Things that go bump in the night...

Halloween is probably my favorite holiday! I love the fact that we celebrate scary stuff and you get candy. What more can one ask of a holiday? To honor the day, I'm going to give you with my scariest suggestions to help you get in the mood. Just a note, today we're going to expand the formats, I'll give you a film and an album as well as a book title. I want this to be a Halloween that provides thrills and chills, whether you choose to read, view or listen...

Naomi's Room by the amazing British writer, Jonathan Aycliffe remains one of the scariest books I have ever read. This book has achieved something of a cult status, and deservedly so. Do not plan to read through the night if you are alone in the house, especially if you have an attic.  IJS. Terrifying stuff and well worth hunting down, cause it is out of print.

Amazing ghost story from writer/director Conor McPherson, starring the equally excellent (and incredibly hot) Ciaran Hinds. No one does ghost stories better than McPherson and this is a doozy.

Even though I am a fan of classic country music (from the 50s through the 80s), I was never big on country crooner Wagoner, except for this classic of dark, violent and depraved love. This is an amazing concept album where every song works to support the idea that life and love is a sad and violent, although passionate, undertaking! With lyrics like "lord, you should have seen their frantic faces, they screamed and cried please put away that knife..." and "I dug and dug for hours and then I planted flowers on the first Mrs. Jones..." this is light years away from the insipid dreck that passes for country music today.  Chilling!

If you enjoy a good fright and a visit with the darker side on occasion then I highly recommend these three titles.  Here's wishing everyone a spectacular Halloween and if you want to leave some scary suggestions yourself, I'd love to have them.

The Eclipse
Naomi's Room
Cold Hard Facts Of Life/Soul Of A Convict

Gothic Love

I'm back and having survived my recent brush with death (or at least a very bad cold), I thought I'd introduce a new feature for the blog.  I'm calling it Top 5 Tuesday! Basically, every Tuesday I'll put together my top 5 list of something or other. Could be books, authors, genres, etc. I hope that some of you may feel inspired to leave your own top fives in the comments, I'd love to get some new titles or authors to read out of this. For our premiere top 5 Tuesday, I'd wanted to offer my Top 5 Gothic Romances. I adore gothic romance!  I don't give a fig how cliched or insipid they may seem to others, curling up with a gothic and a nice cup of tea on a cold, rainy day is one of life's greatest pleasures.

Top 5 Gothic Romance Titles:

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
"Reader, I married him."

Mistress of Mellyn - Victoria Holt
"There are two courses open to a gentlewoman when she finds herself in penurious circumstances.......One is to marry, and the other to find a post in keeping with her gentility." 

Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again."

His Dark Kiss - Eve Silver
"To travel on a day such as this was a task only for the addled or the desperate."

Lily - Patricia Gaffney
"What if I were a governess?  She was shouting now.  You'd never marry me then, would you?  Because even if you loved me, I'd be too much like your dead wife, your beloved Maura, the woman who made you this way!  But I'm not like her Dev, I'm me, I'm Lily..."

I care not who knows that I am wretched...

Two delightful twilight walks on the third and fourth evenings of her being there, not merely on the dry gravel of the shrubbery, but all over the grounds, and especially in the most distant parts of them, where there was something more of wildness than in the rest, where the trees were the oldest, and the grass was the longest and wettest, had -- assisted by the still greater imprudence of sitting in her wet shoes and stockings -- given Marianne a cold so violent, as, though for a day or two trifled with or denied, would force itself by increasing ailments on the concern of everybody, and the notice of herself. Prescriptions poured in from all quarters, and as usual were all declined. Though heavy and feverish, with a pain in her limbs, a cough, and a sore throat, a good night's rest was to cure her entirely; and it was with difficulty that Elinor prevailed on her, when she went to bed, to try one or two of the simplest of the remedies.

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Much like Marianne Dashwood, a recent brush with nature left me fighting a beastly cold.  I apologize for the lack of updates, but hope to be restored to life, health, friends, and posting soon.  In the meantime, if you haven't read S&S, you simply must.

Silly titles II - Ten Ways to be Adored When Landing a Lord!

Avon authors seem to have a thing for silly titles lately and as I stated in my review of Sarah MacLean's previous book, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, I wish they would get over it.  Having very much enjoyed MacLean's Nine Rules however, I had no intention of being put off by this equally silly title. I found Nine Rules both charming and entertaining and I had high hopes for the second in this trilogy. As it turns out this one is pretty good as well.

Our story begins when Nicholas St. John, the twin brother of Gabriel from Nine Rules, is named one of London's Lords to Land by a ladies magazine. A silly premise I agree, but it does provide Nicholas with a reason to run off into the countryside to avoid all of the match making mamas of the ton, who are in such hot pursuit. While helping a friend investigate a missing relative, Nicholas meets Lady Isabel Townsend, who has some serious issues of her own to deal with.  Isabel is trying to hold together a house that is falling down around her, while caring for her younger brother and a ragtag house full of women to whom she has offered sanctuary. Nicholas and Isabel meet and  of course, sparks fly.  He is determined to have her, one way or another, she is equally determined to avoid him and to maintain the distance needed to protect all who are in her care. Initially, I was terribly interested in the idea of Minerva House as a sanctuary for women who had no where else to turn. Of course, historically this isn't terribly plausible, but I thought it provided a more serious underpinning to what felt like a lighthearted rom com type of book. In some ways I think it worked well, but as Isabel constantly used her role as caretaker to deflect Nicholas's attentions and deny her own feelings, it began to wear on me a bit.  There were times while reading when I found myself wondering why Nicholas was hanging around and that isn't usually a good sign for a romance novel. I do think that MacLean made it work in the end, but I can't say that I enjoyed this book nearly as much as Nine Rules.

