Liz Everly's Blog, page 90

Wicked Apprentice

by Madeline Iva

Hate the character. Love the man.

Happy WALPURGISNACHT! Instead of writing about witches today I’m writing about wizards.

I’ve been working on my next WIP, a fantasy erotic romance called WICKED APPRENTICE.   I was inspired by…well, I don’t know what really.  I just woke up one Sunday after having a really hot dream, sat down with my lap top at the dining room table and whole story poured out of me in about four hours.

However, NOW, post-Hobbit movie trilogy I’m totally inspired by Lee Pace and his performance in THE HOBBIT trilogy as Thranduil, haughty Elf King.  I like both the actor in his everyday guise and his elfish persona.  I managed to incorporate the two sides into one character–a nice guy scholar dude who goes all fae in moments of stress, turning into an icy-hot wicked elf wizard.  Yum!

Lee Pace as a nice guy.

Revising the story, various characters started calling out for their own story.  There’s a sad/hot sorcerer in the story, whom I see as a kind of Legolas type.  There’s a kitchen maid named Wart who is your typical good girl heroine, for sure.  There’s also an evil seductive sorceress named Gabrina on the loose. Although most of this story takes place in the human part of this world, I decided to send my h/h off to the elves at the end.  Because let’s face it, elves are fascinating and totally cool.

John Rhys Meyer in Gorgmenghast. He’s so hot.

Let’s talk some old skool fantasy inspirations:

My s/f geek side favors J.R.R. Tolkien’s SILMARILLION when it comes to elvish wonder.  For those of you who don’t have a husband that rereads The Lord of the Rings oeuvre almost every year *cough* you may not be familiar with this book.  It’s the *other* elvish stories that J.R.R. never got around to getting into the series.  They are ‘mythopoetic’ tales.  Yup.  In other words, they are more of a synopsis of stories than actual moment by moment scenes with dialogue and such. But talk about great beach reading if you’re into fantasy! (Though if you’re really into fantasy, I have to ask: what are you doing at the beach?) Read it before Peter The Hobbit Whatshisface makes it into a thirty part movie series.

I am also a big, big fan of GORMENGHAST, which you might not like, because it’s just so very weird and meandering, yet delightfully crazy.  It’s a satire of fantasy in a lot of ways, poking at the British class system as well as public school and university traditions.  There is a lot of mockery. A LOT–and if you ever watch the BBC version, omg, you’ll get it quickly enough.  This production is old, low budget-ish, but pretty great.  It also includes a freakishly hot Johnathan Rhys Meyer as the lead character.

With an intro by Neil Gaiman, just so you know it’s really cool. Click to buy.

Speaking of classic ye-oldy fantasy romance: have you ever read THE KING OF ELFLAND’S DAUGHTER?  Very poetic, dreamy, and romantic.  Why hasn’t it been made into a movie? I really don’t know.

Ready any good fantasy romance lately? Do tell.  What kinds of elements do you like best in fantasy romance?

Before you leave us today, please follow our blog at Lady Smut. We’ll bring you castles made of ice, and moats filled with honey.

 

Prison Passion

By Elizabeth Shore

Imagine this: you’re a young, beautiful woman in her 30’s with dreams of a husband and kids. You’ve met the perfect man. He loves you, you love him. You talk of a future together. Life is good. Oh, but wait, you live in New York and he’s in Massachusetts, about four hours away. Well, no biggie. Lots of people have successfully dealt with long-distance relationships, right? That shouldn’t deter you. Except there’s one additional detail. Your perfect man happens to be in prison. For murder.

Such is reality for Marie* as she talks to me about life in love with a prisoner. Marie’s a smart, attractive girl, more than capable of getting herself a boyfriend who resides outside of prison walls. But none of that matters, because her heart belongs to Erik.*

I figured, to have that kind of connection, they must have met before Erik was sent to the big house, right? Not so. Turns out, the inspiration behind their meeting was the show Lockup. Marie says the particular episode that changed her life featured a 17-year-old prisoner who’d gotten a letter from the mother of his child. Although the letter spewed nothing but hatred, the young prisoner nonetheless admitted that at least he knew, for a moment, someone had been thinking of him and he wasn’t entirely forgotten just because he was in prison. Marie knew in that moment she wanted a prison pen pal.

