Forging an Art

Courtesy of the November 2008 issue of Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine:

Chick Lit
Halliday, Gemma. Mayhem in High Heels
Platas, Berta. Lucky Chica
Zepeda, Gwendolyn. Houston, We Have a Problema

Contemporary
Anderson, Catherine. Star Bright
Cochrane, Becky. A Coventry Wedding
Dahl, Victoria. Talk Me Down
Donovan, Susan. The Girl Most Likely To
Evanovich, Janet. Plum Spooky
Kelley, Karen. My Favorite Phantom
Linz, Cathie. Smart Girls Think Twice
Mallery, Susan. Under Her Skin
Maynard, Janice. Hot Mail
Monroe, Lucy. The Spy Who Wants Me
Snow, Carol. Here Today, Gone to Maui
Thompson, Vicki Lewis, et. al. Winter Heat

Erotica
Carew, Opal. Six
Douglas, Kate. Wolf Tales VII
Hart, Megan. Stranger
Jackson, Myla, et al. Masters of Desire
James, Allyson. Mortal Temptations
Leigh, Lora. Only Pleasure
Mellor, P.J. Drive Me Wild
Michaels, Jess, et. al. A Red Hot Valentine’s Day
Sunny. Mona Lisa Darkening
Thomas, Dawn. Lord of the Forest
Wolff, Tracy. Full Exposure

Fantasy
Gilman, Felix. Gears of the City
Mills, K.E. The Accidental Sorcerer
Mills, Karen. Hammer of God
Owens, Robin D. Echoes in the Dark

Historical
Cabot, Meg. Ransom My Heart
Campbell, Anna. Tempt the Devil
Coleman, Jane Candia. The Silver Queen
D’Alessandro, Jacquie. Seduced at Midnight
Eagan, Denise. The Wild One
Finch, Carol. Texas Ranger, Runaway Heiress
Gabriel, Sarah. The Highland Groom
Gentry, Georgina. To Seduce a Texan
Heath, Lorraine. Between the Devil and Desire
Kelly, Carla. Marrying the Captain
Levine, Elaine. Rachel and the Hired Gun
Linder, Cat. Kiss of a Traitor
McCabe, Amanda. High Seas Stowaway
Maguire, Margo. Wild
Martin, Kat. Heart of Courage
Maxwell, Robin. Signora da Vinci
Moore, Margaret. The Warlord’s Bride
O’Banyon, Constance. Desert Prince
Scott, Amanda. Border Moonlight
Scott, Bronwyn. The Viscount Claims His Bride
Smith, Bobbi. Wanted: the Texan

Inspirational
Alexander, Hannah. A Killing Frost
Griffith, Marilynn. Mom’s the Word
Jones, Annie. Barefoot Brides
Shepard, Shelley. Wanted

Mainstream Fiction
Baker, Tiffany. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
Dale, Lisa. Simple Wishes
Greenwood, T. Two Rivers
Medlicott, Joan. Promises of Change
Noonan, Rosalind. One September Morning
O’Neal, Barbara. The Lost Recipe for Happiness
Shumas, Holly. Love and Other Natural Disasters
Wallach, Diana Rodriguez. Adios to All the Drama

Mystery
Blair, Annette. A Veiled Deception
Damsgaard, Shirley. Witch’s Grave
Daniels, Casey. Night of the Loving Dead
Evans, Jimmie Ruth. Leftover Dead
Graves, Sarah. A Face at the Window
Lakin, Rita. Getting Old is a Disaster
McKevett, G. A. A Body to Die For

Paranormal
Andersen, Jessica. Dawnkeepers
Bartlett, Gerry. Real Vampires Don’t Diet
Bast, Anya. Witch Heart
Callahan, Sadie. Lone Star Woman
Child, Maureen. Bedeviled
Feehan, Christine. Murder Game
Frank, Jacquelyn. Ecstacy
Frost, Jeaniene. At Grave’s End
Galenorn, Yasmine. Night Huntress
Hill, Joey W. A Witch’s Beauty
Krantz, Jayne Ann. Running Hot
Kurland, Lynn. Princess of the Sword
Quinn, Sherrill. Daring the Moon
Sizemore, Susan. Primal Needs
Viehl, Lynn. Stay the Night

Romantic Suspense
Garwood, Julie. Fire and Ice
Gerard, Cindy. Whisper No Lies
Harper, Julia. For the Love of Pete
Naughton, Elisabeth. Stolen Fury
Roy, Allison. Babydoll
Webb, Debra. Find Me

Suspense
Benedict, Laura. Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts
Coffey, Jan. The Puppet Master
Ellison, J.T. Judas Kiss
Miller, Tekla Dennison. Inevitable Sentences
Mofina, Rick. Six Seconds
Spindler, Erica. Breakneck

Time Travel
Wolff, Veronica. Warrior of the Highlands

Vampire
Adrian, Lara. Veil of Midnight
Rosemoor, Patricia. The Vampire Agent
Steel, Raz. Love Without Blood

The B has developed a fascination with the Babymouse graphic novel series.  It started yesterday when I brought the new Halloween title in the car to pick her up at school.  Within a few minutes, she was cracking up in the backseat, and asked me to bring home all the other Babymouse books I could find today.  I pulled them all from the shelf and have enough to keep her busy the next few days.

