Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez bemoans the branding of an author. She’s unable to sell her Irish-American saxophone story because publishers believe the consuming public won’t believe she has an authentic voice.   We’ve explored the concept of the author’s biography as authenticity here.

The race to provide a low priced color ereader might be on our doorsteps by Christmas.   Interread, the manufacturers of the COOL-er Reader, have promised a low priced, color, touchscreen eReader. The COOL-er Reader has been given lackluster to bad reviews so hopefully they’ll improve the quality of their devices.

Shannon Stacey blogs that obsolescence is not the fear behind adopting digital reading but it’s chaos:

I don’t think the core issue is technological obsolescence. I don’t even think the issue is the price tag.

The problem, as I see it, is the chaos.

There is almost no way for a rookie consumer in the digital reader industry to make an informed decision.

….

Is it any wonder a person’s not willing to throw down a few Benjamins to ride the digital carousel from Hell? By the time you figure out which formats can be read by which devices, you’re exhausted. And then there’s the DRM horror show. And beyond the devices, people starting talking about Stanza and Calibre and-

It’s a lot easier to drop $6.99 at Walmart for a paperback. P

Ravenous Romance announced that it would be offering its books via the Home Shopping Network. This morning and again at 3 am. tomorrow morning, Holly Schmidt, one of the owners, will offer sets of six of its stories to the 90 million people who watch HSN.   The books have been sanitized with the sex scenes mostly removed. (No time traveling urinal stories for the HSN folks).   This is an innovative move, but will lack of success for Ravenous Romance turn the HSN off other romance book sales?   I read in one article that Paula Abdul moved 35,000 pieces of jewelry after a two day sell-a-thon so it’s unknown what figures Ravenous is hoping to pull in on this marketing ploy.

Jennifer Crusie wrote a long response to Robin’s thoughtful piece on the bad mother trope in genre romance.   Crusie argues first that the bad mother trope is due to its universal appeal: we all have mothers and we all have issues with our mothers.     Crusie argues that her mother who constantly picks on Min to eat less, weigh less, and be a better prop to the mother’s social climbing ambitions is not evil or bad but just imperfect. Her mothers are “pursuing their own ends, not sitting around bitching and moaning. They’re active.”

I think the question of Bad Mothers in romance tends to be a political question more than it is an art or craft question: is the rash of Bad Mothers bad feminism, does it make the genre look bad, does it send a dangerous message, whatever. I don’t care about that and I don’t think most readers care about it.   A Bad Mother badly written is going to be Bad, period, just as a Good Mother badly written is going to be awful. A Bad Mother well written in a good story is going to work because she’s necessary to the plot and character development, not because she’s a Bad Mother

To some degree, I think Crusie misses the point. It’s not that we readers don’t recognize that Bad Mothers are   plot devices or intentionally written to be bad but rather that the proliferation of Bad Mothers in romance may be unintentionally saying something.   Maybe it is just an easy plot device to create a Heroine with Baggage.

Mike Shatzkin’s ruminates on whether ebook and POD is a viable publishing strategy yet.   No press run publishing model depends highly on direct sales and that a burgeoning publishing community cannot withstand individual publisher sales sites.

The web constantly reminds us of the value of monopoly. Amazon has a huge advantage in being the best place to shop for books because they’re the biggest. The size of the purchasing community adds value: more reviews, more data to make better suggestions or respond better to search queries, and it gives them the scale to add unique content through Kindle and BookSurge. In the same way, we’re likely to see a dominant horizontal ebook retailer emerge.

Ellora’s Cave tried to capitalize on its own niche which it has dominated since its entrance back in the early 2000s but even EC is recognizing that not being part of the larger retail market such as Kindle, Sony, Fictionwise is dangerous. Rumor is that EC books will be for sale on other vendor sites.

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Barnes and Noble is proclaiming it is giving away 6 free books when you download its special ebook reader on the iphone or laptop. The special ebook reader is merely a BN wrapped version of eReader. The six books are ones in the public domain and when one reader complained that these books were subject to DRM, BN replied with the following:

We selected public domain titles as our free eBooks because these books are traditionally among our customers’ favorite works of literature.

As an alternative, we also offer free samples of every commercial title available on our website so that you can discover for yourself how easy it is to read our eBooks on your iPhone, Blackberry or personal computer…Also, for copyright protection purposes, these files are encrypted and cannot be converted or printed.

Oh, BN, you are not inspiring confidence in your knowledge of books and technology. Just saying.

In contrast, Quartet Press is shaping up to be a very exciting entrant into the publishing world. Today, Mr X’s identity has been revealed and Publishers Weekly has a nice summary although I was told that the number units of books that need to be sold in order to make a title profitable is far less than 3,000 as was reported. And, apparently Kirk Biglione will be doing videos and podcasts to help readers understand digital book reading and how to get the digital books onto digital devices. If you are wondering why I think this is exciting, it’s not because I actually am interested in the videos or podcasts, but rather I could listen to Kirk’s voice all day long. Perhaps Quartet could do audio books…

Lori Perkins, the agent whose house submits books to her own publishing company, Ravenous Romance, has put out the call for YA and middle grade books to be looked at by a junior agent named EK. Yes, EK. I didn’t realize that agenting was held in such disrepute that the agents had to be anonymous.

Author Donn-with-two-nns-Cortez loses his cool online against a reviewer who a) put up the review really early and b) admits that she didn’t read the entire book by suggesting the reviewer has some personal vendetta. Other readers try to give him some friendly advice (including one who gave Cortez a super detailed favorable rating) but he doesn’t really want to listen which then provides obsevers (like me) some minor amusement.

My favorite part of this story is that the reader who emailed me the link also directed me to Mr. Cortez webpage wherein he confesses to being addicted to nude beaches. That, for me, falls under TMI because now that I know that I can’t help but wonder why he is writing about a female protagonist and god, I hope she never has a beach scene.

Some enterprising person found Sony 300 and 600 sales material online. And there were pictures. Pictures of ugly Sony Readers with no wifi which totally contradicts what is reported in Bookseller.com.  I could not be more underwhelmed. Dear Sony, your new ereaders are going to die before their release.   Love, your own Jane.

