Book Review: Lady Hathaway's Indecent Proposal

Lady Hathaway is quite the (secret) scandal. She's barely passing for being "in mourning" after her husband dies due to her midnight trysts at a rented house with her former sweetheart. However, what's amazing to me is how no one found out! Did Lady Hathaway have no friends, no family members? Did no one care where she went or who she was dallying with? Lady Hathaway's Indecent Proposal was a nice short novella with a tiny bit of drama and a heckuva lot of introspection about motivation for one's actions and how the choices we make today will affect one's future.

 

Summary

The week after her older husband passes away, Lady Miranda Hathaway propositions her former beau, Lord Andrew Sanderson, in an attempt to get her with child before the courts can determine that there is no heir to the estate. Though Andrew is shocked by the deceit, he decides to go through with the 3-week arrangement in an attempt to (1) get Miranda out of his system and (2) get back at the guy who stole his girl by putting his own bastard in a position of wealth and privilege.
Only, there will be no child. And Miranda is and always has been aware of that fact.
So why does she want this? Why does she do it?
Because she can. And because now might be the only time for her to get what she's always wanted: skillful lovemaking from the man of her dreams.

Now, let's take a step back for a second and talk about Lady Hathaway's Indecent Proposal. First and foremost, this is a very short story (estimated at about 74 pages). I don't even think you can get it as a hard copy. And it goes fast. On the first day you're in Miranda's drawing room, talking about the arrangement and thinking things over, then BAM! The next day the agreement starts. We fast forward through a huge chunk of the 3 weeks and then we're with them on their last night together. Shortly thereafter the book ends. Whew! We don't get a lot of conflict here-- it's mostly internal on the part of Lord Sanderson--and we really don't meet any other character except for the heir to the Hathaway estate, Viscount Hathaway's nephew, James Hathaway. 

My Take

If you're not overly critical about plot dynamics, you might really enjoy the writing and the steamy scenes in the house that Andrew rents. Those are good. You might also want to read something that will only take an hour of your time and cost $0.99. Both great reasons to get a new book! 

I can't say that I really loved this book, and I'll most likely never read it again..... which, in my world, is just unheard of. I can reread the same book 10 times and still cry and laugh out loud. But for this one, once was enough for me. What happened here was that you could have had an amazing NOVEL, not novella, and we could have added a lot more drama/conflict/complications here to make this a much more fascinating read. The plot line was way too cool for such a short book; it felt like we didn't get QUITE the experience we thought we were signing up for. When you have a short book, you need to have a small conflict, and Lady Hathaway's Indecent Proposal had the bones to be a great big mess that was contained into 74 pages for no other reason than because it was slated as a novella.

Lady Hathaway's Indecent Proposal reminds me of a similar storyline from one of my favorite authors, Jo Beverly. In her book Secrets of the Night, Lord Brand Malloren is held hostage by Lady Rosamunde Overton. Obviously it's not the same story, but the broad plot is that Rosamunde is trying to get an heir for her husband, who is very ill, because they do not want the estate to go to Lord Overton's nephew. She finds Lord Brand on the side of the road (poor guy was drugged and left to die) so she nurses him back to health and decides that, in exchange for saving his life, she wants him to give her a child. At the time, though, he doesn't quite think that's what he's doing, of course. ;P  It's a conflict worth the number of pages that it's written on. Lady Hathaway's Indecent Proposal could have definitely used at least 100 more pages to add more characters (ie, more drama), more tangible conflicts/obstacles to their relationship, and a much better ending. For some reason, though, it crammed a ton of potential fireworks into a teeny tiny itty bitty little e-book. 

So tiny!

Sometimes, though, you just want a quick read with a steamy scene or two and a dramatic "break-the-door-down" ending. For all of you lovely ladies, I hope you enjoy Lady Hathaway's Indecent Proposal!"

Stats:

Lady Hathaway's Indecent Proposal (Hathaway Heirs) by Suzanna Medeiros
http://www.amazon.com/Hathaways-Indecent-Proposal-Hathaway-ebook/dp/B00DYEBOM2
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 reviewers on Amazon.com)
$0.99 on Kindle

Book Review: Lovestruck in London

Can I just be totally honest and say this was THE CUTEST book I've read in a long time? I loved the story, I cried so hard at the ending, and basically just had a stupid smile on my face for the rest of the day. What a great read!

Lovestruck in London by Rachel Schurig will make every book lover or Jane Austen fanatic sigh and smile and fall in love. It was a truly charming coming-of-age story and I really enjoyed getting to watch Lizzie (yes, after Eliza Bennett. I love it!) really grow and become herself during her time in London.

Summary

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Medina is the youngest of six siblings in a very close-knit Mexican family that immigrated to Detroit, Michigan. Her whole family, including her cousins, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, and assorted relatives all live within the immediate area and, in Lizzie's eyes, do nothing but try and tell her how to live her life. Like her namesake's creator Jane Austen, Lizzie loves to read and write and has been obsessed with the idea of London, of British accents and pop culture, literature, and history since she was a young girl. When the opportunity arises for Lizzie to take an accelerated (9-month) Master's program in London, she jumps at the chance to live in her dream city... and put off the reality of her future for just a little bit longer.

