For this month’s DIK reading challenge, I reviewed Suzanne Brockmann’s All Through the Night.

While Jules and Robin plan their wedding, Adam, a man with whom both Jules and Robin have had a relationship of sorts, returns to their lives.  Adam is hoping that Jules, super FBI agent that he is, can help him with a frightening stalker.  When Jules tries to help, jealousy creates a strain on his relationship with Robin, as well as putting people he cares about in danger as the stalker transfers his attention to people Adam interacts with.  It doesn’t help that a nosy reporter is also trying to discredit Robin’s recovery from alcoholism in the hopes of getting a scoop.

So, that’s the short and sweet description.  Most of Jules & Robin’s romantic conflict occurred in the previous book, Force of Nature, when the two men finally got together.  All Through the Night is our cookie for being good and waiting so long and patiently for Jules to get the love he deserves.  Yes, Robin’s assistant Dolphina gets a romance of her own.  It’s a very nice, if a little abbreviated, story.  But then, this is Jules’s story, and Dolphina’s story is secondary.

Jules was an appealing and engaging character from the instant he first appeared (which, if I recall was Gone Too Far).  We’ve seen his heartbreak with Adam, we’ve seen his heartbreak with Robin, and with Ben.  I was rooting for him from the very beginning, and when he didn’t get his happy ever after in Hot Target, I was devastated.

Finally getting a beautiful and loving relationship was a long time coming, and I’m glad Ms. Brockmann gave Jules and his romance the attention it deserved.  Yes, there was action and suspense, too.  The Troubleshooters series consistently delivers fast paced, action filled stories and this was no exception.  But for me, the romance was the thing, because I think Jules had to wait WAY longer than any of the other couples did.  I wanted my cookie!

One of the things I especially liked about this story, though, was that the groundwork was laid for Adam to have his own redemption arc.  His previous appearances made us dislike Adam, but in this book, we see that Adam maybe isn’t as villainous as he seemed.  (Dark of Night and Hot Pursuit are still on my TBR, though, so if Adam gets any time in those books – no spoilers, please!)

I found this book awesome, but if you haven’t read the previous Troubleshooters books, you’d need to at least read Hot Target and Force of Nature (and preferably Breaking Point between them) to get full satisfaction from this story.

I watched The Birds recently.  I’ve never seen it before (I’m not much into old movies) but I thought it was maybe time I saw it, for my own edification.  I mean, it can’t hurt to watch what’s considered a classic, right?

Well, one part in particular caught my attention.  The heroine (whose name escapes me… clearly I wasn’t THAT into it) follows the hero home (a man with whom she had a brief conversation with in a shop… where she LIED about who she was), sneaks into the hero’s house and leaves a bird as a gift for his sister (who she knows even less than the hero).  The heroine also pumps local inhabitants for information about the hero and his family.

My first thought?  Ew.  Creepy stalker.  Forget the damned birds, Hitchcock had the makings of a scary movie right there.   No doubt that part of the story was meant as some nod to feminism or something.  On further consideration, though, I know I’ve read scenes like this in romance novels and was perfectly willing to suspend disbelief that the recipient of such actions would be romantically inclined towards the ‘stalker’.

In real life, though?  This would be, hands down, a romantic deal breaker.  But I am a lot more forgiving in my fiction, and I’m not even sure it’s necessarily because of the ‘fantasy’ element.  I’ve read more than one sexy hero who smoked, and the smoking itself was sexy in the story.  Real life, though?  Another deal breaker.  Several years ago, my husband wanted to take up cigar smoking.  I told him I refused to have kids with someone who smoked.  So he didn’t.  The irony of us later deciding not to have children is not lost on me.  Nevertheless, I think I surprised him by taking such a hard stance, because I’m a fairly laid back sort of person.

What about cheating?  Now, I see more of this in gay romance than I have in straight… at least, where the cheater is forgiven and taken back.  Personally, I think that it has more to do with long-established reader expectations in straight romance than anything else.  Regardless, cheaters can be forgiven and the relationship can go on.  I don’t know if I would consider this a deal breaker, because I’ve never truly faced the situation.  I like to think I could be reasonable if I was in love with the person and it was a one-time physical thing, but I can’t be sure.  Can a relationship truly survive that fractured trust?  I’ve seen it strongly affect friends’ subsequent relationships, long after breaking up with a cheater.

