Hot Zombie Lurve

I saw on Twitter yesterday, and also got an e-mail last night, that Half Past Dead, a two-novella anthology featuring stories by Zoe Archer and Bianca D'Arc is currently being offered as a free ebook over at the Sony eBook Store.

Archer's story is a prequel to her upcoming Blades Of The Rose series, which sounds like an intriguing mix of Victorian historical, fantasy/magical elements, and Indiana Jones-style derring-do.

D'Arc's story is also a prequel to her paranormal-zombies-running-amok book, Once Bitten, Twice Dead - which is out now in trade paperback.

I've done a very brief search, and it appears that Half Past Dead is only available as a free ebook at the Sony Store. Also, no idea how long this promotion is going to last, so if you're interested - strike while the iron is hot.

You can download it here.

And neither here nor there - I read a previous Zoe Archer book, Lady X's Cowboy, back in my TRR days and really liked it quite a bit.

Wow, Really? Hard cover? Really?

I was digging through some journals here at work, looking at upcoming releases for this summer, when I ran across a mention of Fade To Midnight by Shannon McKenna. For those of you who have never read McKenna, let me give you the rundown. Her heroes tend to be very Alpha and her heroines get rescued a lot. I've enjoyed two of her books as pure guilty pleasures (Behind Closed Doors and Standing In The Shadows) while two other books (Return To Me and Hot Night) made me want to put my fist through a wall.

Fade To Midnight is the conclusion (uh, I think) of her McCloud (a name that should be banned from Romance Novel Land) Brothers series and it's the book that McKenna fangirls have been squee-ing for. Yep, it's Kev's book.

Well here I am to rain on your parade. Brace yourself ladies.

Fade To Midnight is going to be published in....

Hard cover.

Yes, hard cover. Retail price is $20.95 (cheap for hc), and Amazon currently has it available for pre-order at $14.25. Hey, which is technically cheaper than what her trade paperback releases sold for at retail.

This is....

Well, it's interesting.

McKenna is so not an author I saw making any kind of leap to hard cover. For one thing, I have only heard readers describe her books in one of two ways:

• It made my eyes bleed. Seriously. Bleed. Pouring out of my eyes. Blood everywhere.
  

• OMG, what a great guilty pleasure!
  

Kensington Brava must be banking on people being so desperate for their guilty pleasure fix that they'll be willing to go hard cover. And hey, they may not be wrong. I mean, people are buying J.R. Ward in hard cover. (Yeah, I went there. I'm bad.)

And while the discount is healthy enough that those readers willing to pay trade prices for McKenna, probably won't care - I have to wonder about all those romance readers who vehemently, as in frothing at the mouth, despise hard cover. I mean, they really dislike it as a format. Hmmmm....

Interesting all the way around. Really? McKenna in hard cover? Really?

So, who is going to buy it? Or have you turned green and are now storming around your home office Hulk-like angry? Reader mad! Reader smash!

Oh, and yeah - I'm ordering it for the library. Cuz that's how I roll. Not sure if I'll read it right away though, since I'm like three books behind on this series already.

Laydown date is May 25, 2010

Blathering On At Other Places

Now that Romancing The Blog is on (possibly permanent) hiatus, the fine folks behind Access Romance's Readers Gab blog have asked me to join their ranks. Since I tried my best to make my RtB columns reader oriented, joining the Gabbers seemed like a really good fit, and honestly it's a chance for me to keep my blogging skills fine-tuned.

My first post is up today, and I'm ruminating on the subject of whether or not erotic romance is still it's own separate sub genre.

Also, did you know that every Sunday the peeps behind Access Romance draw a winner from random commenters at Readers Gab? The lucky winner receives a free box of books! And it's open to international folks! So what the heck are you waiting for? Go on over and comment!

+++++

Every quarter the Romance Writers of America put out a promotional booklet called Romance Sells. Basically it's a big ol' booklet of promo, featuring upcoming release information in a variety of romance sub genres. Mostly it gets sent out to booksellers and librarians. I'm a bit of a promo junkie, so I always look forward to getting my copy and flipping through it.

