Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

Bride and Prejudice (2004)
Genre: Romance/Musical
Grade: C+, but still recommended

Loving Pride and Prejudice seems to be a prerequisite for loving the romance genre. Ok, maybe prerequisite is a strong word, but I can probably count on one had the number of people who love the romance genre but aren’t lusting after Mr. Darcy. And how many of us have gotten into a debate about whether Colin Firth or Matthew McFadden played it better? Uh, guilty!

There are so many knock offs, spin offs, and take offs on Pride and Prejudice it’s impossible to keep track. So let me tell you about one of my favorites. Anyone ever heard of a movie called Bride and Prejudice? Yes? No? Well let me say this is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. I’m going to come out and admit it’s not the best of movies, but as long as you don’t think about that too hard you can really enjoy it.

Bride and Prejudice is essentially Bollywood-lite meets American musical with a healthy serving of beautiful people. And it works. Because it’s fun! The landscape is gorgeous, you have bright colorful saris swirling all around, funny stereotypical Indian mothers running around arranging marriages, and people bursting into song in the middle of the street.

The worst part about this movie was that it made me want Indian food really really badly! I go to school in a small town and there are no Indian restaurants anywhere near me. I can’t wait to go home on break because there are tons of Indian restaurants near my parents house. Bring on the curry!

Can You Think of Anything More Awesome!?

Drumroll please... I am now officially a member of the DIK team!  Go check it out.

Honestly I'm a smidge nervous.  I've never done any guest posting before.  In fact, my first thought after I sent off the application was, "D.L. what have you gotten yourself into!?"  But everyone on the island has been welcoming, and I'm certain nobody bites.  Well, maybe some of the heroes do, but I wouldn't mind that ;)

Review: A Man In A Million

Here's another old review I'm only now getting around to posting. I read this one about a month or so back and really enjoyed it.

Title: A Man In A Million
Author: Jessica Bird
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: The Moorehouse Legacy #4
Grade: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary:
As far as bad boy Spike Moriarty was concerned, Madeline Maguire defined female perfection. When they'd met, she'd walked up as if she wasn't the most gorgeous thing on the planet and asked to see his tattoos. He - a tough guy who'd make grown men run - had just about passed out. But their connection was definitely one-way...it had to be. Because he could never be the man in a million she was looking for, not with the things he'd done and seen. So for as long as she'd let him, he'd give her whatever she wanted. He'd worry about her walking away when it happened.

Review:
Before JR Ward decided to write paranormals about ass-kicking vampires, she wrote as Jessica Bird and wrote contemporary romances. I think I decided to buy this book based on a review over on Dear Author. I can’t quite remember. I already knew JR Ward had previously written under Jessica Bird and I was willing to buy one of her books based on a good review.

A Man In A Million was a pretty straight forward read compared to some of the books in the BDB series, which can have up to five different plot threads running at once. While I often love multi-layered plots, it was also nice to just focus on the hero and heroine. Spike is a French chef with a tragic past that he keeps hidden. After getting dumped by his ex over the issue, he believes no girl would want to stay with him if she knows the whole story. He keeps things casual so no one gets hurt. Pleasantly enough, he doesn’t come off as a womanizer either, but a nice guy who cares about his friends and sister. Mad is a competitive sailor, and though she’s fierce on the water, she is still insecure after always having being verbally put down by her overbearing father and now her step brother. A lot of the book revolves around her learning to stand up for herself, which Spike supports her through.

One of my absolute favorite aspects of this book was comparing it to the BDB. To begin, let’s look at the character of Spike himself.

“Spike was wearing a black leather jacket, a black-button down and a pair of black slacks. His jet-black hair was sticking straight up off his head in all directions, but instead of looking unkept, the jagged peaks emphasized the hard lines of his beautiful face. His big body filled the doorway. The hall. The whole apartment as far as she was concerned.
Oh, God, his eyes… Those incredible, impossibly yellow eyes were still hidden under heavy lids and thick lashes. And the tattoos… On either side of his neck, two elegant, curving designs marked his skin. In his left ear, he had a thick, silver piercing.”