Harlequin is doing okay but Torstar, the parent company, not so much. Digital products for Torstar are thestar.com and other web entities, not digital book sales.

Quarterly revenues fell to $373.7 million, about 6.3 per cent lower than the $398.8 million last year. The Toronto-based company, which also owns the Harlequin Enterprises book publisher, was hit hard by the slump in advertising caused by the recession. In the quarter, Torstar benefited from a $19.2 million foreign exchange gain, but also booked a charge of $29.9 million, or 38 cents a share, related to a valuation allowance against future income tax assets of CTVglobemedia. a broadcaster and newspaper publisher in which it has a minority stake. …
“Results continue to be mixed with the decline in newspapers and digital more than offsetting the growth at Harlequin and lower corporate costs,” said David Holland, interim president and chief executive, said in a release before stock markets opened.

Author Carolyn Jewel defends the pantser:

Let me repeat the really important statement: During the period I was doing all the things plotters do, I was and remained unpublished.

Finally, I reached a point where I had to decide whether to give up writing — because eleven years is a long time to fail at something. But I didn’t want to stop writing. I wonder what would have happened to me if I’d heard that anti-pantsing statement at this point in my writing life? Because you know what I did?

I thought long and hard about the difference between what I was doing all that long and unpublished time and what I had been doing when I wrote two published books. And the difference between the two was that before, I followed my instincts. I looked at what was happening on the pages and went with that instead of what I’d plotted in advance.

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Dear Readers:

I can’t remember who chose this book for me to read during #RRTheatre (wherein I roast bad porn) but the premise was “have sex or die.” We thought that the plot promised some hijinks at least. Grammatically this Ravenous book wasn’t as poor as previous titles, but the editing was still abysmal. I had a feeling that this was supposed to be some kind of campy send up of futuristics but because it lacked any coherency, it was just a mess inducing unintentionally hilarious moments.

The basics of the worldbuilding that I could glean from the story is this.   There was a Great Fall and society split into Blacks and Blues.   Blacks were more technoliterate and Blues had more money.   There was a renewable energy source namd pilox that was the subject of much dissension between the Blues and Blacks.   There is a revolutionary group that no one knows about and there is the ability to infect someone with vampirism as well as the ability to cure it by creating a serum from a pregnant woman, although it destroys the fetus.

The story opens with our heroine (and I use this term very loosely as there is little heroic about these characters), Mayflower, in a three by six foot box designed for pleasure bots. Mayflower is pretending to be a pleasure synth. She is awaiting Klyper Corporation to pick her up and return her to her warehouse where she can return to someone named “Dime”. While she is waiting, the door of her unit opens and a man wrenches her out. He informs her that she will spread her thighs for him or they’ll both be dead.

Jovinius Markus Artinuous doesn’t buy Mayflower’s acting job and warns her “if you don’t do as I say when my clients get here, I’ll rip your fucking head off and shove it up your ass. Do you understand, Synthia?” There is no real explanation for why Mayflower is in this box designed for pleasure bots or why it is attached to Jove/Mark’s apartment. There is no real explanation for why Jove/Mark is a male prostitute/gigolo. Nor is there any real coherent worldbuilding. It is important that I lay out these precepts early on so that farther into the review when readers might ask “why”, they can answer their own query with “It’s RRTheatre”.

Mayflower is both excited and terrified by this assault. Her terror stems from her mistaken belief that Jove/Mark might be a synthbot. A synthbot is characterized by “his strength, his unusual good looks, his large cock, the freaky name, and his bad manners.” But Jove/Mark is not a synthbot. He is something else and when he kissed her jugular, her “pussy twitched” in response. She gives her tacit agreement to perform for these clients of Jove/Mark’s with the proviso that he not show them her “tits.” Mayflower, you see, has only one nipple.

Mayflower and Jove/Mark engage in sexual congress in front of Jove/Mark’s clients, the Dostens. Dostens are lithac traders. Lithac is a potent, addictive drug which apparently turns people into mindless children. Witness, for example, the behavior of drugged out Mrs. Dosten:

“I want you to lick her pussy, then fuck her “til she screams,” Janis blurted, ending her words with a giddy giggle.

and

“I’m horny! I’m horny!” she chanted, her head rolling this way and that as if she alternately searched something on the ceiling and all four walls.

Despite actually being at Jove/Mark’s place for watching and then having sex, Mr. Dosten is thoroughly disgusted with his wife and proceeds to slap her. This pushes Jove/Mark to get on with the show. He realizes that his instincts were correct when he smells her arousal.

She’d almost convinced him, but pussies don’t lie. They don’t cry either, unless they’re excited, and hers wept.

Pussy wept. Good thing that Mayflower responds to threats of violence and enjoys fucking strangers for voyeurs. Pussies aren’t the only thing that weeps. “Mr. Dosten’s erection dripped.” “His erection dripped down her thigh, eliciting a burst of her own woman’s cream.” “A burst of her woman’s cream spilled down her thighs…” “…come filling her and dripping between them onto the sheets.” “Mark erupted inside her, his come gushing down her thighs.” “…as more cream dripped from her swollen pussy.” “Mayflower’s body ached…her pussy dripped.”

Mark/Jove are so good together that Mr. Dosten cannot wait for his turn. This enrages Mark/Jove and he physically prevents Mr. Dosten from touching Mayflower. A scrap ensues wherein Mrs. Dosten jumps on Mark/Jove’s side and then he feels a “creamy liquid cascading down his side.” This description made me think that Mrs. Dosten may have leaked all over Mark/Jove. Someone on twitter suggested that it was blood and that Mark/Jove may have had different colored blood. This was dispelled by a later passage that described his blood as “ruby”. Make of this what you will. (Screencap).

Mayflower saves the day by pushing the Dostens into the Synthbox and pressing “WASH” which essentially kills them. The only concern Mark/Jove has regarding this is the bodyguard of the Dostens. Mayflower whisks Mark/Jove away to her warehouse by calling an ambulance and then getting the ambulance to leave them at her warehouse. I know that this might raise questions but I’m telling you to refer to previous paragraph in which I explained that there is no explanation for many of these things.