Well, they also publish the occasional article, and the Spring 2010 issue finds one written by yours truly. All A-Twitter is about...well...Twitter, and how librarians, authors, readers, reviewers and publishers are using it. Yes, Twitter is the mother of all time sucks, but believe it or not - I find it a useful tool for my day job. No joke. So for those of you who receive Romance Sells, look for my article on page 3 of the Spring 2010 issue. For the rest of you? I signed away my life (OK, I exaggerate) to have RWA print the article, so I'm not sure I can duplicate it here. But if it ends up getting posted on their web site at a later date, I'll let you now. Because I just know you're all dying to read about collection development and Twitter. Heh.

Seven Years Of Bat Cave Awesomeness

And you all thought today was just like any other Sunday.

Today marks the 7th anniversary of The Misadventures Of Super Librarian. Yes, I have been blogging for seven years. Some of you might be wondering what it takes to blog for seven straight years, with no major interruptions (I don't blog every day, but I've also never taken an extended leave of absence). Well, I'm here to let you in on the secret.

It helps to have an inflated sense of self-importance.

Tee Hee.

Over the years my blog has most certainly been a work in progress. I've never had a clear plan. I've never been the best at self-promotion. No, really. I haven't. I tend to keep myself holed up behind the computer screen and...well...just blog.

Certainly over the years this blog has allowed me to do some pretty awesome stuff. I've met wonderful, fantastic people (online and in real life - you know who you are). I've gotten to work, however marginally, with one of the largest publishers in the world. I've given presentations. I've answered e-mails. I've read a lot of really great books.

I'm not sure what the secret to me doing all this great stuff as been - but I'd hazard a guess that it's just the sheer steadiness and longevity of the blog. Also, voice. I cannot stress enough how important "voice" is. I know other bloggers wrestle with this idea, and the only advice I have to offer is be yourself. Don't hide behind the idea of what you think you should be. Be who you are. Some readers will love you for it. Others won't. And that's OK. Not everybody likes me, so they don't visit the Bat Cave. That's fine. There are blogs out there that I'm not wild about - so I don't visit them. Not everybody can be a rock star, and frankly I'm not convinced anyone truly is. Like books, no blogger is universally loved.

Well, maybe KristieJ. She's the closest we got at any rate.

All you can do is keep on keepin' on. Put one foot in one of the other. Find your rhythm. Find what works for you. And be yourself. Don't fake it in the vain hope you're going to "make it." Because genuine is a lot more interesting to read than phony.

I've had to remind myself of this recently because after seven years of blogging, and ten plus years hanging around the online romance community (yes, I know I have no life - thanks for asking though), I had been getting more than a little fed up lately. Tired, if you will. But I did what I always do. I chalked it up to a raging case of PMS, not enough chocolate, too little caffeine and I kept on keepin' on.

There is no supah-secret handshake to blogging other than consistency. Keep on keepin' on. The community is certainly a big and interesting enough place for all sorts of readers and writers. And the more of us their are, the more interesting as a whole we are. Even those personalities that can get on my last good nerve (here Wendy, have some more chocolate!). Because that's what makes us interesting. That's life. Nobody is going to love everybody. Not everybody is going to love what you do. Not everybody loves what I do. And it's OK. Trust me. I've got seven years in to prove it.

Wendy's Talking Romance. Again. Geesh.

In a moment of pure insanity, I put in a 10 hour work day yesterday and gave two presentations on the romance genre. It seemed like a good idea at the time, which I really can't explain. I'd say I was high, but the hardest drug I do is caffeine.

The morning started with a presentation about Harlequin that I gave to our library assistants. In the library world we call these happy folks "para-professionals." They don't have a library degree, but maybe they're working towards one, or they have comparable job experience. The goal of this presentation was to educate them on category romance (No, it's not all Harlequin Presents), make them aware that cover art and lines change, and to discuss tips on how to "deal" with paperbacks in general at their individual branches.

I think this presentation was very well received by most of them. Some of them were likely bored out of their minds. Wendy's talking about romance novels. Again. Blah, blah, blah. As an added bonus, I also discussed Harlequins single title lines (Mira, HQN, Spice etc.) and got a lot of really good questions. A couple enlightening moments:

• Harlequin publishes in the ballpark of 120 titles every month. Yeah. Take it from the librarian, this is an obscene number. Some of the administration folks in the audience actually gasped out loud when I told them that.


