.

I really had thought about giving this one a D, but Hill has a fun voice in her writing and a little bits of realism that you never really see in romancelandia. The back story to Judith and Thea's first meeting is a smoke-filled affair as Thea and her brother were toking it to keep from being bored to death. That made me laugh out loud because I still remember family vacations where us kids would go on “hikes” and smoke our way up the mountain. Anyway, back to the review. The editing was fine; no errors jumped out at me. I could tell that this would have been a very fun novel, and the sex was hot (though the sexy talk was lame but I always think the sexy talk is lame unless the author carefully set the mood) so I put it between C and D. The potential and the energetic prose bumped up the score.

Now, why would I have wanted to give this a D? Hill had a great chance to build up the character of the house and the setting to give a little dimension to Judith. Judith really loves the house, readers like having setting, so build up the description on the house and it gives insight into Judith and a nice setting. I know that at sixteen pages that it is hard to set the scene, but it would have given the story more texture. Though, I always want more description and texture, so your opinion may vary. thing that wasn't well explained was why Thea and Judith would have stayed in each other's memories. I could understand if Hill had explained it as Thea and Judith being friends or both mooning over each other or something, but they had known each other (and didn't talk to the other much) for a week. And, the chemistry was lacking. I didn't feel the passion which I believe that Hill could have been able to build if she had a full novel to do so. And the conclusion? Abrupt, abrupt, abrupt: it was like Wil E. Coyote running into one of the Roadrunner's painted tunnels.

This story felt like that the missed opportunities overcrowded the actual story. Hill has a good voice, but I think that she ought to stick to longer stories. Get this story at Forbidden Publications (for $2 actually).

Stacking the Deck: Vegas Magic by Sara Dennis [HET Review}

Vegas Magic: Stacking the Deck by Sara Dennis is sweet. I would give it a B+. Now, I am a lesbian, but even though this is heterosexual romance, I enjoyed it a lot.
Sam is witch ready to hit the town with her girlfriends when she sees Alec perform a magic show. That chance meeting leads to a few drinks which get complicated very fast because anything can happen in Las Vegas with supernatural creatures about. Kick ass witches, hunky warlocks, adorable fairies, and angry werewolves populate this tale of romance and action in Las Vegas.

Sara Dennis' has created some vivid characters here. Sam and Alec have fleshed out personalities, and Dennis is able to make secondary characters like Twyla stand out. Sam and Alec are just fun to read about. They are such a cute couple that it made sense that they liked each other. I've read a few romances where I wonder why in the hell didn't the couple get restraining orders on each other. Not with this couple. They made me wish the story was longer. Sara Dennis is good at creating interesting characters.

For those like me who get thrown out of a story if there is bad editing -- never fear! Stacking the Deck looks like an editor did get a hold of it.

There were some things that I didn't like. The romance between Sam and Alec seems like it went from 'hey hottie' to 'soulmates' a little fast, but the story was well-written enough that I didn't mind. Another issue was the character Duff. I found him to be a tad unrealistic, but like with the fast romance, I was convinced to get over it. Both issues did bug me when I was reading it though. The ending was sort of unrealistic in its HEA, but you are so happy that there is a HEA that it doesn't really matter. Sara Dennis does seem to be able to make any flaws in her story seem minicule or charming by strength of the story as a whole.

The story is very fast paced, and the plot is like a roller coaster. This does seem like the characters are the real focus of the story, so though who want a real plot driven romance will be disappointed. I want to read more of Sara Dennis' work. This is a real treat of a paranormal romance. You can buy this story here at Cobblestone Press.

Scrunchies: They're Back.

Flipping through the March issue of Nylon, I was faced with a conclusion that I just couldn't fight. Scrunchies were back. They were on the pages of Nylon, tutorials on how to make them raced through style blogs, and Sienna Miller was seen with an orange scunchie in her hair. Fashion is truly circular isn't? Scrunchies went from popular to joke, and now they are chugging back to the top.

I still haven't decided if scrunchies will be a fad that won't trickle down to the masses or if they will become a wardrobe staple like ballet flats. I'm going to have my eye on this trend, but I'm not heading out to make/buy any new scrunchies. I'll just gussy up my old ones. This just seems like a trend that's going to have trouble making it off the catwalk.