Kerry Allen

I just now realized Ash and David will both be in my hot little hands on August 5.

ZOMG, who which will I do read first?

Ash, because I’ve waited so long and I know at least one mean-spirited individual truly intends to be a spoilerific beyotch?

Or David, because he’s David.

My decision-maker, it burns.

Sherrilyn Kenyon wrote the first paranormal romance I ever read, the one that brought me back to romance after a years-long hiatus, the one that made me say, “Holy crap, I didn’t know you could do that in a romance novel, but now that I do, I know what I should be writing.” While a couple of the Dark-Hunter books and associated spinoffs haven’t rung my bell that resoundingly, she’s created a cast of characters with an ongoing epic that are autobuys for me.

For lurve of Acheron, I’m going to renege upon my 20-year vow to never buy a hardcover romance novel.

In prep for the August 5 release of Acheron, St. Martin’s is offering up an e-version of Seize the Night for free (in a variety of formats—instructions can be found at the link). Offer valid through July 3, 2008.

You may have heard I’m just slightly herocentric.

.

.

Nonetheless, Seize the Night has one of those rare heroines who demanded her share of my attention. I still crack up every time I hear “Tabby.” She kills vampires. She owns a naughty novelty shop. And she’s paired up with the prissiest, uptightest, and stuckupest of the red-headed cow’s minions, who spends a great deal of time flummoxed that he finds anything about this tacky broad to be appealing.

Oh, and it’s also the book in which everything went to shit with Nick (all that misdirected rage and refusal to listen to reason for the last six books or so? uncool, dude), which I imagine will warrant at least a line or two in Ash’s book…

I’m in kind of an alarming funk (birthday blues? extraneous kidlets going home and resultant taste of empty nest syndrome? PMS? who knows), so I’m not doing much other than working and reading.

Saturday, I read a “funny” vampire book. Funny like the Three Stooges are funny. Slapstick, comedy of errors, stupid funny. Not funny at all, in other words. In addition to the unfunny, every few paragraphs, the heroine would either roll her eyes or do something “with disgust.” I kept rolling my eyes and muttering with disgust, “This is really awful,” but I couldn’t put it down. It was hypnotically bad. Like news footage of a natural disaster. Or Britney. The mind screams “DO NOT WANT!” but the eyes refuse to look away. It takes a special talent to produce something so fascinatingly horrible.

Sunday, I inhaled Demon Night. Meljean, you made me cry. Not gut-wrenching sobs like Colin and Savi provoked, but those streaming tears that an hour later you catch a glimpse of your reflection and say with a disgusted eyeroll, ”WTF, I’m still crying?” The whole “I may be needy, but hell if I’m gonna be fucking dependent” thing struck a chord. I always notice your gals, which is far from my norm.

Write, crazy bunny, write.

When I read items such as the simile stomp at agent Nathan Bransford’s blog, I have to marvel at the thought processes of other readers (because it’s really not a writer issue but a matter of perception by the reader, even if that reader happens to be a writer).

Apparently, some readers, upon coming across the phrase “neck like a giraffe,” have to stop reading to ponder the meaning of that phrase. Are, in fact, wrenched from the setting of the story and deposited in the African savannah or perhaps the San Diego Zoo’s giraffe exhibit to ponder the meaning. Do, in fact, curl their collective lip at the literal impossibility of a human being with a six-foot long neck with arterial valves to prevent fainting upon bending over.

Really?

When I see “neck like a giraffe,” I think “longer-than-average neck” and carry on with the story. No pause necessary.

Adverbs, of course, were thrown into the fray in the comments section, as they are so much more fun to bludgeon. One example was “walked furtively.” Apparently this is so ambiguous, another reader has to put down the book and Google the word in an attempt to discern the author’s meaning.

Amazing, as it gives me a perfectly clear picture of the walker’s behavior, right down to posture. Furthermore, had the author taken a paragraph to convey the exact image that one word evokes for me, I would have skipped it.

Obviously, I am a failure as a reader, as I do not focus on a single word or phrase to the extent that it has the power to distract me from the remaining 300 pages of words.

How long must it take to read an entire book with all that pondering of meaning for every sentence? No wonder that other reader wants no-frills prose. My TBR shelf would represent a lifetime of labor.

I anticipate having some wiggle room between books no later than June.

Edited to add: I administered a reading test to a six-year-old this morning, and had he stopped to ponder every few words, he would have lost points for comprehension and fluency. This sort of experience with scoring of reading ability may have something to do with my failure to understand the stop-and-ponder approach in adults.

I have all kinds of awesome in my TBR. I even have a shortlisted TBR for books I know are going to be so awesome, I refuse to start them until I have a good chunk of time in which to immerse myself in the reading experience.