During her first week in London, Lizzie meets the famous British actor Thomas Harper and immediately recognizes him as one of the supporting characters in the popular 5-movie franchise, Darkness. Thomas is nothing like what she expects, though, and after a few whirlwind dates, they fall hopelessly in love and have a wonderfully romantic relationship. That is, until everything changes.

As her time in London is coming to an end, Thomas' life takes a sharp turn when he is thrust into the limelight and his career starts to really take off. Suddenly everything is different-- not only in their lives and routines, but also the life that Lizzie imagined for herself. In the end, Lizzie has to decide if the love and expectations of her family (a stable career with benefits, and a place within walking distance of her parents' house) or this wonderful new "London Lizzie" she discovers is who she is really meant to be.

My Take

To reiterate, I thought this book was adorable and I was definitely charmed by the characters' goal to discover their true selves and live a life of risks and dreams. I wasn't expecting anything specifically from this book so just enjoying the writing and the characters was so much fun. As a young woman who, admittedly, still has nothing figured out, this book really spoke to me. I'm also a Jane Austen lover, an avid book reader, someone with an interfering and often boisterous family that I love with my whole heart, and an aspiring novelist. The author could not have gotten a more perfect audience than someone like me!

I feel like I should mention that this book is for a young(er) crowd that wouldn't be totally put off by the lack of sex scenes. You're not getting anything risqué here; it's actually a perfect book for your high school-age readers (or those who liked the Twilight franchise). There's the "young adult" elements of petty drama between jealous female characters, the coming-of-age conflict between what is expected of us versus what we want for ourselves, and the close friendships that make a life living on your own in a strange city bearable.

If you're in the mood for something that will really make you FEEL something, pick up Lovestruck in London... I'm so glad that I did!


STATS:

• Lovestruck in London by Rachel Schurig
• Kindle cost: $3.99
• Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (by 4 readers who were clearly misled in Amazon's advertisements based on what they said about the book in their review. Such a shame!)
• http://www.amazon.com/Lovestruck-in-London-ebook/dp/B00CW44YIQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374714590&sr=8-1&keywords=lovestruck+in+london#_

Book Review: Last Call

Last Call is Book #2 in the Heat Wave series by Alannah Lynne. Book #1, Savin' Me, was highly recommended by reviewers on amazon.com who also read this second book. Thinking about it now, I might have been a bit more forgiving in my review if I picked up Savin' Me first, based on what people said in their comments. But honestly, each book must be able to stand alone based on its own merit, and I didn't miss a fundamental plot point by not reading the other one.

Summary
Last Call follows Aimee Lee "Sunny" Black, owner of the Blackout, a local beach bar in the town of Anticue, North Carolina as she meets and falls for the representative of resort mogul Holden Enterprises, Gavin McLeod. Blackout is a bar that is under siege, as Holden Enterprises CEO Max Holden is determined to buy Sunny out of her business and build a new luxury resort in the sleepy beach town. The story opens with Gavin, Max's protégé, kicking up gravel in his expensive SUV, in a hurry to get out of the car and into the rundown local haunt so that he can ditch the 3 young ladies he drove up from Myrtle Beach, one of whom who has it bad for him. Ironically, the lady in question happens to be Callie Holden, the boss's sophisticated and spoiled daughter.

Sunny, instantly taken with the handsome stranger who saddles up to her bar with an interesting drink order, catches Gavin's eye with her open nature and her interesting choice of ...jewelry. And once hooked, apparently it's instant hook-line-sinker for both of them, as things get pretty intense very quickly.

Sunny is aware of Holden Enterprise's interest in her little piece of beach, but she adamantly refuses to sell and tells Gavin that repeatedly in the 2 days that they discuss the purpose of his visit. Gavin gives up trying to convince her almost immediately, instead seeing her "side" of the argument and deciding that he's going to try and find a way around it. CEO Max Holden, a renowned hot head and control freak, is obviously not happy with Gavin's decision not to pursue the interests of Holden Enterprises. We find out later that it's because Max invested the company's money to buy the surrounding properties under his family's names and bribe city officials to coast through an ordinance to restrict major resorts from building in the town. Millions of dollars are at stake, in addition to Max's title as CEO, and possible jail time for embezzlement/theft and, later during what is considered the climax of the book, attempted murder.

My Take
So, there are some things that left me puzzled/annoyed about this book, and I'm a little irritated that, after reading a lot of reviews about this book, I'm the first one to point these issues out. But it HAS to be said; this is far from a 5-star book and, as a readership, we need to raise our standards. For the kids, people! Do you want them growing up in a world where mediocrity is celebrated at the same level as a true talent? To borrow a line from one of my favorite movies, "Heaven and earth! —of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?" Well, maybe not that bad. So, here are my issues:

1. NO CONFLICT

First and most importantly, there was no conflict between the hero and the heroine... at least not the meaningful kind that sustains a romance novel. He didn't lie to her, she didn't keep any secrets, they were 100% honest and completely on the same page for the majority of the book. CONFLICT is what makes us care about characters and want to know what's going to happen next... not what kind of body jewelry the heroine is wearing or if the guy's hot-headed boss is going to fire him.

Both had instant attraction right off the bat, and there was nothing stopping them from entering into a romantic relationship. Usually in any novel, the hero and heroine must both overcome conflicts to reach the ultimate reward of a loving and fulfilling relationship with their significant other. Neither Sunny or Gavin faced an obstacle to their imminent relationship, so when they inevitably got together it was very... just... ho-hum. Saw that comin' a mile away. Let's be honest here: we're reading romance, we all know what the ending will be. What makes it something worth reading is the conflict within each character about his or her reaction to the oh-shit-I-think-I'm-falling-in-love feeling.

