Jane Litte's Blog, page 68

REVIEW: The Village Twins (The Village Life) by Izzy Abrahmson

Life in The Village is rarely quiet or uneventful, but after The Village Twins are born, everything gets even crazier.

Abraham and Adam Schlemiel are trouble from day one. The twins are so identical that their parents, teachers and eventually their wives can’t tell them apart.

Adam loves to create elaborate pranks. Abraham usually takes the blame. As teens, they both love Rosa, a wandering princess. But the Russian army is looking for Adam, who falls for Rivka Cantor, but she thinks he’s Abrah...

CONVERSATION: What Makes a Sex Scene Work for You?

A few weeks ago, we discussed the emotional dynamics of sex scenes and their role in the story. Now for a broader conversation about our other likes and dislikes, what we want more of and our pet peeves. Here are the questions I asked DA’s other contributors:

In general, do you prefer sexy romances or closed door and chaste ones? How do you feel about BDSM? What are your thoughts on sex scenes that take place in public places or other unusual locations (i.e. the kitchen counter or the living roo...

REVIEW: Fearless by Shira Glassman

A newly out-of-the-closet band mom falls for an orchestra teacher while snowed in at All-State. Lana Novak hasn’t played violin in over twenty years, her musical life these days confined to being a devoted band mom to her clarinet whiz daughter Robin. She didn’t think she could get back into it after this long, but Melanie Feinberg, the outgoing, enthusiastic, and very cute butch orchestra director from Robin’s school, has other ideas.

Dear Ms. Glassman,

Having never tried one of your short ...

REVIEW: Clothes-Pegs by Susan Scarlett

“Do you live permanently in yellow evening frocks and court gowns, or have you anything else?”

Annabel laughed shakily.

“Of course. My own clothes.”

“Then go and put them on. Lovely ladies who fall over their trains need cocktails to restore them. And that’s just what I’m going to take you to have.”

Annabel Brown has taken a job in the sewing room at Bertna’s, a high-end dressmaker, to help her family’s finances. When one of the “mannequins” employed downstairs quits unexpectedly, Tania Petoff...

REVIEW: Cold: Three Winters at the South Pole by Wayne L. White

Winter owns most of the year at the South Pole, starting in mid-February and ending in early November. Total darkness lasts for months, temperatures can drop below -100 degrees Fahrenheit, and wind-chill can push temperatures to -140 degrees. At those temperatures a person not protected with specialized clothing and an understanding of how to wear it would be reduced to an icicle within minutes. Few people on the planet can say they know what it feels like to walk in the unworldly, frigid wint...

REVIEW: Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell

In a sparkling, beautifully illustrated social history, Skirts traces the shifting roles of women over the twentieth century through the era’s most iconic and influential dresses.

While the story of women’s liberation has often been framed by the growing acceptance of pants over the twentieth century, the most important and influential female fashions of the era featured skirts. Suffragists and soldiers marched in skirts; the heroines of the Civil Rights Movement took a stand in skirts. Frida ...

Review: The Matchmaker by Alan Chin

In the four years since being forced off the professional tour for being gay, Daniel Bottega has taught tennis at a second-rate country club. He found a sanctuary to hide from an unkind world, while his lover, Jared Stoderling, fought a losing battle with alcohol addiction to cope with his disappointment of not playing on the pro circuit.

Now Daniel has another chance at the tour by coaching tennis prodigy Connor Lin to a Grand Slam championship win. He shares his chance with Jared by convincin...

REVIEW: Always, Clementine by Carlie Sorosiak

From the author of I, Cosmo comes a humor-filled, heart-tugging tale of a genius mouse, secretly freed from a lab, who’s in search of a real home—and a way to free her old friends.

Clementine is different from other mice: she can calculate the speed of light and she dreams in Latin. The scientists say she’s a genius and put her through test after test. Clementine is proud of being a good lab mouse, but she’s lonely. Her only snatches of friendship occur during her late-night visits with a chim...

REVIEW: Friends to Keep in Art and Life by Nicole Tersigni

Pairing classical paintings with funny, irreverent captions, Nicole Tersigni honors all sorts of sacred female friendships and the miscellaneous nonsense that brings women closer together. Focusing on five major friend types (the Work Friend, the Nurturing Friend, the Hide a Body for You Friend, the Up for Anything Friend, and the Super Honest Friend), Tersigni’s meme-style humor perfectly captures all of the weird-but-special, intimate, cherished, and often laugh-out-loud moments that define ...

REVIEW: Men to Avoid in Art and Life by Nicole Tersigni

Men to Avoid in Art and Life pairs classical fine art with modern captions that epitomize the spirit of mansplaining.

This hilarious book perfectly captures those relatable moments when a man explains to a woman a subject about which he knows considerably less than she does.

Situations include men sharing keen insight on the female anatomy, an eloquent defense of catcalling, or offering sage advice about horseback riding to the woman who owns the horse.

• These less qualified men of antiquity ...