Friday Funnies — Confession

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I have been with a loose girl.”

The priest asks, “Is that you, little Johnny Parisi?”

“Yes, Father, it is.”

“And who was the girl you were with?”

“I can’t tell you, Father. I don’t want to ruin her reputation.”

“Well, Johnny, I’m sure to find out her name sooner or later, so you may as well tell me now. Was it Tina Minetti?”

“I cannot say.”

“Was it Teresa Volpe?”

“I’ll never tell.”

“Was it Nina Capelli?”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot name her.”

“Was it Cathy Piriano?”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Was it Rosa Di Angelo, then?”

“Please, Father, I cannot tell you.”

The priest sighs in frustration. “You’re very tight-lipped, Johnny Parisi, and I admire that. But you’ve sinned and have to atone. You cannot be an altar boy now for 4 months. Now you go and behave yourself.”

Johnny walks back to his pew, and his friend Nino slides over and whispers, “What’d you get?”

“Four months vacation and five good leads.”

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Book Review — GARDEN SPELLS

Title: GARDEN SPELLS
Author: Sarah Addison Allen
Genre: Contemporary/Paranormal Romance
Series: N/A

Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Book Depository

Back Cover Copy:

In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it.…

The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.

A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plants—from the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleys—except for Claire’s rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before.

When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire’s quiet life is turned upside down—along with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy—if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom—or with each other.

Enchanting and heartfelt, this captivating novel is sure to cast a spell with a style all its own….

My Review:

I love this book. I love it so hard.

GARDEN SPELLS is a sweet, magical story. The people of this tiny town of North Carolina are so real and relatable that you can’t help but fall in love with them.

Claire, the main character, seems a no-nonsense sort, even though she owns a magical garden and learned how to use certain plants from it in her recipes for her catering business to elicit certain reactions from those who eat the food she prepares. It’s quite clever, really. I love how the hardcover version I have of this book includes a reference guide in the back of what plants cause what reactions. Her sister, Sydney, lived a wild and carefree lifestyle which resulted in her landing in an abusive relationship and being unable to leave due to her daughter.

When Sydney flees from Seattle with her child so they can hide with her sister, you can easily see how hard it is for these two women to reconcile their bitter childhood together. Both of them envied the other for different reasons, and it’s both poignant and lovely to see how they gradually overcome and settle their differences and come to love and trust each other as sisters should. They are both hesitant to give love a chance, both with each other, and with the men in their lives, so it is truly beautiful and moving to see how they open up to their respective love interests.

The secondary characters are just as lovely and real and funny and flawed and heartbreaking as Claire and Sydney. Including the silly enchanted apple tree that throws apples at you when it wants your attention, and whose fruit, when eaten, shows you the most significant event to come in your life.

While the book does contain supernatural elements, such as the garden and tree, these aspects work more to complement the characters and are worked with such a deft hand that I believe regardless of whether you are a fan of paranormal or contemporary romance, you will find something to love about this story.

There are so many little details and lovely turns and so many insightful moments to this book that it is very difficult for me to keep this review both short and relatively spoiler-free. It really is best to discover this town and the people in it on your own. If you are a fan of sweet and moving love stories with a touch of humor, you must read this book. In that regard, it is pretty much perfect.

5/5

(Side note: I don’t usually mention this, but the author’s website has some fun extras–like recipes using the edible flowers mentioned in the dishes in the book–so it’s worth moseying over to check it out.)

Series Order:
1. N/A

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50 Shades of Fanfiction: Also, The Time I Met James Marsters

For the most part, I like fanfiction. If you’re unfamiliar with what this is, fanfic is a story written about an existing universe and/or characters by a fan of the show, movie, book, or whatever that universe/those characters are based on. Some authors are viciously protective of their universes and won’t allow their fandom to write stories using their work (notably: Anne McCaffrey, George R.R. Martin, Anne Rice, Robin McKinley, and a few others). Others don’t really care quite so much—witness websites such as fanfic.net and the boatloads of Harry Potter and Twilight fic now floating around.

I first heard of fanfic when I was in junior high. One of my friends wrote one about Drizzt (which I never read, and at that point, I had no idea who Drizzt was—let alone what a Drow or dark elf was).