She searched all night long, not sleeping, viewing hundreds of profiles, not even knowing whether she wanted a male or female. She knew only that she was driven to find someone – anyone – with whom she might establish a connection. And then she came across the profile for Erik. Her interest meter shot to the moon. Was it his looks? Sure, that was a factor. Marie’s got a soft spot for tattoos, animals, and gorgeous men. Erik had that in spades. His profile photo showed him holding a puppy. Awwww. His arms are loaded with gorgeous tats. And he’s, as she says, HOT! How could she resist? So she wrote him a letter. He wrote back. Two months later they spoke on the phone; four months after that they met in person. In prison.

But what about that whole murder thing? Marie researched his case and has spoken about it with Erik. While the offense is a violent one, she could accept the circumstances. It wasn’t pre-meditated but happened in a fight when he was trying to stick up for a friend. His conviction allows him eligibility for parole, which comes up five years from now – in 2020. Marie is willing to wait.

Although she didn’t explicity say so, I get the sense that she feels she has no choice. She and Erik are in love. She has no interest in other men. And she did say this: “To me, I have spent an inordinate amount of time with men that have proven to be total a**holes and brought very little joy to my life. Erik, even from prison, has filled my life with more joy, love, laughter, honesty, and support than all of my past boyfriends combined.” Given that, what’s a girl to do?

Some may say Marie’s crazy. That she’s throwing away her life. After all, there are big questions that won’t be answered until Erik is released. IF he’s released. And that question may be the biggest one of all. The possibility that he won’t make parole in five years is something Marie can’t bring herself to consider. “I can’t talk about it,” she says. “The thought is just too painful and is actually making me tear up as I answer the question.”

There are other considerations, too. Phone calls are limited. Email’s forbidden. Right now the only time Marie can see Erik in person is on Sundays, and that itself is a huge commitment. She leaves her home around 4:00 in the morning to make the four hour drive to the prison. Once she arrives she sits in her car in the parking lot. She waits. And waits. Other cars arrive, and although the visitors coming to see inmates aren’t even allowed inside until 11:00, there’s an honor system in which it’s acknowledged who’s arrived first, second, and so on. Marie is generally at the front of the line so when visitation hours finally begin at 1:00, she knows she’ll get in. This is a first come, first served system.

She stays with Erik until 4:00. They can sit together, and touch each other, but there are no conjugal visits. No siree. The clothes stay on and privacy is non-existent. Marie has no way of knowing if she and Erik will be physically compatible, and won’t know until he’s out. At 4:00 she makes the drive back home. Sometimes in the summer, when freeways are more crowded, it can take her up to six hours. The following weekend, repeat.

Is she wasting her life? Not according to her. Although unconventional, love is still the heartbeat keeping the relationship alive. It may not be a situation for everyone, but as Marie candidly puts it, “at the end of the day, I don’t give a f**k what anyone thinks.”

 

*Names changed

 

 

Beltane, Baby!

by C. Margery Kempe

Hey, who knows the Celtic holiday of Beltane? Traditionally considered the time when it was safe to return to ahem fornicating in the fields, there’s a lot of folderol and myth built up around the holiday that occurs in May first. Of course I want to get my oar in early because it’s become a big deal in Scotland so I expect all you Outlander fans to dive into the next big thing, as the Telegraph says Beltane is making a comeback with the mundanes, too. They tie it to the modern need to reconnect and the training from music festivals, but with more meaning:

“Beltane is a rural pre-Christian prehistoric tradition which saw communities come together after long winters of isolation,” [Pauline Bambry] says. “It marked their connection not just to nature but to each other. That need to belong to something or someone hasn’t changed. We can be just as isolated living in the city or in a town as the ancient Britons were in their round houses.”

