Diet-Free Day

Today was the day that all the So. Cal. bloggers got together. None of them were opposed to having their pictures posted on the web, so here we are, in all our glory. Well except for me. I'm behind the camera. Starting from the left, in the pink shirt is Daphne, then Rowena, then Rosie, then Nikki, then Nikki's adorably well-behaved toddler (seriously, besides some squirming she was an angel), then Lori, then Holly.

A great time was had by all! The only bump in the road was when I mentioned how much I loathed The Dark Highlander by Karen Marie Moning. We almost had to revive Rowena. That said, Daphne, Rowena and I had a great talk on how much we all loved Moning's Darkfever and how we're looking forward to Bloodfever, which is due out in October. And of course, there was also much discussion about Lover Unbound by J.R. Ward - with only minimal frothing at the mouth on Rosie's part.

Cheesecake was consumed, books were bought and exchanged. I didn't buy anything, but I did pick up a couple of older Linda Lael Miller titles from Lori (at least I think it was Lori?) and Rosie passed off the latest Jo Goodman to me. All in all, a wonderful day. Hopefully we can do it again soon, but dang it's tough coordinating 7 people! Rosie gets the gold star for doing the actual corralling.

Merry Christmas Baby

Yes, I am still sick, but am on my way to a speedy recovery (I hope). I took the day off work (I never call in sick), and spent the day lounging about whining recuperating. Lucky for me, I had a really great "comfort" read to keep me company.

A Western Winter Wonderland is a new holiday anthology due out in October from Harlequin Historicals. It has everything I love in a holiday anthology. Quick, heartwarming reads that leave me with a warm satisfying afterglow.

Cheryl St. John headlines with Christmas Day Family. Marvel Henley is an old maid. As in 33. Positively ancient for a never-married woman in 1886. When her father took ill, Marvel cared for him. When money started running out, she took in borders - which is what she's been doing ever since her father passed. She has a comfortable life. A good life. And even turns down a marriage proposal from an old (as in, old enough to be her father) family friend. Life is going smoothly, and then the new town doctor shows up. Marvel agreed to board Seth Paxton as a temporary arrangement. She certainly wasn't counting on him bringing two small children and a dog with him.

What I really enjoyed about this story was that Marvel is a very capable heroine. She's got a comfortable life, and is content. She just doesn't realize her life could be even better - and that's where Seth comes in. But Marvel is unsure. Seth is very handsome, and younger than she is. What would he want with an old maid? This is classic St. John. If you've liked her stories in the past, this one is going to work for you.

Fallen Angel by Jenna Kernan finds single mother Abby March hunting for a Christmas tree with her son, Daniel. Unfortunately they unwittingly stumble across a wanted man facing off with bounty hunter, Ford Statler. Daniel ends up saving Ford's life, but Abby is accidentally shot. Ford takes her back to town, puts her up in a fancy hotel room and nurses her back to health. Conflict arises from his haunted past and her disastrous relationship with Daniel's father.

I love "cabin" stories, where the couple finds themselves sharing close quarters. This one is great, because Abby has preconceived notions about Ford, and he shatters them at every turn. I also loved the way this one ended, with Abby taking matters into her own hands.

One Magic Eve by Pam Crooks features a heroine with an unusual occupation. Sonja Kaplan trains carrier pigeons for the U.S. Army. Unfortunately she's single, secretive about her work, and has numerous soldiers calling on her at her isolated cabin. I mean, what are the good townsfolk supposed to think? Young Beau Lattimer rescues an injured pup in the woods, and decides to take him to Sonja's. She's good with birds, maybe she's good with dogs too! That's where Chet Lattimer finds his son, and when his boy makes a connection with the mysterious Sonja, Chet decides that maybe spending more time getting to know the woman might not be the worst thing in the world.

Chet's a respected man drawn to Sonja, but unsure what to think when he finds her keeping company with Indian braves and military men. Once he learns the truth, he finds himself even more attracted to her, and is grateful for the help she gives him with his son. He didn't know Beau existed until after his mother died, and Chet's been a bit out of sorts ever since.

All of these were quick, heartwarming reads - perfect holiday fare. These are sweet reads, with no s-e-x to speak of, which frankly is a good thing because it fits within the context of all the stories. It's the kind of book you can give your grandmother or your 12-year-old daughter and not worry about having lengthy discussions on "the smut you're reading" or the "birds-and-bees." Basically this bad boy is my very definition of a comfort read. Buy it now and save it for Christmas Eve. Final Grade = B+

I Hate Everybody

Why is it that whenever I decide to go on a diet the world conspires against me?

