Happy Bloggiversary To Me....

Alpha Heroes is Two!
Whoa. That was fast.

236 posts, 63 individual book reviews, 9 series reviews, 9 author profiles, 15 "Thursday Thirteens," three templates, several hundred books, and lots of new virtual friends later, I'm still here.

I've always loved reading, but writing this blog has pushed that love up the scale closer to the "obsession" level. Since starting Alpha Heroes, I've attended a dozen local book signings, two RWA book fairs, and a handful of related author events. I'm thinking seriously about attending one of the conferences, although 2011 is more likely than 2010 financially.

Technically speaking...
When I look back at my first couple of posts, I see: one solid block of text. I knew how to link, so I thought it was pretty clever, that business of linking to images with text. Heh. I'm still not the most talented at finding perfect graphics for my posts, but I try pretty hard to have at least one in every post, and because I'm kind of a hopeless rule follower, I also try to get permission if it seems like an image that isn't obviously public.

I'm nobody's expert at css, but boy have I learned a lot in the last two years. I tend to be a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to formatting, so this last round of template changing and tweaking got really in depth.

Community
Didn't take long before I figured out about linking to other blogs and commenting on them. I don't know about other bloggers, but I crave the comments. I love knowing that people are reading, that they like what I wrote or are engaged enough to debate something they disagree with. You all are awesome and the main reason I'm still here.

I Write a Little Differently
Self-editing is a tough one. There are some topics that I could go on and on and on about (maybe you've noticed the twenty-some -odd JR Ward posts....) but I do make a conscious effort to keep my blog posts kind of middlin'. I'm pretty much incapable of writing a 200-word post. If you see something from me that doesn't require you to scroll, it's probably one of my Lazy Posts, wherein I'm redirecting you to something fun.

There are more than a few posts that are very very long, and some of those I had to kind of stop myself and say, "enough already!" -- I could've gone on for pages and pages with our two Black Dagger Brotherhood scholars earlier this year.

Generally, my posts probably run a bit longer than a typical blog post, but it's how I roll. I'm getting a little better at being concise, but I'm not too worried about it-- I just try to pay attention and not go off the deep end.

I Read a Little Differently, Too
But not too much, I think. I might be a bit more likely to notice writing "tics", as O'Donovan calls them. I don't know. But when I know I'll be writing a review, I do try to pay attention and flag excerpts that I want to talk about -- things I particularly love, or are especially evocative of the character or the author's style.

A Few of My Favorite Things
I'm still partial to my vampire credibility index post-- what can I say, sometimes I just crack myself up. Antholopalooza last December was an interesting experiment, both in reading and blogging. I started something about a year ago that I like to call the Lazy Post, which is mostly just a link to someone else's fabulous content (if I were less lazy, I might try to turn it into a meme, but, well. Lazy. It's a problem.) This year, the two-post series with Maria Lindgren Leavenworth and Jessica Price was a huge highlight. And of course, who could forget the Penis Post?

What's Next?
Mostly more of the same, I guess. I'm still having fun reviewing and blogging, and I don't think I'll ever quit reading romance. A few new ideas include a short-story meme that Jackie over at Literary Escapism and I are cooking up, and I've been mulling over adding some author feature pages around my favorites. I've been getting quite a few pings at GoodReads lately, so I've been thinking about doing brief reviews there and linking to the blog. Maybe at Amazon, too. Do you guys do stuff like that?

PRESENTS!!
Wouldn't be a birthday without them, now would it? You of course, are welcome to send me heaps of presents if you're so inclined, but of course I would NEVER presume to ask.

Coincidentally enough, I've been going over my non-keeper shelf today and I have a whole LOT of books that are ready to go to their next reader. So I'm going to bundle some up and give them away. I figure I'll do three packages: historical, contemporary, and paranormal/UF.

I do not guarantee condition, as quite a few of them were acquired used anyway. I'm gonna keep it simple -- leave a comment if you want to be entered and which of the 3 you're interested in. You don't have to comment 3 times to be in for all 3 packages, but you won't win more than one.

And one more time, if you're reading here? you're part of why I keep doing this. So thanks!

One of the Guys, by Kristan Higgins - Review

NOT A ROMP.
Ms. Higgins, I have a BONE to pick with you.

You are supposed to be light. You are supposed to be a romp. That's what everyone says: a romp. You are supposed to be sweet and happy and bubbly and frothy.

