HelenKay Dimon

Yeah, that’s probably not a word. If it is, it shouldn’t be. Just seemed to me we need a special word for the yearly Best Of lists that start showing up about now.

The New York Times Book Review has joined the race with a list of the 100 Notable Books of the Year. Check out that list. Have you read or purchased them? Have you even heard of most of them? Me either. I checked and six of the fiction titles and two of the nonfiction titles reside in my house. A few of those were gifts. So, between buying and receiving, I still don’t have 10% of these. Guess my reading year wasn’t all that notable.

This did get me thinking. If I had to pick the five most notable romance/women’s fiction/chick lit titles I read this year what would they be…I’m still working on that one. If you have a list, let me know. Off the top of my head (and without looking at my bookshelf or at the PBR reviews) mine likely would include The Comeback Kiss by Lani Diane Rich, Lover Eternal by J.R. Ward and Sleeping with the Agent by Gennita Low. I know I’m forgetting a bunch – sorry. At some point in December I’ll actually check those bookshelves and the PBR reviews and put together a Best Romance/Chick Lit/Women’s Fiction Releases of 2006. Until then, consider this my working draft.

I know many authors are making them. I know people like them. I must admit I haven’t thought much about them and have only looked at one or two. Those seemed cool enough but, in general, this is not a promo idea that’s sparked with me. But, one came via email yesterday from Authors After Dark and got me thinking. Could be they’re more effective than I first thought.

The trailer was for a book by Vince Liaguno called The Literary Six from Outskirts Press. Here’s what happened: I got the email, liked the title, clicked on the link, watched the trailer and then went searching out this author and the the publisher just because I got nosy. It looks as if Outskirts Press is a a self-publishing group. Never heard of them but I’m not a proponent of self-publishing for mainstream fiction. The whole the-publisher-pays-you-and-not-vice-versa thing is big deal with me. But, the guy did get my attention with his trailer.

While it’s true I won’t be buying this book, more than likely it would not have hit on my radar screen at all without seeing the trailer. The plot appears to be one where a group of kids did something bad in college and twenty years later are stuck together in a remote location due to a bad storm and whatever they did comes back to haunt them. Seems a bit too familiar. Also, the trapped-by-a-storm thing is a hard sell for me. Despite all that, the trailer got my attention. I’ve now checked out the author, publisher and Amazon. Seems to me the trailer worked on some level.

You can see the trailer at the author’s site if you’re interested.

Certain places seem to go in and out of fashion. When I wrote VIVA LAS BAD BOYS! I hadn’t read a romance set in Las Vegas for years. A bunch of us got the same idea for the same setting at the same time. Not a surprise since, well, there are only so many real cities and towns out there. After that, you have to make them up. And, really, who could make up Las Vegas? Of course, it’s also possible authors have been using the setting all along and I didn’t notice until I wrote one. Who knows.

Some other Las Vegas set romances (in case you’re interested):

-Erin McCarthy’s series: High Stakes, Bit The Jackpot and Bled Dry.

-Katherine Garbera’s What Happens in Vegas series: His Wedding-Night Wager, Her High-Stakes Affair and Their Million-Dollar Night.

-A new sale where the book is based in Las Vegas:

FICTION: WOMEN’S/ROMANCE
Anya Bast, Jodi Lynn Copeland, Lauren Dane and Kit Tunstall’s WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS…, a contemporary erotic romance anthology featuring four connected novellas set in Sin City, to Susan Pezzack for Harlequin Spice, in a nice deal, by Laura Bradford at Bradford Literary Agency (World).

My next book is set on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Haven’t see many Hawaii set romances either. Again, I could just be missing them. I’ll have to look for those too.

We had what felt like 53 newspapers delivered to our house in Maryland. Actually, it was more like three – The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal (clearly for the hubby) and The New York Times (Sundays only). Over the years, I became somewhat disappointed in the Post’s reporting. And, the Sunday Book World section drove me nuts. Really, how many books about dead Presidents and the history of mold could one newspaper review? The answer, obviously, was at least 10 per week.