 

There's a REASON that you're in your 30s and you're single, and it's not because you were "too busy" to fall in love. As Hitch says, "No woman wakes up saying, 'God, I hope I don't get swept off my feet today.'" Every single man and woman is looking for someone to accept and love them. Though we all have those barriers in our lives, our "amour" against feeling vulnerable, deep down, we all need the same thing. And there is a reason that some people make it later in life without finding it: they don't want it.

 

Gavin and Sunny are both in their 30s and single, and neither have a concrete reason for being that way. It's not like either are too emotionally scarred to let the other in. Sunny had a nice opening for that with all of her childhood issues but it didn't come up ONCE as a barrier. You have to add the personal conflict to the plot conflict in order to show us that this is not your average relationship and introduce the sexual tension/love element that we're looking for in romance. There just wasn't enough of what Michael Hague calls the "tug of war" between the characters' fronts, or personas, versus the person that they are deep down inside. And not having that really ruined it for me.

WOULD'VE BEEN/ COULD'VE BEEN/ IF ONLY.....

• It would have been a better or more believable romantic conflict if Sunny DID NOT act interested in him or attracted to him at the onset of the book. Even if she did feel that way, hiding her feelings from the hero would have added an interesting layer of conflict from which the sexual tension between the characters could have grown.
• It would have been better if there was a real obstacle from them getting together, for example:
• Let's say Sunny's brother was really young and impressionable; no one wants to be slutting around when they are trying to raise a child.
• Let's say that Gavin was actually the REAL corporate executive, wore the suit, talked the talk, and basically really used her to get the "in" he had been looking or in Anticue to get her to sell. We do learn from his own thoughts that doing such a thing is exactly within his character (or what we're led to believe about his character). If he totally used and abused her trust from the get-go, they would have had a serious obstacle to overcome.
• Let's say we had a surprise visit from Sunny's mother who abandoned them when she was young, or her father who worked at the coal mines. In my opinion, Sunny doesn't seem emotionally damaged enough by her past; she's not holding on to any lingering hurt or issues from such a sordid upbringing. She's not even the fiercely independent character you're hoping for in someone who raised her sibling; she's much too easy-going with the idea of Gavin coming into her life and just making himself comfortable, cooking in her kitchen, and basically taking over. I think there is only one incidence where she mentions that it bothers her, and only in passing. We don't get the kind of emotional reaction that would create tension in the relationship.
• It would have been better if Callie was more than just some "sister-type" who was mooning over the hero. It would have been INFINITELY better if Callie was Gavin's dream girl and she hadn't paid attention to him at all, even after all of his attempts to win her. Enter Sunny, and now Callie sees an attraction building, and she doesn't like the idea of losing the attention/affection of anyone, even if it's someone she never intended on being with. Imagine the drama and sparks that could fly if Callie took a more active role in the story and really made life hell for a budding relationship.

Simply stated, their whole relationship-- from initial meeting to proclamation of I love you, let's be an item--was just too damn easy to be interesting.

2. TOO MUCH TOO QUICK

• No female bartender (by nature, a very skeptical breed of woman) with a 3-year dry spell takes off her shirt and lets a well-dressed stranger get to 2nd (might-as-well-almost-call-it-3rd) base after a 3-hour acquaintance, most of which he spent elsewhere. [[They met a little before 8pm, he drove an hour back to Myrtle Beach to drop off Callie & Co, an hour back to Anticue, and was back on the highway leading into the town by 10:15pm.]]
• I've estimated that they knew of each other for a period of approximately 15 hours before they had sex, and the only reason they didn't have sex immediately on the night they met was because they were interrupted. Again, her reasons behind the 3-year dry spell are very weak (she is her younger brother's guardian so she claims that there hasn't been the time/energy/inclination with working and raising him). 

WOULD'VE BEEN/ COULD'VE BEEN/ IF ONLY.....
Now, this would've been believable IF:

1. We knew that Sunny was ON A MISSION to get laid and saw an opportunity in the form of tall, rich, and handsome at the right place right time.
2. If she was slutty and made it a habit to sleep with patrons, which we KNOW is not her style.
3. They knew each other previously and they were rekindling an acquaintance.
4. There was some kind of a bet/dare that was set down and seducing Gavin would be a means to an end.
5. She was drunk and uninhibited.

Any of those reasons would have made COMPLETE sense to me, but the only motivation for this behavior we were given was that he was cute and he showed up. It's just not good enough for a romance novel. The WHOLE NOVEL is about these two characters; you've got to make it a little more interesting than, "I decided I deserved a one-night fling."

3. VILLAIN? WHAT VILLAIN?

The first rule of writing a novel is knowing (and taking advantage of the fact) that not every character is going to be Captain America with his unfailing integrity and shiny shield. It's essential to have a bad guy and make him or her as bad as he or she can possibly, conceivably, and legitimately (for the purposes of your story/motivation) be. It's not enough to have the conflict as "big 'ole corporate America is coming".... especially not in a romance novel.