Fanfic was my introduction to “pop” fantasy. The light/easy stuff like DragonLance. It was also how I got into Dungeons & Dragons and Vampire: the Masquerade.

Later, as I got older, I discovered that there was an online community playing characters from the TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I became a part of it. And via that community, I read my first fanfic—also based on Buffy. Later I expanded into reading and participating in lots of other fandoms, though the BtVS-based stories will always be my favorites. Particularly when they shipped Buffy/Spike before those two actually became a couple. (*Swoon!*) Mom, if you’re reading this, skip this next paragraph.

Anyone else remember Spike’s Spike? (Yes, it is exactly what you’re thinking.) That website fueled my obsession with Spike throughout my late teens/early 20’s like nothing else. God damn, I miss the stories on that site. Oh, young James Marsters… that trench coat… that smile…! *swoon!*

Digressing for a moment—the ironic thing? When actually face-to-face with Marsters IRL—yes, I met him in real life—words completely and utterly failed me. I turned into a googly-eyed, drooling, dumb-struck fangirl. I couldn’t find my own tongue. I moved my mouth in an attempt to say something witty and suave, but it came out more like, “Uhhh, mmmph, herp derp.” He gave me a glance and then started joking and laughing with my friend who was not so enamored of him instead (which is for the best, considering how all chances of my making rational discourse of any kind went out the window as soon as I saw him).

It was the one and only time in my life I’ve ever been struck speechless by meeting a celebrity, though I imagine I’d probably end up doing the same thing all over again if I ever ran into Alan Tudyk, Neil Patrick Harris, Alexander Skarsgaard, or Johnny Depp. And if I ever met them all at the same time, I would probably implode.

AHEM. Moving on.

For a long time, I immersed myself in the various fanfic and online roleplaying communities and culture. As I got older, my interest in fanfic waned, and I have not really been a close part of the online RPG community for a while. A combination of lack of time, “grownup” responsibilities, and the occasional lack of a computer and/or internet access kept me too busy to participate. Also, much to my dismay, most of my friends who I used to play and write with have moved on.

So. Getting to my point, all the talk about the 50 Shades trilogy lately has brought out the nostalgic part of me.

I have literally hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction and chatlogs from my roleplaying days saved. Some of my fanfic is still floating around somewhere in the darkest corners of the internet. Some of it is great (read: about 0.0001%), and some is crap (read: most of it). I’ve taken small things from my old stuff—usually no more than a sentence or two, or perhaps as much as a couple of paragraphs—and polished it and made it sparkly and new and inserted it into my manuscripts before. For the most part, everything I’ve published has been new material, not a rehash of the old, though even Shia started out as an old RPG character of mine.

I haven’t read 50 Shades of whatever. Nor do I intend to. If you’re not sure how this book is relevant, the short story is that it started out as an alternate-universe (AU) Twilight fanfic called Master of the Universe and the damned thing is everywhere in the news. Since I haven’t been able to escape it, I’m going to write about it. How’s that for contrary?

Anywho, if you haven’t heard, all of the characters were human, and it is BDSM (bondage-domination-sadism-masochism) erotica. The author did what is referred to as “scrubbing the serial numbers off”—she renamed the story, removed all mentions of Bella and Edward and the rest of the Twilight-verse from it, then started selling them as physical and e-books called 50 Shades of Grey, 50 Shades Darker, and 50 Shades Freed. (Interesting side note: according to Dear Author, E.L. James has done a pretty shitty job of scrubbing considering her published works are still 89% like the original fanfic.)

The books then sold a ridiculous number of copies, were picked up for a ridiculous advance by a Big 6 publisher, somehow have hit the NY Times Bestseller list at #1 (with the other two in the top 10) for two or three weeks in a row, and the author is now in negotiations for a ridiculous sum of money for a movie deal. (I can’t figure out why there’s a movie deal in the works—offering a seven-figure deal for BDSM erotica seems a bit ridonkulous, as I have NO idea how the movie studio making the offer plans to get what is bound to be an X-rated film in regular theaters to recoup their cost in ticket sales. Somehow I don’t see what should probably be direct-to-DVD—if anything—being worth a $5M+ price tag before it even goes into production. But I’m not in film, so what do I know…)

The unwritten rule in fanfiction has long been: “Thou Shalt Not Make Money Off Thy Fic’s Established Fandom.” The reason for it is simple. If the fic is a blatant rip, plagiarizes, or in some way harms the reputation of the author/’verse, the author of the original material can lose their copyright if they don’t defend it, and/or can choose to ban the use of their material for fanfiction, and/or can take legal action to recoup damages. This has been known for a while.

