With this excellent advice, I went to Pete’s Coffee and Tea yesterday, wrote for three hours, and finished almost three pages of my very first novel. With a bit more and some editing, I’ll have finished the first draft of the first chapter. Whooot!

Waking up at 5 am today, by 10:30 am I had already finished a 395 page novel, cover-to-cover. Yay for insomnia! This seems to be turning into a book review site, doesn’t it? Since I’ve been reading a book-a-day for the past few weeks it makes sense that most of what I talk about it books! (That translates into reading 5-7 hours per day- yes, I need to learn how to slowly savor them. I just can’t stop myself from gorging! Maybe I should get a job being an editor for a romance novel publisher. I would love that job.) Books, glorious books/what is there more handsome?/gulped, swallowed, or chewed/still worth a kings ransom!/what is it we dream about?/what brings on a sigh?/fabulous novels piled up/six feet high!

I’ll start rating books with this fun-filled heart rating system:

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 = fabulous! (Absolute favorites)

<3 <3 <3 <3 = great! (Definitely recommend)

<3 <3 <3 = good. (Enjoyable, recommend)

<3 <3 = Meh. (Not worth the time)

<3 = yuck. (Give me those wasted hours back and get this icky taste out of my mouth!)

Delicacies for the week of June 18-25:

A Girls Guide to Vampires by Katie MacAlister. Rating: <3 <3 <3.

This is the first book in MacAlister’s Vampire series. Fun, but not nearly as funny or clever as her other books. The title, once again, doesn’t really fit the story line. The author thanks Christine Feehan in the dedication for taking her “Vampire Virginity.” In the book two friends go on vacation to the Moravian Highlands to visit the place where their favorite vampire romance novelist lives. They attend a vampire fair and find real vampires and wanna-be vampires, true love and thwarted destiny.

Sex and the Single Vampire by Katie MacAlister. Rating: <3 <3 <3.

Second book in the vampire series, and much better than the first one. MacAlister fleshes out her fantasy world for our first real taste of Guardians, Demons, Demon-lords, and the mythology that makes up her paranormal book series (the Vampire series and the Aisling Grey series). The heroine is strong and refreshingly imperfect. I still have to read Sex, Lies and Vampires and Even Vampires Get the Blues. (I’ve already read Last of the Red Hot Vampires and the short story in Just One Sip, even though they supposedly come at the end of the series.)

Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson. Rating: <3 <3 <3.

Irreverent and tongue-in-cheek. Not as funny as Katie MacAlister, probably because self-absorbed people are annoying. I simply can’t relate to a fashion-obsessed shoe hog. But it was still an enjoyable quick read. That said, I haven’t rushed out to buy the sequels. I’ll probably read them eventually, but I forgot all about this book when I was writing this post. Soooo….enjoyable, but forgettable. Perhaps I was thrown off once again by the lust-not-love failure of the romance novel. In the book the heroine kicks some wimpy vampire arse, meets an incredibly annoying, unlovable, egotistical hero, and becomes queen of the vampires.

Heather and Velvet by Teresa Medeiros. Rating: <3 <3 <3.

The heroine’s name is Prudence. ’nuff said. No, just kidding. Despite the awful name and very stereotypical romance characters/plot/etc. I enjoyed this. Sometimes a girl needs a sappy, highland, regency england, love story thrown in to lighten up the equally stereotypical vampire romance novels. The book cover says it all. Wuv, twue, wuv. He has major man boobs on the cover and looks like Fabio with his long hair. Ew. Sheltered virgin with repressive evil stepmother gets kidnapped by sexy highland bandit and succeeds through major odds to win his cynical heart.

Improper English by Katie MacAlister. Rating: <3 <3 <3.

After reading the first half of this book I would have definitely given it four hearts. It was really funny and I fell in love with the heroine. Plot: Heroine flies to England intending to stay for the summer and write her very first romance novel. Each chapter starts with an abstract from her writing, which is exceptionally bad and funny. Needless to say, I was inspired start writing my own novel. If she can do it, I can to! Whoot! Unfortunately I didn’t buy the rushed patched up relationship between the hero and heroine at the end. If the heroine had been such a @#$% to me, I wouldn’t have taken her back.

The Vampire Who Loved Me by Teresa Medeiros. Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3.

Sequel to After Midnight. The cover is sexy. Despite the sappy title, I really enjoyed this book. Victorian England. Forbidden Love. First Love. True Love. Awwwww. In this book rakish vampire returns to England after having spent years fleeing across Europe and becoming entangled with evil vampire biatch. The girl he left behind has grown into a woman, and will not accept no for an answer. Breaks down his resistance and saves his soul. Don’t blame me for spoiling the ending – you knew it already.

Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning. Rating: <3 <3 <3.