Then we moved. I sat down yesterday with my new hometown paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune. Not a great paper. The book section, errr, wow. Five pages of nothing. Since we also get the LA Times on the weekend, I turned to the Times’ book section. Surely a newspaper like the Times would have a great book section…no.

Maybe this is another chicken-egg thing, but are people not buying books because so little emphasis is placed on them or is so little emphasis placed on them because no one cares. Hard to say. But, I can now report with some authority that Washington Post Book World actually is pretty good. My apologies to the Post’s staff for previous disparaging remarks.

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, and now that NYC publishers are working on the covers for their Summer 2007 releases, it’s time to think about holiday romance (usually this means Christmas romance) novels. First, I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan. Sure, I enjoy a few Christmas tales. Rarely, however, do I go in search of these books. I tend to pick them up as impulse/just-looking around buys or as part of an author-loyalty binge I’m on. Here are a few I’ve checked out recently:

-Santa Baby - by J. Crusie, L. Foster and C. Phillips: This anthology includes an original Crusie novella. So, yes, I own this.

-A NASCAR Holiday by K. Raye, D. Webb and R. St. Claire – There are few things in this world I find less interesting than NASCAR. I know people love it. I’m just not one of them. If you are, this book might be for you.

-A Christine Feehan Holiday Treasury - For those who can’t get enough of Feehan…and if her sales are any indication, that’s most of you.

Christmas Letters by D. Macomber – I enjoyed her series on the guys in Alaska. Other than that, I’m not an avid Macomber reader. However, after hearing her speak and knowing her road-to-publication story (it’s a testament to perseverance), I admire this woman. She just seems so good and true.

-A Very Merry Christmas by L. Foster, J. Maynard and G. Bruce – Brava’s contribution. It’s on my TBR pile.

-Sugarplums and Scandals by L. Avocato, D. Cameron, M. Daheim, C. London, S. MacPherson and K. Sparks – I have this. Liked the title. Like K. Sparks and C. London, and been meaning to give Avocato a try, so this one worked for me. Also thought it was interesting the authors were listed alphabetically rather than in order of publishing prominence. That’s probably one of those things authors notice and readers don’t, but since it’s unusual it did jump out at me.

And…an oldie I’ve read more than once – Tidings of Great Joy by S. Brown. The Christmas party hook-up turned romance slant of this one makes me smile. No idea why.

If anyone has a new holiday romance to recommend, let me know.

The Smart Bitches poke fun at romance covers quite often…and with good reason. A few years back, Jennifer McKnight-Trontz wrote a book called The Look of Love: The Art of the Romance Novel. Salon talked about it. I somehow missed it, but I now own it. Don’t you just love housewarming gifts.

The publisher described it as:

Dashing doctors, naughty nurses, and sexy stewardesses…caught in webs of love, passion, betrayal, and intrigue: these are the raw materials of the romance novel – and the lusty covers that advertise them. The Look of Love presents the captivating art and stories of this ever-popular genre, from the sugary tales of the 1940s to the bodice-rippers of the 1980s. This delightful compendium of popular illustration and purple prose is aimed at the hearts of romance lovers everywhere.

Salon says:

With sections devoted to historical romance, career girls, exotic settings and the romance’s peculiar fascination with the medical profession (my favorite: “Hootenanny Nurse”), “The Look of Love” also has a precious assortment of cover art from the long lost genre of drugstore gothic. There used to be dozens of these books in every cheap rack, each cover featuring a maiden in a nightgown or some other filmy garment fleeing the environs of a vast and gloomy house. They’ve vanished entirely, and seeing their covers here is like stumbling on a favorite old eight-track tape.

Yeah, it’s as cool as it sounds. And, here’s the Hootenanny Nurse cover. Come on, you know you wanted to see it.

