Showing posts with label Catherine Lundoff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catherine Lundoff. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

"Quotes" of the Month

Did everyone have a great weekend? I just got back to work today after the holiday. It was a hot, hot day! It actually felt like summer. Nice.

I didn't read half of the books that I planned to read during my three day weekend, but had a very nice time. Today instead of a review, I gathered a few quotes that stood out from some of the books read this month -- a few of them will be added to my collection.

She had never believed in fate. She still did not. It would make nonsense of freedom of will and choice, and it was through such freedom that we worked our way through life and learned what we needed to learn. -- Gwen, The Proposal by Mary Balogh
Better to be a neutered wizard than a woman. -- Samarkar-la, Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
To really get to know someone, get them out of their comfort zones -- out of their usual context. Then watch and learn. -- Lauren, A Promise of Safekeeping by Lisa Dale
She needn't have worried. Becca Thornton at fifty might as well have been invisible. Carts went around her, younger women picked up the romance novels, men old and young picked up the sports and car magazines, and not one of them noticed anything different about her.  -- Becca, Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff
Sweetheart. . . You think I'm going to let you go now that I have you in my clutches? You think I want to go back to living in black and white now that I know what Technicolor looks like? - Martin, Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry
"It's inappropriate to shoot the bad art," I said. Odin squinted. "We're criminals, baby. Everything we do is inappropriate." Melinda/Isis and Odin, The Hostage Bargain by Annika Martin
"Or if you're nervous about pain, you could consider getting your intimate hair dyed. It'd cover up the grey beautifully. It was nice seeing you, Tim." She swept up again, leaving me standing there, mortified. I had grey pubes? She'd seen my grey pubes? I mentally added tweezers to the shopping list. Tim and Olivia, Hard Tail by J.L. Merrow

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Minis: Jodi Thomas, Catherine Lundoff + Links


Happy Mother's Day!

This has been a busy week. For my third blogiversary I chose to highlight favorite authors that I have recommended throughout the last three years under different categories --  Historical Romance: Mary Balogh,  Fantasy: Elizabeth Bear, Contemporary Romance: Nora Roberts, Women's Fiction/Romance: Lisa Dale.

However, I didn't want to end the week without posting a couple of those mini impressions I love to feature once in a while. One book is by Jodi Thomas, another favorite author, and the other is by a "new-to-me" LGBTQ author. You all know how much I love discovering new authors and the LGBTQ sub-genre. Here they are:

Just Down the Road (Harmony# 4) by Jodi Thomas

Just Down the Road is the fourth installment in this small town romance series by Jodi Thomas. I'm loving it because Ms. Thomas has a knack for drawing characters with qualities that the reader can connect with easily. That applies to characters that take center stage, as well as to those that play secondary roles within any given book.

In this particular installment Jodi Thomas focuses on loses and finding love and hope. There is one very satisfying romance featuring a man who lost his love of life when he lost his wife to cancer, but unexpectedly finds new hope and a second chance at love through the love of an orphaned child and renewed passion when he falls for a woman who has lost her sense of self by trying to please others. Then there are other story lines, one highlighting a much loved young couple going through changes, loss and strife, now finally settling into some sort of understanding, and the other an older couple dealing with doubts and unexpected surprises.

In the meantime, secondary characters gain depth as Thomas highlights strengths, flaws and vulnerabilities. As a result when or if a time comes for these characters to take central stage they will be just as dear to the readers as they seem to be to their families and friends in Harmony. That's a kind of magic. The kind of magic that makes this quiet small town romance series a winner for me. (Contemporary Romance)Grade B+

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Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff

In Silver MoonCatherine Lundoff weaves a fantasy set in a small town where only a few women are called by magic to change into werewolves when menopausal symptoms flare up. This book's premise is what sold it to me.

The story's central character is a woman of a "certain age" going through multiple changes in her life, including menopause. At first glance it might seem as if equating those biological changes with the werewolf theme is dramatic, but in fact I found it to be both creative and on target. Change. Through the theme of change, Lundoff also focuses on other issues that affect women during this time in their lives. She adds insightful touches such as the "invisibility factor"* that women experience after they reach a "certain age," which ties in quite well with the issue of those same women being abandoned or dismissed by husbands or partners (like yesterday's news) for younger women.