You know what I got from this book, Ms. Higgins? Soggy kleenex is what.

You made me cry like a little bitch, Ms. Higgins. I'm talking weepy, sniffly, unattractively moist sobs and hiccups. That bittersweet secondary romance? The way you spun out the tension on our poor Heroine, tighter and tighter and tighter until the HEA was in real, true, serious jeopardy? ROMPFAIL.

Hmpph. I do not read romance because I like sobbing into tissues.

And really, it's the rare author who can accomplish that. So, okay, you're an AWESOME author who writes a FANTASTICALLY emotional romance.

Fine. Be that way.

Demon Forged, by Meljean Brook - Review

Risk Profile
Do you have a go-to author, one whom you KNOW, for every book, you're going to love certain things? That the heroine will be feisty, or sweet, or the hero will be wounded but honorable, etc. etc.? I don't want to say "predictable," but maybe... "reliable" ?

I think a lot of authors come to be repeat best-sellers by reliably providing what their readers like. Nora Roberts and Jayne Ann Krentz come to mind, to name just two.

The Guardian series isn't like that.

I can see why Brook might be a hit-or-miss author for some readers. Her characters are so different, so extreme, that readers who like a certain kind of hero or heroine are almost guaranteed to a) find that in at least one of her books and b) not find it in others. She goes out on a limb with every book, breaking fondly-held genre rules here, while taking others to new extremes there.

Because Brook is so skilled at bringing her diverse characters to life, I personally find something to love in every book. In Demon Forged, we have Irena, one of the oldest Guardians after Michael, and Alejandro, a dashing Spanish nobleman. ( He's a millenium or so younger than Irena, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone.)

These two have A History. With Baggage. And when your bad guys are actual demons, and you've spent centuries trying to deal without the benefit of a good therapist... well. You wind up with Issues.

One of the themes that intrigues me with every Guardian book is the idea of "humanity." What does this mean when most of the characters are not human? What does it do to a person (or Guardian) to exist for sixteen centuries?

While Brook doesn't explicitly dwell on this a lot, I did find Irena's character to glimmer with small, telling details consistent with an ancient character. Irena is barely literate. Her idea of relaxation is hiking or hunting or sculpting in her forge: elemental. She's blunt, straightforward, lacks subtlety. I loved this exchange:

"No." He straightened. His eyes shuttered. "I will not fight. I do not like the man I become with you."

The words stabbed her chest. Reflexively, her hands fisted. Irena held them at her sides, struggling against the fury and hurt that urged her to batter them into his face. He stared down at her and she thought, prayed, that he might take the words back.

Olek shook his head and turned. "Your vampire friend has gone into the city."

He walked away. Irena watched, her heart hammering.

*I do not like the man I become with you.*

He should have hit her. She'd have known how to respond to that. But this pain, she did not. [chapter end].

Irena and Alejandro/Olek have spent the last 400 years in a state of tension, avoiding each other or relieving the tension in violent training sessions. It's certainly valid to wonder, "why now?" Why is now the moment when this tension comes to a head? Brilliantly, it's because of

The Series Arc
Somewhere around the 5th or 6th book of a series, I tend to start getting series fatigue. Either the stories become repetitious, or the series arc starts to feel artificially drawn out... or maybe I just get bored.

Not so with the Guardians. Every book has revealed Big News about some aspect of the world, and this one is no different, except perhaps that it's more so. The shocking events of Demon Forged shakes the delicate balance of power to its core, and all without the least hint of contrivance. It's not easy to provide an individual book resolution while still building tension for the series, but Demon Forged does it in spades.

Meanwhile, the series as a whole posits our world on the brink of massive change: apocalyptic disaster, Biblical armageddon. The unseen (by humans) tension between Guardians and demons that keeps the realms in balance is threatened by the recent mass Ascension, by power struggles among the demons, and by the release of new powers into the playing field: nephilim and more. Select humans are drawn into the struggle and the Guardians are taxed to keep them safe.

This then, not only drives the series forward, but provides the change catalyst for Alejandro and Irena's relationship, as they can no longer afford to avoid each other. I just love how the individual story and character arcs weave in and out of the series arc, always complementing, never competing.

I feel like I should say more about Alejandro, about his and Irena's character arcs, and their romance... but I'm going to cop out and plead illness-- I've had a monster of a cold for over two weeks now and keeping my thoughts collected has been a ridiculous effort. I think it's safe to say that fans of the series won't be disappointed (of course, most of them have already read it by now!) and once again recommend that if you haven't read them? Do.