Mayflower has to give a blowjob and have sex with someone she has watch over her friend “Dime” who is called “Dime” because “Well, they used to joke about how Dime’s thoughts were worth at least nine cents more, hence his name.” Dime is a mentally challenged young man whose dialogue consists of “”Maaaaaaaaaafloooooooooooer,” Dime screamed in one of his random outbursts”. Don’t feel bad for him though because Dime gets to have sex and Mayflower even peeks at his sexual activities with maternal pride. Mark/Jove can tell that Mayflower is just faking her orgasm with this other person because she isn’t using her nails to scratch her john like she did when Mark/Jove and she were having sex.

Mayflower and Mark/Jove eventually go to a revolutionary camp. The revolutionaries are gearing up for a battle to bring peace between the two warring factions of Blues and Blacks. “He recognized Rocky, Melanchor, and Selena, leaders of the hard-fought revolution that no one seemed to know existed.” INORITE? A revolution that is so ineffective no one knows it exists? It gets better. When Rocky, Melanchor, Selena go off to battle, they return after three hours because a peace accord had already been worked out between the Blues and the Blacks. The revolution was for naught. !!!!! !!!!!

The book ends with Mayflower revealing that her left nipple was excised “per policy” when she was attacked and left for dead. The nipple stores all the information from her attack. Mayflower put her nipple in a necklace which she then gave to Dime. Yes, she gave her nipple in a “smooth silver box with rounded edges” to Dime to wear around his neck. Fortunately, they were able to reattach her nipple and all her memories were restored. This leads Mayflower to realize that her death was setup by her sister and exhusband. She returns to the Blue side to confront her sister, have sex with her ex-husband so that she could capture his DNA, and obtain revenge. Yes, hair or saliva samples aren’t sufficient, only sperm in one’s box can achieve perfect identification.

There is so much I left out in this review like the fact that Mark/Jove is a “Return”, a vampire cured of his vampirism but I leave you with my favorite line of the book:

She could tell the real man in front of her wanted her, because he told her so. “I want you,” he whispered (Screencap)

Best regards,

Jane

You can purchase this book at Ravenous Romance.

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I don’t think I have made any secret of the fact that I don’t like the publisher Ravenous Romance, but I haven’t clearly articulated my reasons why. I endeavor to do so in this post so that no one can accuse me of subterfuge and so that I can lay out my reasons why I don’t think anyone should think of Ravenous as a romance publisher. You are free to disagree with me but here is my argument. I think Ravenous is aggravating rather than alleviating the negative reputation of romance for two main reasons: A) Their business practices are poor and B) they aren’t selling romance.

First let me say that it doesn’t matter to me that Ravenous is in business or that they ultimately sell massive amounts of what by their own standards is "smut." But their works are not romance and they shouldn’t be associated with romance publishing even tangentially. I heard that they want to fund a Romantic Times digital expo next year and that they are going to attend a number of romance related events such as the Lori Foster’s convention and RWA. I felt it necessary to push back against this idea that Ravenous is a legitimate romance publisher. They are not. That doesn’t mean they have no right to publish or even succeed, but I believe they are currently doing that at the expense of the romance genre and market.

A) Ravenous’ Business Practices

We were told that Ravenous was going to “blow the competition right out of the water from very early on.” No other epublisher knew what it was doing or had the marketing ability that Ravenous had. It is true that Ravenous has a very aggressive marketing and publicity team. It is also true that at first glance their product and web presence look polished and professional. What Ravenous lacks, and doesn’t appear interested in gaining, though, is a) an understanding of the romance readership and b) an understanding of the romance market.

For example, when challenged about the slow rate of growth of the readership for erotic romance, Jamaica Layne, Ravenous author and editor, replies with these comments:

I think this lack of knowledge about publishing and reaching target audiences (and the slow growth of those audiences) show that even the successful epubs have not exploited all avenues for building readership….In other words, [Ravenous is] a real publisher and not a fly-by-night operation founded primarily to showcase the amateur founders’ own unpublished books (which even Ellora’s Cave was at its start).

and

I don’t think eHarlequin has done enough to create and promote an e-line that is online only. And Harlequin’s sales are down in general-’mostly because it has been slow to adapt its lines to changing market tastes.

Ms Hughes promised to return with a sales report in January. Given that Knight Moves is one of the highest selling books for Ravenous, we should have certainly seen proof of her astounding numbers to show how Ravenous is blowing the competition out of the water but Hughes is remarkably silent about her sales.   Contrary to Hughes’ claims, Harlequin’s increasing sales in the midst of a depressed market have been the subject of much news coverage, by outlets from the New York Times to Nightline.

I’m not singling out Ms. Hughes’s comments to be mean, but to point out that Ravenous has not been in business for more than five months (it opened in December) and only by dint of its tireless marketing has it become a name known within the publishing community. It is not an established house and does not deserve to the be the spokesperson for digital romance publishing.   Ravenous is not part of the digital publishing discussion because it has any history of successful sales. Nor is it does it have a reputation for quality work.   I say this from personal experience and from the statements of other readers.

It’s important to focus on the editing because it is the product that undermines Ravenous’s insistence that they will be an asset to romance and to epublishing. The first book I read was Knight Moves by Ms. Hughes, writing as Jamaica Layne . Knight Moves was reviewed here at Dear Author, and like Ms. Hughes’ publicity materials say, it has become a viral sensation. But not because it is a great work of art. Instead, it’s a trainwreck of offensive writing and strange euphemisms, and like any trainwreck, you can’t look away. Hughes uses such descriptors as “ladysoftness”. The woman’s cunt makes a “disappointed queeb” noise when she dismounts. The urinal becomes a time traveling portal. In a feat of physical impossibility, the man’s penis points 90 degrees toward his chin.