In Last Call, the villain was Holden Enterprises with Max Holden, CEO at the helm. However, Max did not fulfill the role of Evil Villain to the extent, depth, and breadth that he could have. For example, Max never left Myrtle Beach and confronted Sunny/Gavin directly. Max never made a direct threat, and when confronted, denied all knowledge and involvement. Finally, and most importantly, Max did not threaten Sunny/Gavin's relationship and did not create a conflict between the characters.

WOULD'VE BEEN/ COULD'VE BEEN/ IF ONLY.....

• It would have been so much better if, from the start, Gavin was Max's right-hand man and did whatever he could to secure the success of Holden Enterprises and his mentor. From the opening pages of the novel we're aware that Gavin is having all of these second thoughts about this life that we never see/experience as "The Closer." It's alluded to that Gavin used to be a bad guy in corporate America, but it's hard to buy it because we don't see the transformation during the course of the story. If you had started him as the selfish, egotistical, business- and career-driven, I'm-going-to-step-on-anyone-who-interferes-with-my-plans, manipulative head honcho type (think Nicholas Cage's character in Family Man), it would have SHOWN US the villain in Max, who turned him into this person, and groomed him to lead an underhanded business just as he did.
• It would have been so much better if Max's daughter hated him, and we (and Gavin) did not know why. When a parent loses the love of a child and doesn't care to do whatever he or she can to get it back, you know there is something fundamentally wrong at the core of that person, aka: evil. Callie's hero worship of her father and the amazing relationship they had makes you wonder about the man himself, and you know that he's not ALL bad if he is loved by his family and still married (even if there is some tension). You'd have to either be really good at hiding it-- like in The Godfather movies-- or you can't be all that bad of a person, which is of course the case here. Unfortunately.
• It could have been really interesting to see the whole conflict come to an alarming and scary climax with Max coming to Anticue and starting the fire in the bar himself. I think we really missed out on something in the resolution of the conflict (or what is passing for conflict in this novel) by not having a confrontation. This is what should have happened:
• Max should have been furious that his own daughter would turn against him and betray him. He is completely crazed, if we're to believe Callie, by the fact that now Gavin owns the pier in Anticue because of her. His entire LIFE, reputation, everything is ruined.... and all because the man that he treated like a son betrayed him. Max should have (possibly) physically harmed Callie, drove to Anticue, burned down what was left of the pier--Gavin's property/memory, so a direct hit-- and started the fire in the bar himself in a very obvious and very flagrant way, not by lighting a cigarette that (whoops) water dripped on it so it's all over. The bar should have been on fire, and Sunny and Gavin should have smelled the smoke from the pier, which woke them, and when they went downstairs to investigate, saw Max setting it. Maybe there was another physical confrontation, this time between Gavin and Max, and maybe Max's high blood pressure finally resulted in that heart attack/stroke they had all feared earlier. While Sunny is rushing to save her property and put the fire out, Gavin drags Max out of the building to save him from the flames and calls 911. There's untold damage to the bar, the pier is decimated, and we leave the scene wondering how these people are going to get through this cataclysmic event and pull their lives back together.

I know that it's not easy to write a novel, (believe me, I have about 12 unfinished manuscripts on my computer reminding me that it takes a very special person to write "the end") and it's easy for me to sit here and nit-pick about how things could have been done differently. It's just so hard to see a novel with such strong potential crash and burn as badly as Last Call, especially when all of the elements were there to make it something really special. And I don't even blame the author for all of this; I blame the editors who read this book and approved it, I blame the "beta readers" who were trying to save feelings by not pointing out its flaws. As a moonlighting writer and, in my day job, an editor, we are considered "The Experts" here; authors look to us for guidance on their projects. We've read enough to know what works and what doesn't work, and how it can be tweaked to really shine to its best advantage. It's a shame that this book wasn't all it could have been...... which is of course the point of this post. Not all novels are winners, but all novels COULD be.

In other news, though, we all know that books don't always sell for their storylines. Apparently a lot of people liked the kinky sexual elements here, including the nipple necklaces (which I've never heard of before this... does that make me totally naïve? I had to google it!) Though I've personally found better stranger-in-a-bar sex (please read the Knight & Play/ Knight & Stay series if you really want to lose your socks!) I thought the peppermint schnapps was interesting. I can't say it did it for me, personally, but then again, we all have the thing that really win our emotions over. I'm happy to see that Last Call did it for so many other readers!!

NetGalley

I have the most exciting news to share! NetGalley has approved my request to review 2 new titles, "Lovestruck in London" and "Last Call!"

My friend Amelia from Little Thoughts About Books (http://littlethoughtsaboutbooks.blogspot.com/) first told me about NetGalley as a way to get free books to read. And I figured, why not? I'm going to be writing about them anyway... might as well not pay for them and do everyone a favor while I'm at it! :)

It's such an honor to be chosen to review for NetGalley. They prefer reviewers to be "Amazon Vine" members...... didn't know what THAT was until I looked it up, haha... or in The Industry as a publisher, a librarian, etc. Since I'm neither of those things, since apparently medical publishing does not count (LOL), it's so cool that they said that I could review. Stay tuned for some interesting new books! 

Beautiful Creatures: Movie Clip and Book Review

 I first heard about "Beautiful Creatures" last year at some point, when word first got out that they would be turning the series into a movie. My sister-in-law was practically jumping up and down telling us, she was THAT excited.