I mentioned above that the story is about change, but in the end it's really about either fighting those changes or embracing them gracefully when the inevitable time comes. Lundoff serves this fantasy dish with a scoop of hope. While the main character in her story goes through that roller coaster, the other women show the final result: accepting change doesn't mean you have to give up love or sexuality, instead there is much to gain, lots to offer and still great things to come in the future.

I read Silver Moon from a female's perspective, but this book is categorized as a lesbian fantasy. As such, and if you read this book from a concrete or literal point of view, I would say that it is high on the fantasy/paranormal with lots of action, with amusing and insightful moments (at least they were amusing and insightful to me), and quite low on the romance. A quick, enjoyable read. (LGBT - Lesbian Fantasy)Grade B

*(If you don't know what the "invisibility factor" means, you haven't turned 50 yet. It's when people, this applies to men and women, stop seeing you as a "woman," and in fact you become almost, if not totally, invisible.) 

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Finally, I would like to provide you today with links to free downloads for short stories by two favorite authors:

Cheryl St. John - Harlequin Historical: In case you haven't read it yet, here's a link to Cheryl's website where you can download the prequel to the Irish Bride's Trilogy. The first book, The Wedding Journey by Cheryl St. John is available now. I have it in my TBR and hope to read and review it soon. :)

Alex Jeffers - LGBT Gay Fantasy: Additionally, there is also a free download available here for "Firooz and His Brother," a short story that will be included in Alex Jeffers' upcoming release You Will Meet A Stranger Far From Home: Wonder Stories. I read it and loved it... wonder story indeed.

Thank you all for coming by to celebrate this week with me!

Saturday, April 28, 2012

New Releases: May 2012 + A Peek Ahead

April has been a good month for new releases, at least there were books that interested me, but May is looking excellent on that front too. There are new releases from quite a few of the different genres that I enjoy reading regularly.

Here are a few of them:

A couple of notes before I proceed: On a different post, I highlighted The Promise by Mary Balogh. This book releases on May 1, 2012 and I'm obviously looking forward to reading it! Check out the summary here.

Also releasing on May 15, 2012 is The Heart's History by Lewis DeSimone. I already read and reviewed this book, and as it turned out this was a great read! Check out the review here.

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The Last Boyfriend (Inn BoonsBoro #2) by Nora Roberts
Release Date: May 1, 2012
Owen is the organizer of the Montgomery clan, running the family’s construction business with an iron fist—and an even less flexible spreadsheet. And though his brothers bust on his compulsive list-making, the Inn BoonsBoro is about to open right on schedule. The only thing Owen didn’t plan for was Avery McTavish...

Avery’s popular pizza place is right across the street from the inn, giving her a first-hand look at its amazing renovation—and a newfound appreciation for Owen. Since he was her first boyfriend when they were kids, Owen has never been far from Avery’s thoughts. But the attraction she’s feeling for him now is far from innocent.

As Avery and Owen cautiously take their relationship to another level, the opening of the inn gives the whole town of Boonsboro a reason to celebrate. But Owen’s hard work has only begun. Getting Avery to let down her guard is going to take longer than he expected—and so will getting her to realize that her first boyfriend is going to be her last…
The first book of this series wasn't an absolute winner for me, but this is a romance by Nora Roberts and there's no way I'm not reading the second book in this contemporary romance series. I always have high hopes. Besides, I just read and loved The Witness, so why not? 
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The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
Release Date: May 8, 2012
From Lovecraft to Borges to Gaiman, a century of intrepid literary experimentation has created a corpus of dark and strange stories that transcend all known genre boundaries. Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.

Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won’t find any elves or wizards here...but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled.

