May 14 2012
I was pruning my hard drive when I stumbled across a game labelled Matches and Matrimony: A Pride and Prejudice Tale. I somehow forgot I bought this game last year. Since I was in the mood for a game set in Jane Austen’s fictional universe, I was all for it. Even when I discovered it’s not an [...]
Feb 14 2012
A couple of months ago at a news site for mixed race readers, one commenter self-identified as an “Asian Cajun”, which got me remembering my journey of assumptions and corrections years ago as a romance reader. At the time a few years ago, a huge number of “Cajun romances” – contemporary and historical – pretty [...]
Sep 22 2011
I’m a volunteer for a literature project that aims to list every novel with a specific theme or trope in a reference database, and I’m involved with two databases: ‘Deaf Characters in English-Language Literature’ and ‘Non-Caucasian Characters in British Literature’. When I joined the ‘Deaf Characters in Literature’ (DCIL) project years ago, there were only [...]
Aug 2 2010
Let's suppose I'm an innocent lamb that somehow ends up at your signing table in a bookshop. After winning me over with a dorky smile, how would you summarise Here There Be the Monsters (a novella from romance anthology Burning Up) and The Iron Duke? You know that times are tough for writers when a [...]
May 25 2010
I just had a debate with author Ann Somerville about book titles. I'd complained I found some of her book titles hard to memorise, such as Somatesthesia (book info at Samhain and a dictionary entry at Dictionary.com) and Interstitial (book info at Samhain and a dictionary entry at Merriam Webster). As I explained to her, [...]
May 18 2010
How could I resist another HOG (hidden object game) adaptation of a romance novel? This time, it’s Vision in White, based on the first book of Nora Roberts’s contemporary romance Bride Quartet series. The book series revolves around four childhood friends, who share a love for weddings that led each to develop a speciality of their own: [...]
Apr 30 2010
Sometime last year I heard about Harlequin Presents: Hidden Object of Desire, created by Gunnar Games, for BigFishGames.com. As a veteran traditional adventure gamer and long-time romance reader but new to Hidden Object Gaming (HOG), I couldn’t resist giving Harlequin Presents: Hidden Object of Desire a try, so I bought a downloadable copy. The official [...]
Sep 3 2009
Comic Review: Solanin (2008) Art & Story: Inio Asano Publisher: VIZ Signature Genre: Josei / humour / drama Pages: 432 Language: English ISBN-10: 1421523213 ISBN-13: 978-1421523217 Solanin is one of those rare comics that manage to something memorable out of a predictable story premise: a coming-of-age story revolving around the lives of twentysomething college graduates. [...]
Aug 17 2009
At the Popular Romance Studies: International Conference, organised by the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR), there was a brief discussion to explore this question: Are older under-represented in the romance genre? If so, why? Good questions. The average age of heroine in U.S. romance novels is between 24-26 (and possibly younger in historical romance). And [...]
Aug 7 2009
Story: Jamie S. Rich Art: Joelle Jones Publisher: Oni Press (5 page preview) or at Amazon Release: 2006 A passing mention of Twelve Reasons Why I Love Her during a conversation about graphic novels caught attention of the romance reader in me, which prompted me to ask the friend what it was about. He described [...]
Jun 30 2009
see more Lolcats and funny pictures Earlier I sat here at desk, looking out to a window, thinking that it was great the vast expanse of the world is out there with its rich and varied cultures and peoples. If I had the money and the time again, I would travel for as long as [...]
May 29 2009
Conversational Film Review: Silther (2007) Genre: horror comedy Reviewers: Jaili and Dionne Galace (a.k.a. Bam) I asked Bam if she would do a conversational review with me. Without a blink, she agreed. She even did an awesome summary: Slither (2007) is a splatter-horror and dark comedy about a beautiful, hapless schoolteacher Starla Grant (Elizabeth Banks) [...]
May 15 2009
Film review: Down With Love (2001) & Strictly Ballroom (1992) Grade: B- & B+ Genre: Romantic comedy Dear Readers, It hasn’t been a good week. A DVD I bought from an online shop for this week’s review – a Cary Grant/Doris Day film – has a scratch, which rendered it unplayable. I went to a [...]
May 8 2009
Beyond Her Book columnist Barbara Vey from Publishers Weekly reveals her conference schedule for the period between June and November this year. It includes Historical Novel Society in Schaumburg, IL and Romance Writers of America in Washington D.C. She couldn’t make to some conferences. She is sending her "cub reporter and blurber extraordinaire" Joysann instead [...]
May 1 2009
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) An Officer and a Gentleman: Special Edition Grade: B Genre: Drama (U.S.) Dear Taylor Hackford, Although I had heard of An Officer and a Gentleman (who hasn’t?) and seen many parodies of the legendary ending, I never got around to seeing it until I watched Searching for Debra Winger (2002) [...]
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