Let’s see, does Spike fit the prerequisites of the Brotherhood? Wearing all black, including leather- check. A very large, imposing body- check. Tattoos and piercings- check. The only thing missing is a random “h” inserted into his name and then he’d be in Lesser-slaying business. A major difference between the two books, though, was that “combat boots” was used in place of “shit kickers”. For some reason I get the feeling that Silhouette wouldn’t have gone for that…

I would have rated this book a 4 just on the fact that Spike could have been a Brother, but I enjoyed it overall as well. It was fairly unique, especially for a Silhouette, which I don’t usually go out of my way to purchase.

First off, Spike and Mad know one another before the beginning of the book, and are already crazy about each other. So in theory it should be smooth sailing to a happy ending (yes pun intended since Mad is a sailor), especially since their mutual friend is playing matchmaker. But of course the book has the Big Misunderstanding. And not only does it have the Big Misunderstanding, but it has quite a few little misunderstandings along the way. It was pretty easy to forgive Spike and Mad though because, unlike most characters, they didn’t let the misunderstandings simmer. They actually bothered to go talk to each other! It was nice to see two characters repeatedly working things out, especially since communication is so important in believing the relationship with succeed. Also, the sex scenes were pleasantly steamy. I will never look at a motorcycle the same way again.

One touchy subject is that throughout most of the book Mad does have an eating disorder, which is not outright stated or dealt with. It seems odd that this isn’t mentioned since Spike’s profession is a Chef, ya know, food related and all. But by the end of the book Mad works out in her internal monologues that she’s going to start eating again, so in a way it is dealt with. It just seems an odd part of the plot since it wasn’t explicitly linked to her self esteem as other incidents in the book were, but rather lumped with her obsession with her training schedule.

Overall, I’d recommend this to any J.R. Ward fans, or any Silhouette fans who are looking for something a little different. It was worth going a little out of my way to find online (which isn’t my usual m.o. for book buying) and I’m also considering looking up some other Jessica Bird backlisted titles.

In other news...I managed to finish my final paper for Grammar at 12:45... 15 minutes to print and get to class! I won't say it was the worst paper I ever wrote, but it ranked in the worst five. What really upset me was about half an hour after turning in the paper I realized I had a cold. This could not be happening! I still have two exams and two final papers due next week! The okay part is that it's less than 48 hours later and I can breath through my nose again, so there is hope.

Look! Look!

Hey check it out! The New York Times has an article this morning about the booming sales of romance e-books.  And best of all, it treats the romance genre with respect!  The growing trend of positive representation of romance in the news is something I love to see.  Talk about a great start to my morning.

Here's the link: Lusty Tales and Hot Sales: Romance E-Books Thrive.  It's not a long read so hop on over there.

Ok, back to writing my final paper for my Grammar and Usage class.  Sounds fun right?  It's on gender biases in the English language and due at 1pm today.  I still have quite a bit to go.  Ek!  Wish me luck?

Review: The Kiss

Not exactly a new read, especially with the time crunch I'm under, but I realized I had posted this review on Goodreads within the past month but hadn't put it up over here as well.  Enjoy!

Title: The Kiss
Author: Sophia Nash
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Widows Club #2
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Summary:

He had once been her cherished childhood companion, and then the man she lusted for in secret, but Georgiana Wilde hasn't seen recently widowed Quinn Fortesque since the day he married another woman and shattered her heart. Then fate intervenes and brings the man she dreams about each night back to her . . .
Returning to the estate on family business, Quinn would like nothing more than to turn the land over to Georgiana and leave the memories of his former life behind. But then the brooding marquis finds himself under the spell of the beauty he once left behind. With her barely concealed passions, Georgiana melts his coolly guarded heart. Suddenly his well-ordered world is in danger of crashing down. And it all began with just one kiss . . . .