• Harlequin sells 20 million copies (worldwide) of Harlequin Presents titles each year. Yes, I found this number from Harlequin promo material. 20 frackin' million! Each frackin' year! No wonder Harlequin claims those dopey titles sell books. You can't really argue with 20 million! Wowzers.


• I got asked about trends in the romance genre in general. My answers were urban fantasy (separate genre altogether, but lots of romance readers are reading it) and historicals. Mark my words people, I think we're in for a massive historical resurgence. Let's see if I'm right.

The second presentation was a much more general discussion on the romance genre at one of our smaller libraries. This was an evening program at a smaller branch, so I was honestly hoping at least one warm body would show up. For any librarians reading this, you'll relate that programming tends to be a crap shoot. You just never know what's going to happen. So color me pleasantly surprised when 13 people showed up! And it would have been closer to 18, except people called to cancel because of being sick.

I think the program went well, and I hope I didn't bore them. Everybody in the audience was already a romance reader, so we covered all the basic sub genres (contemporary, historical, paranormal, inspirational etc.) and talked books in general. I promoted the heck out of my library's upcoming literary event, talked up the authors that were going to be there (Linda Wisdom, Tessa Dare and HelenKay Dimon) and got them to check out some books. Hopefully they liked it and I didn't suck. Programming is hard for small libraries, and I wanted to do well for the staff at that branch. They're good peeps.

A couple things of note about these presentations, I think my secret blogging identity is getting to be less of a secret. I've never "hid" my true identity online, but I've also never willy-nilly discussed my blog with my employers. I just don't. Period. However, seems some of my fellow employees have found me. The attendees at the library program last night wanted my blog address (Uh, hi ladies!) and my boss made me show the library assistants the Blogger Bundles I suggested to Harlequin. Sigh. I'm not sure how I feel about this. OK, I guess. But maybe this means I need wash out my mouth with soap, and watch my language more closely. I know my father would certainly approve of that.

Top Five: Paperback Romance

I haven't done a Top 5 post in ages, mostly because the same five books seem to be sitting on top of our holds queue here at work. I think The Help by Kathryn Stockett was published for the sole reason of making me crazy. I'm convinced that book is never going to die. Of course I said this about The Da Vinci Code too, and it eventually did - it's just going to take time.

So since I don't want to talk about Kathryn Stockett, Nicholas Sparks, Alice Sebold, Steig Larsson or Lisa See - we're going to talk paperback romance. Cuz that's how we roll here in the Bat Cave. Behold! The Top 5 paperback romances currently in demand for my library system.


Archangel's Kiss by Nalini Singh - When you spend a lot of time online, it's easy to think that the romance genre revolves around Romance Bloglandia. News flash: It doesn't. There are scads of people out there who read their romances in a vacuum and have no clue that people actually blog about romance novels. For that matter, what's a blog? Case in point, while many bloggers were raving about Singh starting with her first non-category novel, my romance reading patrons are just now starting to catch on. This one currently has the highest request to copy ratio in system among paperbacks. Three requests for every one book.


McKettrick's Of Texas: Tate by Linda Lael Miller - This is not a surprise at all. LLM has been writing and publishing for a long time, is a regular fixture on various bestseller lists and this one is the first book in a new trilogy. Naturally, people want to read it.







Ravishing In Red by Madeline Hunter - Hunter isn't the most popular historical author among our library patrons, but she routinely puts up very respectable numbers. I've seen very positive reviews for this one all over the darn place, and frankly that cover is all sorts of eye-catching. Once the wait list is satisfied, I think this one is going to see very steady circulation numbers.






The Elusive Bride by Stephanie Laurens - The Avon historical contingent tends to do very well here at work, and our two-headed monster is Stephanie Laurens and Julia Quinn. I know hard core romance readers tend to scoff at hard cover books, but I honestly feel that Laurens' foray into hard cover helped her mass market sales overall. That's my theory anyway, assuming library stats count for anything.





Street Game by Christine Feehan - Looking at demand and request numbers, aside from the blockbuster hard cover authors (Nora, JAK, SEP etc.) Christine Feehan is probably our most popular romance author. Doesn't matter what series we're talking either - I always get a nice healthy wait list for her latest. At one point this one was my most requested, in-demand romance title regardless of format. It was out-pacing the hard cover releases. Seriously. My library patrons love them some Feehan. Or else they can't seem to quit her. Either way, she's a rock star.