James has changed the game by publishing her story and flaunting its roots/her methods. As an author, I’m honestly and frankly worried about the implications this has on publishing and copyright. That is the stuff of another post—though you might be interested in reading Jami Gold’s take on the ethics of the matter. I also think that there is information in the comments of note, particularly the one comparing just how much 50SoG still has a lot of connections to Twilight despite the AU connotation and “serial scrubbing” that was done.

I hope I never find myself in the position of having to take legal action to defend my creations. I love my characters and my work, and I love the idea of people enjoying it so much that they want to share their take on it with others. But my work is mine. And I will be pissed if someone tries to make a buck off of my creations without permission.

Is there anyone else out there who used to or currently writes fanfic? What do you think of this 50 Shades phenomenon? Any thoughts on scrubbing off the serial numbers? And, most importantly, do you share my undying love of Spike from Buffy?

Let’s hear it in the comments!

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Show Your Love for the H&W Gang!

Thought I’d share a couple of fun things.  Sally from the Qwillery has been absolutely delightful and put together some awesome Team Royce and Team White Hat buttons (these are just the images–you can hit me up for the code if you want to feature any of these on your blog since I’m technologically challenged at the moment how to make it show up in a WordPress post):

Team White Hat
Team Royce 1
Team Royce 2
Team Royce 3

Also, thanks to Abigail from All Things Urban Fantasy for prompting I’m Loving Books to make these fabulous H&W Investigations-themed banners! There are a lot of other great book series banners on that site (Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, House of Night, etc), so if you like these, you might want to check it out.

H&W Investigations by Jess Haines

H&W Investigations by Jess Haines

H&W Investigations by Jess Haines

H&W Investigations by Jess Haines

If you know of any other images or banners or Team Royce/Chaz/White Hat/Whatevs buttons, or make one yourself, let me know and I’ll feature them here on the blog!

Also, if you are so inclined, you can swing over by the Vampire Book Club and enter the Alpha Showdown!  *cough*Royce or Shia*cough*  Looks like there is a giveaway, too. I remember how things went last year–it’s worth sticking around to see the showdown updates.

Lastly, just a quick reminder that the giveaway for an ARC of Stalking the Others is still open.

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Do You Listen To Music When You Write?

Someone recently asked this question on a writing forum. It got me thinking. I rarely listen to music while working on the H&W Investigations books. I used to listen to music as a teenager when I roleplayed online and wrote fanfiction, and later, while I worked on my high fantasy epic trilogy that will most likely never see the light of day.

Mostly what changed for me was the environment during the time I had free to write when I first got rolling on the series. Listening to music wasn’t an option with my schedule and circumstances. As time progressed, I learned to write with the TV blasting in the background, friends talking around me, etc.

For the first time in a while, this weekend I wrote to music. While the strains of classical music like Moonlight Sonata hummed in the background, I wrote some horrific, post-apocalyptic zombie fic. It was rather refreshing.

My tastes in music, much like my tastes in everything else, are very eclectic. I’ll listen to almost anything. These days, for the most part, I tune it out and dismiss it as background noise when I’m at a keyboard, though I’ll usually play something (and occasionally sing along) while I’m doing chores around the house, driving in the car, etc.

So what about you? Any writers out there who prefer to write to music? What do you listen to while you work on your stories?

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Friday Funnies — The Husband Store

A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:

1. You may visit this store ONLY ONCE!

2. There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends.

3. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but cannot go back down except to exit the building!

A woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. She starts up the stairs to each floor.

On the first floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 – These men have jobs.

The second floor sign reads: Floor 2 – These men have jobs and love kids.

The third floor sign reads: Floor 3 – These men have jobs, love kids, and are extremely good looking.