In another book, the male protagonist’s name is misspelled consistently throughout the novel. A character’s "viral masculinity" is mentioned. "Lathing" is used to describe the application of tongue to flesh throughout yet another novel. In American Star, the male protagonist describes his partner’s cock as unrolling from his pants like a paper towel roll in the kitchen and says he wants to throw the cock over his shoulder and burp it. The male protagonist goes on to talk about being turned on by the smell of raw meat and onions coming from the other man’s body. Another book contained this compilation of nonsensical sentences:

• "Above the semi-wall of my laptop screen, I can see she looks not only at the downslide of her hottiness,” (as an aside, “downslide of hottiness” is now my motto).
• "I lean back in the chair, my computer set to Word and ready to receive my genius, but I can’t look at it now, as neither can I Roark."
• "He slid one hand across the creamy globes of her ass as the other reached to his desk. " (the other globe has escaped?)

Someone asked me if I was picking these books out randomly. No, many of these books were profiled by Ravenous and given away as free promotions.

Last year, Ravenous was advertising on Craigslist for copyeditors.     It’s not that you can’t find good editors on Craigslist but it does show that they didn’t have a pool of professional editors in their competition-blowing company.

Very simple mistakes are made. In one book the words “PAGE BREAK” in all caps was included at the end of a chapter. In the most recent book I read the following PDF page was in the very back of the book.   None of these are signs of a professional publishing business.

According to contract terms shared with me, Ravenous pays only on the net. This is a very good deal for the publisher but not such a great deal for the author. In other words, the author is paying for the costs of doing business. Those expenses should be the publisher’s:

“the net dollar amount received by the Publisher for sale of the Publisher’s publication(s) of the Work from the retailer or consumer, after discount, less actual returns or credits issued relating to prior sales; less shipping, mailing, insurance and handling expenses; less credit card, payment processing or collection costs; and less currency conversion costs; and excluding sales, GST, VAT or other taxes”

B) They Are Not Selling Romance

Ravenous’s worst offense, though, is the fact that the owners and writers of Ravenous are putting out what they call "feminist smut" (Lori Perkins self describes as a purveyor of feminist smut) and calling it romance. Set aside the poor editing, the suspect business practices and the hideous writing for a moment. Not one of the 6 Ravenous books I’ve read has been a romance. Four were what I would call pornography and two were women’s fiction books. Not one focused on the emotional development of a romance.

It is true that there is a lot of gray area in the space between erotic romance and erotica, but the romance side of the line always includes a focus on the emotional journey of the lovers, even if that journey is expressed and realized through sex. But what I believe Ravenous is doing is capitalizing on this gray area and on the ignorance of those outside the genre by trying to sneak into the crease between erotic romance and erotica, even though their work does not fit even the most liberal definition of erotic romance. In other words, they are trying to free-ride on the marketability of romance and exploit its legitimate market without any intention of actually selling romance.

It is, in other words, like a classic bait and switch. For readers, this means no way of returning a product that does not fit their expectations. For the market and the reputation of romance, the consequences might be even more serious because the more aggressive Ravenous’s marketing becomes, and the more visible they get in the romance market, the worse romance will look to those who already think romance is nothing more than porn for women. I suppose Lori Perkins believes that “feminist smut” makes it better, somehow. But putting aside the very loaded question of whether Ravenous’s books are feminist, consider the remarks of Lori Perkins’s business partner, Holly Schmidt, who admits to being a good girl who doesn’t read that kind of work:

Holly Schmidt, Ravenous Romance’s publisher, agrees with Updike’s assessment that "sex is like money: only too much is enough" and will be sending out erotic stories by up to 150 authors by the end of the year.

Schmidt , who says the tales do not reflect her own taste – "I’m a nice girl who married her high school sweetheart"- is hoping to attract major writers to pen their own tales of "hot love" including Updike and fellow New Englander Stephen King.

And what, exactly, is the difference between soft pornography and the "erotica" that she is selling over the web for 99 cents (66p) a day? "A better vocabulary."

Then there is the Hughes:

I don’t think calling erotica porn is off-base at all. (After all, I write it). And the fact a lot of epubs try to dance around the fact that what they publish isn’t porn (when in fact it is) is a big part of their marketing problem. The fact is, whether they admit it publicly or not, women consume porn in very, very large numbers. And these same women appreciate it when their erotica (or porn, whatever) is well-written and of high literary quality. (Historically, erotica has been written by some of the most respected and literary authors in history, such as Anais Nin, Henry Miller, James Joyce, Joyce Carol Oates, I could go on forever). Erotica/porn does NOT equal bad. I frankly think the romance world’s attempt to separate themselves from porn is one of it’s [sic] biggest marketing mistakes.

Publishing is a business. And business is always about profit, first and foremost. If publishers are not profitable, they will go out of business. Why attack them for wanting to make money by publishing high-quality "feminist smut" (my agent’s term, not mine) and marketing it in a similar fashion to the rest of the adult industry?

Ms. Perkins knows how to pick sexy erotic books that sell, big-time. As an example, she sold Jenna Jameson’s book HOW TO MAKE LOVE LIKE A PORN STAR. That book spent six weeks on the NYT bestseller list in 2004 and continues to backlist very well-’in hardcover, no less.

The only mystery left here is why anyone at Ravenous believes romance readers are fooled about what they are putting out into the marketplace.

C)   Conclusion

On the Ravenous twitter page, they claim that they will change publishing. Perhaps, but I don’t feel it will be changed for the better, at least not as far as romance is concerned or epublishing in general. If a person picks up only one Ravenous book thinking it is an example of good erotic EPUBLISHED romance, what are they going to think about the books put out by other digital publishers? Or romance books that you are reading? Why shouldn’t romance be constantly mocked for being trash when it is represented by a company like Ravenous? Why shouldn’t digital publishers be excluded under the theory that they aren’t legitimate publishers?

The romance genre has a right to more respect. Romance readers and authors have a right to more respect. I do not believe that Ravenous Romance respects anything about romance, except for the money they believe they can make off of the genre and its loyal, generous readership.

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There is this livejournal community called weepingcock wherein users collect literary outtakes of tragically bad sex scenes. In reading my fourth Ravenous Romance ebook, I’m convinced that there is some conspiracy between WC and RR, or at least some hidden symbiotic relationship because I haven’t read four books in a row from one publisher that so perfectly fit the mission of one livejournal community. I suspect that the WC users will subsidize RR press should it falter in this troublesome economy just to provide the community material.