Look at the front cover of this book. Just do it. Now, what do you think, if you knew nothing else about it or the author, it would be about? Or at least contain? Noooope. Not one bit of romance or sex. Huh? Yeah, apparently it’s in the “sci-fi/fantasy” section of the library. So why lie on the cover? The Highlander series had lots of sex and even those covers didn’t have indecently nekid people on them (Spell of the Highlander excluded). Anyways…..the book intricately builds upon the complex world of Moning’s Tuatha De Danaan (first exposed in the Highlander series). It was scary. I had to leave a light or two on in my apartment that night, ‘cuz I’m scared of the dark. The overdone foreshadowing was slightly irritating, but I couldn’t put this book down. The next day I ran to the book store to get the sequel, Bloodfever, only to be hugely disappointed to be told it doesn’t come out until October. Ack!

The Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning. Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3.

OoooooH! (Insert girly squeal of delight.) I really liked this book. You gotta read the other Highlander books in the series before this one so you understand the back-story. (I’d also recommend reading it before Darkfever, but you don’t have to. I didn’t.) It was exciting and verrrra sexy. This is the first book in which Moning introduces us to the Seelie (light fairy) and Unseelie (dark fairy) in the Tuatha De Danaan and to those special mortals on whom fairy magic does not work, the Sidhe-seer. The ending was so sweet that I teary. The day after I read it, cover-to-cover, I went back and reread all my favorite parts, which covered approximately half the book. The novel wasn’t just hot, it was thought provoking. I’m still mulling over the different concepts of immortality- immortal souls versus immortal bodies.

Spell of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning. Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3.

At last, a Moning heroine that isn’t blond! I was beginning to think she had a thing against my kind. Of course, to make up for her hair the heroine was given big, perky boobs. Oh well. We can’t have everything can we? In this book Moning introduces the Dark Unseelie Hollows and the Dark Book, which is a major player in her new Fever series.

I bought a number of other new novels this week at the used bookstore in Ballard, going just on author name and not reading the back of the book. I’m not really sure I want to start Teresa Medeiros’ book about a blind earl and the nurse who falls in love with him. It reminds me too much of the joke romance novel that the heroine of Improper English was starting to write, about a knight and his blind horse. I’ll probably see if the library has any more of my reserve books waiting instead.

Yesterday I gave my friend Carla my copy of You Slay Me to read on the airplane on her trip to Japan. I’ll ask her to write a guest blog review of it when she’s finished. I hope she loves it as much as I did. Happy reading!

I haven’t had any great ideas recently, so this one is from last Saturday that I had while I watched my life flash before my eyes in the taxi-from-hell on the way to the airport. If I ever had oodles of money, I would buy a castle in Ireland or Scotland and set up a living history museum in the tradition of Colonial Williamsburg, Plimoth Plantation, and Sturbridge Village. The castle, grounds, and village would be fully staffed with costumed interpretors. Every employee would assume the identity of a real person from the castle’s hey day. These interpretors would mainly be history majors and traditional artisans and craftspeople who specialize in medival arts. The castle inhabitants would engage in all the activities carried out during medieval times, including holding festivals, feasts, and tournaments. There would be three main ways for visitors to interact with the castle to experience life in medieval times:

1) Visitors would be able to visit during the day and interact with castle inhabitants (asking questions, watching reenactments, feasting, etc.) just like they do in the aforementioned living history museums.

2) Visitors could book a “time travel” vacation, in which they would take on actual roles at the castle, living in the castle as medieval peasants, servants, lords, knights, whatever. Like that PBS reality show Manor House where a bunch of volunteers took on roles on an english manor pretending to live in the year 1905. But this would be a vacation for role-playing history lovers (weirdos) like me. We could even have a reality show about it! These vacationers would, of course, pay for the privilege and have to interact with the knowledgable interpretors and answer questions for day-visitors. Vacations could be taken for a week up to a couple months. Nice sabbatical activity- bring the kids!

3) The Mountain School meets the Middle Ages. What better way to give kids a deep understanding and appreciation of history than to send them to school in a castle for a semester? (eat your heart out Harry fans!) Like the Mountain School, in which high school juniors get sent to live and work on a farm in Vermont for a semester (teaching rich kids important life-skills like cow milking), this experience would put them to work in roles in the castle for semester. Basically they’d be working as interpretors, and be taught history and arts and crafts from the official interpretors. And they’d have to write some history papers and, you know, do school stuff.

Why should Ireland or Scotland take me up on this fabulous idea?

1) Both Ireland and Scotland have campaigns to preserve gaelic language and culture. This would be a great way to expose visitors to ancient arts, music, language, and history, and to increase interest in preservation efforts.

2) It would create hundreds of jobs for struggling history majors and medieval artists/craftsmen/musicians/story tellers/etc. These are the people who currently keep the ancient knowledge alive, and they need to be supported!

3) Can we say tourist dollars? I’d pay big bucks to visit!

I did a really brief google search for living history museums in Scotland and Ireland, and nothing like this came up.

Queen Ciara hereby decrees this to be an excellent idea.

Four days and five books later (you’d think I’d learn to savor them!) I’ve made it back home. New York is crowded and smelly, airplanes suck, but, boy, was the reading fantastic! I have a new series to recommend to everyone, sort of a Harry-Potter-for-Grown-Ups. Katie MacAlister has penned a very funny and intrepid heroine named Aisling Grey.

I knew Aisling and I were kindred spirits from the opening lines of the first book, (MacAlister, Katie. You Slay Me. New York: Onyx, 2004:p1.)

