false 31 707 524 true 5642064 read 1 true 1217787 currently-reading 182 true 1217786 to-read 203 false 1229549 romance 137 false 1229556 sci-fi-fantasy 82 false 1229557 mystery 66 false 1229951 paranormal 46 false 1233010 graphic-novel 20 false 1229615 fiction-general 20 false 1577865 thiller-suspense 9 false 1229955 horror 8 false 1305560 film-theory-history 8 false 1769409 childrens-books---picture 7 false 1229986 nonfiction-general 7 false 1232992 erotica 6 false 1229970 non-fiction-biography 5 false 1305564 reference 4 false 1621663 classics 4 false 1323728 fiction-historical 3 false 4494120 nonfiction-history 2 false 1305595 true-crime 1 false 1305545 memoir http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/179564-what-is-everyone-currently-reading Tina made a comment in the Fans of Interracial Romance group:

Vixenne wrote: "Hi everybody, I've missed you all!!!

Okay, everyone pretty much knows that I'm SO bored with the paranormal genre and its continuing preoccupation with vampires, werewolves, shifters, slayers, a..."

I have to co-sign 100% on Soulless. If I had to make a top ten list this year this book would be right up there in the top 3. Excellent book. It was one that I finished and then went right back and read again.

And I also agree with the paranormal thing. I am off my paranormal feed right now. So much so that I have been reading Kathleen Gilles Seidel books written in the late 80s to mid 90s. Mainstream romantic/women's fiction. Very different from stuff being written these days. Very good though. Also going old school Regency romances with Joan Wolf and Elizabeth Mansfield.


]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76369698 to: Passion (Berkley Sensation) by Lisa Valdez
bookshelves: erotica, romance
I gave this book three stars because the plot, storyline and even the love affair of the characters is actually quite nice.

The dilemma the hero finds himself in is the stuff of good old fashion romance novel storytelling. The hero, Mark, Earl of Langely, is blackmailed by his mother --who herself is being blackmailed -- into marrying far beneath his station. If he doesn't do this his beloved younger brother will find out that he is a bastard and will lose the woman to whom he is affianced.

The heroine is a woman named Passion (that alone was worth a full 1/2 star off the top) who is a widow and who is in London visiting relatives. She and Mark meet during an exhibit at the Crystal Palace and begin a scorchingly hot, full bore, carnally sexual love affair. They fall in love but Mark, of course is engaged and can't break it off and Passion finds out in the worst possible way.

The emotion in the love story and the complications surround Mark and Passion is great stuff. Would have been worth four 1.5 stars (again -- no way this book is getting 5-stars with a heroine named Passion).

But then there are the sex scenes. The sex is a major part of this book that it is really necessary to talk about it.

Believe me, I am no prude. I love some hot scorching erotica. If the love scenes had simply been hot and scorching then I may have almost been able to overlook the name Passion and given it 5-stars (...well maybe not). The scenes are quite scorching hot. The lead up and the longing etc. is quite good. The problems come with the writing of the actual in-throes of the sexual act. Sometimes I laughed out loud, sometimes I cringed. There were some really cheesy descriptions and I couldn't believe we were really to take some of them seriously. Actually some of the descriptions sounded kinda painful. In some places it was reminiscent of bad internet porn scribblings. Honestly, Valdez needed a sex scene ghostwriter. I think some of Lora Leigh's plots suck donkey balls, but the woman can write a sex scene like nobody's business. Other good sex scene writers include Emma Holly, Beth Kery and Kate Douglas to name a few.

Sex scenes aside, the only other real problem I had with the book was Mark's horrible mother. The woman was probably the most loathsome fictional character I have ever read and that includes every single serial killer in the Eve Dallas books. Seriously, why Mark didn't just strangle her and drop her in the Thames I will never understand. Just a horrible construct.

I honestly do recommend this book for the plot and the basic love story. If you dislike raunchy and really, really graphic sex scenes (and conversations where words like 'fuck','cunt' and 'monster cock' are used copiously and casually) then please steer clear. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69003018 to: Polar (Hardcover) by T.R. Pearson
bookshelves: fiction-general
I couldn't finish this and that is a great disappointment to me because Blue Ridge, the book that features the same main characters was superb. This one meandered and was told from the pov of a faceless character who told the story in a personal observation fashion that at first was quite arresting with some real laugh-out-loud moments but soon became tedious.

I really, really wanted to love this book and didn't. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79158887 Shades Of Scarlet (Paperback) by Linda Fallon
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79158880 Shades Of Winter (Mass Market Paperback) by Linda Fallon
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79158874 Shades Of Midnight (Zebra Historical Romance) by Linda Fallon
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79158858 Fire and Ice (Liam Campbell, Book 1) by Dana Stabenow
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79158822 Golden Girl (Mass Market Paperback) by Joan Wolf
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79158795 The Arrangement (Mass Market Paperback) by Joan Wolf
bookshelves: currently-reading, romance
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76856908 to: Till the Stars Fall (Paperback) by Kathleen Gilles Seidel
bookshelves: romance
Krissa and Danny French are siblings who live in a small mining town in Minnesota. Danny is an intense young man with a keen mind and beautiful voice. More than anything, he longs leave the small town he despises and his stifling family life with his morose failure of a father and his enabling mouse of a mother. However brilliant he is, he has too much bitterness to really apply himself in school to make it out. Krissa is the perfect daughter with the perfect grades who has the aptitude but not the ambition to leave the Iron Ridge.

But one pivotal night, Krissa and Danny come to a revelation about themselves and their family. Danny begins a year-long makeover with Krissa's help to become the perfect college applicant. Their diligence pays off and Danny is accepted into Princeton.

While there, Danny meets Quinn Hunter, a child of wealth and privilege, who becomes Danny's best friend and partner as they form the rock band Dodd Hall.

The story follows the rise (and fall) of Dodd Hall and the love story of Krissa and Quinn.

My little summary does absolutely no justice to the scope and depth of this book. This is my favorite of the KGS books I've read. It is a great story of the relationship of these three people: Krissa and Danny's as brother and sister; Danny and Quinn's as best friends and partners in a wildly successful rock band; and Quinn's and Krissa's as passionate, wildly in love lovers.

The story starts after the band has broken up and all three -- Danny, Krissa and Quinn are leading different and completely separate lives. Krissa is divorced with three kids. Danny is on a hunger strike for the homeless and Quinn has embarked on a completely different career. The book is told for the most part in flashbacks -- almost like a VH1 Behind the Music special. Each chapter also boasts snippets of interviews & excerpts from biographies and memories from people outside the main three (session musicians, groupies etc).

The effect of this story structure is quite cool. On the one hand you get the nostalgic look at the rise, glory and fall of a great band. But there is also the suspense of learning how these people broke up and what led them to where they are when the story opens. How is it that Krissa was married to someone who isn't Quinn and had three kids? Why are Quinn and Danny not speaking to each other? In one enigmatic interview with Rolling Stone, Quinn simply says they broke up because Danny smiled at the wrong time. I was wild to find out what happened! As you're reading the book, the love between Quinn and Krissa is so strong, the friendship between Quinn and Danny is so deep you can't begin to imagine what goes wrong. Until you do. And when we get to the present time, KGS brings the three back into each other's orbit in just the right way. The ending was perfection.

This was great storytelling. My only quibble with this book is the treatment of Krissa's ex-husband. I wish there had been a better resolution with him.

Otherwise, excellent book. I highly recommend and would also recommend Public Secrets by Nora Roberts as a great companion piece. ]]>