So, I’ve covered smoking, stalking and cheating.  What about other elements like voyeurism, gambling, drug addiction, abuse, alcoholism?  I’ve seen them all in fiction, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the patience in real life to accept these in my relationship.  And I’m reasonably sure no one actually fantasizes about having a partner with these issues, so what is it that makes these compelling?  Why are these not reading deal breakers?

Those tortured heroes?  Super sexy in books.  In real life?  No way.  I like my men with minimum baggage, fully sane and capable of being responsible members of society.  Of course, that may be because I’m loaded with baggage and not entirely sane.  Thankfully I’m still a responsible member of society. 

I believe the reason we read about tortured characters and seemingly impossible relationships is hope.  Hope that if people with all these problems can find love and happiness, well, we’ve all got a chance, too.

I adore this game. It doesn’t move too fast (which is excellent, since I’m incredibly uncoordinated – meaning I generally suck at most video games) and it is ridiculously quirky.  I love having catapults taking out zombies via watermelon or corn.  I’m highly amused by chili peppers burning zombies into cinders.  And I might be little obsessed… or perhaps using it as a crutch.

See, I’ve got two completed manuscripts out in submission hell.  And I’ve found that after completing a manuscript, I fall into a weird funk, a pseudo-post-partum depression.  It shakes off after a couple of weeks, and I’ve got a new project that I want to get started on.  Truly, I do!  I just need to get my brain in gear to write and break my addiction to Plants vs. Zombies.  Hey, I may not be writing, but at least I’m saving the backyard from zombies!

If only I could claim the game helped me create zombie fiction (research, yeah, that’s it).  Unfortunately, as much as I love other people’s zombie stories, I don’t know that I could write one of my own.  Eh.  Back to the game!  Writing… this weekend… I swear…

We just started watching Twin Peaks. Yes, I know I’m twenty years too late. But strangely enough, despite the furor over the show at the time it came out, neither my husband nor I had ever watched a single episode. I have to admit, the show’s pretty surreal. And I assume that’s intentional. But the number of people who are having affairs, are abusive, or just plain got an extra helping of crazy seems rather excessive. It’s like watching some ramped-up soap opera version of Lost.
A few things I’ve noticed… Kyle MacLachlan looks a little unfinished. He’s much better looking now than he was then. The credits are INSANELY long and boring. And the show seems to have a lot of screaming. We faithfully watch Doctor Who, which requires the characters to do an awful lot of running. Running, always running. In Twin Peaks, it seems to be screaming, always screaming. Especially Laura’s mother. Her lungs have gotten a fantastic work out in most episodes so far.
Besides that, both my husband and I were wondering how Twin Peaks would fare if created for today’s audiences, for different reasons. Hubby wondered how people would deconstruct each episode on blogs, etc. as they did for Lost. Myself, it’s more of an academic exercise, as in, what would they have to change (besides those clunky old phones) to account for the internet, and as a result, how the story would have to change.
Or would the story have to change? Could the same story be told, but use different mechanics and processes to come to the same conclusion? Could it be drawn out as long as it was? Would modern audiences be receptive to the deliberate, and at times plodding, pace of the story? Would modern forensics catch the killer more quickly?
Of course, we haven’t seen the entire thing yet. We’re about six or eight episodes in, and I think there are 30 episodes in total. I don’t even know if catching Laura Palmer’s killer is show’s raison d’etre or if there’s something else driving it. I might be able to answer some of my questions more readily afterwards. Or maybe I won’t. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to find out the show ended without resolving many of the conflicts that are coming to light.
Still, I’m enjoying the weirdness of it, and admit to being surprised that it became as popular as I remember it being. Because it is fairly weird, the characters are mostly nuts, and don’t seem particularly realistic or logical. Perhaps Twin Peaks was the progenitor of shows like Happy Town & Harper’s Island neither of which I could make myself watch more than a couple of episodes. Maybe Twin Peaks was a phenomenon that is destined to never be repeated.

