New Anne Stuart Trilogy

Some of you may know I'm a huge Anne Stuart fan (Cindy - I'm talking to you - where are you girl?). Anyway, I was cruising on over to Ms. Stuart's website and discovered she has a new trilogy coming out with the first book set to release August 1. Woohoo!

Yeah, I know, most of you already know this, but with school and all I have missed the newest developments in the romance book world.

Another cool thing is that a FREE e-book prequel titled The Wicked House of Rohan is available for download from eHarlequin starting July 1 (yesterday).  Another woohoo!






The books all have lovely covers with the first book titled Ruthless. Here they are:

I can hardly wait!

Best of 2008 List

So far. I still have a few more 2008 books to read that are sitting on my nightstand. (I "stole" this idea from DearAuthor).

• The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne, Grade A
  
• Mine to Possess by Nalini Singh, Grade A-
• Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas, Grade A-
• Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas, Grade A-
• Moonstruck by Susan Grant, Grade A-
• Delicious by Sherry Thomas, Grade A-
• Unlawful Contact by Pamela Clare, Grade B+
• The Last Twilight by Marjorie M. Lui, Grade B+
• Sex, Straight Up by Kathleen O'Reilly, Grade B+
• Tempted by Megan Hart, Grade B+
• Tall Tales and Wedding Veils by Jane Graves, Grade B+
  
• Fire and Ice by Anne Stuart, Grade B+
  
• Exposing Casey by Deanna Lee, Grade B+
• Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin
• Cutting Loose by Tara Janzen, Grade B+
• Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase, Grade B+
• Demon Night by Meljean Brook, Grade B+

Whew. That's quite a lot of books. I still have a few 2008 books to read before AAR's annual poll that may end up on this list. Most notibly:

• Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh (love every book I have read by this author)
• Broken Wing by Judith James (Kristie loved this book so this one has possibilities since she and I think alike so many times)

Reading Now: Guess what!? Broken Wing! I just cracked the first two pages. I better get back to reading :)

Recent Book Order

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments about my "laid off" news. And for reminding me that other people have it worse than me. I'm pretty lucky. Bob and I paid off our mortgage in 2003 which is probably the smartest thing we ever did. Bob is part owner of a business but he has no retirement so my salary was basically our retirement money. Our biggest worry is the value of our retirement money due to the stock market crash. *sigh* My stomach can't handle any more worry so I choose not to think about it now.

I have been updating my resume, filing for unemployment (I get $541/week... not bad, really), and working on recovering my dining room chairs, and cleaning out some closets.

Plus I bought some new track lighting for the living room. It's just too dark in there and I thought it would brighten it up. Bob put it up yesterday with some help from me. Whew! Man, I can't tell you how many times I heard the f-bomb and other assorted cuss words. The living room has a 12-foot ceiling and he had to crawl up in the attic with all the insulation and pull wiring through the wall while I pushed the wire from down below. I came close to being knocked out when a metal rod fell from the ceiling! Bob came downstairs yelling "Are you OK, I could have killed you!" Nice, honey. Missed me by a whole 2 feet.

Anyway, I have been doing lots of reading too. And I spent my gift certificate money that I won from Cindy. Here's what I bought:


Warrior: The Time Hunters by Angela Knight






Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh






Delicious by Sherry Thomas

Yum! I already finished this one and loved it. Setting is a Victorian Historical with heroine who is a chef and hero who is a MP. Made me hungry and put me in the mood to do some cooking. I may have to write a review of this one.


Reading now: The Marriage Bed by Stephanie Mittman.
This is an oldie (1996) that I just found at a UBS. Can't remember how it got on my list. Somebody raved about it on their blog (maybe Kristie or Cindy? - can't remember). I've only read a couple pages and I can tell it will probably be a tear jerker - which I love. We'll see.

Mary Balogh rocks!