My last three books read have been Paranormal Romance Lite, Humorous Contemporary Romance, and Paranormal YA. They had the advantage of being put-downable when my three minutes were up, but they didn’t quite hit the spot.

I decided what I crave right now is something written by a dude. They tend to use shorter, punchier sentences, light on the eloquent language, more emphasis on action (at least the dudes I read), perfect for bit-by-bit reading.

So I sorted my TBR shelf by gender.

And without the slightest pause, I tossed Dean Koontz in with the chicks.

Now, I love Dean. He would occupy several slots on that Top 100 Books Genre Notwithstanding List I’ve been too lazy to compile, but let’s face it. In the past several years, he’s undergone some kind of spiritual conversion, and now he’s all sensitive and emo.

Total purse holder.

(What I decided to read, incidentally, wasn’t TBR after all, but an old keeper, Rules of Prey by John Sandford. John writes like a Man, and Lucas Davenport don’t hold nobody’s stinkin’ purse.)

WARNING: Many mixed metaphors ahead. Proceed at your own risk. 

Maybe it’s just me, but the insistence that I don’t know what I really want to read—that I’m on some merry-go-round of crap reading because publishers print only crap so readers have only crap to buy so publishers continue to print the crap because that’s what sells—really pisses me off.

Look, I understand that you may be dissatisfied with the books you’re reading, but don’t try to drag me into that boat with you. I’m not drowning here; I’m swimming quite contentedly, as a matter of fact. I really, truly, genuinely enjoy many of those books that dissatisfy you and really, truly, genuinely buy them on purpose, not because I’ve been brainwashed into thinking that’s what I want.

Yes, I get the occasional wallbanger, but I lack your sense of entitlement that the entire publishing industry should revolve around my needs. When I get the occasional Peanut M&M that tastes like a dirty sweatsock, I bleh and scarf down more to get the nasty taste out of my mouth, whereas you probably advocate forsaking Peanut M&Ms altogether.

You do that. I’ll eat your share.

And Ye Olde Banana Analogy you think supports your “you don’t know what you want” theory?

“If the grocery store sells nothing but bananas, you have no choice but to buy bananas.”

Not helping your cause. Because, you see, I do have a choice. There’s another grocery store with a wider selection down the road, and then there’s the farmer’s market and also online shopping, where the food is packed fresh and delivered right to my door, not to mention digital foodstuffs if I have a craving for something really exotic. If the Banana Grocer doesn’t sell a shitload of bananas, they’ll be forced to expand their stock if they want to compete and stay in business.

But maybe they’re catering to a niche market of banana addicts you know nothing about, banana hater. There are people who do like bananas, regardless of how offensive you may find them.

I’m not wild about bananas straight from the skin, but I’m quite fond of them in banana nut bread, banana splits, and Bananas Foster.

I do not want to live in a world without Bananas Foster.

You have every right to despise bananas, but enough with trying to convince the rest of the world bananas are the root of all evil. Face the fact that pomegranate fetishists are a minority and might have to drive that extra mile to get what they want.

Myself, I’m violently allergic to pomegranates, so I’ll be at the Banana Store, stocking up.

Dessert at my place later.

… I use it in my carpet shampooer and to spot-treat Demon Dog stains.

The mental variety? Not so much.

I rarely purchase hardcover books. I have never purchased a hardcover romance novel, and a recent snit over a paperback caused me to proclaim I never would.

But horrible, evil beyotches are bombarding me with excerpts. Not the standard, first-chapter, get-to-the-story-already excerpts that rarely impress me all that much, but the kind of excerpts that make me want to lick somebody.

Me: “Uh nuh vunuh un huh. Nuh huhuhuh.” (Unintelligible, as I was trying to prevent my tongue from hanging out. Translation: ”I’m not budging on this. No hardcover.”)

Horrible, Evil Beyotch Uno: “You know you can’t a wait a year for this in paperback.”

Horrible, Evil Beyotch Dos: “You’ve been waiting, what, five years for him as it is? You want him bad.”

Horrible, Evil Beyotch Uno: “I think you need to read some more about his tongue.”

Me: *sobbing and making gimme fingers like a needy toddler*

In a video game, if you get poisoned and you don’t take an antidote right away, it takes a bite out of your health bar every couple of seconds until it’s all gone and you die. Well, this is Temptation chewing on my Resolve bar, and I am fresh out of antidotes and a realm away from the nearest item shop. *chomp chomp* I feel faint. All hope is lost.

I succumb.

Okay, so there will be this ONE exception…

(And they are Super Horrible, Evil Beyotches because even after they’ve destroyed my will, I still have to wait months for the bloody hardcover. With friends like these, who needs hemorrhoids?)