People at Amazon Have Lost Their Minds

My favorite bloggers at Smart Bitches have created a new definition for Amazon Rank based on Amazon's ridiculous decision to apply some whacked out "adult" definition from all kinds of LGBT books in addition to romance novels. The hypocrisy is just too much for me. You can join the Smart Bitches and help Google bomb Amazon. Click on the link above for more info.

Amazon Rank
amazon rank
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): amazon ranked

1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies).
2. To make changes based on inconsistent applications of standards, logic and common sense.

Etymology: from 12 April 2009 removal of sales rank figures from books on Amazon.com containing sexual, erotic, romantic, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer content, rendering them impossible to find through basic search functions at the top of Amazon.com’s website. Titles stripped of their sales rankings include “Bastard Out of Carolina,” “Lady Chatterly’s Lover,” several romance novels, GLBTQ fiction novels, YA books, and narratives about gay people.

Example of usage: “I tried to do a report on Lady Chatterly’s Lover for English Lit, but my teacher amazon ranked me and I got an F on grounds that it was obscene.”

Alternate usage: “My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay.”

Sewing Books: A Rant

An interesting new sewing book came out this past week called Weekend Sewing. It instantly piqued my interest and I browsed a copy at Barnes and Noble. I decided to check out some reviews prior to buying it and I can't seem to find more than one person who has reviewed it and actually tried to sew something from the book. Seriously people, how can you possible "review" a sewing book without having sewn anything in it???

I've read several reviews by bloggers who thought it was a great book and talked about wanting to try some of the projects. Huh?? The most important part of a sewing book is the projects! #1 - Are they interesting? Do you want to actually try it? #2 - Were the instructions clear? Were you able to actually construct the item? If you don't do that, then that's a seriously half-assed review. Who cares if the pictures are cute or the writing is clever if the projects suck or the directions are confusing? If anyone out there has actually tried to sew something from Weekend Sewing I would love to hear about it. In the meantime I'll wait and see if some real reviews come out and it's worth buying.

Ten Things Your Romance Novel Heroine Should Never Do

Lynn Viehl, author of several successful series and a true maverick in the world of publishing, has written another funny and sarcastic post about the hypocrisy of the one of the biggest romance writer groups. I love her wry sense of humor. She's always true to herself and doesn't fall for the publishing industry b.s. that they try to cram down authors throats.

Click here to go to her blog and read: Ten Things Your Romance Novel Heroine Should Never Do (If You Want to Win a RITA)

A Gentle Rain by Deborah Smith

I am so thankful that I got this book through the Library Thing Early Reviewers program as I'm pretty sure that I would never have picked it up otherwise. And boy, I really would have missed out on something special.

The characters in A Gentle Rain are so interesting and very well crafted. Kara Whittenbrook is an heiress to a fortune built by her environmentalist parents. She discovers after her parents are killed that she was really adopted. This realization sends her on a mission to find her birth parents who she learns are mentally retarded. They are living and working on the northern Florida ranch of Ben Thocco. Ben is an equally fascinating character. He is part Seminole, takes care of his younger brother who has Downs Syndrome, and is a former luchadore and telenovela start. He and Kara meet in the most amazing way and it's pretty much love at first sight (even though they both fight it). Ben brings Kara back to his ranch where she meets her parents along with the other differently-abled ranch hands. Kara struggles with the decision to reveal her identity to her birth parents while she stays at the ranch where she earns the love and admiration of this eclectic family. The plot is engaging and a variety of "villains" keeps the story moving along. The third major character in the novel is Florida. The author paints a nuanced and seductive picture of a little known part of Florida that is wild and beautiful, populated with the exotic and the mundane. This is the old kitschy Florida predating Disney World.

I really enjoy books where the author completely immerses the reader in a culture and a place and is so well done that you feel as if you've been there. Deborah Smith accomplishes all of that and more in A Gentle Rain. I highly recommend this book.

Interview with MaryJanice Davidson

MaryJanice Davidson is one of my favorite authors. Her books never fail to crack me up. This month Romantic Times Magazine has an audio interview with her where she talks about how she became a best-selling author. Go here to listen.

Glitter Baby by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I discovered Susan Elizabeth Phillips this past summer and glommed a bunch of her backlist books. She writes great straight up contemporary romance for the most part. I grabbed this newest release, Glitter Baby, a few days after it came out and I didn't even read the cover blurb. It wasn't what I was expecting at all and it was completely fabulous.

Fleur Savagar is the most beautiful woman in the world . . . to everyone but herself. With her oversized hands and paddle-boat feet, her streaky blond hair and funny green eyes, she lives a life filled with secrets that began before she was born. That was when her bewitching mother left home to find James Dean and met Errol Flynn instead. Now Fleur has to grow up quickly, and life won't make that easy.

Jake Koranda is both New York's most brilliant playwright and Hollywood's hottest actor. Difficult, talented, and tormented, he has no patience for international glamour girls, not even ones with beautiful bodies and smart-aleck mouths. But there's more to the Glitter Baby than shine, and Fleur's tougher than Jake expects. Even with the odds stacked against her, she's fiercely determined to discover the woman she's destined to be.

An ugly duckling who can't believe she's turned into a swan . . . A tough-guy movie star with a haunted past . . . In a land of broken dreams, can two unlikely lovers trust their hearts?

This is such a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed it even though most of it took place in the 70's and 80's. The flashbacks to Fleur's mom's past are a fascinatingly seedy glimpse at Hollywood of the 1950's. SEP also borrows from the great dramatic traditions of early 80's romance novels with it's ecstatic highs and tragic lows. Really good stuff!

If you want to enter a drawing for a free copy of Glitter Baby, Jayne Anne Krentz is giving one away here.

What to Read Next?

I tend not to have a problem deciding what to read next because my TBR stack always seems to keep growing. If you need some ideas on what to read next or just want to try something new, check out WhichBook.net. It's pretty fun to use; you can choose up to four settings on a sliding scale according to the characteristics of what you want to read. It returns a list of books that are the best match to your settings with a quick synopsis and similar books.