I wrote this article for the ARRA newsletter last year when I discovered Goodreads.

A few weeks ago, I succumbed to the inevitable: I signed up for Goodreads.

My bookshelf is the most packed it’s been since my early uni days when Mills & Boon invaded my bedroom and multiplied while I was asleep. I needed a way to organise my titles, to keep track of what I have, what I’ve read, what I’ve lent out to friends, and, okay, what I’d like to buy.

I could have used a spreadsheet, but I’m lazy and I want someone else to do most of the work for me. I had so far resisted the lure of online bookshelves. I’m already saturated by social networks—Facebook, blogs, Twitter—on top of all the other technology designed to keep me connected and distracted. So I was reluctant to sign up for yet another time-sucking thingamajig. But when I asked other readers how they kept track of books, most of them sent me a link to a virtual bookshelf.

Deciding which bookshelf to use can be a bit of a stress. What if I spend a week entering all my books and ratings only to find that the application sucks? The risk! The commitment! So I brainstormed a series of tests I could use to evaluate which book tracking application would suit me best.

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My Soul to Steal by Rachel Vincent (Soul Screamers, Book 4)

Heavy in angst and light on closure, this book should have fans in delicious agony as they wait for the next instalment in the Soul Screamers series.

My Soul to Steal is the fourth book of Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamers series. I was excited yet apprehensive about this book because I knew—and the blurb implies—that there would be some kind of relationship triangle between Kaylee, Nash and Nash’s ex, Sabine.

Kaylee and Nash are in relationship limbo a few weeks after My Soul to Keep (book 3). She refuses to resolve anything between them until Nash is free of frost, the demon’s breath drug that he became addicted to, due to an accident caused by Kaylee. Meanwhile, Nash’s ex-girlfriend, Sabine, has moved into the area and tells Kaylee upfront that she’s there to take Nash back.

Sabine is a mara, a non-human parasitic species who feeds off people’s fears. At night she kind of sleepwalks and gives people nightmares so she can feed off them. When teachers start dying at school, Kaylee is convinced, despite Tod and Nash’s reassurances, that Sabine is behind it all.

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Marry Me by Jo Goodman

Or: OMG, Wandergurl is alive.

I lost my phone. This is not an excuse as to why I have dropped off the face of the earth but anyway, this happened. Fortunately my contract was about to expire, so I could get a new phone that wouldn’t cost me too much. And so I ended up with an iPhone 4. What does this have to do with this book, you ask? Well, I downloaded the Amazon Kindle app. And this book was free! And recommended! And I ended up reading it. And that’s how I ended up resurrecting myself from the dead and suddenly writing a review.

Coleridge Monroe moves to Reidsville, Colorado with his sister to assume the position of town doctor. It’s a town of about 800 people, which I have to say, is possibly more than some towns in Australia now. When he accompanies one of the deputies to check on one of the outlying farms in the mountains he meets Judah Abbot, the local cranky ass, and what turns out to be his daughter, Rhyne, who due to the severity of her illness and the circumstances surrounding it has to be taken to town and ends up staying with him for a while. (Note that these are not just fluffy circumstances to make up the slimmest of reasons to get the heroine to have an excuse to stay with the hero. These are hardcore OMG, this is difficult kind of circumstances. When Goodman makes things difficult, she makes things difficult.) Eventually she becomes their housekeeper and you can see where this is going from there.

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Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey

The premise may stretch the imagination, but the conflicts and emotions in this book felt so real they made my heart ache.

When Keri Daniels’s boss finds out that Keri had been childhood sweethearts with ‘the most reclusive bestselling author since J. D. Salinger’, she’s given an ultimatum: dish the dirt or get the sack. Keri hasn’t seen Joe Kowalski in eighteen years, ever since she left him to pursue a career in the big city. So when he agrees to an interview if she goes camping with him and his family, she figures she can endure it to guarantee her promotion.

Joe was devastated when Keri left, and his heartbreak led to some serious alcohol abuse. But he feels some old sparks and thinks Keri might be open to one last fling. His twin sister, Terry, doesn’t think it’s a good idea and is determined to make Keri pay for what she did to his brother … and for some other grudges Terry has carried over from high school.

Exclusively Yours starts off with a very category romance feel, with Keri being coerced by both her boss and Joe into stepping outside her comfort zone and into a situation where she and Joe are forced to be in close proximity. But Stacey develops the story into a well crafted exploration of the issues that turn love into something unbearable and what it takes to repair broken relationships.