“Ezling.”
“No, it’s Aisling.”
“Azhlee?”
“Aisling. It’s Irish….” I sweetened my smile, pushed down the worry that something would go wrong with the job, and said very slowly, “It’s pronounced ash-ling.”
“Ash-leen….”
I nodded. It was close enough.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had that conversation! There are currently three books out, with the fourth scheduled for November 2007. I don’t think I can wait that long! I am going to write a personal thank you letter to Katie for the hours of laughter and book lust she’s given me.

On this vacation I also read Last of the Red Hot Vampires, also by Katie, which was good, though the title doesn’t make much sense with the story line. It also deals with the crazy fabulous world that Aisling inhabits.

On the plane over, surrounded by elderly asian tourists, I read Karen Marie Moning’s Kiss of the Highlander. The cover shot left no doubt what sort of book I was reading, english proficiency not required. I was slightly embarrassed, but hey, who cares? Right? Right.

After that last post I realized that I was on to a brilliant idea: I should start a romance-reading, chocolate & wine tasting, stitch-n-bitching book club! Here are just some of the fabulous things the group could do:

Read Hard Days Knight and attend the Washington Renaissance Fantasy Faire for the book discussion.

Ogle dishy men in kilts at the Seattle Scottish Highland Games and Clan Gathering while discussing Men in Kilts, Outlander, or any of Moning’s Highlander series.

Read Blow Me Down and meet online to discuss the book while having swashbuckling adventures on YoHoHo! Puzzle Pirates.

Discuss one of the many Victorian or Regency romances over High Tea at the Queen Mary Tea Room.

Hold a contest for the most accurate Dragon’s Blood cocktail after reading You Slay Me. (I know what I’m going to enter!)

In November attend a book signing by Katie MacAlister when she unveils Holy Smokes!. (We’d keep our eyes out for other author signings too.)

Attend wine tastings in Woodenville, tour the nation’s first organic chocolate factory in Fremont, stitch, bitch, and generally have a grand ol’ time. Who’s game?

I’m completely, utterly addicted to reading romance novels. In the past few weeks I’ve sped through them…much to the detriment of school and sleep. My current biggest fear is running out of good ones at the library. Last night I read (straight through, five hours, till 4 am) Katie MacAlister’s Blow Me Down. I knew it was about pirates, but I didn’t realize until I looked more closely that it was about Puzzle Pirates, with which I had a brief, torrid affair back in College. Although the book was set in a “virtual reality” version of the game, all I could think of was a cartoon world full of lego people. I still enjoyed it, but couldn’t help laughing every time my brain reminded me “this is a romance novel about puzzle pirates.” Ha. I am such a dork. If anyone out there knows when Katie is planning on making an appearance, I’d love to meet her.

Carla came over last night and I pushed a romance novel on her, one of Ryan’s cousin’s books that was the first “real” romance novel I ever read. She didn’t like Outlander, so she’ll hate this book too, but I couldn’t find my copy of Men in Kilts to give her. If only I could pass my addiction along to some of my friends. A stitch-n-bitch, wine & chocolate tasting, romance novel club just makes my toes curl in longing. A girl can dream, can’t she?

I’ve been “trying” to write my final exam for the last four hours, and during a break in spider solitare decided to call my mother. She gave me some sage advice on writing from her experience writing her Masters thesis at Cornell: Every morning she would get up early, take a refreshing swim in the lake (in November), and make herself an espresso with a shot of Courvoisier and whipped cream. She said it worked wonders to help her get it done. Well I’m not one for turning down good advice, so I poured some scotch in my tea. Either I’ll speed through the final, or, more likely, I’ll fall asleep.

I read recently, in Teresa Medeiros’ book “Breath of Magic“, a really apt quote: “Inside the chest of every cynic beats the heart of a disillusioned optimist.”

I have always loved swashbuckling, adventurous love stories, and it turns out there is a whole genre written just for me! Last of the Mohicans, Rob Roy, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and the Count of Monte Cristo, all my favorite movies, are really romance novels on screen. Who knew? (Well Rachael, my college roommate, did, and I apologize profusely for ever doubting her!)

It started a year ago when I was perusing one of my favorite bookstores for a new novel to read. I was learning again how to read for fun, after years of intense schooling that sucked the fun right out of it. I found Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and fell completely in love. I had never read anything like it. (Diana apparently spurns the “romance novel” label, but if the shoe fits… and if James Fenmore Cooper writes it then who can say it’s not serious writing?) Besides, traditional fiction has never made me so completely absorbed in reading. I can’t put these books down! (Which is severely distracting while I’m still pursuing this Masters Degree; should I read Planning Law, sixth edition, or The Pirate who Loved Me? What kind of decision is that?!?)

Right now I’m trying to put down Karen Marie Moning’s Highlander Series in favor of my final exams…wish me luck. I need it!

I sit here on my deck in the most beautiful city in the world, gazing at Mount Rainier and enjoying a lovely, sunny evening. I should, by all means, be working on finals (I’m in school for a Master of City Planning) or be writing my book (which one?), but really, who could work on a beautiful day like today??