Review:

The summary on the back doesn't give a very clear description of the book.  Georgiana had also been married and widowed (thus her inclusion in the Widows Club series), and more specifically, was married to Quinn's cousin and their mutual childhood friend Anthony.  So of course a large portion of this book ends up being the "you still love him!"/"it was always you!" tango.

Most of the book really grated on my nerves. The characters themselves were extremely annoying. I can't name a single character from the book I would want to meet in real life. Generally their actions didn't make sense or didn't jive with how they were described. Quinn is supposed to be a diplomat- never once do we see him be diplomatic, in the present or in flashbacks of his past. In fact, his past seems pretty irrelevant except that we are told his dead wife was bad. Other than that we don't know anything about their marriage or why he married her in the first place.  Their marriage is a blatant plot device. And Luc, the "hero" from the first book in the series, spends most of the time strutting around acting like an ass. Not going to read that book... Though this is not usually a pet peeve of mine, everyone's actions were cpmpletely out of place for the time period.
The main redeeming factor of the book was its ending, which I found sweet and endearing. The final resolution to the Big Misunderstanding was fairly heartwarming, and if the entire book had been like the final 50 pages I would have given The Kiss between 4 and 5 stars. While that is not the case, I'm glad I pushed through to finish it, because the cute ending justified picking it up in the first place, but I would still not recommend this book.

The Final Countdown

It’s that time of years again. No, not the holidays… FINALS WEEK!!! Only ten days until that hellish period marked by excessive amounts of caffeine, poor personal hygiene, and overwhelming anxiety about escaping graduating.

Whoever thought of jamming everything important into one week is an idiot. Really, colleges would be much healthier if we got rid of finals week… and fraternities… and Four Lokos. I’m still waiting for them to ban it here in Maryland. For those of you out there who don’t know what Four Lokos is, observe the horror:



I’ve been dealing with the stress pretty well *knock on wood*. I don’t have class on Fridays, and since I’ve been worried I’m getting sick I took today easier than planned. I stopped by Goodwill to check out their book selection. I was mildly disappointed- there were tons of paperbacks, but almost all of them were Danielle Steel or Harlequin Presents from the ‘90s. I think I’m just spoiled by some of the truly awesome thrift stores I’ve found back home. I did manage to find a few I wanted though.

1. The Heir- Johanna Lindsey

2. Not Another Bad Date- Rachel Gibson

3. Fast Women- Jennifer Crusie

4. Anyone But You- Jennifer Crusie

I also ended up going to Buffalo Wild Wings with one of my friends. I’m a total wings fanatic, and just last week she turned me onto their Blazin’ wings. On the menu the Blazin’ wings come with a disclaimer- “Keep away from eyes, pets, children: The hottest sauce we got.” Later I looked it up on the internet. It’s 200,000-350,000 Scoville units, which is 70 times hotter than a jalapeño pepper. And. They. Are. Amazing. Both times I thought I was going to die, but the endorphine rush is absolutely incredible. Even if you don’t like spicy wings, I would still recommend Buffalo Wild Wings. Their Sweet BBQ and Garlic Parmesan sauces are delicious without the zing.

Review: Every Frat Boy Wants It

Title: Every Frat Boy Wants It
Author: Todd Gregory
Genre: Gay Erotica
Series: None
Grade: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:

Jeff Morgan is about to get the education of a lifetime...
At eighteen, Jeff Morgan is the quintessential all-American boy--blond, blue-eyed, and a star jock at his small Kansas high school. Enrolling at California State University-Polk, Jeff plans to become a writer. He also hopes that the macho nature of fraternity life will help him get over his lifelong attraction to other men. The reality couldn't be more different...
 