I have been a fan of Mary Balogh's since the early 1980's when I stumbled upon her traditional regency romances accidentally. I started hanging onto her books when I realized I couldn't part with them.... my first author glommed. Her books were probably the most sensual regencies out there but still mostly subtle compared to today's historical romances. I was happy when she eventually started writing regency historicals with much warmer sex scenes which include her usual writing style that I love.

Recently I joined her Yahoo!Group for her fans MaryBaloghFans. They discuss lots of topics related to historical romances not just MB's books. Mary visits there often and is happy to answer questions from her fans. Last week she posted that she had visited a local UBS where she found a shelf full of her old traditional regencies... about 20 of them. All were on sale for low prices. Amazing. These books are very collectible and you sometimes see prices for them from $20 - $30, maybe more. So she offered them for sale at $5 each and did a drawing to pick a winner for each book.

And guess what?? I won one! The Ungrateful Governess. I just got it in the mail along with a leather Mary Balogh bookmark. And both were autographed to me! What a classy lady. Did I mention that she's Canadian (I have a great fondness for Canadians) which explains her coolness :)

For those MB fans, I learned from her Yahoo Group that The Ideal Wife is being reissued this year and A Precious Jewel next year. She says "There should be a new contract for more backlist books in the near future. I'll pass on details then." I hope some of those really rare traditional regency books (The Notorious Rake, etc.) get reprinted so others can enjoy them.

Favorite 2007 books

I just submitted my ballot for AAR's 2007 Annual Reader Poll so using my spreadsheet I compiled a list of my 2007 favorites and thought I would share. Not all of these books actually made it to my ballot but I enjoyed them all to one degree or another. I have reviewed most of these so I have included link. I'm working on quick reviews of the rest.


The Serpent Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt (A)
Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas (A)
Demon Moon by Meljean Brook (A-)
Broken by Megan Hart (A-)
Up Close and Dangerous by Linda Howard(A-)
Natural Born Charmer by SEP (A-)
Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair (A-)
Caressed by Ice by Nalini Singh (A-)
Lover Revealed by J.R. Ward (A-)
Demon Angel by Meljean Brook (B+)
Play Dirty by Sandra Brown (B+)
Claiming the Courtesan by Anna Campbell (B+)
Mad Dash by Patricia Gaffney (B+)
Hot Wheels & High Heels by Jane Graves (B+)
Dirty by Megan Hart (B+)
The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt (B+)
Salvation, Texas by Anna Jeffrey (B+)
Beau Crusoe by Carla Kelly (B+)
Driven by Eve Kenin (B+)
High Plains Bride by Jenna Kernan (B+)
Innocent in Death by J.D. Robb (B+)
Visions of Heat by Nalini Singh (B+)
Ice Storm by Anne Stuart (B+)
Wild, Wild West by Charlene Teglia (B+)

I'll post my ballot later.

Strange sight and other stuff

Saw something strange today. I was driving to work this morning when I came to a stop light. Crossing the road in front of me in the crosswalk was a young woman (probably mid-20's) who was reading a hardback book while crossing the street. It looked like she was on the last few pages but sheesh!, does she have a death wish or something. Now I have been known to read while walking back in my college days but never while crossing the street. I live in an area where pedestrians have more rights than drivers but still people have been known to be killed in a crosswalk even around here. You can't trust drivers to actually see you. And to top it off, it was raining! So the pages had to have been getting wet. Must have been a really good book. Wonder what it was :)

I'm a software tester and I use a computer constantly everyday. Using my mouse has been causing me pain and severe coldness in my right hand for the last year or so. I've been trying to use my left hand for my mouse and trying to learn keyboard shortcuts which has helped a little. I decided to buy a new wireless mouse which is ambidextrous so I can use it with either hand. I came across a review at cnet.com for wireless mouses (or mice) and the top rated one seemed to fill the bill. It's made for smaller hands (yeah, I have small hands and small feet - completely out of proportion to my butt) and can be used with either hand. It has a scroll wheel that is the fastest one on the market - it really screams. And the mouse is wireless so I can move it anywhere on my desk or even to my lap. I like to keep it on the left side of my keyboard and I use it with either hand. I'm getting pretty good at using it with my left hand, but when I'm in a hurry I can use my right hand. Yeah, it was pricey but worth it. Almost no pain or coldness in my hand/arm now.

