Guilty Pleasures -- Do You Read Them? Write Them?

Guilty Pleasures? What are they any way? Something you consider not worthy of reading but enjoy any way? Something you are ashamed of reading and are glad you have an e-reader so no one on the train or bus knows what you are reading?

No I don't consider Erotica a guilty pleasure. Hey, I read and have kept all the Anita Blake series except for Affliction which hasn't come out in mass paperback yet. I think Laurell K. Hamilton's bed scenes are more exhausting than titillating.

For me guilty pleasures involve Romantica of the Happily-Ever-Afters because I don't think any human should be so stupid as to bank all his/her happiness on one individual. In other words I have a short tolerance level for Idiotica. 

Having said that, I admit that I read romances. Hey I've even read a few Barbara Cartland Regencies in my life... until I ignored them because they lacked the detail of Georgette Heyer's settings and her intelligent heroines. [Yeah, I still have all of Heyer's Regencies on my bookshelves and even re-read them.] 

What kind of romances to I succumb to? Ones with a good mystery, and better yet, an interesting supernatural/real world connection tied to a mystery.

So what did I read while my brain was on meltdown from

There Be Demons edits?

Mary Balough: The Proposal -- Lord Trentham, a commoner [rich], gained his title for battlefield bravery but now reluctantly looks for a wife since he promised his father on his deathbed that his sons would carry on the family business. Hero chances upon Lady Muir, a widow and part of the intricate family networks of the Bedwyn world. The premise: the struggle to reconcile two conflicting worlds. Yeah this is a b/g meets g/b - b/g loses g/b - b/g wins g/b book. Balough makes the book a winner with her command of the Regency era .and the complexities of her characters. -- Five Stars and a Keeper.

Stephanie Laurens: The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh -- At first, the book looks a simple romance where Mary Cynster, the last unmarried Cynster female of her generation, finds her true love with the help of a mystical necklace connected with the Lady, a mystical Scottish entity connected to her family. The story soon complicates into a decent who-done-it as Ryder and Mary try to figure out who is trying to kill them. -- Four Stars since too many of the Cynster heroes blend into an repetitive pattern. Still the series has been enjoyable, if unchallenging, reads.

Last but not least, Heather Graham's Heart of Evil -- Graham's supernatural villains are the topping that makes her supernatural mysteries so enjoyable. In this story, former lovers must reconcile against the background of the "Krewe of Hunters" -- an FBI group of paranormal mystery solvers -- tackling the murder of a Civil War enactor who is found swinging from an angel in a plantation cemetery. -- Five Stars for inventiveness here.

So now you know what I've been reading during the three weeks I've been doing edits of There Be Demons for the Grumpy Dragon Press editors. Yeah it's escapist "literature". But they are all good, relaxing reads. May I be so successful.

Appealing Historical Settings

What historical period appeals to you most? 

The Regency, or perhaps more accurately the Enlightenment, has been my favorite time period since I was old enough to be aware of such things, though I like novels in any well-developed historical period. I empathize with the mind-set, but more, I ended up liking English/Scots politics in spite of their rigid class system. 

Don't know where I read it, but the French of the time were doomed in my affections because of their taxation policies. The British taxed the aristocracy by the number of the windows the owned [hard to avoid] while the French didn't tax their aristocracy at all. 

The fact was enough to turn me into a froggie-phobe, 

in spite of a thin Marlon Brando playing Napoleon in Deserie [sp?].
Then, the French indulged in a rather bloody revolution ...
[ah, the twists and turns of politics, which I'll now ignore.]

This high-falooting introduction is my justification for why I often choose "mindless" Regency romances as an escape. Of course, I'm very picky about the authors I read ... they have to be historically accurate no matter what fantasy they're weaving, sorry, writing. 

None did/does this better than Georgette Heyer.  During the 70s, I managed to collect all her titles in paperback, though I have since culled some of her lesser works. [I never cared much for her mysteries either.]

Over the Christmas book-buying-binge, my son discovered Jennifer Kloester's Georgette Heyer's Regency World, a combination history and trip down memory lane. Kloester's book is a social history of Regency Britain, told through the situations and actions of the characters in Heyer's novels. A light, fun read.

How good a writer was Heyer? Well, I don't think I've read more than a couple of her books in the last decade, yet I was able to recall and add details in Kloester's discussion of the Regency social milieu. How good is Kloester's book? With the excellent its many illustrations, I think it's a great little reference work to quickly check details if you write in the Regency period.

All this has me thinking about somehow combining the Regency mores with the Fae in some way -- sort of a juxtaposition of folk beliefs and scientific reasoning. I put that interesting thought in my idea book -- though it's not as intriguing as having Jesus Christ and Bridgett, the Irish goddess, encountering each other as the only two "humans" who ever turned water into alcohol, [wine and beer respectively].

While I'm confessing, I must admit I just finished Stephanie Laurens' The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae, the concluding Cynster novel about the adventures off Martin Cynster's three daughters. After a relatively weak second book in the series, Capture came on strong with all the elements that keep Laurens on the best seller lists. [Yeah, I think I read all the Cynster books although I know I've traded some because they were too trite, slight, weak, ???] 

I like the way Laurens' uses strong women to "tame" strong men while they solve a mystery together. Under all the emotional goop, Laurens presents interesting female/male partnerships in an era where they weren't the norm. It's the strength of the mystery that determines whether I keep a book or not.

Of course, if you like sex scenes that's an added draw in Lauren's books -- though I find them a little over the top when she bogs down describing the "glory" of love-based sex. Of course, if you don't like sex scenes, you can skip them.

Digging for Something to Read

The Reads ...