Many of us have songs that evoke particular memories for us, whether they be good or bad. For instance, Smash Mouth’s All Star makes me think of a large green ogre (and smile). The Power of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood was my first dance with my husband at our wedding. Anything by Def Leppard reminds me of a crappy ex-boyfriend. I Know It’s Over by the Smiths… total breakup song. The three songs that heralded my musical epiphany when I was sixteen, and still influence my musical choices today (Join in the Chant by Nitzer Ebb, Stigmata by Ministry, Testure by Skinny Puppy). I think we all have those special songs.

But that’s not the musical conditioning I’m talking about. I was listening to the radio in the car and realized that my generation might be the last one who has a ‘next song’ conditioning. With the ability to buy music, picking and choosing, like you were eating at an enormous buffet, there may not be too many people who buy whole albums and listen to them, repeatedly, from start to finish. I still try to buy whole albums, because I’ve found lots of songs I love amongst the more popular and well-known songs.

The mix tapes I made and listened to incessantly? To this day, I still expect to hear Balloon Man by Robyn Hitchcock after I hear The Promise by When in Rome. I expect to hear Squirrels (by Dr. Demento?) whenever I hear Soft Cell’s Tainted Love. Or Headhunter by Front 242 whenever I hear The Bog by Bigod 20.

And the albums I listened to obsessively? Sex on the Flag should follow Spiritual House because that’s the order they come in on KMFDM’s Money. Hungry Like the Wolf should follow Lonely In Your Nightmare as they do on Duran Duran’s Rio.

The ease of shuffle on the iPod means that if I didn’t imprint any ‘next song’ conditioning prior to owning it, most likely I never will. And the generation after mine? Is the shuffle all they know? Is there no happy expectation of knowing what’s coming next? I’m guessing not. Make no mistake, I love my shuffle, but there are times when I really want to hear the song I’ve been conditioned to hear next. (Yes, I know I can make playlists… it doesn’t seem the same.) And I’m amused by the fact that the brain still makes these connections for me ten, fifteen, twenty years later.

The book I’m reviewing this month for the DIK Reading Challenge is Collision Course by KA Mitchell.

Collision Course by KA Mitchell is, in my opinion, an opposites-attract story. Joey Miller is a man who maybe hasn’t quite finished growing up and Aaron Chase is a man who has raised his younger siblings and has no interest in taking responsibility for anyone else. Joey’s a romantic looking for ‘the one’ and Aaron has no interest in settling down with anyone. Joey is a social worker and Aaron’s experience taking care of his siblings make him suspicious of the system. And although Aaron is a paramedic, he doesn’t trust Joey’s ‘do-gooder’ nature. That doesn’t stop them from wanting each other, and they find themselves trying to find some common ground.

A potentially fatal situation brings them both to some serious self-realizations. Aaron’s spent so much time trying to raise his siblings that he fails to see that caring for someone new, a partner, isn’t a burden. Joey realizes that as much as he wants love, he’s been afraid of it; he needs to take responsibility for his own actions and stop sabotaging his relationships.

I love Joey. I loved Joey after his brief appearance in Diving in Deep, and I was happy to see him get his own story. He’s totally adorable, and throughout it all, I kept rooting for him to get what he wanted, and in this case, he wanted Aaron. Aaron is, in many ways, a typical alpha – gruff, demanding, unwilling to show emotion. But Joey thawed him throughout the book, and the ending was so sweet I almost cried (and I HATE crying). The emotional growth of these two men, alongside the development of their relationship, was beautiful, and something KA Mitchell excels at. And the sex was completely hot as well – can’t forget that! Collision Course was a great read.

Come visit me today at Dawn’s Reading Nook!

I’m guest blogging about about swear words in Fantasy & Sci-fi, and I’ll be giving away a copy of my book, MIA Case Files: Wolfsbane.

While there are a lot of great things about living in Florida, there are plenty of things I miss about Toronto. Besides the obvious friends and families, I mean. One of which is gaming. Not the total geeked-out gaming (although I’ve played a few of those on occasion) but board games. Like Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Betrayal at House on the Hill. If you’ve never played some of these games, they’re more involved than the board games you played as a kid, but they’re also a heck of a lot more fun (IMO). They do take more time to play and require a bit of dedication to assimilate the longer rules.