American Star is thinly veiled fan fiction of the American Idol reality television series featuring aspirant Terre/ance* (tm Divas). Terre/ance is a manager at a tanning salon in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Ostensibly, Terre/ance is dating Kevin, his boyfriend since high school and owner of the tanning salon. Terre/ance sees a notice in a newspaper about auditions for a singing reality show. Terre/ance decides that this is his opportunity to launch his singing career. He does not tell Kevin because Kevin is always looking for an opportunity to be derisive of Terre/ance.

When I say thinly veiled, I mean American Star differs from American Idol only in that the word "Idol" is not used. Terre/ance is selected to go to “Hollywood” from the auditions and undergoes a grueling competition while in Hollywood. After the group of singers culled from the auditions are reduced to twelve, the singers are subject to the votes of the public who can express their opinion as to who stays and who goes by calling special phone numbers. There are three judges: a woman with one hit; a singer turned producer who is quite heavy; and Marcus, the snide, cruel judge who has been outrageously successful in all his endeavors. Oh, and a host, a slim man some apparently think is gay (and in this story he is).

The singing competition is really a vehicle for Terre/ance’s sexual exploits. Terre/ance, to put it kindly, is loose. A young man comes to tan at his salon and Terre/ance is entranced. Fortunately for Terre/ance, Jude is a singer too and when they see each other at the singing auditions, the two sneak away to the bathroom to while away the time. Jude confesses to Terre/ance that he has a “mutant penis.” Apparently it is enormously large. So enormous that it is described thusly:

Then he spread his legs and slowly lowered his zipper. It fell from his jeans like a roll of paper towels unraveling across the kitchen floor; it was already semi-erect and growing longer and thicker by the second.

Terre/ance recovers from his initial shock at Jude’s Bounty and begins to fellate Jude. I didn’t realize it at first, but Terre/ance identifies all his cocks via smell. Jude’s cock “tasted a little salty, but it smelled like clean, fresh soap and water.” Please pay attention, there will be a quiz on this later. While Jude’s monstrous dick physically prevented Terre/ance from engulfing Jude entirely, “he packed as much of Jude’s big dick to the back of his throat as he could.” Jude begins to come and Terre/ance invites him to shoot the sperm all over his face

A second later, the huge monster exploded all over Terrence’s face. It hit his skin hard enough to make his head jerk back. The aroma was intoxicating: sugar and bleach and honey mixed into one. And while he continued to milk Jude’s balls, he blew his own load all over the bathroom floor.

As an FYI Chlorox Honey Bee frangrance is stocked right next to Bounty at your local supermarket next to the burp pads:

he finally opened his eyes again, he reached for a piece of toilet paper and cleaned the last few drops of come from Jude’s dick. He wanted to stay there on his knees and stare at it for the rest of the day; he could have put it over his shoulder and burped it. But all he had time to do was place it in his palm, hoist it up and kiss it good-bye.

When I shared this scene with others, I was confronted with a series of “You are making this up” so I took a screen shot. Jude and Terre/ance both make it to Hollywood and they make promises to meet up with each other before the show starts up.

Terre/ance returns home and tells Kevin of his plans. Instead of angry Kevin, Terre/ance is confronted by tender Kevin and by tender I mean that when Kevin says–”That’s it, bitch…Get naked for me. Wiggle that hot ass. I know how you like it”–it’s in a totally loving manner. Terre/ance revels in the smell of post-gym, pre-shower Kevin:

Terrence licked the rough stubble beneath his chin while Kevin’s two fingers slowly probed his anus. Kevin hadn’t showered that morning after his daily workout at the gym, and his underarms smelled like raw onions and meat. Terrence took a deep breath and smiled.

Again, not lying. So Terre/ance then embarks on his journey toward stardom. On his way there, he stops to fuck the limo driver Joe. For those at home playing the ball/penis/smell bingo game, Joe smells of “inexpensive cologne. It wasn’t strong, but it smelled like musk and spices, like a man should smell if he were to wear cologne of any kind.” Their sex play? Some kind of manic circling:

While they kissed, their tongues went in wet, rapid circles, swallowing each other’s spit and coming back for more….Joe’s tongue continued to go in circles and he moaned inside Terrence’s mouth a few times.

As an aside, this author appears to be quite taken with circular imagery. Terre/ance’s ass is described as a beach ball (despite being willowy of frame), and a bubble butt. Terre/ance has a tendency to grind his ass in a circle (which makes some strange sense given his beach ball/bubble butt, I guess). “He didn’t have to buck his hips or move them in circles.” “Kevin moaned and sighed while his hips began to grind in slow, meticulous circles.” “He shoved his tongue into Terrence’s mouth and rolled it around in violent circles.” “Kevin’s dick was still inside him and he was rocking and grinding in circles.” “…pointed the tip directly into Terrance’s pink hole and circled the opening.” “The entire cock seemed to ache with erotic places that could make his eyes spin in circles.” “…causing the entire bed to vibrate while Terrence’s head jerked around in circles.”

Another redundancy is Terre/ance olfactory fetish. At one point, Terre/ance finds himself jerking off while staring at his straight roommate’s sleeping form. Figuring that the roommate is the one person who is not hot for him, Terre/ance picks up the roommate’s sweaty, discarded sock:

Terrence licked his lips and started jerking again. He knew he couldn’t just get out of bed and suck him off, but he needed more. So he reached down to the floor and picked up one of Justin’s sweat socks. He pressed it against his face and sniffed back. ….A moment later, Terrence pressed the dirty sweat sock to his nose, inhaled as deeply as he could and blew his load all over his stomach.

A bellhop Terre/ance screws has balls that taste sweet and “smelled like baby powder.” Another bellhop’s balls “tasted salty and smelled a little like apple vinegar.” The stranger in the sauna’s balls “tasted salty and smelled like onions.”

