Laura K. Curtis's Blog, page 5

It’s Here! Happy Heart Reads is Live!

I am super happy to invite you all to join me, Penny Watson, and Lexxi Callahan at our new website, Happy Heart Reads! It’s a place for comfort reads, good food, cocktails, music, puppies…anything that lightens your heart.

Things I’ve already learned from Happy Hearts:

Today is Elvis Presley’s birthday and he was only 42 when he died. You probably already knew that, but I’ve never really thought about it, though I love the music!
 Dogs in costumes rock. And the more embarrassing the costume, the better.

Also, there are recipes for both cookies and meatballs already on the blog with more to come. Plus, there’s a chance to win our favorite reads of 2015 in our inaugural Happy Hour post! (We’ll be doing happy hours every week on the blog, with all kinds of fun stuff.) And if you have a Facebook account, stop by our Happy Hour Launch Party from 6pm-8pm for a chance at yet more books and a Kindle Fire tablet!

Welcome, 2016!

2015 is going out on a decidedly easier note for me than it came in on. But many of my friends are not so lucky. To anyone who’s feeling the pain right now, I offer a shoulder and an ear and anything else I have that you need. This time last year, I was leaning heavily on others, so never feel as if you’re a problem—you are allowing me the opportunity to pay forward all the help I’ve received.

I don’t make resolutions because they’re not good for my mental health. (I end up discussing this every year, so if you’ve been around for a while, this paragraph may sound familiar.) If I “resolve to eat healthy,” I’ll feel guilty when I don’t. Instead, I set goals, A resolution is a destination, but a goal is a journey and different legs of the journey can be taken at different paces. One of my goals in 2016 is to live a healthier lifestyle. That means more exercise and healthier food overall, but it doesn’t leave me feeling rotten if I indulge in chocolate mousse! (My mother makes the most awesome chocolate mousse in the world, so not indulging is not a possibility.)

Speaking of goals, at some point in February (they haven’t given me a specific date yet), I’ll be teaching my SavvyAuthors course,  Planning for Success: Achieving Your Goals of Word Count, Weight Loss, and World Domination Using a Paper Planner. I hope you’ll consider signing up. I’ve added a bit more to it since the last time I taught it because I’ve learned more about goal setting and time division.

And also in February, I’m insanely excited to be doing a panel at the Mount Kisco library. That’s one of my other 2016 goals—to get more involved with the Westchester County library system. There are a ton of great libraries in Westchester, and if readers and writers don’t support them, who will?

At some point, I hope to be involved in a similar program for mystery writers as I will be president of the New York chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Eek! The mystery writers, despite their horrifying imaginations, are mostly lovely people, so I am looking forward to spending more time with them.

On the writing front, I have a bunch of projects I hope to bring to you this year.

The Gothic I’ve been teasing for a while now
The next book or even two in the Harp Security series (I’ll definitely get them both written this year, but their release dates are not up to me.)
A short novella in an anthology called Silver Belles, a holiday anthology featuring couples over 40, due out in October of 2016.

There may be more, but that’s what’s on my schedule right now.

I got a new camera recently, so I will probably subject you to more photographs in the new year. I also signed up for the TBR Challenge so I’ll be bringing you commentary on some of the books in my TBR list. If your To Be Read pile is out of control, why not sign up yourself and we can chat about what we read!

Finally, I am really pleased to announce that I am one of the founders of a new website called Happy Heart Reads that will be going live NEXT WEEK! On Friday, January 8, we’ll have our first “Happy Hour.” Penny Watson, Lexxi Callahan, and I were talking about how much negativity there was in the world in general and online in particular, and how we wished there were a place where any time you went there people would be supportive and there would be something that would make you smile. Since we couldn’t find one, we decided to start it. Although the site has “reads” in the title, it isn’t (primarily) a book review site. It’s a place for

Books designed to give readers the warm fuzzies
Movies we love
Food & Recipes
Hobbies & Crats
Puppies (and other baby animals)
Music
Events

And much, much more. If you’re interested in writing guest posts, we’d love to have you. Saw a great movie? Found a new favorite band? Got a new pet and want to share the pictures? We’re your peeps! Every Friday we will have a happy hour with at least one giveaway. So stop by on Fridays and catch up with the week’s posts.