People like the idea of tradition, even if it’s not exactly the way they remember it or just an excuse for fire. The Beltane Fire Sociey in Edinburgh gives a potted history that relies on sort of vague statements inspired by the translation of the word (bright fire) then jumps to the modern revival. There are some historic points we can state with some certainty. As medievalist errant writes, there were a variety of traditions associated with the time of year:

In most places, people gathered flowers and branches to make garlands or wreaths. Chaucer mentions woodbine and hawthorn in the Knight’s Tale, while sycamore was more common in Cornwall and birch in Wales. The flowers were then awarded as prizes or given as gifts to friends and neighbours. Washing one’s face in the morning May Day dew was supposed to bring youth and radiance to the complexion. The most enduring image of a May Day celebration is the Maypole, painted and beribboned and standing on the village green. While the earliest recorded evidence of it is from a Welsh poem by Gryffydd ap Adda ap Dafydd in the mid-fourteenth century describing a maypole in Llanidloes, it seems otherwise to be English, rather than Celtic, in origin and to have migrated to the marches from English settlers. A number of theories exist as to their original significance, some less likely and more outlandish than others, but no definitive explanation has presented itself. From the early 1400s there are records of a number of English villages paying for platforms and ribbons to display and decorate maypoles.

Don’t forget, before Beltane on April 30th is Walpurgisnacht, which you might guess from the name is German. It was the night the witches all flew off to gather in the mountains and share news. To light the way or to ward them off, you lit the Beltane fire that night. I have a free (non-sexy as it’s written from my historian hat persona) story about Walpurgisnacht if you should like to indulge.

But no burning virgins! ;-)

Watch the Movie. Don’t Start With the Book

by Kiersten Hallie Krum

I have a rule of thumb about movie/TV adaptations of books: always see the movie first

Years ago when it was new and fresh, I devoured John Grisham’s The Firm. I read it at work to the point that my supervisor put a sticky note on my desk that simply said Run, Mitch. Run! He got it.  I was so excited to see the movie adaptation with Tom Cruise as Mitch–or at least I was until I saw it. There were so many diversions from the book, it was practically a new story. It was such a letdown, I fumed for weeks.

Ever since then, I’ve resolved to never read the book first. And I successfully managed that philosophy with little effort for years, until Harry Potter spun me off the rails. I made it all the way to The Goblet of Fire without having read one book, but after that ending, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next and consumed every book as fast as I could…and I never enjoyed a new Harry Potter movie again.

I’ve come a long way from that disappointed twentysomething and know now how different mediums have to interpret the story in different ways, sometimes because of a different vision and sometimes because of production needs. I don’t entirely understand it–if you’re buying a product for its extensive popularity and built-in audience, why would you want to change it?–but overall I get it.

But it’s not always possible to avoid reading the book first. People who read the Harry Potter or Hunger Games books from the get go didn’t know these books would one day feed a multibillion dollar movie franchises. Same deal with Outlander. Even though I came to the game later than many, I’ve still been reading the series for 20 years. I’m invested. As you may have noticed. But despite my considerable expectations, I’m not the kind of fan who has to see everything dotted and crossed as it was on the page. Honestly, that would be boring.

Saturday night, after another outstanding episode of Outlander, this idea of book vs movie hounded me for hours. Wonderful as it was, this was the first episode to make me feel a bit let down as a reader. The interpretation of Jamie, in particular, took a turn that was quite different from his journey in the book, but it fits within the story Ron D. Moore has been telling in this production as he broadens the scope of Outlander beyond Claire’s solo perspective in the book. And while the episode sometimes lacked the humor of the source material at times, beats and scenes I’ve been waiting to see, it stayed true to the emotional needs of this version of the story and overall true to the ethos of the original story.

And isn’t that what a good adaptation is supposed to do? Create something new and through that newness, offer a different avenue by which deeper truths might be examined from a new perspective. Why else do plays and musicals get revivals? Why are there so many versions of Pride & Prejudice? Because each adaptation brings out something new to enjoy. That’s what a trope does too. We love our tropes in Romancelandia–virgin widows, friends to lovers, reunited lovers, secret baby–the list goes on and on. A good romance novels (of which there are many) takes that trope and turns it on its ear and makes it something new. With a trope, we know the frame of the story we’re getting but the picture has yet to be filled in. An adaptation may have the paints and image already decided before it gets started, but how that image comes to life is going to be different every time.

What do you think? Book before movie or vice versa? Do you need an adaptation to be purely dedicated to the source material or are you open for wild and crazy interpretations?

Follow Lady Smut.

Better Than Perfect: Scars and Partials and Nasolabial Folds

The king knows of your desire to lick him. Oh, yes. 

By Alexa Day

Long ago, I worked for a man who had an intriguing scar. About the thickness of a line drawn by a Sharpie, the scar ran from the corner of one eye down his face to the corner of his mouth. He made no effort to hide it, although I always thought that would have been easy to do. Certainly, he could have paid for enough plastic surgery to have it removed. He just hadn’t done it.