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Once Upon a Mattress by Kathleen O'Reilly

An endearing heroine makes up for an underwhelming hero in this fun, sexy story.

This novel revolves around Ben MacAllister, whose family owns MacAllister Beds, a mattress company, and Hilary Sinclair, who’s an executive at the firm. Let’s get my biases out of the way: every time I’m reminded of the mattress company—which is most of the time—I think of those dodgy Captain Snooze ads. Sexiness factor: zero.

Moving on.

Ben’s parents are in the middle of getting divorced, so he’s home to help out with the family business: ‘He’d never cared much about the company; his family was the reason he was here instead of completing number thirty-seven on his “list of things to do before I die”.’ But when his dad starts talking about selling the firm, Ben is determined to prove he has what it takes to keep the business in the family.

Hilary is getting over a seven-year relationship that went nowhere. She’s in a new city, having bought a charming new place (read: needs work), and the job at MacAllister Beds is a chance to prove she make it on her own two feet.

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Just got word that registration is now open for ARRC 2011. ARRA is offering an early bird discount until January 14, so if you’re planning on going, make sure you register before then.

Click here to download the registration brochure, which includes information about costs, accommodation and other details related to ARRC 2011.

Click here to download the registration form.

Click here to find out more about ARRC 2011, including a list of participating authors.

All three of us regular bloggers at Book Thingo will be there. I’m so excited!

If you’re coming to ARRC11, let me know. It would be great to meet up with you all!

My new pretty, shiny thing. An early Christmas present for myself.

If you think this post is an attempt to make up for having skived off reviewing yet again, you’d be right.

But come on—how can I not show off my shiny new ebook reader (reviewed by CNET)? With a pink cover!

Okay, it’s been unboxed for a few weeks now, and some off the gloss has come off after I’ve struggled with the more unfriendly bits of the software, but overall I’m loving this device.

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Just Kiss Me by Kathleen O'Reilly

This hero-centric story is a little darker than O’Reilly’s previous novels, but with enough room to display the sexy humour I so love in her work.

The set-up of this novel is a little convoluted. Amanda Sedgewick is desperate to discourage the attentions of Avery Barrington, so she turns to his brother, Joe, to act as a decoy. When it becomes clear that Avery just won’t get the hint, Joe reluctantly agrees to help. Little does he know that Amanda’s always been, well, interested in him—but it doesn’t take him long to figure it out.

Meanwhile, Joe has feelings of inadequacy, having lived in his brother’s shadow all his life, and he can’t quite convince himself that he can give Amanda everything she needs.

The story is a little darker than O’Reilly’s previous novels, but there’s enough room to display the sexy humour I so love in her work.

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Because sometimes less is definitely more, especially when authors have to resort to bovine metaphors.

I have a confession to make: I have a potty mouth, which I (mostly) keep under control, but I don’t often like reading the f-word in romance. I don’t have a problem with the f-word in general, but it’s very much a matter of context for me. Words I skim over without blinking in erotica or romantica don’t feel right in romance. When I want to read something down and dirty and explicit, I go for a romantica, but when I read a romance, I expect my sex to be a little bit prettier. That doesn’t mean it can’t be hot, just less sleazy in its descriptions.

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Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath (London's Greatest Lovers, Book 2)

A dramatic, heartbreaking Victorian romance between two slightly damaged people whose secrets are an obstacle to the kind of love they want and need.

Injured in body as well as in mind, Stephen Lyons is no longer the cheerful, skirt-chasing charmer he had been before the Crimean War. When Mercy Dawson, one of Florence Nightingale’s nurses at Scutari, shows up with an angry father and Stephen’s son, he has no choice but to marry her even though he can’t remember a single moment of their time together.

This is the second book of a series, but references to the previous book are fairly easy to follow. The story starts with a prologue to show Stephen pre-war; it’s a little slow but serves its purpose. I do wonder how Stephen managed to avoid getting sexually transmitted diseases with the repeated emphasis that Heath gives to his promiscuous ways.

Lorraine Heath’s Victorian romance paints a very bleak picture of war, and it’s to Heath’s credit that she doesn’t gloss over the suffering of soldiers. Interestingly, nurses were also frowned upon—I didn’t understand this at first, but apparently the fact that nurses are comfortable with undressing and bathing men was seen, at least by some in the Victorian era, as disreputable—-and Mercy pays a huge price for her desire to help in the battlefield.

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