Want to be reminded when my new books come out, or when Happy Hearts goes live? Be sure to sign up for my newsletter. (You get a free story just for signing up!)

Thoughts After Midnight

We like to believe that tales of haunting were the product of gullible and overwrought Victorian imaginations, that we are too sensible, too intelligent for such fancies. And it is certainly true that  stories of visitations from the dead have decreased in the Information Age. But it is equally true that the noise of culture has increased.

The dead are not loud. Our ancestors noticed the sudden, minute changes in temperature, the small objects out of place, the shifting play of impossible shadows. We, occupied with earbuds and smartphones and two jobs before dinner, ignore such clues. We are consumed by busyness.

The dead are not busy. And we ignore them at our peril.

Cranberry Apple Butter

I love cranberries. LOVE THEM. There’s pretty much nothing you can do to a cranberry that I won’t eat. Years ago, I started making cranberry applesauce for a friend who was diagnosed with diabetes. She couldn’t have sugar, but she wanted something to add taste like jam. The cranberry applesauce had no sugar other than what was in the apples naturally, and it tasted amazing.

But it was applesauce texture. I wanted something richer, smoother, more…buttery. This recipe has plenty of sugar, unfortunately, but it’s sooo tasty that every bite is worthwhile.

 

Tools: large slow cooker, food mill (or strong sieve)

Ingredients:

5-6 lbs apples (I try to use at least some Granny Smiths if canning because they contain lots of pectin, but any type of apple works. I’m a big fan of Honey Crisp as well. A mixture is good.)

1 bag frozen cranberries

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup apple cider or apple juice

2 cups light brown sugar, tightly packed

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp allspice

First, add cranberries, cider vinegar and apple juice/cider to crock pot and turn on low. Scrub apples thoroughly and cut into large chunks, including peels and cores. Add to crock pot.

Cook on low until apples are soft (not until they disintegrate completely). This usually averages 2 hours for me, depending on the apples. Stir occasionally to prevent anything from sticking to the bottom of the crock pot.

When apples are soft, put through a food mill or sieve to remove the skins and seeds. If you don’t have a food mill, force through a sieve. (I LOVE my food mill. Highly recommend getting one–great for ricing potatoes!)

Put back into slow cooker and turn on high. Add 1 cup of sugar and spices. Taste. Add more sugar and spices to taste and cook, stirring occasionally, with lid off, until some water evaporates and the apple butter is nice and thick. (I usually add about 1.5 cups sugar, but I don’t like things very sweet, so you may need to use up to 2 cups!)

Enjoy!

Wedded to the Soul Mate?

Last night I was re-reading Madam, Will You Talk?, which I haven’t read in, oh, probably ten years. As happens (to me, at least), although I remembered the main plot, there were plenty of things I’d forgotten. One of them is that our heroine, Charity, lost her husband in the war.

This is not the only Stewart where the heroine has a dead husband. Kate Herrick, heroine of Rose Cottage, also lost her husband to the war. But in Rose Cottage, readers don’t know much about him other than that he was wealthy and that the courtship was short because of the war. He’s a cipher, a placeholder in the text.

But this is not true of Johnny, Charity Selborne’s dead husband. He is very much a part of the story of Madam, Will You Talk?. In fact, when Richard, the hero, first meets Charity she is having a nostalgic moment over her dead love. It is in part the things she has learned from her marriage to Johnny that allow her to save herself, and when Richard asks her about their relationship she says:

“What was between me and Johnny was a real thing that we built very carefully for ourselves, and, when we built it, it was perfect and satisfying.“

And yet, the reader has no doubt, as Charity has no doubt, that her second love will be equally perfect and satisfying.