I found it mesmerizing. It drew my attention to his eyes, for one thing. Beyond that, though, I couldn’t help wondering why he had kept it. Maybe he didn’t care about it. Maybe it sent him a message every morning.

You survived.

Remember, man, that thou art mortal.

In any case, that scar made him interesting. Maybe that’s why he kept it. I’ll never know. I just know that I couldn’t look away from the one thing that many people might have regarded as a flaw.

Almost as long ago, I was enjoying my first evening alone with a new beau. Our conversation had lapsed into that first long silence — the one where we both put our drinks down on the coffee table — when he said, “I have to show you something.”

This was a fantastic guy. Wise beyond his years, he was the one his friends called when they were in trouble. He could dance while sober. He’d traveled the world. He could have told me he was all tentacles below the waist, and I’d have been fine with it. I enjoyed his company, and hello! Tentacles! Who is going to say no to tentacles?

He didn’t have tentacles. Instead, he reached slowly into his mouth and withdrew a partial denture. He’d been wearing it since a childhood hockey incident he described as “teeth everywhere.” When he put it back into his mouth, I mentioned the tentacles. You know, just to put it out there.

“Do women really take issue with your teeth?” I asked.

“Yes!” he said emphatically. “That’s why I’m bringing this up now.” He reached for the drink again. “Do you actually know anyone with tentacles?”

The other day, I made a passing allusion to Damian Lewis and his nasolabial folds, the parentheses I’d love to get inside. (As I was writing this, I had to pause for a bout of vulgar giggling. I just wanted to share that with you.) I mean, look at them. I know I’m not the only woman out there who wants to put her tongue into those, although I am constrained to concede his wife’s superior claim to them. I see this confession coming back to bite me in the ass — or lick me elsewhere — later, but I’m willing to own it anyway.

And yet there is a whole industry dedicated to eliminating nasolabial folds.

Leaving Damian aside, because he must know that we want to lick his, why would one want to be rid of parentheses? They frame one’s mouth. They reinforce a smile. They make smirking worthwhile. And chances are, some desirable person somewhere wants to lick yours if you have them. (Just putting it out there.)

What is going on with society? On the one hand, it seems fixated on wedging us into one bland, boring mass designated “the norm.” Simultaneously, an increasing number of beholders is just as fixated on attacking “the norm.” Why let “the norm” define us at all? Can’t we all just lick the parentheses and celebrate the stories our scars have to tell and maybe … just maybe … hope to be embraced by tentacles?

Free your mind in the comments.

Hashtag your nasolabials or someone else’s. Don’t forget the vulgar giggle.

And follow Lady Smut. We’re wide open here.

Sexy Saturday Round-Up

By Liz Everly and the Lady Smut Bloggers

Hello, Sexy! How’s your Saturday going so far? Well, it’s about to get a wee bit more interesting. Check out the fabulous blog posts we found for you this week!

From Liz:

Mismatched libidos. It happens.

Latex. Fetish. And Cosplay. Hmmm.

Lizard brain: for the writers among us in the crowd.

From Madeline:

From The Atlantic: Why do people hate Lily Pulitzer?

How To Watch Porn Responsibly–Advice From Feminist Porn Stars

The European Power Statement — for women.

R.I.P. Dr. McDreamy. :(

What’s it like to go out with someone who bought your date online? 

From Elizabeth:

Fashion blogger whose body is not society’s definition of perfect snaps a photo of herself in a bathing suit, posts it on Instagram, and emphatically states that she’s not brave. Maybe not, but she’s awesome.

Someone’s finally paying attention to the desires of disabled people.

Artsy nudes and the naked cellist: an exhibition.

Jockey loses pants, keeps on going.

From CMK:

The Chocolate Tasting Tour of London

A medievalist schools Savage Love on what’s NOT medieval

Cheeky 19th C calling cards for flirting

Stay Hungry,

Liz

I Heart iZombie Hotties!

by Madeline Iva

The new zombie look is goth–Brilliant!