True Librarian Confessions!

OK, I'll admit it. I dragged my feet on reading Goddess Of The Hunt by Tessa Dare. I kept putting it off. Why? Well, if you've been reading this blog for any stretch of time, or you used to read my reviews during my TRR days, you've probably noticed I'm a bit bitchy particular when it comes to romance heroines. Yeah, yeah - hunky, heartthrob heroes are all well and good, but I'm reading for the heroine. That's just how I roll. After reading some reviews and various scuttlebutt online about Dare's debut novel I feared that Lucy Waltham was going to drive me bat-shit crazy. However Judgment Day has arrived. Yep, Dare is doing my library's literary event, which means I can no longer put off to tomorrow what I should have done six months ago.

Lucy Waltham is an orphan who is under the guardianship of her older brother, Henry. Henry adores her, but admittedly has no clue on how to raise a proper young lady. So instead of playing piano, learning to paint, and any other myriad of useless Regency female endeavors, she's tagging along with Henry and his friends while they ride, shoot, and traipse through the woods. Having never had a season, where she could fall in and out of love with a bevy of potential suitors, Lucy latches on to Henry's friend Toby. She's hopelessly in love with him. The problem being that Toby, having left a string of broken hearts along the way, is going to propose any day now to Miss Sophia Hathaway. Well Lucy just cannot have that! She's going to have to practice her feminine wiles on some other poor helpless schmuck so she can learn to effectively seduce Toby.

Jeremy Trescott, the Earl of Kendall, is more than a little surprised when Lucy launches herself into his arms and plants a very ardent, but frankly terrible, kiss on his lips. Not exactly what he expected when he opened his bedroom door in the dead of night. He's never thought of Lucy as more than his best friend's little sister, and now with that kiss, he's thinking about her in a whole different light. However, the chit fancies herself in love with Toby. He tries to reason with her, but Lucy is nothing if not headstrong and mule-headed. Oh well. He's just going to have to keep an eye on her, won't he?

Goddess Of The Hunt is the type of book that requires patience on the part of the reader. I wouldn't necessarily call Lucy too-stupid-to-live, but she's young and very immature. Reading about Lucy is like looking back on your own impetuous teenage self. You know, when you fancied yourself in lurve with that handsome boy in your algebra class, yet he didn't know you existed because he was mooning over the snotty, blonde, popular cheerleader who had bigger boobs than you did. Of course you eventually realize you're not in love with algebra boy at all, it's just puppy love, an infatuation. And that's what Lucy must learn about Toby. In the meantime, the reader has to wait for her to learn it, and it takes the first half the book.

It's also during the first half that Lucy, and the reader, is falling under the spell of the aloof, borderline chilly, Jeremy. A man who has kept his distance in all personal affairs, and who Lucy has always seen as a cold fish, practically incapable of love. Not true of course. Like all good, solid, romance heroes, the poor guy has a fair amount of personal baggage he's failed to address. Lucy, with all her impetuous, improper, and unladylike behavior, sinks this guy so fast that he has no idea what has hit him.

This is honestly a second half book for me. Lucy, while not stupid, is definitely young - and the older I get, the harder it is to read about "young" heroines. It's too easy for me to want to smack them, even if I can totally "get" where they are coming from. Where this book really begins to cook for me is when Jeremy has to make a decision about Lucy. Should he just leave her to fend for herself, or damn it all the Hell, should he do what he desperately wants to do, and never let her out of his sight again?

There was a lot I liked here. I liked that Jeremy didn't sugarcoat the truth to Lucy in regards to Toby's plans and affections. I liked that in the latter half of the story, the shoe is on the other foot and Lucy is calling Jeremy out. I liked the fact that here were two characters who had no intention or desire to fall for each other - but they do anyway. In part because of circumstances that throw them together, and part because they're perfect for each other. If anything, the only fault I find with this story was I wanted a lot more of what I got in the second half and less time devoted to Lucy's girlish infatuation with some other guy. But, quibbles. This was an excellent debut novel, that was an enjoyable read once I got past my own peculiar eccentric reader baggage. I'm glad I thought ahead, because as I type this, a library copy of Surrender Of A Siren is in route to my humble office cubicle.

Final Grade = B