“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the fourth floor and sign reads: Floor 4 – These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good looking and help with housework.

“Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims, “I can hardly stand it!”

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and sign reads: Floor 5 – These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good looking, help with housework, and have a strong romantic streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads: Floor 6 – You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

Further:

To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opens a new Wives Store just across the street, also with six floors and the same rules.

The first floor has wives who love sex.

The second floor has wives who love sex and have money.

The third through sixth floors have never been visited.

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Cover Love

I don’t usually post about cover art, but I found a few recently that really floored me with how lovely they are. Figured I’d share them here.

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in the palace and compete for the heart of the gorgeous Prince Maxon.

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself- and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

It looks like this somehow has two covers / back cover blurbs, and the author has two different names. Kind of interesting to see. You can verify on Goodreads that this is the same book/author.  I’m guessing one is the U.S. edition and one is the U.K. edition.  U.S. edition appears to have a prologue (use the Amazon Look Inside feature), while the U.K. version (see here) does not. At a glance, the editing seems a bit different, too.

In a town built on magic be careful what you dream…

Ever since moving to Fairwick to take up a teaching post at the local college, Callie has been having vivid, erotic dreams about a man made out of moonlight and shadows. Dreams she begins to fear as well as anticipate…

She learns that her home – a Victorian cottage at the edge of a wood – is supposedly haunted. And then her new – and rather strange – colleagues tell her a local legend about an incubus with a human past who was enchanted by a fairy queen…

 

I gasped . . . or tried to. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t draw breath. . . . His lips, pearly wet, parted and he blew into my mouth. My lungs expanded beneath his weight. When I exhaled he sucked in my breath and his weight turned from cold marble into warm living flesh.

Since accepting a teaching position at remote Fairwick College in upstate New York, Callie McFay has experienced the same disturbingly erotic dream every night: A mist enters her bedroom, then takes the shape of a virile, seductive stranger who proceeds to ravish her in the most toe-curling, wholly satisfying ways possible. Perhaps these dreams are the result of writing her bestselling book, The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers. After all, Callie’s lifelong passion is the intersection of lurid fairy tales and Gothic literature—which is why she finds herself at Fairwick’s renowned folklore department, living in a once-stately Victorian house that, at first sight, seemed to call her name.

But Callie soon realizes that her dreams are alarmingly real. She has a demon lover—an incubus—and he will seduce her, pleasure her, and eventually suck the very life from her. Then Callie makes another startling discovery: He’s not the only mythical creature in Fairwick. As the tenured witches of the college and the resident fairies in the surrounding woods prepare to cast out the incubus, Callie must accomplish something infinitely more difficult—banishing this demon lover from her heart.

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she’s returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld… this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

As Nikki’s time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she’s forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s…

In this riveting and startling companion to “Impulse,” northern Nevada teenagers Cara, Kendra, Sean, and Andre, tell in their own voices of their very different paths toward perfection and how their goals change when tragedy strikes.

In a world unseen by mortals, the forces of Summer and Winter are at war. Two Faery Courts have been seeking the Summer Queen for more than nine centuries–one to restore the power of Summer and the other to banish it in this gritty modern Faery tale.

Have you ever heard of a Bludman? They’re rather like you and me—only more fabulous, immortal, and mostly indestructible. (They’re also very good kissers.)

Delilah S. Dawson’s darkly tempting debut drops her unsuspecting heroine into a strange faraway land for a romantic adventure that’s part paranormal, part steampunk . . . and completely irresistible.

When Tish Everett forces open the ruby locket she finds at an estate sale, she has no idea that a deliciously rakish Bludman has cast a spell just for her. She wakes up in a surreal world, where Criminy Stain, the dashing proprietor of a magical traveling circus, curiously awaits. At Criminy’s electric touch, Tish glimpses a tantalizing future, but she also foresees her ultimate doom. Before she can decide whether to risk her fate with the charming daredevil, the locket disappears, and with it, her only chance to return home. Tish and Criminy battle roaring sea monsters and thundering bludmares, vengeful ghosts and crooked Coppers in a treacherous race to recover the necklace from the evil Blud-hating Magistrate. But if they succeed, will Tish forsake her fanged suitor and return to her normal life, or will she take a chance on an unpredictable but dangerous destiny with the Bludman she’s coming to love?