After fighting it for two days a full-blown head cold is here. I woke up this morning feeling a bit like week-old chewing gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe.

I have a sinus headache that currently feels like someone is driving a spoon through my frontal lobe and all I want is some Aleve Cold & Sinus - the only over-the-counter drug I have found that actually knocks out said headaches.

I go to Walgreens before work. Pick up a box of Kleenex. Go to the cold medicine aisle only to find those stupid little cards telling me that if I want my Aleve Cold & Sinus I need to ask at the pharmacy and sign my life away. Being only 7:30AM in the morning, the pharmacy is not open.

No drugs for Wendy.

If you are a meth addict and happen to be reading my blog - I hope they shrivel up and fall off.

Oh, and the Yankees clinched a playoff spot.

I hate everybody.

Sam And Frodo Sitting In A Tree....

Talked to the Lil' Sis this weekend. The sister who also reads and lurves Emma Holly:

Me: I think I already know the answer to this, but do you want me to send you my copy of Fairyville?

LS: Um, no. When I read your blog post about it I immediately started thinking about "gay Hobbits."



Me: Well, I didn't know if you wanted to skip all the fairy nonsense and just get to the naughty bits. The gay lurve is pretty well done.

LS: Um, no. If I want naughty bits I'll just reread one of her other stories that doesn't make me think of gay Hobbit love.

Honestly, this is the kind of stuff we talk about. Scary, isn't it?

We Interrupt This Coma

I have been seriously zonked out today. Most of my afternoon was spent lolling on the sofa while The Boyfriend tortured himself with the Notre Dame game. I did get some stuff accomplished - grocery shopping, signing a new lease for the Super Librarian Bat Cave (um, our apartment), exercising - and apparently my brain and body decided that's enough for one day.

I completely blanked that I had a Romancing The Blog column going live this morning until I checked my e-mail and found actual comments. Go forth, and read my whining.

Now back to wasting time on the computer instead of reading.

Watch Your Back Heidi Klum

When I left for work this morning I got my "Goodbye, Have A Good Day" hug from The Boyfriend, who proceeded to tell me he thinks I've already lost weight.

TB: I think you've already lost a little weight.
Me: I just started this Hell on Monday, stop kissing my ass.
TB: ::bends over and air kisses my ass::
Me: Hardy har har.
TB: No, really. I think you have.
Me: I haven't eaten any vegetables yet today, so I'm not bloated yet. I think my body is still in shock from the roughage.

In news that isn't TMI - I figured out the other day that the walk I take on my lunch break at work is exactly one mile. And the time spent on this brisk walk just flies right on by thanks to downloadable audio books and my trusty MP3 player.

In case you haven't seen it here or here yet, September marks the month that all of Harlequin's front-list titles will be made available as ebooks. That means you can get the ebook version or the print version at the exact same time. Whatever format tickles your fancy. I personally don't do ebooks (no Reader, and do I really need to create the monster of a digital TBR pile?), but think this is pretty darn cool. And hey, even if you don't care for romance novels, Harlequin publishes "other stuff." Their Mira line has been chock full of interesting sounding suspense/thriller titles for the last several months.

Speaking of kick-ass publishers, I love the folks over at Holtzbrinck (St. Martin's Press, Tor and others) because they seem eager to share the wealth with librarians. They even have a Library Marketing Manager who has not only come out to visit with me, but has been loading me up with interesting ARCs - including the upcoming (January) Gas City by Loren D. Estleman. I adore Estleman's Amos Walker mysteries, so I'm particularly overjoyed to have an ARC - even if it's not part of that series.

Description:

A power struggle—between a police chief who has looked the other way for too long, a Mafia boss who holds the city's vices in his powerful grasp, and media reporters looking for a big story—turns what has been a minor dispute into a desperate struggle for survival.

Setting this drama in a blue-collar metropolis dominated by an oil company, Estleman, with an unerring eye for telling detail and an ear for dialogue that reveals the secret desires of his characters, crafts a fascinating, deadly tapestry of love, ambition, revenge, and redemption, a stunning portrait of the human condition.

I'm not sure how well the black and white cover will play to casual browsers in libraries and bookstores - no matter how cool I think it is (evokes the silent movie Metropolis for me). Not that I think something like a cover would steamroll Estleman. The man is what I consider a "professional writer" having penned over 60 novels. He's got his loyal fan base.