She and I share a love of reading, though our tastes don't normally run along the same genres. I can't remember exactly what she said about it, but I think the words "YA novel" were in there somewhere, which is why I never decided to pick it up.

The movie previews were where I really started paying attention. Did you see it? Watch the clip:



Pretty cool, right? So, after completely falling in love with the movie and NEEDING TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED NEXT (gah!) I asked my SIL if I could borrow her book.

WHEW! Talk about blown away. I'll first preface by saying that this is a young adult novel. For those of you who don't know what this means, think Twilight teenage angst, in high school, with all the (melo)drama you can and do not want to remember from your past. It's all there. The popular girls, picking on the one who is "different," the relationship between a girl and a boy that is so heartbreakingly full of yearning/infatuation/treacherous people who want to see them torn apart (aka, the adults who love them and care for them).... you get it. It's all of that, plus a little more.

The "little more" is the actual plot here: the battle between good and evil, the fight over one's soul, and the people who will lie and betray the ones they love to reach their goal. This is what made me want to review this book. This, and the message in the books in Ethan's mother's library: CLAIM YOURSELF. 

For me, this novel is about the choices that we all make during our formative years that turn us into the adults that we will become. Ethan Wate, whose voice carries us through the novel, explains how the town of Gatlin is stuck in a perpetual state of repetitiveness, from the reenactment of the Civil War every single year, the DAR ladies who have young women who turn into the next generation of the DAR, to the same two dress stores, the same ice floating in the same sweet tea, the same, the same, the same. And he can't wait to get out and go to college, somewhere new, and escape the "hamster wheel" that is Gatlin. That is, until Lena Duchannes moves into the Old Ravenwood Plantation to live with her uncle, Macon Ravenwood, also known as "Old Man Ravenwood," the town shut-in, and turns Ethan's world completely upside down.

Lena is a Caster (or witch, for all of you "muggles" out there) and on her 16th birthday, she will discover whether she is Light or Dark. For her, this is a crucial turning point in her life: nothing in her world is bigger than the moment where she finds out if she is a good witch or a bad witch, because everything in her life will change. According to her Uncle Macon, "...you won't feel remorse, because you won't be yourself. The person you are now will be dead. ...Within a few months, your heart will be so dark, (Ethan) won't mean anything to you." When the novel first starts, Lena has 156 days until her birthday. Which means she has 156 days to break a curse with a situation eerily similar to the one in which she finds herself: in love with a mortal who, at the end of the story, dies because of her. And she'll do anything to bring him back, including using the most powerful Caster book there is, The Book of Moons.

There's also the mystery of Ethan. Who is he, really? It's the same thing we asked ourselves about Bella in Twilight. We know there's something different about him, something more than we're seeing, but the answer to that question is not in the first book.

I really liked this book, and I'm okay with the differences in the endings between the book and the movie. I really enjoyed both and I'm looking forward to continuing the series in print and on the silver screen. If you're a Twilight fan, enjoy stories that take place in the Southern part of the country (think voodoo/dropping "g's"), this might be a book you'd enjoy! I'm a Harry Potter fan and as I was reading, I couldn't stop thinking about The Great Battle between good and evil and what a remarkable and compelling storyline it can create in a book. If I had enough time I'd totally draft an argument for the similarities and differences between the two series, and how one individual can play a pivotal role in the fate of the world.


This book is about a lot of things: the love of family, sacrifice, choosing to be who you want to be and not sitting passively by and just letting your fate be decided for you. It's shaping up to be a great series, and if you're looking for something new to start you should check it out! 

STATS:
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Creatures-ebook/dp/B008CJ23A6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374264074&sr=8-1&keywords=beautiful+creatures

Received 4.3 out of 5 stars (by 3,370 Amazon users [WOW!])

Kindle edition sells for $5.69 and Marshalls is selling a hard copy of the book for $5 (I saw it yesterday, haha). You can also borrow it from your local library for free, even the Kindle edition (see my Kindle Paperwhite blog for more info on downloading from your local library). 

Have a great weekend!

My Chemical Burn Experience

I've had a lot going on recently, which has made blogging move to the back burner.

Speaking of burning, on Monday during work I sustained a chemical burn from applying a topical arthritis pain relief cream called Capzasin. THAT was fun. Have you ever had a chemical burn from a product? If you have, I know your pain. If not, let me tell you what helped me, so if you or someone in your life comes crying to you for help (like I did with my father, whom I'm convinced knows everything), you'll know what to do! This is  valuable information because most Web sites tell you to WRAP IT IN GAUZE. Really? REALLY? That's your solution?! Clearly these people do not know how much that hurts.

**I am not a doctor and I have no medical training. Everything below is a faithful recounting of what happened to me, in my specific situation. Every medical condition and each person is different and reaction to a stimulus should be considered on an individual basis.**


The active ingredient in Capzasin is Capsaicin 0.1%, which is the ingredient found in different types of hot peppers, such as cayenne peppers, that makes the peppers spicy hot (according to WebMD: http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/tc/capsaicin-topic-overview). 

Interestingly, capsaicin helps relieve pain "by first stimulating and then decreasing the intensity of pain signals in the body. Although pain may at first increase, it usually decreases after the first use. Capsaicin stimulates the release of a compound believed to be involved in communicating pain between the nerves in the spinal cord and other parts of the body." So, needless to say, when I went to apply it for my knee pain after days of tennis, I thought I'd be in for a warm sensation that would "numb" my nerves in the area so that I could keep playing. I mean, that's what you got from it too, right?

