The Ninja Reader

There is something very comforting about my study-time romance/erotica binges. They are scary when they happen, but I've had enough of them to know they won't kill me (necessarily.)

So. Yeah. I found out that Carolyn Crane, one of my all-time-favourite authors, writes erotica under an alias, and 30 minutes later I'd downloaded this bundle to read. (I put up a valiant struggle. That half hour was very difficult indeed.) The books won, and I ended up reading the lot in under 24 hours, which for me is almost unheard of.

First things first, yes, you read the title right. No, I'm not going to try to justify it. No, I'm not going to tell you it's not what you think because I bet 50% of you are already reading the excerpts on Amazon and are finding out for yourselves. (Pro tip - you always get a longer excerpt if you click the preview of the bundle rather than the individual book. You'd still want to read the rest, though.) The story centers around Melinda, a small-town girl forced to work for a man she hates to save her parents' farm. She's suffocated by her life and loathes her boss and wants nothing better than to leave it all. Luck smiles down on her when an armed takeover happens at the bank where she works, and she all but jumps on the opportunity to help the robbers. 

Then there are complications, she gets taken on as a hostage by the three guys (Hold onto your glasses, my nerdy girlfriends) Zeus, Odin and Thor. The plan is, initially, to take her for a ride and drop her off, but after finding a strange kinship with the three, Melinda (now Isis) manages to negotiate her way into the group for until the next heist, and eventually, indefinitely. And, because this is erotica, you can guess exactly what the negotiations involve.

If you're like me and you've read all of Carolyn Crane's books, you know what to expect - fun plots, guys with a tortured past who are still fucking awesome, romantic couples (or, in this case, romantic units) treating each other with respect, sexy nerdiness and really, really good sexytimes. (And if anyone thought the Disillusionists or the Associates didn't have enough boinking, this is for you.) 

(Nope, totally unrelated except for the awesome. You're very welcome.)

And, because I've seen complaints about this, here's a belated disclaimer: this is a m ménage story involving four consenting adults engaging in a respectful, polyamorous, BDSM relationship. The reason why I wanted to sum up the beginning for you was because it's very easy for those hostage-scenarios to slip into Stockholm syndrome territory, and goodness knows we've had plenty of examples where these go wrong. I almost didn't buy the books because of the promise of that put me off, and it wasn't until I read some reviews that I even took a look inside. (Not that Stockholm syndrome-type stories can't be good. It's just that I've seen way too many of them go very badly.)

And I'm so glad I did. Isis is awesome, and while Odin, Thor and Zeus are messed up in their own ways, they still have their shit together and treat her with respect. It's a fine line to toe when you have one domineering alpha male - add three to the mix and you have potential for disaster. Luckily, Isis is just as good at holding her own as they are, even when she submits.

Speaking of submission, it's refreshing to read a series where there is not one scene of angst about the heroine being in love with three guys at once, and no weirdness about the BDSM either. Isis is a self-admitted thrill-junkie and she's damn proud of it. And yeah, there is a subplot about "rescuing" her tortured men, but it's more about the four of them adjusting their expectations like adults, which isn't something I get often from my romance.

I'm thinking about hosting a 2015 re-read challenge for the Lantern. Would there be many of you interested in joining in? Have any of you done this kind of thing before? If so, how was it? Let me know.

Does anyone have any recommendations for critical readings? I'm going through the articles linked on Wikipedia, in particular in regards to objections of black feminists to SlutWalks, but I would appreciate any more if you have them.

Team Bibliodaze share the best and worst books of 2014. Come share your thoughts with us! 

Not a book-related post this time, but one about New Year's resolutions and what it might actually take to keep them.

Saw the last Hobbit. For those of you wondering what you're getting in for, here's the low down:

- if you haven't seen the second movie and you're going along with the group, that's okay - you'll catch on with most conflicts pretty quickly

- every third shot is of the movies has the actors posing like they're competing for the poster (meaning the camera work is spot on)

I was surprised, when doing my 2014 prequels and sequels round-up, that I didn't have a review of "Prodigy" up. I thought I did. I definitely remembered reading it and having a minor crisis over the ending. I suspect I set writing the review aside, wanting to give it my full attention in exploring the themes of this deep, challenging book...