I have had this strange fear that Joyce Carol Oates is going to die soon.  I woke up a few days ago, and there it was.  It has followed me since.  It isn’t too irrational, she is seventy, after all, but really seems to be one of those people who are above such earthly interruptions.  I maintain that she is the only great living writer - fiction, essays, reviews, you name it, she is the master.  It is terrifying to imagine an end to her production.

We went to the Winery at Wolf Creek with my parents yesterday afternoon and took a walk down the hill to the lake and back with goats.  Yes, goats.  It was warm and sunny, and my dad sweated at least as much as Nixon ever did.  The B and I stayed at my parents’ house afterward, sitting in the backyard playing with the dogs.  The younger and smaller one, Rascal, chased and then ate a daddy long legs.  “He ate it! He ate it!” the B screamed hysterically.  “I saw the legs in his mouth!”  She was thrilled beyond what is probably reasonable in such a situation.

Philippa Gregory‘s latest doesn’t sit as well with me as her previous books.  I have adored her chronicles of the Boleyn sisters and the Tudor family, and I was pleased to read a Mary Stuart who is not a mindless, love-struck girl but strong and selfish, with self-preservation and pride in her royalty and her crown foremost in her thoughts.  Her son James, who would become the first king of a united England and Scotland, was her hope, but his succession was dependent on her death and the guilt of her execution that weighed upon her cousin, Elizabeth.  Mary has always been an enigmatic character in British history; we share Robert II of Scotland as an ancestor, and the Stuart family has always been of interest to me.
I am not sure that I disliked the change in points of view between Bess and George, the couple selected to house Mary during her stay in England, and Mary, but I do know that the movement between the three was too quick.  I wanted more from each of them each time they took a turn.  I also wanted the fifteen years skipped over at the end, which ends in Mary’s execution.  Yes, I know that those years would double the length of the novel, but that is no matter.  It would be well worth the time to explore the relationships between these three during the years in which they were most certainly awaiting her execution.

Ellen Hopkins’s Identical should appeal to her entourage of teen fans because of the edgy (that might be putting it too mildly) subject matter and trademark verse format.  Dramatic is one thing, but this is really over the top.  An exploration of family dynamics and a potentially interesting protagonist are suffocated by the multitude of problems this poor girl carries.  She is a surviving twin, an incest victim, a drug and alcohol abuser, sex addict, bulimic – I’m not sure I covered it all, but I might be close.  A couple of the issues/situations would be plenty.  Some of the poetry is trite, but there are lines every few pages that speak to the author’s ability to turn a phrase, albeit inconsistently.  I just finished reading Girl, Interrupted for the high school book discussion group next week, so this was an appropriate companion piece that took me under two hours to read, which was not too much of an investment – still, it kept me from moving on to the McCullers essays I’ve been craving and picked up as soon as I put Hopkins in the ‘library return’ pile on the kitchen table.

*Playlist for the drive, which was six hours round-trip:
The Fray – How to Save a Life
Breaking Benjamin – Phobia
DeLovely soundtrack
Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine
Daredevil soundtrack
Twilight (Coldplay, Linkin Park, Billy Joel, Dido, The Killers, etc. – my ex husband was kind enough to make a CD based on Stephenie Meyer’s playlists for my Twilight program at work, and it is an addictive variety of songs, great for driving)
*The WVU stadium looks like a giant oyster by the side of the road.  It’s interesting, but a bit disconcerting to have something like that just right there, kind of in the midst of traffic.
*The buildings on campus are old and honest, tucked away in the mountains, safe behind a barrier of trees and winding roads 
*The library staff was not very present or helpful.  Another patron helped me as I wrestled with microfilm, usually my daughter’s job but since she had school that day, I did not have her as my sidekick and research assistant, aka microfilm untangler/loader
*I found a front page photo of my grandparents, my uncle, and my mother from February 1946.  Of all things – the address label was over my grandmother’s and mother’s faces.  This is the only known copy of this newspaper.  The article is cute, explaining how my uncle, at age two, asked to see the horses and chickens, and my grandfather and great-grandfather took him out back to see the animals, but at one point my grandmother says she is not surprised that West Virginia is, well, West Virginia and not Hollywood, claiming that my grandfather gave her a true picture of the environment.  Somehow I imagine he forgot to tell her that there was no indoor plumbing, among other things.
*Hopefully I will be back to Morgantown for the Woolson conference in April to present a paper.  I didn’t want to leave – WVU, and Morgantown, is beautiful and comfortable.  The argument I witnessed on a street corner between an enraged motorist and a construction worker who was blocking traffic (“you goddamned people are screwing up the roads!” “What’s your hurry, no one is waiting to see your wrinkled old ass!”) made it even more so.

I took the B to the local Barnes and Noble for the Mary Pope Osborne visit this past Wednesday.  The author of the Magic Tree House children’s series, Osborne was very sweet and understanding with the hundreds of children who stood in line waiting for an autograph.  The B ran into some of her friends from school while waiting, and one of her closest friends and her older sister sat with us in line.  A boy behind us spent the time harassing his much younger sister, which ended in her pleas for a bite of his gigantic chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies.  He responded by smashing it in her face.  Before the line started moving for the actual signing, the B and her friend went to the restroom, and returned giggling with their arms waving in the air.  “We saw her in the bathroom, we saw Mary Pope Osborne in the bathroom!”  Apparently the B thought it wasn’t her, and her friend did, but when the author winked at them, they both knew for certain it was her.  When we reached the table with books ready, the girls smiled shyly, then burst out, “We saw you in the bathroom!”  Osborne smiled and said, “I know.”