According to the pharmacist at Walgreens, some people are just more sensitive to the compounds in this particular medicine that others of its ilk. In the interest of full disclosure, though, please be aware that ANY topical ointment applied to the skin for the relief of mild muscle and joint pain--if used incorrectly or with too much frequency--can cause a chemical burn. Please read this warning from the FDA concerning these products: http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm318858.htm

So, now that you have a little background, here is my specific story:

I went to the RiteAid by work at 12:30 and bought Capzasin for $15.99. It's in the 90s here on the East coast, so--even though I was a little warm from running around during my lunch break--I put it right on my knees around 12:45. By 1:13, I knew something was seriously wrong and decided to wash it off with soap and water. You're looking at a picture taken at approximately 1:20'ish, which is what I sent to my uncle and cousin (who are both pharmacists) and my other cousin, who is a nurse.
The burning was pretty severe and seemed to become worse over time, so I left work early and headed home.

I imagine that what I experienced was like how it feels to have your skin slowly burned by fire. Call me dramatic, but I'm willing to bet that it wasn't very far off. The burning sensation didn't go away after I washed off the medicine; it only seemed to get worse. I made it home by 2pm, hysterical and barely able to bend my knees. Even just touching the area with my fingertips was painful; sunlight felt like a different level of slow searing. 

Here's what my dad did:

• Ice cold compresses, soaked in ice water, and applied immediately; change or wash frequently as the medicine might still be on the skin's surface.
• After I was cooled down enough to tolerate the idea of removing the cool cloths, my dad applied pure aloe from an aloe plant in the house. I wasn't allowed to put the cloths back on until the aloe was absorbed. TORTURE!
• He let me put them on again for maybe 5-10 minutes, resoaking them constantly, before removing them again to put baking soda on the affected area. He said that, with chemicals, you need to neutralize the effect they are creating on the surface of the skin. I was skeptical at first, but I truly think that this is when I had my "turning point" in the process.
• More ice cold compresses, after the baking soda had been "rubbed in" as much as I could tolerate. (Needless to say, the cold compresses were the essential part of this process for me.) More aloe was applied about an hour or so later; by then, my knees were numb from the cold, but feeling better than I had been since I first put that stuff on. Here's what I looked like at around 3:15pm.
   
   

  
  

  So this went on for the rest of the night. I had cold compresses and aloe on until around 10pm. The pain was mostly gone; it felt like sunburn at that point, with a weird tingling sensation. You still couldn't touch it without causing pain, but after several hours of treatment I was well enough to sleep without feeling nearly as bad as I did. This is what it looked like when I went to bed around 10pm or so:

   

   

  
  

  HUGE difference-- and a lot more tolerable! Just wanted to give a big THANK YOU to my Dad and to my husband, who took care of me when I was at my worst. Love you guys!

  
  

  And Dad, you're my hero. Don't know what I would have done without you.

  
  

  Today I am fully recovered and can't wait to share a review of "Beautiful Creatures" within the next few days. Stay tuned!

The Snowflake Method: The Importance of Design

Have you heard of "The Snowflake Method" for writing a novel?

Randy Ingermanson, the self-proclaimed "Snowflake Guy," was a software architect who now uses the Koch mathematical snowflake fractal to design novels via the snowflake method.

Check this out to see what that means: http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/frac/koch/koch.html

The idea here is to start with a basic principle-- your first triangle--and develop and build all of the aspects of your story as that second, third, fourth, twenty-sixth triangle in order to create a well-structured novel.

 

The following Ten Steps are Ingermanson's process to create a design document that allows you to see the "holes" in your story before you get started, thereby saving valuable time and maintaining the creative process of working through a majority of the problems before you even sit down to write the prose. I'm not sure what professional best-selling authors do, what method they use or if they have one of those "fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants" approaches, but I thought this might be helpful for those of you who are more meticulous planners so I wanted to share!

The Ten Steps of Design

 

—STEP 1—

Take an hour and write a one-sentence summary of your novel. Something like this: “A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul.” (This is the summary for my first novel, Transgression.) The sentence will serve you forever as a ten-second selling tool. This is the big picture, the analog of that big starting triangle in the snowflake picture. When you later write your book proposal, this sentence should appear very early in the proposal. It’s the hook that will sell your book to your editor, to your committee, to the sales force, to bookstore owners, and ultimately to readers. So make the best one you can!

Some hints on what makes a good sentence:

• Shorter is better. Try for fewer than 15 words.
• No character names, please! Better to say “a handicapped trapeze artist” than “Jane Doe”.
• Tie together the big picture and the personal picture. Which character has the most to lose in this story? Now tell me what he or she wants to win.
• Read the one-line blurbs on the New York Times Bestseller list to learn how to do this. Writing a one-sentence description is an art form.

 

—STEP 2—

Take another hour and expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the novel. This is the analog of the second stage of the snowflake. I like to structure a story as “three disasters plus an ending.” Each of the disasters takes a quarter of the book to develop and the ending takes the final quarter. I don’t know if this is the ideal structure, it’s just my personal taste.

