Things that make me go Hmmmmmmmmmm #1

Men with low, dark, chocolately voices.



Like Sam Elliott

And Richard Burton. Stupid Blogger won't let me post a vid of him.

And Kris Kristofferson

Hmmmmmmm

Feature sites #1: Historical fashion

I thought it would be nice to do a little post every now and again of websites I like. Not romance blogs, as I link to those all the time, but other sites that I've enjoyed spending time on.

So number one in this series is sites about historical fashion.

First up, Koshka the Cat aka The Fashionable Past aka Katherine's Dress Site.

I found this site when I was looking for images of Regency underwear. The author has a great page on Regency underwear, layer by layer. She has made a variety of outfits from the 18th and 19th century and has fabulous photographs of the outfits with lots of fascinating detail as well as plenty of fashion plates from periodicals of the day. Very useful if you're trying to choreograph a scene involving clothing. And all very helpfully indexed. If you're the creative type, she even has patterns you could attempt to follow.

Another very good historical fashion site is Fashion Era. So, for example, if you've ever wondered what a pelisse really is, that would be a good place to look.

And one last mention to the Regency Fashion Page. It has lots of images of genuine Regency clothing (men's as well as women's!) and a nice selection of portraits of the era.

Back again

Real photo. From a very nice little walk up to the Lion and the Lamb on Helm Crag starting in the gorgey-wowse village of Grasmere. Seriously it is Cute. But don't even think about going in summer. You won't get parked and you won't get a seat in a pub or a cafe for love nor money.

I prefer the Lakes in winter anyway. Or autumn. It's more appropriate weather for eating Grasmere gingerbread. Which is genuinely unlike any other gingerbread, anywhere. It must be eaten with tea. Nothing will do but good strong builders' tea.

Another lovely walk we did was to Scale Force, the highest waterfall in the Lakes. We had that sort of overcast but dry weather that can be so perfect for walking. Especially in the Lake District where the colours are shown to their very best in such conditions; the lovely coppery colour of bracken, and the almost-warm grey of the slatey rock and all the fabulous greens: bright green sphagnum moss and silvery green lichens. Just beautiful.

And if walking is too quiet for you, there is the constant chatter of le grand fils and the increasingly vocal demands of le petit fils to keep one constantly amused/ on the brink of sanity.

There was some reading. Hopefully reviews will follow shortly.

Bits and pieces

Bit #1: On the publication of Gobsmacked by one LB Gregg

For those who don't know, I'm terribly fond of LB. Adjectives that spring to mind are hilarious, kindly, impulsive, opinionated, kindly, loyal, sweet, hilarious and kindly.

Well, she's got a book out! You will no doubt read many many good things about this booky on the intertubes - so I will say only one thing. Very quietly and confidentially in your ear'ole. Subtle like. Just between the two of us.

Are you listening?

LB writes really good sex scenes.

Go forth. Buy.

Bit #2: On the fickleness of Tumperkin's reading habits

I am being a skittish reader recently. I started Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair, Lover Revealed by J R Ward and No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole - all new to me authors - and have abandoned them all after a few chapters. (See bit #3). I do intend to go back to them. But I got The Seducer by Madeline Hunter (also a new to me author) and that really was much more my cup of tea. But then, even though I was enjoying The Seducer, Simply Magic by Mary Balogh arrived. It's a Balogh I'd never much fancied but every now and again I buy an unread Balogh and invariably get hooked. So The Seducer has been shelved till Simply Magic is finished. In the meantime, Scandal by Caroline Jewel (also new to me; recent rave reviews) has arrived and is looking at me temptingly, along with the latest Lynne Graham which I will shoehorn in one evening because I Must Read All Lynne Grahams.

I'm quite excited about the Madeline Hunter find. The Seducer is a bit of a B-read overall so far but the first chapter was utterly fab. High stakes and humiliation. Nice.

Bit #3: On why I struggle with paranormals (again)

I've mentioned before - ad nauseam - the difficulty I've had with paranormals. I sort of want to get into this sub-genre but I've not found a lot that work for me.

There are exceptions. I really loved Mathilde Madden's Silver Werewolves trilogy and the less conventionally attractive picture she painted of lycanthropic life (I've been meaning to post about this trilogy forever - maybe one day). However, I do struggle with the more conventional paranormal reads I've tried.

In some ways, this surprises me. I love fairy tales, after all.

In other ways, it doesn't. I'm not a fan either of sonorous prose or of sarcastically humorous voices, both of which feature fairly heavily in the genre, from what I've seen. It's telling that the stuff I've enjoyed hasn't been in either of those veins.

But that takes me off the very short point I want to make. I had A Moment a few months ago that sort of summed up what I find difficult with this genre. I was sitting on the sofa reading a paranormal and quite enjoying it. Meanwhile, le grand fils was watching an episode of Transformers. Suddenly, one of the characters in the cartoon delivered a few lines that explained how some absurd facet of the Transformers-World works. Dismayed, I looked at my book and thought Basically, I'm watching Transformers.