I would be remiss in this review if I didn’t acknowledge that there was a plot. Terre/ance is a great singer whose talent threatens that of another contestant, Payton. Further Terre/ance has to fight for Jude’s attention. Jude may want to win the competition more than he wants Terre/ance. Because of the plot, I feel like I have to give this one a D.

Best regards,

Jane

*The spelling of the main character’s name changes throughout the book from Terrance to Terrence. At least once, the misspelling occurs in the same paragraph. This is not the only editing issue though. My favorite sentence besides the burping one was “Joe wasn’t into a lot of raunchy dirty talk, but there was something about his strong, viral movements that was just as exciting.”

This book can be purchased at many etailers

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Dear Ms. Doyle:

Thank you for sending me your book for review. I obviously have had some concerns about the quality of books that are being issued by Ravenous Romance given my last encounter, but it would be unfair of me to tar the entire catalog by the same Ladyfingered brush without exploring more of the RR catalog. This is going to be a good news/bad news post. I’ll give you the good news in the first paragraph. I thought this book was indeed better than Knight Moves.

The bad news is that the rest of the review will not contain any more “good news” kernels.   Making a Scene is told in the first person present tense from the point of view of the female protagonist, a writer of cliched detective stories, three of which have made it onto the extended New York Times bestseller list.   Her agent is in the midst of negotiating a film rights deal but the film people want the relationship in the next book to be spiced up.

"Nevertheless," Consuelo said briskly, her cultured voice snapping, "in her own crudely descriptive way, Renee’s absolutely right. It’s essential for the protagonists to rise to the next level if we want to make this series more commercially viable. Frankly, Pamela, in addition to the movie interest, we’ve even been discussing franchise – product endorsements, video games, podcasts – the possibilities are endless. So it’s absolutely to our benefit – to your benefit – that we take the creative initiative. Sex sells, Pamela, and you’re ready to take off with this. This is your big chance. Run with it."

Pamela Flynn is given 1 week to write a really hot sex scene for her detective duo. Who knew that detective novels with sex had that kind of marketing potential.   I hope Nora gets a new agent because I’ve yet to see an Eve/Roarke product endorsement, video game, or the huge money maker – podcasts.

Unfortunately, Pamela gets sex scene writer’s block after she witnesses her young lover cum house servant get it on with an old friend who is crashing at Pamela’s abode.   This is our first sex scene and is a prelude to most of the other sex scenes.   That is, almost all the sex scenes involve someone other than the two main protagonists in this supposed romance story.   At best, this was shaping up to be some kind of Walter Mitty-esque erotic fiction novel but given the attempts to shoehorn in a romance, the genre classification of this one is up in the air.

For some reason, I’m supposed to feel badly, or even perhaps outraged, that Pamela’s live in slave is having sex with someone else.   After all, in exchange for rent-free space, Josh is allowed to keep her happy.

At the time I just felt sorry for the poor, struggling grad student, so for the past two months, as a trade-off for rent, I let him keep me sated, fed and focused while I wrote. He’d clean my apartment and wash my clothes, in between attending master’s classes at the University of Pennsylvania and pouring drinks part time at a local bar two blocks over.

That Pamela, she’s a winner and a sexually inexperienced one at that because while she watches Josh, the houseboy, sex it up with her friend, Karen, she’s surprised at some of Karen’s moves:

I watched, breathless, as Josh’s ass tightened and relaxed, the muscles of his sleek back rippling with each thrust, his balls lightly tapping her chin until she sucked one at a time into her mouth. Good golly! I thought – she put me to shame; I never thought of doing that.

In any event, because Josh was insulting to Pamela after Pamela had hauled off and cracked him hard enough across the face to bend his glasses, she is now unable to put fingers to keys to type out a sex scene for her dashing pair of detectives.   

I call it a supposed romance story because much of the story consists of Pamela sitting in Roark, the main male protagonist’s, coffee shop for two days before Roark decides he is in love with her. Roark and Pamela eventually have lots of sex in an effort to drive houseboy out of Pamela’s mind and unblock her writing.   Fortunately, for Pamela, Roark   comes well equipped.   So well equipped that she is chafed after bouts of sex.   Also she is filled to the brim with spunk. Oily spunk at that.

I slip my fingers into me and imagine it’s Roark, his mouth on mine, his hands kneading my breasts, and suddenly I’m coming, the last of his spunk oiling my fingers and sliding me home.

I admit to being surprised at the number of fantasy, self pleasuring scenes there were in the book. I would say that the scenes of Pamela by herself getting off were about 2:1 with her having any physical contact with Roarke.   As referenced earlier, many of the sex scenes are fantasies that Pamela has watching random people at the coffee shop or ones that she entertains whilst self pleasuring.      

In further scenes of WTF-ery,   Pamela fantasizes about Roark disrobing, peeing, flushing, showing his flaccid cock, and the rolling over and going to sleep. That’s the fantasy! Peeing and going to sleep! Actually the fantasy is much more detailed. I’m probably doing it a disservice. Pamela fantasizes about Roarke coming home, about him taking off his socks, throwing them into the hamper, going into the bathroom “where he takes a piss and flushes.” Note, her fantasy does not include the washing of hands post flushing. Does no one at Ravenous care about hygiene?

After she fantasizes about him brushing and flossing, he comes back into his bedroom where his strips off the boxers. She then fantasizes about ogling his flaccid cock which she sees for just a minute before he climbs into bed and goes to sleep. Erotic fantasy? I suppose if you have a laundry fetish or maybe a dog. The dog might be fantasizing about the owner removing the socks so the dog could later eat them. Or maybe a . . . shit, I got nothing.

Moving on. This book is long; over 180 pages and most of it is given over to inane detail about nothing. Like why do I have to attend Pam’s Pap Smear appointment with her? What is the point of that?

She taps the inside of my thigh, something she can do when she’s got a speculum up my crotch.
…
She stands up, pressing down on my abdomen, her other hand inside me as she feels around. "Okay, everything’s where it should be. You can sit up."

….I yank my feet out of the stirrups and gather the paper gown around me.

