Hilcia's Weekly Reads + News

It's Sunday and a beautiful day! Hope you are having a good day too! My schedule is a bit more relaxed and not only did I read this past week, but I had the chance to visit a few of my favorite sites  and found a few interesting bits to share.

Weekly Reading:

My week began with A Family Affair by Mary Campisi. I thought this book might be a romance, but it turned out to be more contemporary fiction with a romance that develops in the middle of the whole angst-ridden storyline about a dysfunctional family. When Chrissy's father dies, she finds out that for fourteen years he had a second, secret family. Devastated, she keeps the information from her mother and goes to confront his father's long-time mistress only to find more than she expected. Campisi uses the dual narrative style, alternating between Chrissie and her Uncle Harry. There's a problem with finding sympathetic or unselfish characters in this story, and the romance felt as if it was tagged on quickly after much hostility between the couple. I would say there's much promise in the premise and some good elements to the story, but the execution doesn't live up that promise. Grade C-

Next I decided to check out Megan Hart's upcoming release, The Favor.

This book is due to release on June 25th, but once I had it in my hot little hands I read it immediately! Why? Well, it's Megan Hart and once begun, I couldn't put the book down but will post my review closer to the release date. I can give this much information to fans of this author as clarification -- so the book can be read with the correct expectations and won't end up disappointing. The Favor falls under the contemporary fiction or literary fiction category, this book is NOT an erotic or a traditional romance. Reading a book with the right mind-set always helps me.

I followed up by picking up the digital edition of When Love Comes to Town by Tom Lennon.This is a "vintage" young adult LGBT book set in Ireland in the 1990's. This coming-out story was initially released 20 years ago.  In many respects it is dated, but sadly, I found that it is also still very relevant. I read this story with both time and place in mind, which was not easy to do. Additionally, despite the title of the book which makes it seem as if it is a romance, I would say that this story falls more under the gay fiction with romantic elements category. I enjoyed it and will review it soon.

I also read Changing Lanes by Kathleen Long. Which did not signify that I really changed lanes in my choice of reading material at all since this book is also contemporary or women's fiction. There is a romantic thread that runs through the storyline but it is not the focus of the story. I love that Changing Lanes is set in a very recognizable New Jersey, but I'll tell you all about that in my review. This book releases May 14th.

But of course I didn't just read fiction the whole week! I also read poetry.

Throughout the week I picked up and slowly read Senegal Taxi by Juan Felipe Herrera, a small volume of poetry that is both political and raw in content. Herrera uses the voices of three children to focus his poetry on the suffering and horrors of war in Darfur. Reading Senegal Taxi was a heart-wrenching experience that has not loosened its grip on me yet. Juan Felipe Herrera was appointed California's 2012 Poet Laureate. Upcoming highlights.


Looking for The Gulf Motel by Richard Blanco is the other poetry volume I chose to read last week. Blanco's uses a narrative style in this emotional biographical piece that touched and in some ways soothed me. I recognized and connected with many of his personal conflicts as the child of a loving, if tough and judgmental, immigrant Cuban family. I laughed in some places, but strongly felt his emotional anguish and nostalgia in others. This is a book I will definitely re-read. Richard Blanco just won The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Poetry. Upcoming highlights.

And, I concluded my week by reading the novelette “The Fountain” by G. David Nordley from Asimov's SF Magazine. My first encounter with Nordley's work turned out to be solid. I enjoyed the science fiction details in this piece, but most of all I really like the way Nordley portrays an alien race that is so different from humans, yet end up teaching humans a lesson or two about compassion. I was absorbed by this piece all the way to the end. Read Carl's detailed review at SF Signal here. Grade: B
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News:

Replacing Google Reader: I am experimenting with Feedly vs. The Old Reader to see which one works for me. So far, I'm loving Feedly's format. It was a snap to transfer information across devices, and I found that it updates RSS signals quicker than The Old Reader.

Editorial Post: If you haven't check it out yet, don't miss Wendy's post "Libraries, What Are They Good For?" at The Misadventures of Super Librarian. In her excellent post, Wendy tackles controversial reactions to digital lending by authors who see libraries as "The Problem."