If you believe in the Three-Act structure, then the first disaster corresponds to the end of Act 1. The second disaster is the mid-point of Act 2. The third disaster is the end of Act 2, and forces Act 3 which wraps things up. It is OK to have the first disaster be caused by external circumstances, but I think that the second and third disasters should be caused by the protagonist’s attempts to “fix things.” Things just get worse and worse.

You can also use this paragraph in your proposal. Ideally, your paragraph will have about five sentences. One sentence to give me the backdrop and story setup. Then one sentence each for your three disasters. Then one more sentence to tell the ending. Don’t confuse this paragraph with the back-cover copy for your book. This paragraph summarizes the whole story. Your back-cover copy should summarize only about the first quarter of the story.

—STEP 3—

The above gives you a high-level view of your novel. Now you need something similar for the storylines of each of your characters. Characters are the most important part of any novel, and the time you invest in designing them up front will pay off ten-fold when you start writing. For each of your major characters, take an hour and write a one-page summary sheet that tells the following:

• The character’s name
• A one-sentence summary of the character’s storyline
• The character’s motivation (what does he/she want abstractly?)
• The character’s goal (what does he/she want concretely?)
• The character’s conflict (what prevents him/her from reaching this goal?)
• The character’s epiphany (what will he/she learn, how will he/she change?
• A one-paragraph summary of the character’s storyline

An important point: You may find that you need to go back and revise your one-sentence summary and/or your one-paragraph summary. Go ahead! This is good–it means your characters are teaching you things about your story. It’s always okay at any stage of the design process to go back and revise earlier stages. In fact, it’s not just okay–it’s inevitable. And it’s good. Any revisions you make now are revisions you won’t need to make later on to a clunky 400 page manuscript.
Another important point: It doesn’t have to be perfect. The purpose of each step in the design process is to advance you to the next step. Keep your forward momentum! You can always come back later and fix it when you understand the story better. You will do this too, unless you’re a lot smarter than I am.

—STEP 4—

By this stage, you should have a good idea of the large-scale structure of your novel, and you have only spent a day or two. Well, truthfully, you may have spent as much as a week, but it doesn’t matter. If the story is broken, you know it now, rather than after investing 500 hours in a rambling first draft. So now just keep growing the story. Take several hours and expand each sentence of your summary paragraph into a full paragraph. All but the last paragraph should end in a disaster. The final paragraph should tell how the book ends.
This is a lot of fun, and at the end of the exercise, you have a pretty decent one-page skeleton of your novel. It’s okay if you can’t get it all onto one single-spaced page. What matters is that you are growing the ideas that will go into your story. You are expanding the conflict. You should now have a synopsis suitable for a proposal, although there is a better alternative for proposals . . .

—STEP 5—

Take a day or two and write up a one-page description of each major character and a half-page description of the other important characters. These “character synopses” should tell the story from the point of view of each character. As always, feel free to cycle back to the earlier steps and make revisions as you learn cool stuff about your characters. I usually enjoy this step the most and lately, I have been putting the resulting “character synopses” into my proposals instead of a plot-based synopsis. Editors love character synopses, because editors love character-based fiction.

—STEP 6—

By now, you have a solid story and several story-threads, one for each character. Now take a week and expand the one-page plot synopsis of the novel to a four-page synopsis. Basically, you will again be expanding each paragraph from step (4) into a full page. This is a lot of fun, because you are figuring out the high-level logic of the story and making strategic decisions. Here, you will definitely want to cycle back and fix things in the earlier steps as you gain insight into the story and new ideas whack you in the face.

—STEP 7—

Take another week and expand your character descriptions into full-fledged character charts detailing everything there is to know about each character. The standard stuff such as birthdate, description, history, motivation, goal, etc. Most importantly, how will this character change by the end of the novel? This is an expansion of your work in step (3), and it will teach you a lot about your characters. You will probably go back and revise steps 1 through 6 as your characters become “real” to you and begin making petulant demands on the story. This is good — great fiction is character-driven. Take as much time as you need to do this, because you’re just saving time downstream. When you have finished this process, (and it may take a full month of solid effort to get here), you have most of what you need to write a proposal. If you are a published novelist, then you can write a proposal now and sell your novel before you write it. If you’re not yet published, then you’ll need to write your entire novel first before you can sell it. No, that’s not fair, but life isn’t fair and the world of fiction writing is especially unfair.

—STEP 8—

You may or may not take a hiatus here, waiting for the book to sell. At some point, you’ve got to actually write the novel. Before you do that, there are a couple of things you can do to make that traumatic first draft easier. The first thing to do is to take that four-page synopsis and make a list of all the scenes that you’ll need to turn the story into a novel. And the easiest way to make that list is . . . with a spreadsheet.
For some reason, this is scary to a lot of writers. Oh the horror. Deal with it. You learned to use a word-processor. Spreadsheets are easier. You need to make a list of scenes, and spreadsheets were invented for making lists. If you need some tutoring, buy a book. There are a thousand out there, and one of them will work for you. It should take you less than a day to learn the itty bit you need. It’ll be the most valuable day you ever spent. Do it.
Make a spreadsheet detailing the scenes that emerge from your four-page plot outline. Make just one line for each scene. In one column, list the POV character. In another (wide) column, tell what happens. If you want to get fancy, add more columns that tell you how many pages you expect to write for the scene. A spreadsheet is ideal, because you can see the whole storyline at a glance, and it’s easy to move scenes around to reorder things.
My spreadsheets usually wind up being over 100 lines long, one line for each scene of the novel. As I develop the story, I make new versions of my story spreadsheet. This is incredibly valuable for analyzing a story. It can take a week to make a good spreadsheet. When you are done, you can add a new column for chapter numbers and assign a chapter to each scene.