I went through my spreadsheet and came up with a list of more than 125 books of my favorite books for AAR's Top 100 Romances poll. You have until October 31st to submit it but I'd like to get it done before that. I still need to trim it down but putting it in order of preference is going to be a very difficult task.

I came across this link about the cheapest days to buy certain items to get the best deals. Check it out. Under Books is says that the cheapest day to buy is Thursday.

Reading now: The Serpent Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt and it has a fascinating hero whose wit just leaps off the pages. The heroine is well done too. I just came across a very funny dinner scene that had me laughing out loud. KristieJ just reviewed it and gave it a top score and put it on her Top 100 Romances list. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing the same thing when I finish it. What's everyone reading now?

Spring cleaning

No, not the house or the yard. The TBR mountain. I don't know what the hell got into me lately but I got this powerful urge to clean it out. I had about 250 books in there and it occurred to me that I will probably NEVER read a bunch of those books. I have tried cleaning it out numerous times before but was never very successful at it.

But this time I was ruthless (well, more ruthless). It's now down to 197 so far. I could no longer remember why I had bought some of them. I may have seen a good review or saw a recommendation on a message board, or got out of control at a library used book sale, but now I had no clue why I had them. Lots of them were categories and I read very few categories anymore (what was I thinking?) It feels so good! I posted them at PBS so maybe I'll get more credits.

I'm not sure how many more I'm going to purge, maybe 20 or 30 more, but some I just won't part with (including 10 old categories by Anne Stuart).

I feel the urge to go shopping for more books. Hmm, weird.

Purging books from Mt. TBR

I'm really making an effort. Well, for me anyway.

Looked at spreadsheet: 128 categories romances. Yikes. No wonder I'm feeling guilty.

Where should I start? Alphabetically, of course. Hmmm, the A's, so that means first one at the top of the spreadsheet was Guarding Jane Doe by Harper Allen (HI). AAR gave it an A but this was an amnesia story. Ackkk! Into the purge pile it goes. Next up... Hot on Her Tail by Karen Anders. This is a Harlequin Blaze about a bounty hunter who's looking for a woman accused of embezzling from a bank. Handcuffs are involved and you know what that means *wiggles eyebrows* :) I skimmed it and it wasn't too bad so I sat down and did a fast read. The thought of sex with handcuffs makes my wrists ache. Not very sexy to me.

The problem with Blazes is that the idea of a category with HOT SEX sounds pretty good, but really most of them have been disappointing. Plots are too contrived, sex turns out not to be very hot, characters are flat. But not all of them are bad, I have 4 or 5 in my keepers.

HOHT wasn't too bad except I kept shaking my head at the fact that the heroine repeatedly escaped from the hero bounty hunter (like 3 times) and always went back to the same place where he would pick her up again. Duh! Anyway, I give it a B-.

So I have formulated a plan... get rid of all Blaze and other categories with plots I have come to hate:

Amnesia stories (tired of them, overdone)
Bodyguard stories (ditto)
Virgin sex therapists (give me a break)
Uptight businessman (yawn)
Uptight businesswoman (double yawn)
Thieves as H/H
Secret baby stories

That's just a start. I may think of more as I go along.

CindyS gave me some good advice. Anything I've been looking at for more than 3 years must GO! Okay, I'll try, but no promises. Get out the kleenex.

Book Shopping

Went book shopping today and came home with.... nada, zip, nothing. *sigh* There is something seriously wrong with me, I swear. I think I need a therapist or some kind of intervention.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to spend money on books lately. Remember that cartoon where the little angel is sitting on one shoulder and the little devil is sitting on the other? Well, that's how I felt today while visiting two UBS's and Borders Books. Every time I picked up a book (urged on by the little devil) this little voice (the angel) in my head said "you don't need anymore books with over 200 in your TBR". At Borders I had three books in my hand that I really wanted but I put them back and walked out the door. Why, why, why!?! Okay, I know I have issues with spending money on myself. I'm very thrifty. No, not a tightwad. I enjoy spending money on my kids and husband for birthdays and Christmas. In fact, I go overboard a little and they are spoiled rotten.