Or maybe I just didn't have much to write about?

Check out my review on the Lantern.

Featuring best finished series, most anticipated of 2015, and other categories.

Also, I'm wondering if I want to host a 2015 re-read challenge. Let me know if that's something you guys might be interested in, and if you've hosted one before, how you might go about it.

Happy weekend.

This is not a writing book. Instead, an Olympic rowing champion turned business coach and his partner take some established strategies for winning in sports and translate them into advice and exercies to take to your business practice. It can be anything – multi-million transnational corporation, an SME, or even, yes, writing. From motivating yourself, through realistic goal setting, through dealing with set-backs, all the way to actually winning, this was a treasure I was lucky to come upon while working this summer, and not just because it was well-written.

Read more over at iamnevergettingpublished.wordpress.com

And 4 other cooking-related metaphors for writing.

...because my life is complete. There's something about Carolyn Crane's characters that just reminds of chili hot chocolate, or salted caramel, or even wasabi white chocolate cupcakes (yes, that is a Marian Keyes reference. Believe it!) Looking at them in theory, they are a mixture of traits that should not coexist, and yet in her books, they work so well, you can't believe how you lived without this. (Hence why I'm rationing her Disillusionists series like nobody's business, because I don't want to be left without a Crane book unread. Yes, I am one of those people.)

Anyway, "The Associates" series are romantic suspense, which is kinda like the Disillusionists series, but without the paranormal aspect. That's okay, though, we have a super-secret organization that fights crime independently of the government that is entirely comprised of geeks agents. And by geek agent, I mean super-hot dudes with obscure areas of specialization that go deep undercover in the worst criminal groups imaginable. They can do what they have to do without any sort of public accountability, but also without having to rely on obscure politics and funding to do their job. Your mileage on that may vary, but I found it didn't marr my enjoyment of the series, mostly because everyone involved is awesome beyond belief. 

"Against the Dark" is the story of Cole, a maths geek who enlists the help of a retired jewel thief to get some documents from the safe of a sadistic crime boss and save a bunch of kids from a horrible death. In "Off the Edge", a singer on the run from her abusive husband and a linguistics expert are thrown together in a race to stop a weapon of mass destruction to be sold off to the highest bidder. And "Into the Shadows" has a deep undercover pretending to investigate a series of sweatshop raids, not knowing that the woman behind them is his former lover, or that she gave birth to his child.

Right off the bat, we're thrown into a world of high stakes, where everyone has something to lose and not always something to win. All three books benefit from excellent pacing, with action and lulls coming at just the right moment - it's a reminder that, in the right hands, a multiple third person POV can be pulled off and it can be pulled off quite well. I don't think I would have enjoyed some of these characters half as much if I didn't spend some time in their heads, and learnt their motivations only in the end. Difficult lot, they are.

And I really, really liked how Crane didn't shy from making her male characters well and truly (and I mean truly) broken. Cole, Macmillan and Thorne aren't just a bunch of blokes with a lot of manpain - they all have painful pasts and those pasts massively fucked them up, to the point where they are all barely able to function normally. Now, you might think this opens up the whole "healed by love" can of worms, but I think the series manages to escape it, largely due to how it handles its characters' brokenness. 

To put it in another way, there are books out there that make a point of discussing the male character having a mental health problem of a sorts so that can introduce a relationship conflict (see: 50 Shades of Gray.) But having a mental illness doesn't make you unfit to love and live a fulfilling life, and you don't have to be "healed" before you can have all those good things. "The Associates" books don't go out of their way to spell out just what the guys' problems are. Nor do the heroines entertain any notions that men can be "healed" - they are quite broken up themselves, actually. They find a middle road, and there is no better way to sum it up than this piece of dialogue:

"You have to let some things and some people be fucked up," she said.

"How?" he said.

"You just do," she whispered.

- Against the Dark, location 2345, Kindle Edition

Amen to that.

Nora Roberts is the Stephen King of romance - incredibly prolific (to the point of repetitiveness, but hey, why re-invent the wheel?), has been around for a long time, and you know exactly what you're getting from her works. Depending on the book and time of day, you may love the story or you may think it was the biggest waste of your time, but you always come back, hoping that the next one would be more hit than miss.