In her defense, MacLean's funny, breezy tone, which seemed so very fresh in her previous book, is also on display in this one. The dialogue is witty, the characters sympathetic and the love scenes are hot, so obviously MacLean's style is consistent. I would say the difference for me as a reader, involved the fact that Nicholas and Isabel just did not engage me as much as the main characters in Nine Rules. I found myself impatient with them both at different times throughout the book. That said, I still enjoyed the book overall. It is a quick read and well worth the time.  If you loved MacLean's Nine Rules, you are probably going to love this one as well. I will look forward to the third book in the trilogy, even though I cannot help dreading the title.

   

When is a Gothic not a Gothic?

When it is Elizabeth Hoyt's new romance, Wicked Intentions.  I was very excited when I first started reading that EH had a new book coming out.  I love her stuff.  I think she is one of the best romance writers around and to make a good thing even better, I was hearing that this one would be a Gothic romance!  I love me some Gothic romance.  I love all of the cliches involved in Gothic romances, love everything about Gothic romances.  I even love the covers with the heroine in appropriate period dress fleeing from the castle, mansion, etc.  So you can imagine my excitement at the idea of one of my favorite writers writing in one of my favorite genres?  So, I pre-ordered that baby for my Kindle and waited with anticipation for the release.  Sadly, the reality did not live up to the hype, as is often the case.

Wicked Intentions looks a lot like a Gothic. It has the heroine in appropriate period dress, fleeing down a dark and foggy London street. In the beginning it sounds like a Gothic, with the heroine and her loyal servant hurrying through the dark, foggy London night. And that's about where the Gothic stuff ends.  OK, so I don't have a Gothic written by one of my favorite romance writers, I still have a new book by EH and you know that will be excellent.  Right?  Um, not so fast...

I really do respect EH's talent and it hurts my heart to say that Wicked Intentions was not very good.  The story had promise, a young widow, Temperance Dews is trying desperately to keep the orphanage her family runs afloat. She meets the mysterious and dangerously attractive Lazarus, Lord Caire and he offers to introduce her to possible patrons for her good works, if she will agree to guide him through the murky streets of the St. Giles area. Lazarus suffers from a rather odd and fascinating condition in which physical contact causes him pain. To alleviate his sexual needs and avoid too much contact he has a habit of binding his paramours during sex. In fact, the reason that he needs to snoop around St. Giles is because his former mistress was murdered and he wants to avenge her death. At this point, I'm thinking that EH is entering some pretty interesting territory.  I'm still trying to piece together why it just didn't work.

For one thing, I think that EH tried to do way too much with this book.  It is the first in a new series and she introduced a million characters that you know will be featured in her future work. On top of the cast of thousands, she tried to explore a complex psychological condition and flirt with the concept of bondage and alternative sexual practices, as well as write a compelling mystery. Just too much stuff going on here. Her attempt to cover all of this territory meant that the relationship between the hero and the heroine just wasn't very well-developed.  Oh the witty dialogue that is a trademark of EH books was there, but there wasn't much substance to it. The depth of attraction and connection that you see in so many other EH books just wasn't there in Wicked Intentions.  Also, the whole no touching thing was treated sort of inconsistently.  We never really get a good explanation of why Lazarus has developed this condition and it seems to weaken and almost disappear by the end of the book. Yes, he had a withdrawn and distant father, but is that all it took for him to develop this debilitating condition?  By the end of the novel, he has made this major transformation, however it is never really explored in any depth.

I think there was great potential here but unfortunately it just didn't pan out. That said, I would encourage you to read Wicked Intentions if the description interests you. Just because it isn't as strong as her previous work, doesn't mean that it is not worth checking out. I'm sure that I will read the next in the series as well, because a weak Elizabeth Hoyt book is still better than most. After all, this is the author that created Jasper, Viscount Vale from To Seduce a Sinner and I owe her a debt of gratitude for bringing that amazing creature to life. Vale made my top ten Romance Heroes list. Curious as to who else is on the list? Stay tuned, I'll be featuring it soon...

Happy Birthday Clive Owen!

Happy 46th Birthday to Clive Owen, otherwise known as my boyfriend!  He is my imaginary boyfriend, you know, the one that I am allowed to drool over and fantasize about even though I adore my husband of a zillion years.  Clive is a great actor besides being gorgeous and yes, he has appeared in the requisite literary adaptations that are necessary for a birthday mention in this blog.  One might wish though that Clive would do a few more historical films since he is usually the model for most of the male heroes in the romance novels I read.  Unless they are blond or have some physical characteristic that says they can't be played by Clive Owen, then his is the face I picture as I am reading.

It's a pretty damned good face for a romance hero!  Clive is currently busy filming a  biopic for HBO in which he plays Ernest Hemingway.  I was never a huge Papa fan, but you can bet I'll be waiting most impatiently for this portrayal to hit the screen.