I am the oldest of 4 kids and we were poor. Seriously. We lived in the projects up until I was 6 years old. My mother used to tell us kids NEVER to mention that fact to anyone because she was very ashamed of it. Okay, I better backup. My parents were married in December of their junior year of high school and I was born the following June. Yup, I figured out the math on that one in Junior High. My dad could not get a job to support his wife and kid so he lied about his age and joined the army which kept food on the table. They proceeded to have 3 more kids one year apart. But after the army my dad went to school on the GI bill, got a real job, my mom went to work full time and we moved out of the projects.

That time must have made an impression on me because I have always been more of a saver than a spender. I hoarded all my allowances and babysitting money and was very careful about spending money on myself.

Bob has the opposite problem and I reign him in sometimes so we balance each other out. He likes to buy me things that are too expensive that make me feel guilty. Remember that gorgeous Brighton purse he bought me for my birthday? I kept it in the box for 3 weeks, on the verge of returning it several times. I eventually worked through it and I use it but try not to think about the price. :)

Where was I? Oh, yeah, books. Sorry, I went way off topic.

I want to keep up with the newest books. My library has a great selection but they don't have everything and they are slow to get books into the catalog. I really need to go buy some books! But every time I do I have the same damn voice reminding me about my TBR. I know there are people out there with bigger TBRs and some of you have told me you have given up feeling guilty, but guilt is my middle name.

So it's time to do a major purge. I did whittle it down last spring but it was only a dent really (about 30 books). My idea is to cut it in HALF and the first place to start is probably the categories. I used to read quite of few of these but the only series I read now are an occasional HH. I'll let you know how it goes.

Treasure or trash?

Here is a partial list of my TBR. All of these were purchased prior to 11/2002 when I started keeping a spreadsheet. I got most of them from the King County library used book sale (25 cents each). I picked out some of them because I had read something by that author or had vaguely remembered reading about the author on AAR, others I just tossed into the shopping bag just because... I have no clue. I have heard good things about some of these books (e.g. Flowers From the Storm, Shattered Rainbows) but I'm too lazy to look up reviews.

So any gems here? Or some real stinkers I should get rid of?