With all the books laying around my house, unread, you'd think finding something to read would be a cinch.  Duh.  The first two books I picked up got tossed on the trade pile within 10 pages. 

One was a Harlequin romance I'd bought used because it had such a neat cover and promo blurp.  It also mentioned demons when I was deep into the gargoyles.  By page 10, my internal editor was screaming so loud I was twitching.   I fear the book will end with the Friends of the Library since the used bookstores don't do Harlequins.

So, I reread Georgette Heyer's A Civil Contract, a romance about a marriage of convenience that turned into a happily-ever-after.  Heyer took the romantic infatuation so common in romances and juxtaposed it with a mundane marriage which turned out to be the HEA.  The writing?  Well, it tells ... and tells ... and tells the story some more, ie. very little dramatization.  The paragraphs are long and involved.  Sometimes, there are two viewpoints on the same page.  Still, the characters are multi-dimensional and compelling, making you care about even the secondary characters. 

What I was looking for was the new Theodosia book from the family lending library.  I knew I had seen it, but it was buried in a box under a pile of books and papers behind another box.  But, I found it.

Still reading Nick Bunker's Making Haste from Babylon.  Again, the reading is heavy going, but interesting how the "implementers" of the Puritan movement in Calvinism defy Queen Elizabeth's national church.  Yeah, I'm still reading the back story in northeastern England that caused the Puritans to be.  Very little was "national" at the time even though Elizabeth I and James I ruled. 

Interesting how the various regions of England had their own customs and beliefs yet consider themselves "Englishmen".  As I read Bunker, my mind kept popping to the words "Tea Party" and wondering what the stocks would feel like.  I don't think I'd like them, ... but enough to keep my mouth shut?  [Mouthy women were anathema to the Puritans.]

Web Stuff ...

Last Friday, I discovered Fiction Groupie thanks to a writing friend, Patti Struble, who has a funny blog called "The Writer's Bump".  In Friday's blog Fiction Groupie discusses how the website she reluctantly put up helped her get an agent.  I found the comments soothing since I still in the middle of getting the Half-Elven site set up.

More embarrassing.  Judith Laik discusses the importance of have a decent photo for your website and other promotions on 1st Turning Point.   Frankly, I strongly suggest you follow 1st Turning Point if you are any where near to marketing your WIP -- whether to agents or publishers.  --  If I can figure how to put it up, I'll shock you with the writer picture I'm hiding in My Photos.

One last thing.  A newbie to the Absolute Write Water Cooler put up a YouTube Video on the benefits of the forum.  I thought it was a clean, simple format ... that anyone with computer skills should be able to do.  [That doesn't include me though]  Whatever, you might check out the AW Water Cooler forum on your own.  You might even find me there.

Progress ...

Took it lazy for the weekend.  Actually, I spent a lot of time playing regular solitaire and spider solitaire ... as I tried to think of a problem for Mariah to solve in the next Renna's Tale.  My false starts are filling my "bits and pieces" files as I dump all the backstory and infodumps.  Who'd ever want to know that the Marches are divided into three parts and why? 

Also dinked with my agents list ... after I goofed on sending a query to an unlikely agent.  [Form rejection, to be landing in the inbox soon unless ignored.]

Did a little clean up for my platform building.  I'm sort of resolving to post on Twitter every day ... but I usually don't have anything to say.  I do follow some interesting people though [who don't follow me.]

Trivia ...

Did I say I didn't do much of anything?  

But, I did find this interesting tidbit on Facebook from the Huffington Post, courtesy Writer Beware. How many of these "must read" books have you read?  [These are the books people say they've read to impress others, but usually haven't.]  

I was surprised to find I had read 6 out of 13.  Really.  Including Chaucer's Tales ...  a couple in old English, but the whole thing in a modernized version.

Still on Vacation

Trivia:  The end-of-draft happy dance for Emma still keeps popping out of the back of my mind.

Got the recycling done.  The junk mailed to the New Yorkie kids.  Coffee where I enjoyed my usual side-show:  the old man trying to put the lid on his coffee cup.  (My bad.)

Lessons from My Reading:  Just finished watching all the Lord of the Rings last night ... actually this morning.  So, haven't been reading much ... except research for Maren.

Bought a couple books at the grocery story since #1 daughter is coming up on Sunday.  (No bookstore browsing this weekend.)  A romance and a paranormal.  The romance was one of those short story compilations by popular authors (I never heard of).  Got half-way through the first story with its trite plot which I think Georgette Heyer used a couple times.

Okay, I used to read romance, especially Regencies since it was the time when "modern" thinking (aka education) reached a significant portion of the population.  Also, women started to noticeably think for themselves ... publicly.  Think Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft.  Maybe the thinness of plots comes from that fact that the number of romances written equaled the number of the "10,000" long ago.  It's like there're probably more fictional British dukes than ever existed in history.

Will skim the short stories to see if any catch my interest.  Doubt it.

Progress:  Outside of "Emma Kloken, Hero" having an ending.  heh, heh, heh.

Emma's resting quietly while I think about baking the first batch of koulourakia ... perhaps.

Maren has a prequel.  I thought it might be a short story, but the plot line is too mundane.  Probably would be too much work to change the telling to showing. -- Not that I'm against telling.  Sometimes, it's the quickest way to get from here to there.  Besides the "#####", that is.

Even have a rough draft of the opening paragraph:

"The accident dominated the news for a week.  Five cars blasted into melted slag on the highway without a hint of a vin number.  The charred body parts of the locals were identified by DNA. (check if possible).


"Police combed the missing persons data banks to identify the one survivor -- a teen-aged girl with amnesia.  The detectives were hopeful.  How many thin, almost six-foot teens with long silver hair could there be?"