All of these really caught my eye. I can’t speak for the back cover copy or the contents of the books, I just really liked the pretties. How about you? Any covers make you go grabby-hands over a title lately?

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Book Review — THE NYMPHOS OF ROCKY FLATS

Title: THE NYMPHOS OF ROCKY FLATS
Author: Mario Acevedo
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Felix Gomez

Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Book Depository

Back Cover Copy:

The first and only vampire book to be declassified by the federal government . . .

Felix Gomez went to Iraq a soldier. He came back a vampire.

Now he finds himself pulled into a web of intrigue when an old friend prompts him to investigate an outbreak of nymphomania at the secret government facilities in Rocky Flats. He’ll find out the cause of all these horny women or die trying! But first he must contend with shadowy government agents, Eastern European vampire hunters, and women who just want his body . . .

Skewering sexual myths, conspiracy fables, and government bureaucracy, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats reveals the bizarre world of the undead with a humorous slant and a fresh twist.

My Review:

For some reason, I started this book thinking it was the second in the series. Acevedo has been on my radar for a while, but it wasn’t until just recently that I had a chance to read one of his novels.

As the title implies, there are some women who are infected with a type of nymphomania due to something going on at a government facility in Rocky Flats. Felix Gomez, who was turned into a vampire during his tour of service in Iraq, is now a private investigator who has been called in by a friend to find out just what’s going on behind closed doors and what’s infecting the local women who work there with nymphomania.

I was a bit surprised, and in a pleasant way. Though you wouldn’t think so, the book is not particularly dirty. There is sex, and the sensuality of vampires does come into play to a degree, but overall this is not a book I would call raunchy. It’s something I’m glad of, because the title to this book (as well as the others in the series) put me off starting for a while.

Felix is something of an enigma to the other vampires in town. He doesn’t drink human blood. Though it is obviously draining his vampiric powers, he can’t bring himself to do so–even when he’s biting someone. This is very much to his detriment during the case as he seeks to find clues as to why these women who were exposed to something driving them to have uncontrollable sexual urges. In Felix’s world, vampires can also see auras and influence human minds when they aren’t using contacts to hide their strangely colored eyes. He notes that, every time, the color of the aura for these infected women changes when their “urges” take them. Though he could have easily taken advantage of these women in their more vulnerable moments, Felix is actually a pretty stand-up guy for a vampire and does nothing to harm or abuse them.

The story runs the gamut between murder mystery, romance, and government conspiracy theories. It was very ambitious in that it covered a number of plots and side-stories. Everything wrapped up very neat and pat in the end, and it was certainly not a bad read, but something I can’t put my finger on kept this from being a great read for me. Perhaps the humor was too pat. I’m also not normally much of a fan of war stories or anything that delves too deeply into the nuts and bolts of how the government works, so that may have had something to do with it. The flashbacks to Iraq and the guilt trips Felix embarked upon were not bad, exactly, they just didn’t interest me despite how vital they were to Felix’s growth as a character. Overall, it seemed to waver between taking itself too seriously and going the completely campy route.

There is nothing particularly erotic about this book, so don’t let the title fool you. If you like detective novels with a supernatural flair (that use crude/snarky humor as opposed to light-hearted), chances are you’ll enjoy this story. It wasn’t a favorite for me, but chances are good I’ll pick up the next book at some point in the future.

3/5

Series Order:
1. The Nymphos of Rocky Flats
2. X-Rated Bloodsuckers
3. The Undead Kama Sutra
4. Jailbait Zombie
5. Werewolf Smackdown

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Friday Funnies – One Question IQ Test

Here’s a one question IQ test to help you decide how you should spend the rest of your day……

There is a mute who wants to buy a toothbrush.

By imitating the action of brushing one’s teeth, he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.

Now, here’s the question: If a blind man wishes to buy a pair of sunglasses, how does he express himself?

Think about it first before scrolling down for the answer…

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He should open his mouth and say, “I would like to buy a pair of sunglasses.”

If you got this wrong — please turn off your computer and call it a day.

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