We’re liveblogging ARRC09 via Twitter. Come follow us at Twitter and check out the photos at Flickr.

Click here to view the liveblog of the ARRC09 Welcome Reception starting at 6 pm.

Click here for a round-up of ARRC09 posts.

If you’re interested in participating in the liveblogs, please let me know via Twitter or grab me at the convention. I’ll be mobile all day and may not get to my e-mails on time. (more)

The New Man by Janice Kay Johnson (Super Romance)

The New Man by Janice Kay Johnson isn’t my cup of Super Romance, but there’s a gentless in the story which may appeal to other readers.

Helen Schaefer lost her husband after a long illness and she’s wary of getting involved with Alec Fraser. She’s had enough of loss and is unwilling to let herself be vulnerable to that kind of grief again. Alec is a widower and knows all too well the devastating grief of losing a spouse. And while he’s open to starting a new relationship, he has his own issues to sort out with his family—particularly his son, Devlin.

The pace of this novel was too slow for me. Johnson fleshes out Helen’s character beyond the romance, but for the most part, I found those bits boring. More interesting is Alec’s home life and his struggle to communicate with Devlin. Johnson evokes the love, frustration and helplessness Alec feels when his efforts fail repeatedly, and his family situation comes across as real and honest. Disappointingly, the resolution of his conflict with Devlin is much too abrupt. (more)

ARRC update

If you’ve registered for the Australian Romance Readers Convention, don’t forget to vote for your favourite reader review (hopefully you’ll like the review of Claiming the Courtesan in the fifth round *g*). You can read the entries here, and voting ends tomorrow.

The ARRC website has a guest blog for authors supporting the convention. It seems everyone is jealous of our summer. All I can say is that I hope nothing happens to the air conditioning that weekend!

Check out the Melbourne Leader article on the convention: Romantics converge in Melbourne for novel convention. This time next week, we’ll be in Melbourne! *happy dance*

Book events

The National Library of Australia in Canberra is holding a speed dating night for book lovers on Friday, February 20. You’re invited to bring your favourite book to use as an ice breaker and meet other book lovers. The event is open to all book lovers—not just singles. (more)

John Riley's Girl by Inglath Cooper (Super Romance)

Back in high school, Harlequin Mills & Boon Super Romance was my particular brand of crack. I loved these books. I inhaled them, and even though I’d occasionally dabble in Blaze or Temptation, I always came back to Super Romance. John Riley’s Girl by Inglath Cooper took me back to those days of pretending to listen to our Spanish teacher while surreptitiously reading a romance book hidden behind a stack of textbooks. That said teacher was a nun only made it more daring. We bookworms can be rebels, too.

Olivia Ashford hasn’t been back to her hometown in fifteen years after a deeply painful event in her childhood. But a phone call from an old friend stirs up memories and curiosity, and on a whim she decides to return for her high school reunion. Olivia hopes that her visit to Summerville will help her find closure to old wounds. But John Riley, her high school sweetheart, isn’t willing to forget–much less forgive–the fact that Olivia abandoned him without so much as a goodbye. So when the reunion ends up being held at his farm, there’s no way to avoid the confrontation between them.

From the very first chapter, it’s obvious that there’s a huge misunderstanding (more)

Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum, Book 14)

In my library/computer room, I have a red box mounted on my wall. You know the type—fronted with glass bearing the words “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS” with the little hammer alongside. This box doesn’t contain the lever to my alarm system, or a fire extinguisher, or ten thousand dollars in unmarked, non-sequential bills and a passport under the name Jane Smith. No, it contains something much more vital than that. It contains two unread Stephanie Plum books, soon to be joined by the new release, Plum Spooky (after all, three Plums are better than two). Or it did until I broke the glass over the weekend.

These books are the reading equivalent of chocolate, with a lot of nuts thrown in.

The usual suspects

Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter with more luck than talent, who is occasionally partnered up with a black, plus-sized, trigger-happy ex-ho named Lula, who is the source of many hilarious moments throughout the series. She has an on-again off-again relationship with hot bad-boy-turned-cop Joe Morelli (more)

Victorian Bushfires by Jessica Parker (via sunrise7 at Flickr)

I try to keep Book Thingo posts related to books, but I think it would be remiss of me not to mention the bushfire tragedy that the state of Victoria is experiencing. Last I heard, the death toll is at 173, which is more than double that of the Ash Wednesday fires that, until now, had been considered the worst in Australian history.