SFF: The 2013 Aurora Award nominees have been announced by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. The awards will be presented at Can-Con (www.can-con.org) in Ottawa, Oct 4 – 6, 2013. Check out the list here.  From the novels nominated on that list the only book I have in my TBR is The Silvered by Tanya Huff!

LGBT: Congratulations to Trebor Healey for winning the 2013 James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize and The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction

 for A Horse Named Sorrow (University of Wisconsin Press)

. I've dubbed this "Trebor Healey Week."

Looking forward to another great reading week!

This 'n That: Reading, Television, News

Happy Sunday! This has been a good week and I'm enjoying a relaxing weekend. How about you? The good news, of course, is that I've been hitting the books again. Yay! And better yet, I had the time to post three reviews this last week. Hopefully, I'll return to my regular blogging schedule. Whatever that is!

READING:
I used an old 'remedy' to cure my reading blues, I re-read an old favorite Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas, to help me get back on the romance reading wagon. I think I savored this romance more during this time around than any other time. I really took my time savoring all the characters, scenes, and details. I love Sara, Derek and the romance, but this time I also thoroughly enjoyed the secondary characters and really appreciated their contribution to this romance's success. Of course I ended up sighing over Derek Craven, but then that was the idea behind this re-read.

But reading this book reminded me that I had the Where's My Hero? anthology in my TBR with a related story that I had yet to read. From this anthology, I only read "Against the Odds" by Lisa Kleypas. The novella covers the romance between Lydia Craven (Sara and Derek Craven's eldest daughter) and Dr Jake Linley. Linley is a character from Kleypas' Someone to Watch Over Me.

This is a sweet, short romance that I enjoyed because it serves as a sort of epilogue to Dreaming of You, and I suspect that's exactly what I was looking for. Although Kleypas manages to insert one of her signature hot scenes between Jake and Lydia, the romance itself needed more page time in order to become more than average. Regardless, it was a pleasant read.

What else have I read? Nora Roberts' latest romance suspense, Whiskey Beach and Death by Silver, a marvelous upcoming fantasy/mystery release by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold. I will be posting my reviews soon! Additionally, I've been enjoying novellas, novelletes and some excellent articles from two of my favorite Science Fiction magazines, Asimov's Science Fiction and Clarksworld. Maybe I'll write a post about a few of my favorite pieces if I have the time!

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TELEVISION:
What else have I been up to? I didn't have the time to watch this program on Monday night when it first aired, but my husband ordered it and we watched it on Friday evening. It's the two-hour pilot movie of Defiance, the SyFy channel's latest television sci-fi program. These are my initial impressions:

SUMMARY: It is 2046. Seven alien races arrived years before and after a war between humans and aliens, Earth has been transformed. In the town of Defiance, old St. Louis, all races are building a new way of life among what is left of old Earth.

MAIN CHARACTERS: Jack Nolan and his Irathient adopted daughter, Irisa.

LOVED:
- The overall combination of the recognizable with a well-defined Science Fiction atmosphere, world and world-building.
- The in-depth introduction of key characters in the pilot.
- An alternate St. Louis as a setting is a refreshing alternative to NY, LA, and/or Chicago.
- Irisa's character.
- The scene where Jack Nolan and Irisa belt out country music! What? No slamming rock?

NOT IMPRESSED WITH: A certain predictability to the plot line and a few character roles.

PROMISING: The overall storyarc and world-building.

CONCLUSION: I love that the SyFy channel is actually (again) releasing an original Science Fiction program with aliens, CGI, and alien technology. The pilot did not blow me away, but it was good enough that I will be watching it.

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NEWS: For lovers of "vintage reads."

I received an email from Open Road Media asking me to share their news and I thought some of you might be interested. So here it is:

At Open Road Media, we think a great love story never goes out of style. It’s one of the reasons we are so excited to bring you some of the best titles in romance as ebooks for the first time. And whether you call them “vintage,” “old school,” or even “classic,” these retro romances have stood the test of time.

To spread the word about these great ebooks, we founded Retro Reads, a reader program specializing in digitally reissued romance novels. We are looking for a group of readers interested in exploring the full range of romance—readers who love the genre, who love talking about the genre, and who want to keep up with the latest digital releases.

In short, we are looking for a few good romance readers. Interested? Click here for more details!

That is it for this Sunday. I hope your weekend was as enjoyable as mine. :)