Bit #4: I'm not going to be here for a bit

Mid-term break in Britain so we're away for a week. Hillwalking and pubs. This is very much the usual when the Tumperkins go away en famille for short breaks.

We will also be going on a bear hunt, due to the fact that the le petit fils adores Michael Rosen's masterpiece.

Incidentally, Mr Tumperkin doesn't look like Tin Tin, but the littlie is a blondie and he does like Sho-duz. This is an edict he issues whenever he wants to experience a better view of the world.

Daddy! Sho-duz!

Enjoy your week, nutcases.

Version Control 2

I like this version of Love Machine so much better than the original by Girls Aloud.

One is a tidy pop song. The other is raucous and funny and weirdly makes me think of John Shuttleworth.

The Arctic Monkeys do Love Machine:

Version Control

Romance novels are a bit like cover versions. Telling the same story as other novels/ performing the same song. But hopefully doing it in a way that also offers something new to the reader/ listener.

What do you think of this cover version of the Ting Tings' That's Not My Name by Dizzee Rascal? Here is the original by the Ting Tings. I love the original but I think this cover is fantastic - with a few changes to the words he turns it into a song about something else entirely.

More cover versions later.

A judicial approach to Dirty by Megan Hart with apologies to Jessica

I don't only read romance novels you know.

I spend quite a lot of time reading other things. Professionally, for example. Judicial decisions aren't that unlike reviews (*stretches analogy*). Like a review, the decision of a court is an opinion. A binding opinion but an opinion nonetheless.

In the higher courts, the court's decision will often comprise the opinions of multiple judges. That's where it can get interesting. Not all decisions are unanimous. There may be a minority who dissent and even when judges agree with each other, they may do so for different reasons. These multiple opinions provide lawyers with fertile material to argue that when the court said X it clearly did not have in mind situations such as Y. But the easiest sort of judicial opinion to analyse is the one that reads as follows: I concur. This is the opinion that is given when another judge's opinion so perfectly sums up the case that the concurring judge need say nothing more. And it is in this unusual position I find myself when I come to discuss Dirty by Megan Hart.

This book came out in 1997 and the first review I recall seeing of it was on Dear Author by Jane. She gave it a C- and that was the last I heard of the book for quite a while. I missed the A- review that Janine of Dear Author posted a few months later which might have piqued my interest.

And then a few months ago, there was a little flurry of late reviews. First Jessica and CJ. (Intrigued, I ordered it). Then, Jill Sorenson.

Interestingly, although Jill liked the book least, hers was the review that most stoked curiosity and the one that made me set aside the book I was already reading to pick this one up. Jill had disliked certain elements in the book but she reported that she was hooked a few pages in, read it in one sitting and clearly had a strong emotional reaction to it.

CJ's review talked about the book's honesty:

This is the most honest book I’ve read all year. It’s honest in more than sex scenes. it’s honest in how the characters speak and behave, honest in how the plot works. Hemingway once said something like, he writes one true thing, and then another and another, and that’s how he writes a book. And I thought about it with this book. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Hmmmm. Honesty, you say?

And as for Jessica, well, all I can say it's not often I read a review and agree with every single word. So I suppose the most economical way of reviewing this book is simply to say I concur with Jessica (since it would be a breach of copyright to quote the entire thing).

I can't just leave it there though, can I? I have to say something about the book for myself. Ok. Here are some of the things I really liked.

I really liked Dan. He was persistent without being stalkerish or obsessive and he took no for an answer from Elle, even when he secretly knew that was not the best thing for Elle. He has a respect for her right to choose that I appreciated. Whilst I love books that explore the power balance between the protaganists in a romance, I have a problem with overbearing heroes who continually override the heroine's free will. Dan was the very antithesis of such a man.

As Jessica said:

You can have your lust-oozing Fabio lookalike with his tree trunk legs and appendage as big as the heroine’s wrist. Me? I will take the sensitive Jewish boy in the Brooks Brothers suit with the hidden libidinal depths every time.

Hear, hear!

I really liked the patience with which the story was parsed out. Every single scene between Dan and Elle develops their relationship a little further. The sex between them starts early, but the intimacy builds very slowly, so that when they finally kiss properly for the first time, about three quarters into the book, that scene is more moving than many a consummation scene. Similarly, I appreciated the way Hart dealt with condoms. Far from ignoring them, as so many contemporaries do, she puts their use right into the heart of the story: when Dan and Elle decide to have unprotected sex, it's a very practical symbol of how far Elle has come in terms of trust and intimacy and I found it very moving for all the practicality with which they exchanged medical information.

Oh. And I really liked the ending. I'm sucker for that SPOILER ALERT...............

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................. 'swallows pride and declares love' kind of ending. *Misty eyes*.

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