When I saw the ad for izombie, I was curious, because it looked playful and comedic-grotesque. Then I found out it was by Rob Thomas –who created Veronica Mars, so how can you go wrong there? So I started watching it on hulu and I have to say, I didn’t take a shine to the leading actress at first. She plays Liv, an uptight perfectionist goodie goodie. Blerg! But then, you see, she becomes a zombie half way through the first episode and suddenly I was liking her a lot more.

Liv experiences major fiance angst post-zombie.

Of course, even though her hair bleaches white on its own and her skin turned pale and she started wearing heavy eye liner, no one guesses anything is wrong. Why did you quit medical school Liv? Why are you eating brains? And she’s like all apathetic, “I dunno.” See, being a zombie made her terribly depressed—she had to break up with her fiancé and everything. Good riddance, I say. Didn’t like him at all. Okay, he’s very goodlooking in a towel. Other than that, he’s just another Ken doll if you ask me.

However, Liv ends up working at the morgue and suddenly – ba-bam! In walks hotness on a sensitivity stick in the form of Mr. Rahul Kohli. He plays Ravi, her fellow medical examiner.  He’s also smart–he figures out her dirty little secret. But then—it just gets better and better. Only in a sly way. First the guy who zombied her turns up – he’s David Anders, aka Sark from Alias and he is having fun, people. Therefore, he is tres fun to watch—and he’s got layers just like a magnificent onion.

What finally got me on board with the show is that a side effect of eating the brains is that Liv becomes like the people she ate. When this happens, I like watching Liv 100% more. The first time caught my by surprise—it sort of creeped in. That Rob Thomas is sly, as I said. Now I can’t wait for her to eat brains—the results are always a little random and fun.

Okay, but what really keeps me watching is the casting of hot hot HOT men. And what’s even better—it’s a multi-cultural smorgasborg of man-flesh. Let me break it down for you:

The good: Former fiancé Major (blah), Clive a detective who Liv helps to solve crimes (double blah), and Ravi (Yay!)

Why isn’t Liv hopping on your bones Ravi? Is she BLIND?

The Bad: AJ (hot!), Ryan Hansen (ditto!)

Tim Chiou was a bad guy on an episode — a hot, mouth-watering bad guy.

And my fav—

The Undead:

Blain–the zombie who seems to understand how it all works (fun, so much fun),

Blaine, you’re a bad, bad boy.

 

Lowell Tracey (don’t let the die job and spray tan below fool ya, he’s a zombie too!),

His name is Bradley James. And he is…awesome!

and….wait for it…Hiro Kanagawa. I noticed the police chief on the show was unusually hot – and then with just one little quick detail—we suddenly know Something Is Up with Mr. Kanagawa.

Suspiciously hot for a police chief.

Nothing to take my interest factor higher than discovering underneath the spray tan anyone could be zomb-i-licious. Talk about keeping us guessing!

Alexa Day’s head is probably spinning –she wrote something here deciding—okay, zombie-sex is not 100% totally gross.  So I wonder what she’ll think about this show. M’self, I’d do Lowell and not think twice about it.

He’s got angsty broody sad down, mixed with a little of the wry self-deprecating good stuff.

Me? I like the albino zombie-goth look, I’m a big fan. But when they hide in plain sight that’s fun too. Also in izombie they experience a tragic fate that if they go for too long without brains—they become zombie nasty. Like WALKING DEAD zombie-nasty. This gives them a ticking clock—I’m surprised they haven’t used it so far. And it gives the bad guys something to hold over them.

I also like the way they used hot pepper juice. Just flashing a bottle of super spicy stuff hiding in a drawer reveals to us that someone’s got a big secret.

Whomever cast this show deserves major props for the multicultural aspect— Elizabeth Shore asked some time ago: Where Are All The Asians? Here they are, Elizabeth!

But one woman surrounded by tons of hot men does bring up this curious rock and a hard place. I mean, is this wrong? I like a female lead. I like hot men. Put them together and I’m happy—but what about reports that Hollywood is so skewed when it comes to percentages of men and women on TV and in movies?

Take THE MINDY PROJECT. That show lost the wonderful Betsy—I mean, no explanation, she was just gone. Mindy lost her female best friend—again, no explanation, and now it’s all men men men who are her peers, with one token Lesbian woman admin over at the Hospital. I noticed it because their sub-plots tend to be male story lines involving fraternities, etc. It’s almost as if they’re scared that not appealing to men enough would doom the show OR they’re mostly male writers on the show—so this is what they know.