Just this morning, I was listening to news reports of the devastation that has occurred and may possibly continue. One of the segments was an interview with a psychologist on how to help survivors cope with their loss. One of the suggestions was to just let people tell their stories, because that the act of articulating their experiences helps in some way to make sense of and deal with it. And it was obvious from seeing news footage that in fact many people are just looking for some human contact and to be able to express to another person what they went through. (more)

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski

For my birthday, Kat got me this book on Herodotus. Herodotus was the original traveller and historian. Born in Greece in the 5th century BC, he wrote several books but is most famous for The Histories which is frequently quoted in everything from the earliest Greek tomes to mythology, philosophy and even modern history.

Travels with Herodotus was written by another famous traveller, Ryszard Kapuscinski, a Polish journalist who won numerous awards for his writing. He covered Africa, the Middle East and Asia and is known for his keen observation. Sadly, he died last year and this was the last book he wrote.

Kapuscinski begins his travels as a young journalist for a Polish newspaper. He describes his first trip overseas to India in a time when no information is available to him—Stalin is still alive and many books are still repressed—and he speaks no English. Reading his experiences, you can feel his sense of discovery and awe upon reaching a foreign land very, very different from his.  This sense of discovery permeates the book, (more)

ARRC update

The Australian Romance Readers Convention is less than two weeks away, and as part of the lead up to this event, the ARRC committee has been running a Reader Challenge. If you’ve registered for the convention, don’t forget to drop by the ARRC Lounge, read the entries, and vote for your favourite (hopefully one of ours *g*). You’ll need to be signed up to the ARRC Lounge to vote. This week’s round ends tomorrow, and next week is the final round, so if you’re planning to enter, you need to get your reviews in to Bek this weekend.

The ARRC website also has a guest blog for authors supporting the convention. It seems everyone is jealous of our summer. All I can say is that I hope nothing happens to the air conditioning that weekend! (more)

The Spaniard's Baby Bargai by Helen Bianchin (Modern Romance)

Realising that I haven’t made a dent in the The Harlequin/Silhouette Romance Reading Challenge, I made it a point to grab a handful of HMBs on my last library visit. I picked up The Spaniard’s Baby Bargain by Helen Bianchin because it’s part of the Modern Romance imprint (to which the Rugby Union related books will belong), it’s set in Sydney, and it’s written by a New Zealand author. I was disappointed by the awkward prose and hugely contrived set-up of the story, but there were moments in the second half of the book that I thought were done well, so it wasn’t a total write-off.

When Ariane Celeste interviews billionaire (AUD or USD, I wonder?) Manolo del Guardo for a TV documentary, she finds herself staying on as a temporary nanny for his daughter. But Manolo finds the arrangement so satisfactory that he asks her to marry him–he gets a wife and a mother for her child, and she gets the child she’s always longed for and his protection against her stalker ex-husband. (more)

Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark, Book 6)

Rydstrom is the deposed King of Rothkalina, kingdom of the rage demons, who lost his kingdom centuries ago to Omort, the evil baddie who can’t die. Rydstrom has been trying to recover his kingdom ever since, with the help of his brother Cadeon, who is supposedly responsible for his loss of said kingdom.

Sabine, Queen of Illusions, is Omort the evil baddie’s half-sister. Thanks to a special hold he has over her and her sister Lanthe, she is stuck living with him,  to all appearances supporting his evil desires while at the same time plotting a better future for her and her sister.

Omort has been told via prophecy that Sabine is the destined mate of the King of the Demons and their son will be destined to unlock the secrets of the Well of Souls, a font of power within the castle that the Demons were created to protect before Omort usurped them all.  Rydstrom, as per the last book in the series, had just become aware that someone has supposedly created a weapon that could finally kill Omort.  On his way to get it, he is trapped by Sabine who is determined to seduce him and bear his child so that the prophecy can come to pass NOW. (more)