This is not something I see a lot of in modern novels. The idea that a person has only “one true love” or “soul mate” seems to have taken over so that previous relationships fall into several categories:

the ex was a complete jerk
the relationship was unsatisfying in some fundamental way
either the person or the relationship was not as great as they looked on the outside
the relationship was about to come to an end right before the death

God forbid you should have an ex that you adored but simply couldn’t live with. Or that you loved desperately who died but whose death you are over. (Because, yeah, occasionally I come across a book where the protagonist has a dead spouse, but that’s always the major conflict. It’s never simply part of what made them who they are.)

I tend to write older heroes and heroines than are in the current fashion (the WIP has a heroine who’s 23 — but it’s a Gothic, and that’s part of the Gothic style), so they have previous relationships. If they don’t, there’s a good reason for it. I have yet to write a widowed or divorced heroine — or hero, for that matter — but I’m considering it.

Love may not be a choice, but a relationship is. And love may be easy, but maintaining a relationship isn’t. It takes commitment, dedication, and work. Characters who have made that commitment, done that work, are different from those who have not and it was only after reading the Stewart that I realized how rarely I see them in contemporary romance. It made me sad.

Roasted Garlic Chocolate Truffles

I can hear you now. “Say what?” But truly, these are delicious. And unless you tell people about the garlic, they’ll never know. It’s  fun party game — “what’s in these truffles that you would never believe?”

Ingredients

1/2 cup heavy cream
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
6 ounces semisweet chocolate
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (one stick at 20 seconds in the microwave works nicely)
4 tablespoons roasted garlic (approximately two full heads of garlic)
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
powdered unsweetened cocoa

A word about the ingredients. Generally, the fewer ingredients a recipe contains, the better quality each needs to be. Do not skimp! Do not use the garlic that’s been sitting around in your basket for a month. Get fresh garlic, fresh cream, high quality chocolate, etc.

To make truffles:

Roast the garlic. Cut the bottom off each head of garlic with a sharp knife. If the garlic has a long stem, use a scissor to cut that off close to the top. Do NOT peel the garlic. Drizzle the cut ends with a touch of olive oil (a spritz will do fine if you have a sprayer). Wrap tightly in tinfoil and roast 45 minutes in a 400ºF oven. Garlic will be soft and carmelized on the bottom when it is done.

Let garlic cool, then squeeze out from the skin. It will come out as a paste. If there are still fibrous bits, chop them finely.

In a medium sized saucepan, boil the cream until it reduces by slightly more than half. Turn the heat down to very low and stir in the chocolate with a wooden spoon until smooth. Then use a whisk to incorporate the butter, salt, and garlic. Keep whisking until smooth.

Pour into a container and refrigerate for a minimum of an hour.

When the ganache has stiffened and cooled, scoop out and roll in the cocoa to coat. (A melon baller/cookie scoop works very well for this!) You will want to work fairly quickly. If the ganache gets overly soft while you are working, just put it back in the fridge.

Store truffles in the refrigerator for up to three days (the longer they wait, the stronger the aftertaste of heat from the garlic will become). Be sure to bring to room temperature before serving.

 

Is Romance Smut?

Lately, there’s been a lot of chatter about reclaiming the word “smut” in the romance community. I tried to have a conversation about this on Twitter, but 140 characters (or even 280 characters) doesn’t really cut it when you’re trying to have a serious discussion.

Here’s the thing about reclaiming words. Words have actual meanings. Not connotations or associations, but actual meanings. The word smut happens to mean dirt, smutty happens to mean dirty. At the moment, “dirty” is usually associated with “sex”.

For me, the moments in my childhood that I remember most fondly involved being dirty, sandy, muddy…or reading. The VERY best involved both. So I guess I’ve never had a negative association with the word “dirty.” But certainly, some people do. Reclaiming both dirty and smutty from their negative associations is certainly a worthwhile aim.