Hope izombie does not make the same mistake.  However whatever they do is fine by me if they just keep deepening the characters, keep layering on the complexity, and keep the surprises coming.  Just like us at Lady Smut–(please follow us to get more of the goodness 24/7.) Meanwhile, if Liv needs a zombie female bestie, then I vote for Jenny/Taylor Momsen from Gossip Girl. Can you spot the izombie in this photo?

Taylor Momsen aka Jenny on Gossip Girl — a proto-Liv.

Do Sluts and Whores Matter Anymore?

By Elizabeth Shore

I was at a weekend writers’ retreat recently and overheard a conversation two women were having about a third woman they both knew who, apparently, is a book collector. I say “apparently” because neither of the women actually used the word “collector” to describe the woman they were talking about. What they actually called her was a book whore.

A book whore. Hmmm. As in, one who acquires lots of books, similar to the old-fashioned kind of whore who just used to “acquire” lots of men. The word “whore” is nowadays thrown around as easily as whores of yesteryear used to throw around their favors. Food whore, work whore, travel whore – we’ve heard it all and more. If you do something in excess or extreme you’re a something-or-other whore. But is that OK?

We’re all familiar with the term “slut shaming.” Yet on the flipside, I don’t see accusations of “whore shaming.” On the contrary, whores are to be celebrated! Being a whore is nothing but a good thing. Food whore, for example. “One who lusts after food,” is a definition I saw. Nothing wrong with that, cause who doesn’t like to eat? There are food whore blogs, food whore Pinterest boards, even a food whore website selling aprons and chefs coats. The word “whore” is used with such proliferation that it’s lost its punch. It’s no longer shocking to attach the word “whore” to ourselves to describe something we do to excess. “I’m an exercise whore!” someone could smugly chirp. Yet if that’s the case, then using the word “whore” on its own, with its original meaning, loses its shock as well, thereby making it easier – even acceptable – to ascribe it to anyone you want.

Some might argue that’s a good thing. If overuse of a word makes us numb to it, then the word no longer has the power to hurt. Right? It’s a kind of lingual immunotherapy. Use a word over and over and we build up a tolerance toward it, like getting allergy shots for ragweed. Take swear words, for example. Once upon a time “dang” used to be banned from use in polite company. But tell that to an African American whose had the N word flung at them over and over. I don’t think they’ve become numb to it.

“Slut” hasn’t quite gotten there, either. It’s still, for the most part, a derogatory term, and folks can get outraged by its use. A recent example comes via Bloomsburg University where one of their baseball players called 13-year-old pitching phenom Mo’ne Davis a slut on Twitter and was promptly ejected from the team. For the most part “slut” is used with its original meaning intact, i.e., a woman (never a man, of course) with numerous sexual partners. So why the Bloomsburg U player would say Mo’Ne is a slut defies comprehension except that he obviously wanted to trash her and latched on to a word that still has the ability to insult and hurt.

So it goes with the power of words. As writers, it’s why we love ’em. Words have the ability to transform the reader, taking her to places of unimaginable joy or unbearable pain simply by properly stringing words together in a way that evokes an emotional response. I find myself troubled when people lightly use these potent weapons without any thought about the pain they can cause. Everyone past age six knows the sticks and stones saying is utter nonsense. Words can hurt far deeper and last far longer than any physical discomfort. But they can also make us feel happy or confident or on top of the world, like when a guy calls us pretty. Or smart. Or whatever word you like.

Follow us at Lady Smut, where we’ll always give you the good word.

 

 

 

 

My Writer-Girl Crush on Susanna Kearsely

By Liz Everly

Have you ever just fallen so hard for a writer’s work that all you want to do is read ONLY their books? I admit it’s a rarity for me. There have been a few series that I follow, but eventually, I get bored and move on, or I can see a pattern developing in the writer’s work and it’s the same story, but just a retelling of it. Sometimes, it can be very disappointing as a reader when that happens.

So I’ve been reading a lot of Susanna Kearsley. First, I read THE WINTER SEA, an extraordinary book on all counts.

But the romance? Beautifully written. Yet, I’m not sure I’d even call it a romance book. I’d say it’s a novel with strong romantic elements. Her books don’t have graphic sex in them. But yet, one line can be as sexy and romantic as any line in any erotic romance novel I’ve ever read.