I Love Beating Dead Horses

Every now and then a discussion crops up in Romance Blog Land about the definition of romance and how it shouldn't have to include a happily-ever-after.

Why do we keep having this argument? I'm sorry, it's probably the librarian in me rearing her ugly head, but it just seems really stupid. And pointless. Did I mention pointless?

You don't see mystery readers (or authors) sitting around discussing, "I think the books would be better if they didn't include a resolution to the crime." Or fantasy readers (or authors) sitting around saying, "I'm bored with the fantastical elements. Can we lay off the wizards, fairies and world-building and just get books about soccer moms and lawyers?"

Listen, genre fiction (all genres) by their very definition include some type of formula. In romance novels, that formula includes happily-ever-after. Boy meets girl, boy and girl overcome obstacles, boy and girl ride off into the sunset.

Last time I checked death is not, nor will it ever be, happy. Even when the person is really old, very sick or terminally ill, we don't go out and throw a big party saying "Yippee! They're finally dead! Hooray! Yippy Skippy!" We're relieved their suffering is over, but we still mourn. So while I think there is room in the fiction lexicon for tragedies, there is absolutely no room for them in modern romance novels. Again, repeat after me, "Death is not happy unless we're talking about Hitler."

I suspect where the problem comes in for many romance readers is the definition of what a happily-ever-after entails. While there are a few (very few exceptions), 99.9% of the time it means marriage and kidlets. Now, I read a lot of historicals. Frankly, if the book doesn't end in marriage it's a real surprise because back in the day (unless you wanted to be called a whore and stoned to death), this is what you did. You met a man. You married him. You had children. That's what women did. Hell, there weren't exactly a ton of options.

But in contemporaries? I'd like to see it spiced up. I'm sorry, when the macho Alpha hero with commitment issues is proposing after knowing the heroine for one week, my eyes roll back in my head. Like how believable is that? No sex is that good. I'd like to see more let's date a while, move in together, take it slow. This is a criticism for a lot of readers. They want less tradition in their happily-ever-after. Or do they?

I've been with The Boyfriend for almost 10 years. No, we're not married. No, there are no plans to marry. We're very happy. We love each other. We are very committed to each other. But the minute I talk about my personal life to another woman, I can practically see the gears turning in her tiny pea brain. "I'd force him to marry me. I'd have left him years ago. I'd nag him to death until I got that piece of paper and a big shiny diamond on my finger."

Frankly, I think the reason so many marriages end in divorce is because people get married in the first place because they think they should. Like it's expected of them. Like they wake up one morning and say to themselves, "Well I'm 30 years old, it's time for me to get married." But what do I know?

So when readers say they want more non-traditional happy endings in their romance novels, I don't always believe them. Or I chalk it up to the divide between online romance readers and non-online romance readers. Sure online romance readers say they want endings a bit more modern, but what about those oodles of women out there who aren't on blogs, message boards, and hiding their stash of Harlequins in the bedroom closet? My guess? Not so much.

I Plan On Tying Tinker Bell's Wings In A Knot

Yes, I finally finished Fairyville by Emma Holly. Now prepare yourself for the most unfair review I've ever written.

The Plot: Zoe Clare is a medium who has no trouble communicating with the dead-or with real live fairies, for that matter! But she can't seem to get her feelings across to her landlord-slash-manager- Magnus Monroe, Fairyville, Arizona's most eligible bachelor. She's tired of his erotic antics with every woman in town but her. So when her high school flame returns to town, Zoe is more than a little vulnerable to his charms. How Alex broke her heart is a scandal no one in Fairyville has forgotten. But even if Zoe isn't ready to forget, she's willing to forgive. The rules they're about to break will bring out the jealousy in Magnus-and the astounding truth.

The Good: Reading this book it hit me what makes Holly's erotica so good. She's the best at writing "longing." That is to say, her characters really ache for each other (physically as well as emotionally) and there's usually a healthy dose of pining going on. There's a lot of that here. Magnus pines for Zoe, Zoe pines for Magnus, Alex pines for Zoe and Alex's business partner, Bryan, pines for him.

There's quite a bit of male-on-male lovin' in this book, which I thought was very well done. Obviously this won't be to everyone's taste - but I thought Holly handled this aspect of the story very well. There were several times I was more interested in the Alex/Bryan coupling than the Zoe/Magnus one. Just saying.

