In honour of Valentines Day—and in the absence of reviews to post—we’re spreading the link love around!
Lovely book things
First, a big congratulations to the City of Sydney librarians who put together an excellent Library Lovers event at Customs House last Thursday. I’m told the event was booked out. Rather than hiring professional actors, library staff did the readings—from Greek poetry to an excerpt from Kiss Me, Annabel by Eloisa James to one of my favourite poems, Close Reading, which we were lucky enough to be able to publish here at Book Thingo last year.
The Australian Romance Readers Association today launched its new website designed by Australian author Paula Roe. If you’re an ARRA member, the newsletter also came out today and in my column I talk about why I like reading the end of the book first. Also, it looks like the Annual ARRA Readers Awards Dinner is set for May 15 in Sydney. No details on the venue yet.
If you only have a couple of minutes, check A Regency Romance in 2 minutes
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Remastering Jerna by Ann Somerville
A BDSM book for readers who don’t read BDSM. Yes, it was that good.
[Edited because my previous intro was highly susceptible to misunderstanding.]
Australian author Ann Somerville has, at times, been a controversial figure in some of the online romance communities I hang out in. I mention this up front because I get the feeling that a lot of readers will want to dismiss her work based on preconceived notions.
All I can say is that they’d be missing out on one of my most unexpected keepers of 2009. (And I’m not the only one who thinks so.)
Yes, the book starts a little shakily as Somerville sets up the protagonist, Jerna Setiq, a devoted husband, teacher and father of two, whose contented life is decimated when he’s falsely convicted of child perversion. Once the stage is set for Jerna’s emotional journey, however, Somerville gets it just about perfect.
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Brainchild of Marg from Reading Adventures and Kailana from The Written World
Yes, I’m late for my Advent Tour post. The good news is … everything here is FREE! Plus…
BOOK GIVEAWAY: Read on for a chance to win a copy of Desperate Duchesses by Eloisa James. The contest ends midnight on Wednesday, January 6 AEST.
But first, something for the 2009 Blog Advent Tour, the brainchild of Marg from Reading Adventures and Kailana from The Written World. (Yes, even though it’s now Boxing Day.)
Last year, I posted links to a bunch of free stories online because hey, what’s an Advent calendar without free stuff? So in keeping with tradition, I asked tweeples and ARRA members for links to free stories online. Here they are for your holiday reading pleasure. (Thanks to everyone who sent me links!)
Free stories by Australian authors
Hellcursed by Erica Hayes – A prequel to Shadowfae, one of my favourite debut novels for 2009
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Cold Front by Ann Somerville (Pindone Files, Book 4)
Because who could resist that cover? Seriously.
When I was offered the chance to read an M/m romance by Australian author Ann Somerville, I scrolled through her website and the book with the shirtless man in tight black pants with his hands cuffed behind his back brought out my inner cover tart.
Then, when I read that it was along the lines of an M/m BDSM paranormal CSI, I was even more interested in the story because just one of those would have been enough to attract my attention. The book contains two prequel novellas, One Brief Encounter and A House is not a Home, followed by the novel Cold Front, which is the focus of this review.
One Brief Encounter
One Brief Encounter is told mostly from Dekan hon Cerimwe den Tsikeni’s point of view. Dek met Rensire hon Parmin den Vizinken in a bar while visiting Ren’s home region for police training and they had an immediate connection.
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Photo by kesh (via morgueFile)
Regular readers might have noticed that the Book Bizzo hasn’t been posted in the last few weeks. I originally came up with the idea of a weekly news round-up because I thought it would be easier and faster to do than posting each item separately. As it turns out, I was completely wrong. The time it takes to put a Bizzo together is equivalent to posting a review. So after some deliberation, I’ve decided not to keep going with the Bizzos on Saturday. (Although I have a quick round-up in this one—mainly for Aussie romance authors and book news.)
I’m tossing up alternative ways to post news items. In the meantime, I post interesting items as I encounter them on my Twitter feed, so feel free to follow @BookThingo. I try to post mostly on topic, although it wouldn’t be Twitter if I didn’t digress occasionally. I might start posting shorter, more frequent round-ups on the blog, but we’ll see…
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Swan & Edgar bar (via the Booktagger blog)
First things first: Happy Mother’s Day to all you mums, nannas and mums-to-be! I hope you enjoyed a good breakfast in bed and that the kids’ arts and craft project churned out something useful or appealing or edible or easy to hide. :-D
Apologies for slacking off last week with the Bizzo, but this one is absolutely chockers with good romancey stuff, so I hope it’s worth the wait.
ARRC09 audio recordings
Audio recordings from the Australian Romance Readers Convention in February are now available. Click here for more information and an order form.
International Association for the Study of Popular Romance
The IASPR is offering yearly, 5-yearly and lifetime memberships. Click here for more information. The IASPR, University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, and the Romance Writers of Australia are sponsoring an academic conference on Popular Romance Studies.
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Hosted by Marg from Reading Adventures and Kailana from The Written World
This is Book Thingo’s contribution to the 2008 Blog Advent Tour, hosted by Marg from Reading Adventures and Kailana from The Written World.
You may think this post is late for the Advent Tour, but I’ve looked it up and it’s still Saturday in some parts of the world, so phew! I just scraped through.
In the tradition of Advent calendars, I thought I’d offer up some surprise goodies for everyone. Since this is a book blog, I’ve come up with a list of free stories for you to sample.
(If you know me at all, you’ll realise that the reason this post is late is because I was compelled to read each story first to, uh, make sure that, erm, they’re of a sufficiently high quality. My motives were entirely selfless. Ahem.)
Anyway, you guys are in for a treat because these freebies are fantabulous. I’ve included a link to each author’s website so you can check out more of their work if you’re interested.
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