Series Reading Order:

1. Hot Spell*
2. Demon Angel
3. Wild Thing*
4. Demon Moon
5. Demon Night
6. First Blood*
7. Demon Bound
8. Demon Forged
9. Must Love Hellhounds*

*Anthologies containing a Guardian-universe novella

Good News, Bad News

So I was home from work all last week, and spent a fair amount of time online (you'd think I would've managed a couple of posts, but... [insert excuse here] ). I found this neat little utility/service thing called CoComment. Maybe you already know about it, but it's new to me.

I do have a tendency to forget where I've left comments, especially if I've been browsing around further than my usual neighborhood. I know you can click on the rss feeds for various blog posts, but for whatever reason that never worked very well for me. CoComment puts all of the conversations I'm following in one place and makes it pretty easy to see when there's something new. It's also easy to jump directly to the site if you want to add something or see the actual page.

I imagine there are other ways to do this and I don't know if it's the best one out there-- two things I don't like is that there are lots of blinky ads and it installed an icon thingy in my toolbar - I don't remember authorizing that, which always kind of disconcerts me. It also adds a couple of clicks whenever I leave a comment somewhere to add the conversation to my list, which some might find annoying.

That's the good news. The weird thing is, it tracks comments on my own blog too, which I didn't think I needed because I have my settings configured so that I get an email whenever someone leaves a comment.... except apparently, Blogger has missed some of my comments. RRRJessica left a comment the other day on my most recent post that doesn't show up on the blog, and didn't show up in email. BUT, it showed up on CoComment. Very Weird.

I'm not moderating comments-- I don't know why this didn't go through.

Readers, have you left comments here before that didn't show up? Bloggers, any suggestions on what's going on here?

I'm clueless, and more than a bit peeved at the notion that I'm missing comments! If nothing else, I'll keep CoComment around for awhile to see if this happens a lot...

The Windsor List: Top 16 All-Time Favorite Romances

I'm jumping on Jessica's bandwagon here, to honor Kathleen Windsor, author of Forever Amber. See link for more details.

This is hard. And they're not in order. I tend to remember authors better than individual titles, so in some cases I've picked the author and then guessed on which book it was that I liked the most. And yeah, I cheated-- they're not all exactly romances, but they all have strong romantic elements.

1. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell (duh)
2. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
3. Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
4. Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey
5. Captive Passions, Fern Michaels.
6. Earth Song, Catherine Coulter
7. Through a Dark Mist, Marsha Canham
8. Spymaster's Lady, Joanna Bourne
9. LaVyrle Spencer, either Sweet Memories or Morning Glory
10. Captives of the Night, Loretta Chase
11. Shattered Rainbows, Mary Jo Putney
12. Lover Revealed, JR Ward
13. The Lady Chosen, Stephanie Laurens
14. Timeless Passion, Constance O'Day-Flannery
15. Bet Me, Jennifer Crusie
16. Fancy Pants, Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Hmmm. Maybe in 2010 I'll see if I can acually review all of these. That would be a fun goal.

Thursday Thirteen, Edition 15

Wow, really? I haven't done a T-13 since JULY?? Jeez, what a slacker.

Anyway, I have up for your T-13 pleasure today my favorite kind of T-13: a list of blogs you should check out. These are all book blogs; most of them have a romance aspect though not all are strictly focused on romance books.

1. Book Junkie
2. Penelope’s Romance Reviews
3. Bodice Ripper Reviews
4. Romance Reviews By Alice -Insightful, honest, articulate – a new fave blogger.
5. Galaxy Express - The scoop on the hot Science Fiction Romance subgenre
6. Renee’s Book Addiction
7. Rosario reads a wider variety of fiction and non-fiction than I do, but it’s still pretty heavy on romance and she agrees with me a lot of the time so she must be smart. ;-)
8. Bibliophile Musings - A mix of all kinds of fiction, but plenty of romance included.
9. Love Romance Passion - lots going on here, with tons of guest bloggers.
10. Marg is a regular here (hi Marg!) and has a fun blog with a variety of fiction – plenty of romance with a lot of straight historical fiction mixed in.
11. Night Time Romance Reviews - Erotica and PNR. I confess I find this one a little bit hard to read with the scrolling background, but it’s good content.
12. Fantasy Girl Reviews - All kinds of romance reviews, heavy on the UF/PNR.
13. Caffey’s Reads

Visit the Thursday Thirteen site here.
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others' comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Covet, by JR Ward - Review

Finally.
I know, I know. Inertia has its claws in me. I'm reading a ton, honest, but finding it real work to sit down and do the reviews. So Covet has been out for almost two weeks; I finished it over a week ago. Yeah, finally.