The Bad: To say it was "bad" isn't necessarily fair, but I was totally bored by the paranormal aspects in this novel. It was all just too precious for words. Magnus' reasons for not lovin' up on Zoe. Zoe talking to dead people. Zoe having a horde of teeny-tiny fairies follow her around and do her hair. Me rolling my eyes. Hell, there's even a kitten. I was just so not interested. After a while I was skipping the sections that featured anything paranormal (and there were more than a few) just to get to the hot lovin'. Of course after a while I even got a little bored with that (I'm making a doctor's appointment as I type this) and ended up skimming the last 100 pages.

Final Verdict: I hate assigning a grade to this, but what the hell - I'm giving it a C. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't my cuppa. It's well written and very erotic - but, ugh, paranormal! That said, I urge anyone who isn't annoyed by paranormal crap, fairies and isn't turned off by the hot gay lurve to give this book a go. It's got massive keeper potential. Just not for me.

Now on to something else...

The First Three Letters Are D-I-E

I hope that by admitting it publicly I'll be shamed into developing some will power.

Yes, I'm on a diet. I started it this morning. Which means in another couple of hours I'll be ready to throw myself off a cliff.

Why am I torturing myself? I've gotten too heavy. I am 5'9", but that's no excuse for putting on the weight that I have. Plus, my eating habits are truly atrocious. Personally I think vegetables taste like tree bark, but everyone keeps telling me I should be eating them.

So what is the plan?

• Eat less.

• Skip the fast food. None. Zilch. Nada.

• Drink more water.

• No soda.

• No happy, fun, delicious junk food in the apartment.

• Exercise a little bit every day. Even if it's for only 10 minutes. That's way better than what I was doing which was not exercising at all. I'm also going to incorporate quick walks on my lunch break at work.

What I won't be doing?

• Giving up chocolate. There would be a dozen dead bodies within 24 hours. Instead I hope to limit my intake and try to satisfy my cravings with lower calorie alternatives.

• Giving up sweetened tea. I need my morning caffeine and I need it sweetened. Plus I figure a spoonful of honey is way better than dumping some bizarre, chemically engineered sweetener in my tea.

• Weighing myself constantly. I weighed myself yesterday and don't plan to step on the scale again for a month.
  

• Beat myself up if I stumble. Frankly I fully expect to have "bad days." I've already got one marked on the calender. The southern California bloggers hope to get together on the 29th and I just don't see myself saying "no" to dessert.
  

My goals?

• My dream is to get back down to a size 10. The men reading this blog post are probably thinking "OMG, what a heifer!" but I was a size 10 when I graduated college and was very happy at that weight. Plus, I'm 5'-frickin'-9" and come from good German and English farming stock. Wearing a size 6 again would mean looking like Nicole Ritchie, and frankly me (and my doctor) don't want to go there.
  

• Lose fat, gain some muscle, lose weight (God, I can hope!)

Cripes, I'm depressed. Anyone got some surefire weight loss tips that don't result in surgery scars, dead bodies or mental illness? This girl needs all the help she can get. In the meantime, a little dieting humor:

Family Affair

The Super Librarian Parental Units left this morning. As I type this, they are hovering over Texas somewhere. Which means once I get caught up at work, everything will sort of be back to normal around here.

Today also marks my baby sister's birthday (she comments on the blog as Lil' Sis). She's 29 years old today.

No, really. She honestly turned 29 today.

Now my 29th (and 30th) birthdays were spent sobbing into my pillow. Not that I think the Lil' Sis is doing this. No, she's probably out behaving like the respectable high school English teacher that she is - throwing back Jello shots at the nearest hole-in-wall bar. Damn near brings a tear to my eye thinking about it.

I wanted to commemorate the day - but what to get the girl who just caught one of her students getting stoned in the school bathroom last week? How about a little hip-hop celebration? So let's give the Lil' Sis a proper Super Librarian Bat Cave salute! Bob your heads and wave those hands in the air like you just don't care!

I'm Too Sexy For My Hat

Yes, the Super Librarian Parental Units are still in town until Saturday morning. And might I add, my vacation has been absolutely fabulous darlings!

I've been skimming through my Google Reader, but doing very little commenting. If you find that you're missing my glowing web presence a bit too much, might I suggest shameless flattery? Take a page from Jane's book. She's clever, is our Jane.