This is how she describes herself on twitter “NYTimes bestselling writer who can’t choose between Historical, Contemporary, Paranormal, Romance & Suspense … so I just blend it all together in my novels.”

Does she ever.

And I really have kind of, um, fallen for her.

In THE WINTER SEA, she weaves history, romance, suspense, and a very interesting paranormal  (for the lack of a better word here) thread into this story. Plus, here was a romance arc so skillfully done that it took my breath away. The “paranormal” element was about the way the main character-writer in the story appeared to be channeling memories of an ancestor. I eat up this kind of thing. I can ponder where writers get idea for hours. Sometimes I wonder where I get mine. (But then I ask myself: do I really want to go there? It may be best to NOT look too deeply at it.)

Kearsley’s writing has been compared to both Mary Stewart and Diane Gabaldon. Her obvious love of history, archeology, landscape, romance, with interesting paranormal elements leads me straight to Gabaldon. I just finished another one of Kearsley’s books, which is a time-travel adventure romance—THE ROSE GARDEN, very much in the same vein at Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER series.

But I can also see so much of Mary Stewart in her writing—the atmospheric language, the love of suspense, the sweeping landscapes, and moody skies.

One thing all three writers have in common, no matter where they take their heroines, is that their lead characters are all independent, strong women, not likely to fall in love with the first handsome bloke who looks her way. And they are also not likely to be women who will believe easily that they have fallen through a time-warp, are channeling long-lost ancestors, or in ghosts and psychics. But they are all faced with unexplainable happenings, nonetheless.

I think this is the key to making this kind of fiction work. These women characters are formidable—it they did not have it together, they would not be up for the adventure. These are not the swooning types. (That is not to say, however, that they don’t have wounds.)

In THE SHADOWY HORSES, for example, the main female character is an archeologist, very driven by science and not looking for romance, at all. Of course, she finds it, along with a psychic boy and a ghost haunting the ground she is digging in. This is the kind of material that just sucks me in. It’s when a grounded, normal, every-day, maybe smarter-than-average woman who thinks she’d got parts of life figured out (and she does), confronts things she never imagined existed. Ghosts? Time travel? Channeling an ancestor through your writing? Pshaw.

You know this is part of why OUTLANDER works so well. Claire is nobody’s fool, right? She’s a nurse, very practical, earthy, and outspoken. Gabaldon has written these characters so well and wrapped the story in such detailed history and descriptions that she pulls whatever skeptics there are among us right into the story. We think, “Okay, maybe, Yeah. This COULD happen.” Okay so even if we don’t quite get that far in our thinking, the story is so good that we don’t care. Fall through a standing stone and landing in Jacobite Scotland? Okay. Slip into a trance-like state and channel your ancestor’s story into your book? Yes, because the characters, the setting, everything else is so believable.

Falling in love with a writer can be frustrating. I’ve picked up several other books while I’m waiting to get Kearsley’s next one. I am stopped dead in my tracks. I can’t do it. Nope. I give up. It’s simply a wave I must ride, enjoying every minute of it, of course. I’m embracing my writer-girl crush. Why fight it, right?

Has this ever happened to you?

 

Have We Lost the Art of Love Letters?

by Kiersten Hallie Krum

Click on image to order!

Love letters were top of my mind this week after reading Cara McKenna’s Hard Time, winner of the Reviewers Choice Best Book Award for erotic digital romance from RT Book Reviews. In Hard Time, inmate Eric Collier writes letters to prison librarian Anne Goodhouse. Mind you, this is not some twisty episode of Oz. These letters are deeply intimate and not in a sex-crazed way–OK not entirely in a sex-crazed way. Mad vulnerability is on the line here, partly because Eric has nothing to lose, but also, I think, because it’s liberating to write down how you feel, alone in a room with no one to judge you, no one to reject you, only the raw intimacy of the exposed yearnings of your heart.

And Eric, well, Eric does not hold back:

 Darling,

I missed you since our last visit. A few minutes a week with you is almost more cruel than it’s worth. I miss you every minute we’re apart, and watch the clock every morning when I think I might be seeing you again. I miss how you smell, like spring and grass. There’s not much grass here. I miss your face, and the way you smile sometimes. I want to make you smile like that. I miss your voice. The way you talk. I wish I could see you, away from here. I wish we could be together, in ways I haven’t been with a woman in five years. Sometimes, when I see you. . .sometimes I can’t even listen to what you’re saying. All I can do is watch your mouth. I watch your lips and I think about kissing you when I’m alone at night. Though I’m never really alone, here. But I imagine I am. Alone with just you. I think about your mouth, and about kissing you. And other things. Sometimes I watch your hands. I watch your hands and imagine them on me.