Divided Loyalty
First off, if you don't like the direction Ward has been going with the BDB series, I'd recommend you skip it.

However, if you're good with a somewhat divided focus for the sake of the ongoing series arc, I think it's good news. The new premise feels fresh--don't know about you but I was getting kind of tired of the lessers. Ward's whys and wherefores of demon possession have an original spin while borrowing perhaps more heavily from traditional medieval Catholic lore than some of the current trendy demon-based UF.

I'm trying to think of another series that has a strong romantic focus on individual couples (as romance does) while also keeping a constant, catalyst character in the forefront (as UF does), and not coming up with anything comparable. The closest I can think of is Meljean Brook's Michael, but he's not directly involved in the protagonists' relationships the way Ward's character is. I'm guessing that Kenyon's Acheron might be similar, but I'm only going on buzz -- haven't read them myself.

Anyway, I'm finding it promising how deliberately the structure has been created-- I think it's a bit harder to take when that third-party role evolves through the series and risks feeling like shark-jumping. And it's a risk, because it breaks form-- some readers have complained that the focus is too divided, which I can understand. I'm reserving judgment about that because I did find both stories interesting with satisfying arcs, and the teaser for Jim's continuing story is compelling. Though some of the information about Jim's former life skirts the line between teasing and frustrating.

The new series is also set in Caldwell, NY, which I enjoy. I like having "insider" info, and find the cameos from Trez, Detective de la Cruz and Phury entertaining BUT if you haven't read the BDB first and don't want to, you won't lose any comprehension.

It's the End of the World As We Know It
I think Ward is taking herself-- or this series-- a little less seriously than the BDB, and it's good. She's always been able to write humor and absurdity into her books, especially in dialog, but I think a lot of what happens to Jim is pretty tongue-in-cheek. It might even tempt you into eye-roll territory (cricket-playing angels? a fortress castle = heaven? divine assistance via television messaging?) but it worked OK for me and was effective, if slightly silly, imagery.

Wardisms, and The Very Long Book
You'll find the voicing familiar, as both Jim and Vin sound very much like any given Black Dagger Brother, perhaps V, if I had to pick one. (Vin also gets premonitions about people's deaths, and he is NEVER WRONG-- coincidence?) The weird tendency to add an "ie" to the end of words like "freshie" for a "fresh drink" is still in here but toned down a bit (thankfullie) and O'Donovan? just for you? not a "shitkicker" boot in sight. (I was watching.)

It's no secret that I'm a fan of The Very Long Book. This is probably a requirement for a reader to enjoy this book-- if you merely tolerate long books only when the complex plot and characterization absolutely require it, you might pass this by. If this were Ward's first book, I would dare to say an editor might have been a bit more, um, editorial on this page count. As Mandi* astutely points out in her review, there are a couple of subplots that are not especially pertinent or, um, logical. At least one of them might become clearer as we get to know Jim's sidekicks in future books though, so I'm looking forward to that.

Bottom Line
I think just overall I have lowered expectations from JR Ward these days. I'm happy to see the last two Ward books rise above the barrel-bottom-scraping of Lover Enshrined, but I've stopped expecting to get that heart-stopping OH MY GOD reaction I got with the first few BDB books. Maybe it was the novelty of the formula, and it just only works so many times. If it happens again, that'll just be a fabulous bonus.

In the meantime, I'm still a loyal reader. If I gave ratings, it would probably be something like a B+ for Covet-- good solid read, but not knock-your-socks-off, and I'll be reading the next one. Rumored title is Crave.

Honestly though? I don't think Ward is going to remain a Hardback Author for me. I might be hitting the library or waiting for Lover Mine to come out in paperback.

Around the Web:
*Smexy Books
Smokin' Hot Books
Darque Reviews
Dear Author (Brrr. Cold.)
Bibliophilic
I Heart Book Gossip
... and as always, if you've reviewed Covet and I've missed it, please feel free to leave your link in comments!

Disclosure: Purchased.

Next Up From JR Ward:

Lover Mine, John Matthew's story