In other news, I'm not reading a lick and I'm completely uninspired by Fairyville. I'm talking Should I Just Skim It And Get It Over With uninspired. And if I'm to believe the vast majority of the comments on the web, I'm in a very small minority here. I'm thinking it's time for electroshock therapy - or else a nice long rant on why I think I'm burnt out on paranormals. The theory is still in the percolating phase, and I'm thinking it's ideal for the Romancing The Blog column I have due on the 22nd. Stay tuned. I tend to be wishy-washy when it comes to RtB columns.

Bad Blogger, No Cookie For You

I know I haven't been the best blogger lately, and here I am announcing that my web presence will probably be nil for the next week.

The Super Librarian parents arrive this morning for a week long visit! So that means actually spending time with the them (the horrors!) and taking a whole week off work. It also means I won't be chained to my computer as usual. Expect "blog-skimming" and very little commenting - although I should be able to keep up with my e-mail (ha!).

I was really hoping to have Fairyville by Emma Holly read before they arrived, but no such luck. I've seen some comments around BlogLand already about how much people loved it, which isn't too surprising. I think it will be a keeper for a lot of people, just not me. Why? I'm a piss-pot who hates change. I'm working on it though. It's hot, it's vintage Holly, the relationships are good, but dang why did it have to be a paranormal? ::stamping my foot like a petulant Regency heroine::

I know, this is completely irrational behavior of me. But dang, I just want my straight-up contemporary erotica from Holly. I know she probably doesn't want to do the same thing, over and over again - but ::whimper::, I really dislike the paranormal/erotica trend. I don't really have a good reason for this, but I suspect it's because I'm tired of "everything" being paranormal these days and frankly, it's never been my favorite sub genre. Paranormals can work for me (and have!), but in small doses. What with the current Big Paranormal Push, I'm practically OD-ing. Although, you'll notice it hasn't slowed down my book buying at all.

And dontcha know it should be all about me! Me, me, me! Cater to my every whim! I don't understand what publishers find so hard about this idea.

But despite my irrationality, Fairyville is good so far. I'm just not happy unless I'm whining about something. At the very least it should make for an interesting review, assuming I can stop whining long enough to finish the book.

Everybody have a happy week ahead, and I'll see you around the blogosphere!

The Boyfriend Is Away, So Wendy Will Play

The Boyfriend left for Las Vegas last night (for a business trip, or so he claims), so after I dropped him off at the airport I hit Borders. I have a Borders Visa card, which earns me Borders gift certificates, and thanks to the obscene amount of money I put on my credit card last month (hey, my car insurance was due!) I had $25 burning a hole in my pocket. I only planned to pick up two (possibly three) books while there, but was it my fault they were having a Buy 4 Romances, Get The 5th Free sale? So here's what I got:

Shadows Of The Soul by Jenna Black - I really enjoyed the first book in this paranormal series, although I know some readers felt it was kind of "been there, done that." I picked up the second book at RWA's Literacy Signing and this is book three.

Klondike Wedding by Kate Bridges - It's a Harlequin Historical western and I always try to buy these new. I really need to go on a Bridges reading bender. I have a ridiculous amount of her books in my TBR. Neither here nor there, I rather liked one of her early books, The Midwife's Secret.

Dangerous Lover by Lisa Marie Rice (WTF? An ebook author with no web site? I'm sorry that's all kind of fudged up) - I needed a 5th book to take advantage of the sale and they didn't have the book I wanted in stock (Ever Wonderful by Kim Louise), so I picked up this one. Everyone else in Romance Blogland seems to have liked it, and I'm always on the lookout for new authors that can deliver sexy reads.

Die For Me by Karen Rose - I couldn't get into Have You Seen Her? but I loved Count To Ten and this one looks really good. I think Rose is The Next Big Thing in romantic suspense. I fully expect her to make the jump to hardcover within the next couple of years (but what do I know?)

Fairyville by Emma Holly - I'm an Emma Holly fangirl, at least as far as her erotica goes (most of her mainstream stuff is still sitting in the TBR). This one has a paranormal slant to it, and I'll be honest, I'm less than excited by that prospect (I like my erotica either historical or straight up contemporary - that's just the way it is). Any other author I might have waited to read some reviews, but this is Emma Holly people! It's also my next read.

Big Girls Don't Cry by Cathie Linz - OK, I didn't buy this one. I won a contest over at Paperback Reader and in exchange for this book, I have to write a review that they'll post on their site. It's been eons since I've read a straight-up contemporary romance and I've been meaning to try Linz for quite some time.