Yours, Eric

(McKenna, Cara. Hard Time. Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. 2014.)

Strewth.

The first time Anne writes a reply to Eric, she spirals into a pit of fear after sending it, freaking out for days over a variety of negative fall outs from her acknowledgement not only of his ardor but her own equally strong emotions: What if they got caught? What if he’s playing her? What if he’s a horrible person? Too right, I thought reading it.beth

I took a straw poll on Facebook and Twitter asking who, if anyone, had received or sent a love letter. An overwhelming amount of those who responded said “Yes” often to both, but definitely to sending one. Author Beth Yarnall even shared her high-school yearbook inscribed love letter in which her earnest beau promised to find her even in the midst of a nuclear holocaust.

Now that’s love.

Such a large positive response surprised me (though it can be argued that those who might have said “No” didn’t bother to answer.) I’ve sent one love letter in my life and I’m pretty sure I was about 14 years-old when I did it. Possibly younger. I received only one too that I remember, but that was in first-grade, so I’m not sure it counts.

Fear. Fear is what I think of when I think of love letters. The fear of exposing oneself to another’s derision by confessing outright to such powerful emotions. Committing things to paper limits what you can take back. The simple truth is that words have power and writing thoughts and emotions down makes them–and us–vulnerable. And yet, it is within the pages of love letters that the most divine declarations can be made.

During my last year as an undergraduate, I interned at the Gloucester Stage Company in Gloucester, MA. For the theatre’s landmark anniversary that year, the management threw a gala event, which included a one-time performance of Love Letters, a play written in the late 80s that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In it, a man and woman sit side-by-side and read the letters and notes they’ve written to one another over the 50 years of their relationship. “The play’s means may be economical,” wrote The New York Times last year about the Love Letters revival on Broadway, “but it etches a deep portrait of life’s painful vicissitudes.” Love Letters is, perhaps obviously, the first thing that comes to mind whenever I think of love letters.

The second is inevitably 84 Charing Cross Road. My mother made us watch it when we were kids–under protest, I assure you–but we quickly fell for it. 84 Charing Cross Road is  a movie (based on a book, naturally) about a writer in New York who stuck up a deep friendship with a British bookseller in London. They never met, but instead spent just short of twenty years writing letters back and forth, beginning in 1949 and lasting till the death of the bookseller in 1968. While not lovers, a deep non-romantic love is evident between the two. The movie, with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins, is a delight, no small amount thanks to the very letters that form the original book, which are read as the script and dramatized. To this day, 84 Charing Cross Road is a beloved favorite in my film collection.

The epistolary nature of these two products fascinates me. Words are my profession, which means I likely place a higher value on word choice, on the page and off, than most lay people, a dedication to semantics that has been known to occasionally aggravate my family.

We commit things to the page when we want to remember them. What writer hasn’t wished she or he wrote down the brilliant thought had just before dropping off to sleep? Committing to the page helps commit it to memory and occasionally absolves us of the need to do the same.

Professor Henry Jones: I found the clues that will safely take us through them in the Chronicles of St. Anselm.

Indiana Jones: Well, what are they? Can’t you remember?

Professor Henry Jones: I wrote them down in my diary so that I wouldn’t *have* to remember.

—Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Yet I have to wonder, in a world of sexting and texting and emails and IMs and Snapchat and The Twitter, a world where we’ve been trained to condense thoughts and feelings into 140 characters or less, where many intimate details of ours lives are shared in flashes of TMI self-exposure for attention, is there even a place for a love letters, even as a sticky note of affection left between spouses or lovers as the pass by in the midst of their busy lives? The letters in Hard Time generate from the clandestine nature of their existence due to Eric’s circumstance of incarceration–without being allowed access to a computer or a cell phone, old school becomes the new school–but in the regular world , is there yet room for oldf fashion love letters?

Follow Lady Smut. Everything thing we write comes back to love–in one form or another.