But that’s where things get murky.

If dirty = smutty = sexy, then “I write smutty books/smut” means “I write sexy books/sex.” And everyone has a different definition of what sexy is. Of what dirty is. Of whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

I don’t think anyone would argue that these circles overlap. I also doubt anyone would argue that they have areas in which they are completely separate. Is inspirational romance the same as smut? Is porn the same as romance? The problem is that when we’re talking about these things, people’s area of overlap is different.

I don’t happen to think there’s anything wrong with either of these circles. When I was in my 20s, I read a good deal of plain old smut. If there was a vague nod to romance, that was all it was. I dated a guy who was seriously into porn and he introduced me to a fair number of things I’d never tried before. But once the idea of it wore off, I found it boring. I wanted story. I wanted character arc. More than that, I wanted romance.

Romance is not the same thing as sex.

If you tell me you write “smut,” I am going to assume that you believe the major characteristic of your work is the sex. That doesn’t interest me as a reader. AND THAT’S OKAY. The defining characteristic of the books I like to read is their romance. Historical romance. Contemporary romance. Romantic suspense (as opposed to “sexy thrillers”).

Let me reiterate that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with smut. It’s just not what I want to read. So when people talk about reclaiming it to use for romance novels it upsets me. Because romance and smut are not the same thing. If you start calling all romance smut, how am I supposed to find the books I want to read, those books that have a softer focus on the sex?

And yes, it’s all about me.

But it’s also about readers finding books and writers finding audiences. Precision in language is a good thing for everyone. Not that it will solve all the problems—some people will still think books that contain the word “fuck” are “smut,” while others will require full-on detailed descriptions of BDSM and still not think it’s “smut.”

And last, I leave you with Tom Lehrer, my very favorite authority on the subject of smut.

Good Reads on GoodReads?

If you have an account on GoodReads, I invite you to join our “Happy Heart Reads” book group. It’s a place where we can discuss more old-fashioned romances…and basically any other thing that makes your heart happy. Feel-good stuff. We all need it these days!

Also, a couple of conversations I’ve participated in on Twitter of late have me wanting to start a new bookshelf over on GR for “recommended first romance books” for people who’d like to read romance but haven’t tried any yet. What would you put on it?

Moving Day!

The blog is moving! Its new address is http://www.laurakcurtis.com/blog-2/ . This blog will remain here for a time so that the post links remain active, but all the content has been ported over there as well. So if you’re subscribed, or have this site bookmarked, please follow over there instead!

Basically, this blog was set up long before I built my website and it’s never been properly incorporated. That one is. The website is being rebuilt, too, so make yourself at home, and if you have suggestions, please do let me know.

Thank you!

The post Moving Day! appeared first on Laura K. Curtis.

Found Treasures

My husband and I are engaged in a purge. We got a new car recently, which means that for the first time since we moved into this house eleven years ago, we need to use the garage…as a garage. So the garage and the basement are getting cleaned out, which means moving things upstairs around to make room for other things, etc, etc, etc.

Most things are either being donated or thrown out. That’s reality. But some things, no matter how impractical, I am not willing to let go of. And that includes these five items, which have been packed away in a drawer for more years than I care to admit.

I will probably give the tiny beaded purses to my twin nieces. They are just too young for me and they would look adorable on sophisticated teens.

The opera glasses I believe belonged to my grandmother.

The black leather purse I remember buying with my mother. It was the first “party bag” I ever owned and it still has the little makeup mirror in its chamois case and the tiny “dollar wallet” inside. You know, the one you put a few bucks and a credit card in because you’re not going to be carrying all your drek to a party.

The other black purse I bought for myself. It’s a 1920s clutch, with a chalcedony, marcasite and sterling silver clasp. It’s absolutely the most elegant thing I have ever carried!

What’s in your closet (or drawer) that you can’t bear to part with?