Not, perhaps, my highest scoring review yet, but one that makes me want to write meta about my own story. She’s spot on that in this one I was perhaps more interested in the murder mystery/ghost story than I was in the romance. Also that it was a deliberate decision to have Jasper’s reconciliation of his religion and his homosexuality already be a done deal. And Charles come from a family which was used to not worrying about whether something was right or not, if they wanted it and could get away with taking it. I hear a lot of people saying “we’re fed up of the coming out plot being the only plot in m/m romance.” So this was an attempt to do something different.
I should be more downcast at the thought that the romance didn’t work for her this time, but I can’t be, because of this:
“Your grasp of the fashions, sights, sound, smells, and feel of the mid-eighteenth century was stunningly vivid. People die of weird medical concerns. Things smell bad. The fashions for men are strange to us. Men are brutal to women and the upper classes brutal to the servants who make their lives comfortable. They cared about things — Papists and class — in ways we don’t understand today. I don’t think I’ve ever FELT like I was *in* a particular time more than I did in this book.”
Which delights my “historical novelist” heart and makes me glad I put in the moment where Charles criticizes Jasper’s tendency not to wear enough makeup.
I’m also very happy that the idea of the woman scorned as a central motif intrigues – though of course she’s not scorned by either of the heroes. Now I want to write a sequel that helps flesh out the things that Sarah F feels are missing in this one. I’m actually very fond of these two characters, and it would be nice to give them a new airing. This time with added vampires. LOL!
It snowed again today, and I have a heavy cold, so I stayed in all day and made a book trailer for The Wages of Sin. After filming some video for it yesterday, I couldn’t get the movie making software to accept the file type of the video. I couldn’t find a way to convert the video into a format it would recognise either. So I had to go for stills again. However, I got some movement in it with animated gifs, and I think it came out quite well. Got the story in in under a minute again 🙂
Argh! Just die already, nobody cares! (Well, I don’t, you emo megalomaniac traitor. Push off, stop being such a whinger – it’s not as if you haven’t done this 10 times already without any of the drama. Die horribly and come back as someone better.)
Also, why couldn’t he be ginger for a change?
Also, didn’t I say RTD would only bring the Time Lords back to kill them off again? Well he did, and he did it in a way that makes it harder for the next lot of writers to bring them back again as a stabilizing influence. How is it possible that after such a brilliant start he’s now succeeded in taking away everything I liked about this series?
Also, also, thanks RTD for that little mean spirited stomp on the Jack/Ianto shippers. What was that? Was that a “see how easily I can replace your favourite character, now stop complaining”? I have to say it’s not really working for me.
That has to have been the longest death scene in recorded history, and all it did was make me hate 10 more. Seriously, he’s gone beyond Mary Sue and into serious idol worship territory, and I’m very glad to see the back of him. If only I could really believe that the next one would be better, but I don’t know that I can.
It’s currently only available as an ebook, but the print version is expected later this month in the anthology “The Mysterious.”
The print anthology will contain stories by Laura Baumbach and Josh Lanyon in addition to mine, but there isn’t going to be an ebook version of the full anthology. All three novellas are being published separately in ebook form. So if you prefer reading on e-reader then this is the one to get. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been a good week for entertainment this week. I just finished reading “Lover’s Knot” by Donald Hardy, one of the new m/m romances from Running Press. It was wonderful! It’s set in a small Cornish village, and there’s a gripping plot that involves ghosts and revenge and the return of a demon lover from our hero’s past to bedevil him just as he’s beginning to nerve himself up to confess his true love to the sunny young gentleman who is his guest at his newly acquired Cornish farmstead. A lovely meaty plot and a lush, evocative setting – banter and obvious ease between the two heroes, and a dangerous sensuality and threat from the lover of the past who is not as dead and gone as everyone might have hoped… It’s a real classic of the genre in a similar vein to The Phoenix by Ruth Sims – a serious, literary book, but a delight to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
In terms of slightly less lasting entertainment, I went to see St.Trinians 2:
which, despite some very heavy handed attempts to grapple with sexism, some “do they have to dress like that?” attempts to cater to the boys, and some “why exactly is the headmistress a man in drag?” bemusement (though – having thought about it, why shouldn’t she be? And why shouldn’t she get the boy?) still managed to be a fantastic romp where a bunch of girls teamed together to take on the world and win. And it ended with the girls of St.Trinian’s sailing a tall ship down the Thames and taking out David Tennant’s villain with a broadside from the cannon. Hee! And those girls look fantastic in morning suits, oh my.