The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon.
Do I have to say anything about wanting to read this book? I love anything that has to do with the weird, and just look at that list of authors! So, what else is there to say? This is a must read for me. :D
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Railsea by China Miéville
Release Date: May 15, 2012
On board the moletrain Medes, Sham Yes ap Soorap watches in awe as he witnesses his first moldywarpe hunt: the giant mole bursting from the earth, the harpoonists targeting their prey, the battle resulting in one’s death and the other’s glory. But no matter how spectacular it is, Sham can't shake the sense that there is more to life than traveling the endless rails of the railsea–even if his captain can think only of the hunt for the ivory-coloured mole she’s been chasing since it took her arm all those years ago. When they come across a wrecked train, at first it's a welcome distraction. But what Sham finds in the derelict—a series of pictures hinting at something, somewhere, that should be impossible—leads to considerably more than he'd bargained for. Soon he's hunted on all sides, by pirates, trainsfolk, monsters and salvage-scrabblers. And it might not be just Sham's life that's about to change. It could be the whole of the rail sea.
Talking about the "weird," China Miéville excels at it. He has become a favorite writer after reading only a couple of his books (I still have a few of his earlier works in my TBR).  The thing about this author is that both of the books I've read managed to make it to my "best of" lists, so why would I not pick up his latest release? This story sounds like an earthbound Moby Dick, Miéville style. Let's see what weird, fantastic characters this author creates in this story. I can't wait to find out. :D

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Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff
Release Date: May 20, 2012
Becca Thornton, divorced, middle-aged, and barely out of the closet, discovers that life can still hold some strange surprises, when she discovers that her body is changing; menopause turns her into a werewolf. Apparently she is not the only one, as a number of women in her town of Wolf's Point seem to have had the same experience. As the newest member of the pack, Becca learns her nights are not spent only protecting the town and running through the woods howling at the moon. There are werewolf hunters in town and they've got Becca in their sights.
This is Lundoff's first novel, however she has won various awards for her short stories, including the 2010 Gaylactic Spectrum Award Best Other Work. She's also the editor of various lesbian anthologies. I've never read Ms. Lundoff's work, but the blurb for this book had me at "menopause turns her into a werewolf." LOL! After reading that line, I KNEW this book was going on my list. Ohhh, I just need to know how the author handles this premise. [grin]

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A Night Like This (Smythe-Smith #2) by Julia Quinn
Release Date: May 29, 2012
Anne Wynter might not be who she says she is . . .

But she's managing quite well as a governess to three highborn young ladies. Her job can be a challenge—in a single week she finds herself hiding in a closet full of tubas, playing an evil queen in a play that might be a tragedy (or might be a comedy—no one is sure), and tending to the wounds of the oh-so-dashing Earl of Winstead. After years of dodging unwanted advances, he's the first man who has truly tempted her, and it's getting harder and harder to remind herself that a governess has no business flirting with a nobleman.

Daniel Smythe-Smith Might be in mortal danger . . .

But that's not going to stop the young earl from falling in love. And when he spies a mysterious woman at his family's annual musicale, he vows to pursue her, even if that means spending his days with a ten-year-old who thinks she's a unicorn. But Daniel has an enemy, one who has vowed to see him dead. And when Anne is thrown into peril, he will stop at nothing to ensure their happy ending . . .
I read but never reviewed the first book in this series although I enjoyed it. Actually I just noticed that I've never reviewed any of the books that I've read by Julia Quinn. I need to remedy that! I'm not missing this book. I love the infamous Smythe-Smith ladies. They're a hoot!
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A PEEK AHEAD:

Here is a look ahead to some future releases I can't wait to read from favorite authors:


Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi - Release Date: June 5, 2012
Scandal Wears Satin (Dressmakers #2) by Loretta Chase - Release Date: June 26, 2012
You Will Meet A Stranger Far From Home by Alex Jeffers - Release Date: July 14, 2012


Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews - Release Date: July 31, 2012
Captain Harding and His Men by Elliott Mackle - Release Date: August 1, 2012
Green Thumb by Tom Cardamone - Release Date: August 2, 2012

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There you are, some of the books I can't wait to read! As always I tried to include a little bit of this and a little bit of that since so many different genres and sub-genres interest me. In this case I only highlighted one contemporary romance, so now I'm asking you... what contemporary books are you looking forward to reading in May? What about the other genres, anything that caught your eye?