My book buying is pretty much done for the month (gee, ya think?). That said, I really want that Kim Louise book and Tess Gerritsen's new book is out on the 18th.

Look Ma, I Finished A Book!

I can't believe it, I finally managed to finish reading a whole book! Lucky for me, it was a particularly good one. Last Lullaby by Denise Hamilton is the third book in her Eve Diamond, Los Angeles Times reporter series. This one started out a bit slow for me, but hot damn, what an ending!

Eve is at LAX shadowing a U.S. Customs officer for a story she's working on. Then gunfire erupts in the middle of the terminal. A beautiful Asian woman is dead, her "husband" vanishing into thin air, and their toddler swept up by INS. Eve can barely piece together what happened, what she thinks she saw, but she knows one thing for certain - this poor child is in the middle of a very big mess. So Eve starts snooping and soon finds her own life in danger. Mix in the reappearance of her long-lost ex-boyfriend, Tim, and the man she started seeing in the last book (Sugar Skull), Silvio, and even her love life gets complicated.

It could just have been me and my wacky reading mood, but Last Lullaby seemed to start out a bit slow. I'm going to chalk it up the sheer confusion surrounding the LAX shoot-out and the fact that it takes a 100 pages for Eve to meet all of the players. That said, the whole novel really cooks starting at the halfway point. There are some things I think Eve should have known straight away. I mean, it's never good news when an ex-boyfriend shows up unannounced, and if she read more mystery novels there are certain aspects of the ending she really should have seen coming. But what's great here is that Hamilton weaves a rather complex tapestry - so while some things I saw coming, others took me completely by surprise. It's really damn clever.

In my mind there are four premiere locales for mystery writing - New York City, Miami, Detroit and Los Angeles. Hamilton has L.A. down cold. Hamilton's L.A. isn't glitzy Hollywood glamor (or sleaze), but more what I call the "real L.A." The blue-collar melting pot, brimming with multiple nationalities and ethnicities. They're pretty much all represented here in southern California - the American Dream in practice, although not always running smoothly.

All that said, Last Lullaby was by the far the toughest book in the series to read to date (hey, I've got two more to go). Eve goes through a lot over the course of this book. A lot. Some of it really heart-wrenching and unpleasant. It makes for a powerful read, but also kind of a sad one. I know Eve will be "OK," but this poor girl! Hamilton really sends her through the wringer!

But for readers who can handle the grit - oh what a read! Smoke and mirrors, love and betrayal, heartbreak and sorrow. Mystery fans take note. Final Grade = B+

I Need To Stop Now

Yes, I'm still not reading. So what do I do? Go out and get more books of course! It's really not my fault. Truly. It's all the fault of those evil landlords for jacking up rent and making the area's largest used bookstore go out of business.

I've already hit the store once since they announced they were closing (incidentally, with Rosie), but at that time I was smart and left my Harlequin shopping list at home. See, I always get in trouble when I take my Harlequin list to the UBS because they have an obscene amount of series titles. Well this time I brought my list with me. In my defense I think the heat we've been experiencing in southern California finally cooked the brain cells I didn't kill off with alcohol in college (for the record, it was a balmy 109 degrees where I live today).

I walked out of there with 22 books. Imagine how deadly it would have been if I had found any of the Harlequin Historical titles I was looking for. Don't ask me when I'll read them or why I think I need more books - but there they are, sitting on the sofa in our home office. Seriously, it must have been the heat. That, and the fact that they were 50% off.

I really have an unhealthy addiction to the Harlequin SuperRomance line. I might want to get help for that. But every series reader should have at least one line they adore above all reason - and I figure better HSR than ::shudder:: Harlequin Presents.

(I'm kidding. Honestly, kidding! I can joke about the HP line because I love me Harlequin oh so much. And better I make fun of The Greek Billionaire's Secret Virgin Mistress than some ass-hat who thinks every romance published is a "Harlequin bodice ripper")

In other news, A Certain Awesome Harlequin Historical Author sent me a copy of A Western Winter Wonderland by Cheryl St. John, Jenna Kernan and Pam Crooks - which arrived this weekend. My favorite part was looking at the package, which was addressed to My Name, Super Librarian. I showed The Boyfriend who got a bit of an incredulous look on his face. To which I said, "See, people have heard of my great power! Well at least as far as Nebraska."

Today Nebraska, tomorrow the world!

Now I really need to think about getting some reading done.