Since we heard the song about 4,000 while driving across the country, it seems appropriate to to honor the Red Hot Chili Peppers with the title of this entry [hint: for those unfamiliar with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, they're a band and Californication is the name of an album and a single from the album of the same name]. Thanks to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and XM Radio, the hours went by quickly as we drove from Maryland to Virginia to Tennessee to Arkansas to Oklahoma to Texas to New Mexico to Arizona to California. Now we rest. Well, to be more precise, now we rest…until the movers arrive with all of our stuff.

For those who love statistics – you know who you are – these sum up the trip nicely:

Number of books brought on trip: 3 (I thought, maybe, I’d want to read)

Number of books read while on trip: 0 (I proved reading and traveling by car do not work in combination for me)

Number of days I worked on my book due January 15th: 0 (okay, that one wasn’t exactly a surprise but still…)

Number of times we ate at McDonald’s: 2 (In other words, one time too many)

Number of days we took to complete the drive: 5 (I wanted to do it in 3, but the hubby won that battle)

Number of days during the trip in which we stopped at a Starbucks: 5 (My consolation prize for the 5-day thing)

Clearly, when it comes to travel my need for caffeine trumps the need for literature and fast food. Good to know.

We are in our new home in San Diego. You’d think that would mean I’d use today’s blog to chat about all the road fun we had. Nope. I’m over at the Brava Authors Blog. These schedules are set out in advance. For some reason, I didn’t put together November 20th as the first day after our big move and try to switch with someone. Go figure.

Come say hello. Sure, I’m half asleep and recuperating from five days of travel, but I can still be chatty. Sort of…

The book follows a young woman as she tries to navigate the joy that is the first semester of law school. The good news is that the book isn’t about law school. Because, really, who the hell would want to read that? I still haven’t forgiven Scott Turow for One L. I haven’t figured out what made me want to go to law school either…but that’s a different issue.

The book is about a woman named Kate Bennett, which is good since the book is called Testing Kate . It’s by Whitney Gaskell. This was my first Gaskell book, but she has others. Here’s the cover for Testing Kate:

I liked that this wasn’t a woman-beating-law-school-to-become-first-in-her-class tale. It was a woman-trying-to-understand-life tale. The tone was light and very relatable, even though the subject matter wasn’t always so breezy. It was an impulse buy and very quick read – read it in one sitting.

Since the term “chick lit” is supposedly out, I’ll just call Testing Kate a good example of smart women’s fiction. Unless we’re not supposed to say “smart women’s fiction” either…

A few weeks ago I wandered into the local B&N. As usual, the trade paperback table at the front of the store was my first stop. I wanted to try a new author – by that I mean new to me. Looking around, I saw the regular bestselling authors and literary titles there. Then I saw this one: Farther Than I Meant To Go, Longer Than I Meant To Stay by Tiffany L. Warren. It’s not the usual short and snappy type of title. The plot isn’t the same ‘ole thing either. It has a mix of topics, such as self-acceptance, romance, societal pressures relating to marriage and appearance, self-discovery and spirituality.

I didn’t realize that last part about religion and spirituality when I picked up the book. The back cover blurb didn’t particularly clue me in. For some reason, the publisher – Walk Worthy Press – didn’t really hit me either. Yeah, I’m slow. It’s a Warner imprint…you know, in case you were wondering.

Here’s the cover:

The description from the Hachette/Warner site:

She’s independent, successful, and fulfilled in her spiritual walk. But bank president Charmayne Ellis is also overweight, close-to-forty…and wondering if she will ever be as successful in her personal life. She’s never gotten much praise or caring from her ever-critical mother and sister. And her friends are more into matchmaking than being truly supportive.

So it seems her prayers are answered when hardworking, saved, and just-too-fine Travis Moon asks Charmayne to marry him. Or were they? Charmayne soon finds the only thing her new husband has to share is one bad-news secret after another. Now, with her reputation and career destroyed and her life at rock bottom, her faith will be tested as never before. Her challenge will be to face her own willful heart-and find the courage to finally put herself in God’s hands and discover where her real blessings lie.

Not my usual thing. I rarely read fiction with a religious angle, but this was fresh and smart. Worth a read when I wanated something different.