I was watching the trailers at the cinema, which were all for films with the plot “young man discovers he is special and is forced into having amazing adventures, during which he grows up and discovers he can be a hero.” This is not a bad plot, but it sucks that it was the *only* plot. So St.Trinians, despite its tendency to dress the girls in naughty schoolgirl outfits, is still something that warms the cockles of my heart and I wish there were more films like it.
Which kind of soured me a little for going to see Sherlock Holmes the next day. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed it a lot. I loved Holmes and Watson’s relationship, and thought that Watson was perfect. I liked the police force a lot. I wasn’t so sure about Holmes as a kind of Wolverine figure, but the books do mention that he’s trained in boxing and other martial arts, so I can let that pass. I liked the alchemy, though I thought the whole “secret society of men in funny robes” thing has been a bit overdone. I guess I’m just fed up of women appearing in films just to be ritual sacrifices or love interests who need to be rescued.
I’m aware that at my age and with my shoulders I’m seriously not able to chase down a villain or kung-fu my way through a bar fight, but neither are most of the men who watch these films. They get wish fulfillment characters who will do it for them and make them feel good about being a man. Where are those characters for the women? They’re still not out there. No wonder we identify with men, write about men, want to be men. In the stories we are given all our lives, men still get to do the interesting stuff and be the interesting ones, and we get to be allowed to tag along as the baggage of the main characters, if we’re present at all.
Which seems a strange thing for a writer of m/m romance to get steamed up about 🙂 But I think writing is different – I think it’s easier to find books with kick ass heroines than it is to find films with the same; all those demon killing paranormal heroines, for example. It’s probably time someone made some films about them.
I managed to miss Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End so I still haven’t seen that film. I’m not heartbroken to have missed it, but it might have been nice to watch it just for the sake of completeness. Another time, maybe.
Dr. Who was very RTD-like still – far too much rushing about and shouting with over the top emo moments and a soundtrack out of a second rate opera. I would be very excited about the return of the Time Lords (I hated the fact that RTD got rid of them in order to do all this ‘lonely god’ nonsense with the Doctor), but I strongly suspect it will be the kind of bringing them back that lasts all of three seconds before they get destroyed again in some way where they’re even more destroyed than they were before.
I do miss the days where Dr. Who could do ‘long running story with quiet menace’ instead of the current ‘shouty emo with messianic themes’.
Also saw “Hamlet” which I almost avoided on account of Dr.Who putting me off David Tennant. However, I’m very glad that I didn’t avoid it – it was awesome. Really gripping and thought provoking – and demonstrates that David Tennant clearly can act brilliantly. Hamlet’s not a play I’d studied or seen before, so it was mostly new to me, and I now see why it is so revered. Oh Hamlet, you are a loony, and a coward, and too clever for your own good, and a disaster to your friends, and still, as Horatio says, a sweet prince, naive and hapless and trapped.
My 15 year old daughter was also gripped, and we went “awww, bless…” together over Polonius, who I had not expected to like so much. I also liked Claudius a lot, though I’m not sure how much I’m meant to. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at finding Shakespeare’s most famous play better than I had thought it would be, but I am thoroughly impressed at how wonderful the combination of excellent acting and excellent writing can really be. Definitely one to watch again, if I get the chance.
Well, we had a very nice Christmas this year. Dad came down from up North (near Manchester) and stayed from the 23rd. He’s on his way home now. Then on the 25th my sister and brother in law visited for Christmas day, so we ended up cooking for 7 – five adults and two children. Of course it wasn’t that simple, as one of the adults (me) is a vegetarian, and one of the children won’t eat anything sensible at all. Also one of the adults (Andrew) and both children won’t eat dried fruit. So this meant roast goose and trimmings for 5 people, turkey dinosaurs for one child and curried potato cakes for me, plus Christmas pudding for 4 people and ice cream with chocolate sauce for 3. Read the rest of this entry »
As I’m finding it hard to get to the computer, with Dad here for a visit, and my sister and brother in law coming tomorrow, I’m grabbing a quick opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hogmanay, Wonderful (Winter festival of your choice) and a better 2010 than 2009.
As if this wasn’t flabberghasting enough, this isn’t their ‘top 100 of 2009’, it’s their ‘top 100 romances since 1970’ list. I can’t say how stoked I am that False Colors ranked so high – and how wonderful it is to have m/m books considered in the same league as m/f ones. I’m trying to think of something appropriate to say but – after a long day of driving and flat-pack-sofa assembling – I’m just happily speechless. Wow! Thank you, DA!
The Boat of Small Mysteries - A cozy mystery aboard a narrowboat, in which a murder and a disappearance keep our aroace detective from fully relaxing into the idyll of country life.