It’s not like a woman’s gyno appointment is so fantastic that we want to read about it detail for detail in some book. There are just things a woman should not be subjected to in erotic romance. Along those lines, I don’t need time lapse imaging of her getting shaved. Her nether regions transform from being a “bush” to “reduced muff” to “newly trimmed muff.” I get to read about Roarke “gathering a hank” and “gliding the razor over the top of my bush like clipping a hedge.” Later, her genitals are referred to as an “Afro”. No, I am not making this up.

And when I’m thoroughly sudsy, my pussy a big castile Afro, my tits two cup sizes bigger with foam, he uses me as his own bar of soap, sliding into my ’Fro to whistle-clean his big cock,

The sexy euphemisms do not stop with bush and muff. No way, we get extra helpings of “jiz” “spunk” “joy juice” and descriptions like “my crotch juicy with heat”, “lowering the shiny globule [of KY jelly] to my crotch”

And I love the post coital blow by blow descriptions:

I pop out my diaphragm, wash it and give it a reload, smiling the whole time. Damn, if this piece of latex isn’t becoming a part of my anatomy. I brush, pee and poof, inching out of the bathroom.

I appreciate that as the narrator we are supposed to identify with her, but I don’t need to know her so well, that I am serving as her f-ing gynecologist or her best friend although even best friends should be kind enough to keep the details of their paps to themselves.

I twittered that this book might have been passable if all the sex scenes were removed.   Like the ones in Knight Moves, these scenes were at best antisceptic and boring (fantasizing about the flaccid cock) to gross (globule of KY Jelly) and to ridiculous (when she fantasizes about a couple having sex with food and the male says “Darling, brace yourself. I do believe we’re ready for the meat course.”)

But beyond the sex scenes (and truly, as one person replied to my comment that the removal of the sex scenes kind of defeated the purpose of erotic romance) was the poor editing. Besides the occasional layout fail (more than one character’s dialogue on the same paragraph), there were several sentences that made no sense whatsoever:

• “Above the semi-wall of my laptop screen, I can see she looks not only at the downslide of her hottiness, “
• “I lean back in the chair, my computer set to Word and ready to receive my genius, but I can’t look at it now, as neither can I Roark.”
• “He slid one hand across the creamy globes of her ass as the other reached to his desk. ” (the other globe has escaped?)
• “I bend to the sink, grab my toothbrush and paste, brush.”
• “against the Plexiglas wall. I can hear his cock ramming in and out of me, as juicy as oiled”
• “And how, more than likely, I’d have to stand in a really, really, really long line to find out. But that wasn’t the purpose of this fantasy anyway?”

There were moments of decent writing.   Some of the later sex scenes involving Roark and Pamela weren’t all bad, on sliding scale of badness.   Some of the dialogue, when it wasn’t cheesy or cliched, read with authenticity.   However, the lack of a realistic plot, the failure to have any kind of connection between the two protagonists, the bad sex scenes, and the  very poor editing leaves me with a negative impression. D.

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased in ebook and audio format from Ravenous Romance. I left out a choice scene in which the heroine plays “ping pong” with the balls of the hero. I could only fit so much into this epic review.

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Dear Ms. Layne:

When Ravenous Romance first appeared on my radar, I blogged about it and you were quick to come to inform us readers that this new epress would “blow the competition out the water from very early on.”   Given that you were also elevated from writer to editor in a short time, I thought it might be worthwhile to see exactly what was the force behind all the eruption.   Knight Moves is a time traveling story featuring New Jersey toll booth supervisor,  Louise Jackson, and the time traveling knight,  Lord Verdigris.   

For her birthday, Louise Jackson is dragged to  Medieval Worlds: Dinner and Tournament by her best friend.   Deciding the wait for the woman’s bathroom is too long, Louise slips into the men’s room in hopes of relieving herself quickly.   There she is assailed by the stench of the men’s room and the sight of the gorgeous man at the urinal:

And the sight of the huge cock the knight is holding in his right hand as he shakes  off the last few drops of pee is even more dazzling.

The sight is so dazzling that Loiuse’s pee dries up and is replaced with moist desire.  

I don’t need to pee any more. Now I just need to get laid.

The knight gives me a knowing smile, and jiggles his giant cock in my direction.   "You look like a fair maiden in need of a good visit from the codpiece," he says.

Frankly, I don’t know of any visual more attractive or seductive than a guy dressed like a knight in a tacky dinner theatre waving his post pee schwizzle stick around.   Louise is clearly a woman of discerning taste.   She also is one who doesn’t worry about any kind of hygiene issues because she is not at all concerned when pee shaking man hands grab her and whisk her to the last stall in the bathroom that turns out to be, yes, a time traveling portal.   Oh, if Bill and Ted only knew that the phone booth wasn’t the only way to break through the space time continuum.

Louise is barely phased  (or fazed) by the travel from the filthy men’s urinal where she was ready to “take a ride on a knight’s codpiece” to the knight’s castle.   She is ready for the knight of no name “to  fuck [her] brains  out.”   

I don’t even know what century I’m in right now. And I don’t care. All I care  about is getting Gorgeous Mystery Knight’s giant codpiece up my twat in a hurry.

The knight who has yet to wash his hands whisks her upstairs to engage in coitus of a very romantic and sexy nature. I quote the liberally from the first sex scene to give the proper flavor:

Another couple flicks of my knight’s supple wrists, and I find myself naked and  thrown headfirst over the wooden bench, my ass sticking straight up in the air. Gorgeous  Knight, fully clothed, spreads my butt cheeks wide, whips his giant cock out of his  breeches, and takes me from behind.

…

We continue to fuck doggy-style over the bench for several minutes. . . .  I buck up against him hard mid-thrust, tipping him off  balance. Once he’s lost his footing, I pull myself off his cock – my cunt makes a  disappointed queeb sound as we separate…I come two more times when I  spin myself around and around on his cock like a top, and take the last few strokes down  from the rear.

Excuse me while I insert a crude joke here.   You are blowing something out of the water, but I’m not certain it’s your competition.   Back to the story.   After the aforementioned erotic sex scene (and by erotic, I mean sex so terrible that even the idea of my parents’ coupling is preferable to revisiting this), we are treated to some post coital love talk:

  

"Everything you see and feel is real, milady," my knight says, caressing my bare  back with his hands. "That, I promise you. If you desire proof, you only need consider  the three very real climaxes you just had in your lady-softness."