(As for how I became such a Roberts "conoisseuse", it can be summed up as: Like menstrual cramps, I've grown to accept Roberts cravings as a part of my life.) (It's an accurate comparison - both periods and romance novels put me in a chocolate mood.)

You don't need to look further than the "Born In" series if you want an example of that. Three books, centered around three sisters, their family secrets, and of course, the handsome men in their lives, the stories are both heartwarming and infuriating, although as someone who has read Nora Roberts novels from the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s, I might say that she does move with the times.

And if you pick up these books, you will constantly need to bear their "age" in mind, because damn, these are dated! And I don't mean charmingly dated as in: OMG, they're using typewriters! And they don't need to get to an airport 4+ hours early to get through security! I mean dated as in the conflict here doesn't make sense unless you remember it's the early 90s. 

After the death of their father, Maggie and Brie Concannon are left with a difficult, hateful mother and no idea what to do. Maggie, who is a master glassblower, sets out to make money with her art, while Brie, who is more of a homemaker, turns their old house into a B&B and looks after their mother. After a while, the  two discover their father had an affair, which resulted in the birth of a third sister, Shannon, who comes from New York after the death of her parents to meet them. The three sisters have their respective romances and mini character arcs, but the overarching story is one where they deal with the legacy of their parents - especially because Mrs. Concannon, Maggie and Brie's mother, is a spiteful, abusive shrew who pretty much fucked up her daughters' lives because she got pregnant with Maggie and was forced to give up a successful career as a singer.

The themes of following your dreams, balancing art and profits, and having a career while married, are seeped into these books like the syrup in a cake, sometimes to the point of being annoying. Some of the things Maeve Concannon does to her daughters are downright abusive, and yet the books never really acknowledge just how psychotic she comes across. In fact, by the end of the series, her character is reduced to this grumpy, crochety old lady that is all bark and no bite, and her daughters eventually forgive her because... kin? I dunno.

Balancing art and profit might be the theme that really sells this series, though. In the first book, Maggie falls in love with Rogan, an arts dealer, but not before making a big deal about not selling her artistic integrity. (Which he didn't ask for to begin with.) In the second, Brie meets Grayson, a writer with no permanent home and a Tortured Past (TM), and who eventually decides to settle down with he. Shannon's book is about her coming to Ireland, falling in love, feeling bad because she has a high-flying career in New York as an ads artist, but eventually settles down because big corporations suck and being away inspires her to draw "properly" again.

Hence why this series is such a mixed bag for me.

Brie and Grayson's romance is easily the one I like best because it's the one that strikes me as the most realistic. (That, or I'm a sucker for stories where a woman, for once in her life, isn't the one to sacrifice everything for love.) I liked Maggie and Rogan well enough, but after a while, the drama started to seem overwrought. And as for Shannon...

Oh, Shannon.

Okay, first things first - I get it that she's lost and dissatisfied. I get it. Sometimes jobs can be difficult, careerism without anything else to balance it is soul-destroying, and Shannon is portrayed as having one hell of an identity crisis after she  discovers her father was not her father. But not all corporations are bad, not all corporate art is bad, and there's no need to present one type of art as better than another. Maggie was disdainful of Shannon's job before they even met, and the book doesn't really go out of its way to point out there is more than one way to be happy. 

Also, the whole "we were lovers in another life" thing with Murphy? It annoyed me throughout the whole book. Surely there were more organic ways to make their romance develop than whipping out a can of Insta Love. 

Totally unrelated aside: Does anybody else get annoyed at this trend in romance where obscene displays of wealth are seen as signs of affection? I get it that some peeps have money to burn and how they burn it is their business, but why is that in nearly every romance I read? Surely there's better ways of doing that, right?

I've been eyeing this one to buy for a while, mostly because the foreword was really, really good (and hunger-inducing) but I dunno. I'm on the lookout for interesting websites and recipes so if you have any reccs, send them my way.

We've got romance, we've got cookbooks, we've got YA, we even have a YA book that doesn't know it's YA. It's the season for adding whipped cream and marshmallows to everything, so why not enjoy some guilty pleasure reads along the way?

I've got 7, but I'd love to hear some suggestions from you guys as well.