“Clearly the sight of a well-muscled forearm incited a woman to utter depravity.” – Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare He swiped a muscled forearm over his sweaty brow and gave her a lethal grin. – Down for the Count by Christine Bell She could see his forearms were sprinkled with light brown hair. For a moment she was captivated by those naked arms. – One Final Step by Stephanie Doyle The sleeves of his shirt were cut off, revealing his corded biceps and roped forearms. – Feeling Hot Continue Reading
Romance in my Romance Novels
By May. Is it too much to ask for romance in my romance novels? Lately I feel like I’ve read an awful lot of books where one of the following happens: a) The author tells us the people are attracted to, even falling in love with each other. b) The people are both so good looking, love is an assumed conclusion. c) The lust is so strong and the sex so good, clearly this is love. All three options leave me wildly unsatisfied as a reader. One of the first things that attracted me Continue Reading
Helpless Females Need Not Apply
By May. As a kid I loved Wonder Woman, and as an adult I’ve already shown my girls that original series as well (and they loved it too). Rainbow Brite, She-Ra, Princess Tiana, Mulan, and now Merida too. There’s a lot of awesome fictional females that rule in this house and for good reason – who wants a helpless heroine? Personally, I will take emotionally stunted, physically disabled, vulnerable, unpredictable, crazy, killer, badass, potty mouthed, super nice, or even insecure heroines but do Continue Reading
Let’s Talk Blogging and Your Website
Today, Renee Rocco, owner of Lyrical Press is here to talk about what publishers want to see when visiting blogger websites. I think this is useful information if you are interested in authors and publishers contacting you with a review request. When Mandi was kind enough to open the blog to me, one of the things she told me she’d love a post on was what publishers (and authors) would love to see on review sites. I thought that was an awesome idea myself, because I do a lot of legwork for Continue Reading
How Much Smex is Just Right?
By May. I am the goldilocks of book smex. Too much, and I’m annoyed. Not enough, and I feel like you’ve cheated me. So the question is – how much book sex is just right? It really depends on the book. First off, I don’t read erotic fiction, so I am not talking about that genre at all. I’m talking about romance and fiction in general. Lately I went through a phase where it felt like I was reading nothing but books without sex, or with really badly done ‘let me just skim this’ sex. Because Continue Reading
It’s Good to be Cheap
By May. The other day I was shopping for books based on some recommended “must read” authors that I’ve yet to try, and I only purchased one book from the more than 40 books that the six authors I was looking into had written. I found authors with backlists that are unavailable for kindle (and out of print/very expensive for paper copy), authors with a backlist that is priced at $10-$15 for kindle versions of older books, and authors who had no inexpensive options for any of their titles. I Continue Reading
RITA Winners!
Last night at the 2012 Romance Writers of America conference, the winners of the RITA (Rita was the name of the first RWA president) Awards were announced. You can read more about the process of this contest here. Winner for Paranormal Romance: Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison. Smexy Books Review l Goodreads l Amazon. This is the first book in Thea Harrison’s Elder Races series which I loved. There are currently four books out, with the fifth due out this fall. While each book can be Continue Reading
Being a More Responsible Blogger
Because this is an important topic and it affects many, Sophia and I decided to blog together today and post this on both of our blogs in hopes of reaching out to as many of our fellow bloggers as possible. What Happened Author Roni Loren was sued because of a photo she posted on her blog. (It happened to be one of those ‘mancandy/hot man’ photos that are popular on romance sites.) She recently bloggedaboutherexperience and educated many bloggers on what copyright and fair use is and how it Continue Reading
Why Kristen Ashley is The Queen of Crack
Smexy Books would like to welcome Amy, reviewer extraordinaire and crack smut reader, from Fiction Vixen She’s joining me (Tori) today to talk about the most addictive crack like appeal ofKristen Ashley’s books. I knew that if I wanted to extol the virtues of Kristen Ashley and her unbelievable books, I had to get my buddy Amy over here. It was because of her that I started reading her. At the beginning of 2012, Amy emailed me and told me I had to read this new author she found. She directed me Continue Reading
Let’s Talk Blogging And Twitter
I’ve been blogging for over three years now. Which may seem like a long time to some, and probably not that long to others. Either way, I spend a lot of my day on my blog, or just online in general. I’ve learned a lot in the past three years about blogging, promoting my blog, and the type of blogger I want to be (or have become). There is a lot we can discuss about the blogging world. Each week seems to bring about new drama, or new rules we should be following. I don’t want these Continue Reading