My eyes fly wide. "How did you know I came three times?"

He grins wider. "Your lady-softness told me herself when she was wrapped  round my codpiece."

  

Mystery knight, however, is not entranced by Louise’s lady softness for long because he soon escorts her to the Hall of Harlots where he keeps the women that he’s captured from all over the world, through many centuries.   Even though Louise is initially shocked at being stuck in the Hall of Harlots, she is reassured by Lord Verdigris, Master of the Hourglass, that being a whore for him and his knights is really an honor.   She’ll be well cared for and reside in luxury and in exchange, she just needs to open her legs to whomever desires her to do so.

Update: Someone asked me if there was a plot to the story and there is. Lord Verdigris is not the nicest guy and Louise, with the help of one particular lover from the Regency period and another knight with vengeance quest against Verdigris, challenge Lord Verdigris’ hold over the captives of his court.

Louise is a plucky heroine and decides that she’ll be the very best harlot in the Hall of Harlots despite Lord Verdigris having   ”tasted the pleasures of harlots and courtesans from every age in the  Known World’s history, from ancient Greece and Rome to the Renaissance to the farflung  future.”   Somehow, despite Lord Verdigris’ vast experience and extensive travel, Louise manages to come up with a sexual expertise that Lord Verdigris has never experienced.   Louise becomes a dom for Verdigris and all his knights and becomes the court favorite despite having over seven hundred “competitors” based on techniques that she remembered from the Story of O.      Her ability to wield a paddle on the “Cross of Satisfaction” is unparalleled and soon, Lord Verdigris is beckoning her:

And "tis time for us to partake of Pleasure’s fruit again, milady. My codpiece has desired your lady-softness all day long."

Which is good, because then we get to find out that he sweats buckets of happy juice:

His erection is enormous – pointing at an almost 90-degree angle up towards his chin – and his glans is sweating buckets of happy juice.

These are two big secreters.   Her crotch turns to cream  (“turning my crotch to cream”), she leaves a trail of juice down his chest (“I slide down his chest, leaving a trail of  my nectar on his skin”), her vulva is liquified (“my vulva is sweating a sea of slick salt water”); her, well, ladysoftness is “wet, dripping.”   Besides the overwhelming amount of fluid expulsion there was also the outsized genitals.     His was ten inches and her clit was so large that, well, let me just quote it:

The walls of my vag vibrate and pulse at warp speed, and my labia  are so swollen, they pound out a drumbeat as they slap up and down against the length of  Lord Verdigris’ cock.  

I’m not sure what I found most far fetched in this story.   Was it the instant acceptance that Louise had of being swept through the urinal time traveling portal?   Was it ease at which Louise decides being a whore is something to embrace?   Was it the ridiculous love scenes that included “queebs”, references to “lady softness”, “lady fingers”, her “volcanic crotch”?   Was it the fact that there was some weird editing glitch wherein Chapter Five included the words “Page Break” at the top.   It could have been the fact that her hoo haa was so powerful it could make people immortal.   Perhaps it was the scintillating dialogue that include, “‘Unnnnnnuuuuuhhhhh,’ I moan, completely losing control. I come so hard, I see  stars.”   Or perhaps it was the casual declaration of lesbian love that she embraces at the Harlot’s Hall when she gets her first fisting treatment.   

  

I’m suddenly beginning to appreciate the saying, "once you’ve gone lesbo, you  never go back." . . .  Just when I think it can’t get any more intense, Mabel plunges her arm into me  well past her wrist….I’ve got ladyfingers stuck up both ends. And I’m loving it.

  

She turns her back on the lesbian love when she finds out its all a plot to reduce her position from Lord Verdigris’ favorite.   

Or was it the finale where Lord Verdigris and Louise engage gangsters in Philly in a “yo momma” challenge where the dialogue is vaguely insulting to the people of color.   It’s hard to say.   

"As a matter of fact we do," I say. "My friend over here" – I point at Lord  Verdigris – "is from Philadelphia, and he and I have a bet to settle before we scope out  any property for Mr. Trump. And I’ve decided that we’ll settle the bet with a game of  Yo’ Mama. Winner takes all. I need some street-smart guys to judge the game. Y’all up  for that?"

The gangbangers laugh, slap hands, and nod. "Hell, yeah," says their leader.

"We always got time for a game o’ Yo’ Mama. Which one o’ y’all gonna start?"

…

  

Lord Verdigris holds up his hand. "I require no explanation, Lady Louisa. We  play a version of this game in my own time. The game "tis as ancient as the Romans."

The gangbangers stare at him. "Damn, dat dude talk funny," one of them says.

"He don’t sound like he from no Philly, neither," another says.

  

If this is not the worst book I’ve read, it comes close.   I’m actually not sorry I bought it.   I now know what being blown out of the water feels like and can be prepared the next time someone makes a claim about their work in such a way.   F.

Best regards,

Jane

I encourage everyone to buy this e-book at Ravenous Romance at the low price of $4.99. I’ve left out some choice group scenes and the “Yo Mama” fight between Lord Verdigris and Louise. You know you want to read it.

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I received a number of complaints about start up epress Ravenous Romance harvesting email addresses from the web (if you leave an email to comment, we only use it for contests and don’t give that information out to anyone else) and then spamming people (particularly authors) with news about its activities and requests for submissions.

You’ll remember that Ravenous Romance promises to blow other epresses out of the water. You might also remember one of its biggest cheerleaders is Jill Elaine Hughes or Jamaica Layne who, among other things, is now editing at least an anthology for Ravenous Romance. At first, the word was that RR was only accepting agented submissions. Now, RR seems hard up for content as it is soliciting writers on the NaNoWriMo boards and mass emailing on erotic romance mailing lists.

Maybe it’s part of their awesome PR campaign to raise awareness of the product. I don’t know, though, that is the best way to go about gaining new business (or new authors).

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