As far as I’m concerned, there are definite pluses for that time invested. For instance, in Betrayal and Settlers, the game board changes every time, which is something I enjoy. I like the variety, it keeps the game fresh every time we play. In Betrayal, the players start out playing as a team against the creatures and supernatural beings in the house, but at a certain point (which also changes with each game) one of the players becomes a traitor and competes against the rest of the players. There are fifty different possible traitor scenarios, and even when those are repeated, the layout of the board affects the outcome of the game, so it is not predictable. Hubby likes these games because winning often relies on strategy rather than luck (he’s VERY unlucky with dice, so it’s not a surprise, really).

So, why do I miss these games? What difference does geography make? Most of the games we own (and… er… it might actually be a closet-full) require a minimum of three players. Hubby and I have made friends since we moved, good friends, but for the most part, we feel a little like pushers, trying to convince people to invest time in learning the intricacies of the rules and the hour or two required to play a single game. We worry they won’t have as much fun as we do. Although, maybe I shouldn’t worry. Even if they hate whatever game, it’s still cheaper than going to see a bad movie.

We’ve started to grab some two player games, and there are some good ones out there, but for the same reasons I haven’t had time to write lately, I haven’t had time to play games either. Soon, though. There’s a GREAT game store in Orlando and we’ve got three new games calling for a test run.

Pens and pencils – are they completely defunct tools for a writer? I use a computer and netbook (although I’ve yet to get a multimedia phone) but I have to say, I’m still a little old school. Editing on the computer is almost impossible or me. I try to make the font and margins really small so I use less paper, but I NEED the paper.

I use a pencil to edit. One that needs sharpening. It just feels right in my hand, in a way that a mechanical pencil never does. Is that an echo of the uncomplicated life in kindergarten? Maybe. Probably. I may… er… have a large collection of sparkly pencils.

Pens I’ll use for writing longhand. I don’t write longhand very often (I’m not truly a dinosaur or a luddite) but there’s times when you gotta write even if using the darling netbook is impractical. Like when I’m flying. Invariably, I sit behind someone who needs to recline their seat. Which I’ve never understood. Do those two or three inches of “reclining” make any improvement at all? All it does is make it impossible to set up a computer on those itty, bitty table trays.

So, I write longhand on planes. Fortunately, my handwriting is sufficiently hieroglyphic-like that my seat mates are unlikely to determine what I’m writing about. It takes twice as long, because I also have to transcribe what I wrote. And sometimes I can’t even read what I wrote.

This weekend though, we went to a wedding in Detroit. On the way home, not only did no one sit in front of me, hubby and I got the row to ourselves, so I made him move over one. I got to use TWO table trays – and I transcribed the stuff I wrote longhand on the plane on the way to the wedding. Awesome.

I’ve thought about getting a digital voice recorder, but I can’t imagine too many situations where I could actually discuss aloud options for stories. Probably I’ll just stick with pen and pencil. And my netbook, of course. It’s worked so far.

I’ve been a little down in the dumps lately – probably because I haven’t had any time to write. It’s amazing how radically that can affect my mood. Because of it, though, I thought I’d share some of my “go-to” sites for when I really need a laugh.

Candyboots’ Weight Watchers Cards from 1974 and James Lileks’ Gallery of Regrettable Food have a similar theme. They take old recipes, cookbooks or other food-related images and add biting, sarcastic and highly amusing commentary. For Candyboots, I recommend ‘taking the tour’ (one of my favourite stops is the Fluffy Mackerel Pudding) and for the Gallery, there’s several options but generally the ones that involve meat are the most hilarious, IMO. If you manage to make your way through the Gallery without actually dying of laughter, James Lileks also has the Institute of Official Cheer, where his commentary expands beyond food-related images into topics such as advertising and interior design.

Now, if I’m feeling like I need to pretend I’m working, but still need a pick-me-up, Evil Editor can always be relied on for a laugh. People submit the first two hundred words of their stories and readers of Evil Editor’s blog will ‘continue’ the submission, probably not in the way the author intended at all. Also, people submit query letters for books they’re trying to sell, which Evil Editor will critique. He’s very up-front about the fact the site is designed for entertainment first, and he succeeds admirably in providing consistent amusement. Regardless, I’ve actually learned a lot about query letters (and what doesn’t work) while laughing so hard, I’ve cried. Like just now – I got totally sidetracked while writing this. It’s addictive stuff. And it’s a blog, so it has new additions all the time.

Yay! I’m already in a better mood than I was an hour ago. Worked again!