Andersen, Susan / All Shook Up (10/19/07, B)
Andersen, Susan / Be My Baby (12/26/06, B-)
Andersen, Susan / Baby, I'm Yours (4/1/6, B)
Andersen, Susan / Exposure (2/7/07, B+)
Ashworth, Adele / My Darling Caroline (11/5/2007, B+)
Austen, Jane / Persuasion
Beverley, Jo / Dragon's Bride
Beverley, Jo / Devil's Heiress
Beverley, Jo / Hazard
Beverley, Jo / Forbidden Magic
Brockmann, Suzanne / Body Language (11/29/06, A-)
Brockmann, Suzanne / Freedom's Price (11/24/06, B+)
Brockmann, Suzanne / Undercover Princess
Canham, Marsha / Pale Moon Rider (DNF)
Chase, Taylor / Heart of Deception (4/29/06, A)
Crusie, Jennifer / Getting Rid of Bradley (4/21/06, B-)
Crusie, Jennifer / Manhunting (8/22/06, A)
Deveraux, Jude / The Black Lyon
Dodd, Christina / Candle in the Window (12/29/2007, B)
Dodd, Christina / Rules of Attraction
Dodd, Christina / Rules of Engagement
Dodd, Christina / Runaway Princess
Evanovich, Janet / Manhunt
Farr, Diane / Fair Game
Farr, Diane / Falling for Chloe
Feather, Jane / The Least Likely Bride
Foley, Gaelen / The Duke(1/19/2008, A-)
Foley, Gaelen / The Pirate Prince (8/3/07, C+)
Foster, Lori / Caught in the Act
Garwood, Julie / The Gift
Garwood, Julie / Castles
Garwood, Julie / Saving Grace
Garwood, Julie / The Wedding
Gibson, Rachel / It Must Be Love
Gibson, Rachel / True Confessions (2/9/07, B)
Gibson, Rachel / Simply Irresistible (10/30/2007, B+)
Gracie, Anne / Gallant Waif
Grant, Tracy / Shores of Desire
Grant, Tracy / Rightfully His
Holly, Emma / Beyond Innocence
Holt, Cheryl / Love Lessons (4/3/06, C+)
Hunter, Madeline / By Possession (2/13/07, B+)
Hunter, Madeline / By Design (2/21/07, A-)
Hunter, Madeline / By Arrangement (4/15/07, B)
Hunter, Madeline / The Protector
Ivory, Judith / The Indiscretion (7/30/06, B)
Jensen, Trish / Stuck With You
Johnson, Susan / Forbidden
Johnson, Susan / To Please a Lady
Johnson, Susan / Wicked
Johnson, Susan / Pure Sin
Jordan, Nicole / Heart Breaker (5/8/06, B+)
Justiss, Julia / My Lady's Pleasure
Justiss, Julia / The Proper Wife
Justiss, Julia / A Scandalous Proposal
Justiss, Julia / The Weddng Gamble
Kauffman, Donna / Dark Knight (4/22/06, C)
Kauffman, Donna / Tease Me (4/2/06, DNF)
Kelly, Leslie / Night Whispers (3/31/2008, DNF)
Kinsale, Laura / Flowers From the Storm (10/26/07, A)
Kinsale, Laura / The Shadow and the Star
Kinsale, Laura / Seize the Fire
Kleypas, Lisa / Because You're Mine
Kleypas, Lisa / Midnight Angel
Kleypas, Lisa / Only in Your Arms
Krahn, Betina / Caught in the Act
Landis, Jill Marie / Day Dreamer
Law, Susan Kay / The Bad Man's Bride
Law, Susan Kay / Marry Me
Litton, Josie / Dream of Me
Litton, Josie / Believe in Me
Litton, Josie / Come Back to Me
Lowell, Elizabeth / Untamed
Lowell, Elizabeth / Forbidden
Lowell, Elizabeth / Enchanted
Lowell, Elizabeth / Granite Man (4/19/06, C-)
Lowell, Elizabeth / Warrior (4/30/06, B-)
Lowell, Elizabeth / Sweet Wind, Wild Wind (DNF)
Lowell, Elizabeth / A Woman Without Lies (DNF)
Martin, Kat / Innocence Undone
Navin, Jacqueline / Meet Me at Midnight (DNF)
Phillips, Susan Elizabeth / Hot Shot (4/25/06, B-)
Phillips, Susan Elizabeth / Just Imagine
Proctor, Candice / The Bequest (4/19/06, C)
Proctor, Candice / September Moon
Proctor, Candice / Whispers of Heaven (2/5/07, A-)
Putney, Mary Jo / Angel Rogue
Putney, Mary Jo / Shattered Rainbows
Putney, Mary Jo / The Bargain (4/5/06, B)
Ryan, Patricia / A Burning Touch
Ryan, Patricia / The Sun and the Moon
Ryan, Patricia / The Return of the Black Sheep
Sawyer, Meryl / Unforgettable (4/7/06, C)
Simmons, Deborah / The Devil Earl
Simmons, Deborah / The Fortune Hunter
Simmons, Deborah / The Last Rogue
Simmons, Deborah / The Gentleman Thief
Simmons, Deborah / My Lady de Burgh
Simmons, Deborah / My Lord de Burgh
Stuart, Anne / The Widow (5/13/06, B-)
Sutcliffe, Katherine / Darkling I Listen (3/2/07, B)
Sutcliffe, Katherine / Hope & Glory
Veryan, Patricia / The Riddle of the Reluctant Rake