Through Blair Blanchard, the drama major son of divorced movie stars, Jeff discovers the Beta Kappa fraternity, and enters a world where alcohol and drugs serve as an excuse for covert trysts between frat brothers...where the pledging process becomes a sensual, S&M-fueled bacchanal...where weekends in L.A. and Palm Springs are no-holds-barred adventures in sexual exploration...and where Spring Break is a boys-gone-wild porn movie come to life. Through every encounter, from intense couplings with older frat brothers to sizzling three-ways with hot new pledges, Jeff also deals with his increasingly complex feelings--for Blair, for a handsome new arrival, and for life within Beta Kappa itself.
 
Sexy, steamy, and incredibly erotic, Every Frat Boy Wants It proves that when it comes to learning all there is to know about mind-blowing pleasure, nothing beats hands-on experience...

Review:

The set-up seems fairly simple: Naïve, innocent Kansas boy goes to a big, California campus, and subsequently a macho frat where innocent Kansas boy gets his eyes opened by beefy men who like to get it on with each other.

And that’s what happens, sorta…  I think I got it figured out…

Something that really frustrated me throughout the whole novel is that there didn’t seem to be a central conflict.  Was this about Jeff and Blair’s relationship?  Was this about Jeff’s need to come out as a gay man?  Was it about just how incredibly ridiculous and dangerous frat houses can be?  Or was it really all just an excuse to write a series of disjointed gay hook ups?

I think this was supposed to be a gay erotica/romance because the central story kept circling around to the relationship between Jeff and Blair.  It’s not that romantic of a relationship.  Sure, they tend to fall into each other’s arms a lot proclaiming their love, but in the end Jeff still has a hell of a time keeping it in his pants.  One moment he’s confessing his love for Blair then two seconds later he’s screwing some of his frat brothers.  Seriously?  This probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much if they were both getting around, but I just felt sorry for Blair because it was clear Jeff’s actions hurt him.

But the main reason I question if this was truly intended to be a gay erotica/romance is because of the amount of time spent on Jeff’s initiation into the frat, Beta Kappa.  If there was anything I took away from this book it is to NEVER JOIN A FRAT!  Reading about the initiation and hazing is not for anyone with a weak stomach.  It’s an in-depth, honest look at drinking on today’s college campuses.  I’m surprised none of the characters were sent to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.  The thing is, I don’t really get what was the point of having all that detail.  None of it was part of the erotica… it sort of felt like two books mashed into one.  Book one- a study of Greek life on today’s campuses.  Book two- gay erotica.    

Another thing that was grating on my nerves by the end was the number of loose plot threads.  Blair states at the beginning of the novel that straight guys will do just about anything when they are horny, including fooling around with gay men and then pretending it never happened in the morning.  It seems to be implied (at least to me) that at some point Blair was in love with, or at least involved with another frat brother or straight guy who burned him.  This would explain why he’s so secretive about his and Jeff’s relationship and about his own past, but for some reason this is never explained to the reader.  It’s just left hanging.

Blair himself annoyed me by the end of the book.  He started off as this awesome character, full of mystery and glamour, and then just ended up being whiny and needy.  Even Jeff was bored with him, which made me completely doubtful that their relationship would last much farther than the end of the novel.  I can’t say too much more for Jeff.  He started off as this young boy from Kansas, and his innocence and constant discoveries is what initially gave the book its erotic edge.  By the end he was this coked out horn dog slowly dying on the inside.  At the same time, he was still a better character than Blair, because it wasn’t a weak character, just extremely unlikable.  The Jeff’s physical and emotional decay is supposed to be a blatant reflection of the toll that pretending not to be gay is taking on him.  The problem with this is that the decaying went so far that it seemed too abrupt that he would suddenly be ok again and that his and Blair’s relationship would be revived just by coming out of the closet.  Yea, that would go a long way toward helping, but he was pretty messed up by that point, and that’s saying something after all he went through to get into the frat.

The book’s saving grace that kept it from falling into the 1 or 2 star categories is that it was well written.  It’s painful when something is written well enough that you want to keep going, but the story isn’t compelling.  I’d be willing to try Todd Gregory again in the future, but I wouldn’t recommend Every Frat Boy Wants It, unless there is someone you are trying to scare out of joining a frat.