You Give Love a Bad Name

I have a little sideline as a book reviewer for an online company. It's voluntary... no money exchanging hands... and I'm "paid" in books (as in I keep all the books I review) which is fine by me. The books are often ARC's (Advance Reading Copies) which means I get to ready the book before it is actually published. And many times I am able to discover a wonderful book or author that I otherwise might never have known about. Some books I have liked more than others, some reviews have been easier to write than others, but overall I really have not read/reviewed a book that I truly disliked. Until now.

I just finished one with a plot so wretchedly bad that I have no clue how I am going to write the review. It was a historical romance with a heroine who was a courtesan but had just left the city to start a new life. She is kidnapped by her former "benefactor" as he is obsessed with her. He spirits her away to his remote hunting lodge and begins to engage in forcible sex with her. Imagine my surprise when it dawned on me that this was the "hero" of the novel. Silly me - I was waiting for someone to come save the woman. Now imagine my utter disbelief when, in the span of three week, the "hero" begins to soften, the heroine begins to fall in love with him, and yes, at the end they wind up together. Spare me! The "hero" was nothing more than a felonious, overbearing, self-centered, kidnapping, rapist. And I, as the reader, am supposed to eventually feel empathy for this character and cheer on a happy ending? I don't think so!

Let me say, that I have nothing against historical romances - or the romance genre in general. Many of them are very well written and great reads. But it is trite, no-really-means-yes, regurgitated plots like this one that give romance novels a bad name. Now I'm off to figure out a way to review this book without completely decimating it.

Grown-up's Need Naps, Too

I am deep in the post-lunch slump. Tired, sleepy, sluggish, even fighting to keep my eyes open. It's official... I need a nap. It's not even like I had anything heavy for lunch. Greek chicken salad, left over from last night's dinner. I might need to indulge in a bit of sugar to get me going. My sugar rush of choice? Not cookies, not chocolate, not candy... Coke! Fully leaded, heavy duty Coke. Yep, definitely need a Coke. Otherwise my head will be hitting the keyboard at any moment and all you would see would zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Oops! LOL :)

Three Degrees of Separation

Okay, everyone has heard of the whole Six Degrees of Separation thing, right? Well, I just learned that I'm a measly three degrees from Heidi Swapp. LOL Allow me to explain: I have a friend/co-worker named Kathy. She has a son named Chris (who I have met many times) who works for Advantus. They're the people behind Cropper Hopper, Tim Holtz and Heidi Swapp products. I've known for a while that they are headquartered here locally and that Chris works for them (heading up their consumer show division) but I just never put two and two together. A few days ago Kathy came over and told me to pull up Heidi's blog. There are several pics from the CHA show including one (about midway thru her post) of several people posing in Heidi's booth. The guy standing on the far left is Chris... kneeling in front is Heidi! He's even mentioned by name in her post. Kewl! Chris told Kathy he'd get me an autographed 'something' next time he sees her. I can just feel the Heidi Coolness surrounding me now. With a connection like this... we're practically sisters! LOL

The Weight of the World

I'm a "fixer". And a peacekeeper. Always have been. I don't know if it comes from being the middle child (I've read these are common traits to middle children) or if it's just how I am. I definitely have a tendency to take people's problems on as my own. I worry over it and try to fix whatever is wrong just as if it was my own issue. In many ways this goes against my nature, because I am so not a worrier and tend to have quite the sunny outlook, but there it is just the same. All morning I've felt like something was slightly off, just quietly niggling at me in the back of my mind. And I finally figured out what it is. One of my sisters is skipping tonight's monthly dinner (me, my mom and two sisters meet for dinner once night a month) for a reason that is hard to understand. I won't go into details... because revealing things about myself is one thing but I don't have the right to reveal details about someone else's life. But it's a long standing issue and one that is not likely to change. And it makes me sad. Simple as that. It's something that weighs me down from time to time and I wish I could simply shake it off with the knowledge that it is simply not something I can control or change. But... it's my sister. There's no shaking that off. When something is bothering someone I love... I want to fix it. Can't help it... that's me. But this one - I'm going to have to find a way to set it down and stop carrying it with me.

L*O*N*D*O*N

It's official! Come late April Robert and I will be jetting overseas for a week in London. I am simply beside myself with excitement! I am such a total Anglophile and have wanted to visit England (London, specifically) for 20+ years... since I was a teenager. Whoo hoo! We started talking about it seriously around the first of the year when we started knocking around this year's vacation plans. When we started looking into airfare and itineraries we realized that it wasn't quite as expensive as we had anticipated. So, after comparison shopping through the Internet, travel agents, etc., we ended up booking through AARP (no old age jokes, if you please - LOL). We'll be gone for a full week and will actually celebrate our 8 year wedding anniversary while there. How cool is that? :-) As an added bonus, I've done some checking and Phantom of the Opera will be playing while we're there and I think we're going to go ahead and buy tickets. I mean, does it get any better? (In case you can't tell, I'm quite a Phantom fan.) We'll be staying in Notting Hill and I've already started a list of things I want to do and place I want to go: Harrod's naturally, Waterstone's, Marks & Spencer, Boots. And, yes, I've already done a search for scrap stores in London and you can be sure I'll be checking those out. LOL There's so much to do in the next 3 months (passport is already in the works) but I can't wait. This is truly a dream of mine come true.