—STEP 9—

(Optional. I don’t do this step anymore.) Switch back to your word processor and begin writing a narrative description of the story. Take each line of the spreadsheet and expand it to a multi-paragraph description of the scene. Put in any cool lines of dialogue you think of, and sketch out the essential conflict of that scene. If there’s no conflict, you’ll know it here and you should either add conflict or scrub the scene.
I used to write either one or two pages per chapter, and I started each chapter on a new page. Then I just printed it all out and put it in a loose-leaf notebook, so I could easily swap chapters around later or revise chapters without messing up the others. This process usually took me a week and the end result was a massive 50-page printed document that I would revise in red ink as I wrote the first draft. All my good ideas when I woke up in the morning got hand-written in the margins of this document. This, by the way, is a rather painless way of writing that dreaded detailed synopsis that all writers seem to hate. But it’s actually fun to develop, if you have done steps (1) through (8) first. When I did this step, I never showed this synopsis to anyone, least of all to an editor — it was for me alone. I liked to think of it as the prototype first draft. Imagine writing a first draft in a week! Yes, you can do it and it’s well worth the time. But I’ll be honest, I don’t feel like I need this step anymore, so I don’t do it now.

—STEP 10—

At this point, just sit down and start pounding out the real first draft of the novel. You will be astounded at how fast the story flies out of your fingers at this stage. I have seen writers triple their fiction writing speed overnight, while producing better quality first drafts than they usually produce on a third draft.
You might think that all the creativity is chewed out of the story by this time. Well, no, not unless you overdid your analysis when you wrote your Snowflake. This is supposed to be the fun part, because there are many small-scale logic problems to work out here. How does Hero get out of that tree surrounded by alligators and rescue Heroine who’s in the burning rowboat? This is the time to figure it out! But it’s fun because you already know that the large-scale structure of the novel works. So you only have to solve a limited set of problems, and so you can write relatively fast.
This stage is incredibly fun and exciting. I have heard many fiction writers complain about how hard the first draft is. Invariably, that’s because they have no clue what’s coming next. Good grief! Life is too short to write like that! There is no reason to spend 500 hours writing a wandering first draft of your novel when you can write a solid one in 150. Counting the 100 hours it takes to do the design documents, you come out way ahead in time.
About midway through a first draft, I usually take a breather and fix all the broken parts of my design documents. Yes, the design documents are not perfect. That’s okay. The design documents are not fixed in concrete, they are a living set of documents that grows as you develop your novel. If you are doing your job right, at the end of the first draft you will laugh at what an amateurish piece of junk your original design documents were. And you’ll be thrilled at how deep your story has become.
Over the years, I’ve taught the Snowflake method to hundreds of writers at conferences. I’ve also had this article posted here on my web site for a long time, and the page has now been viewed over 2,400,000 times. I’ve heard from many, many writers. Some people love the Snowflake; some don’t. My attitude is that if it works for you, then use it. If only parts of it work for you, then use only those parts.I write my own novels using the Snowflake method. Make no mistake — it’s a fair bit of work. For a long time, I did it the hard way, using Microsoft Word to write the text and Microsoft Excel to manage the list of scenes. Unfortunately, neither of those tools knows about the structure of fiction. Finally, I realized that it would be a whole lot easier to work through the method if the tools were designed specially for fiction.

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

Submission for Graduate School

So now that my fifteen minutes (or, for me, 2 whole days!) of fame are over, it's time to get back to work. :)

I have been thinking a lot about what I'm going to submit for my writing sample for graduate school. It's due in 74 DAYS (eeek!) and I still have no clue what I'm going to do. I have some stories I've worked on in the past that are kind of decent and I've been working on this really fun, sexy Work in Progress (WIP) that could be a whole lot more than some of the reviewers were hoping to experience. To give you an idea of what we're talking about here, it opens in a modern-day brothel. (And to be completely honest, I don't even know if such a thing still exists, but I'm willing to bet that it does... at least in my mind.)

Though playing it safe of course seems like the most reasonable thing to do, I have a feeling that I'm not going to do that. The sample only needs to be 10 pages (as opposed to the standard 30-page submission other Universities expect) so it's totally possible to write an amazing 10-page submission like right now. Today. Why not? :)

I've got some ideas that haven't made it past the "Oh, what a cool and different situation..." point so I'm wondering if I can set up a very informal voting period for you, my lovely readers, to give some feedback on which YOU would be most likely/most intrigued to read. Any help or comments will be greatly appreciated! If you think all of these ideas are terrible, that's totally fine, but please tell me why you think that so I can straighten it out or abandon ship on the concept altogether. :)

PITCH #1: Abandoned baby
The story opens in a small town in Arizona where our heroine is out for her morning run. When passing by a large national park, Sara hears a piercing scream followed by whimpering that stops her in her tracks. She looks around and discovers that a newborn baby has been left at the base of a tree, completely nude, surrounded by tea light candles. Though Sara has never been the maternal sort, the baby's obvious distress and the fact that he has clearly been abandoned has her picking him up and bringing him back into town. The weird ceremonial look of where the baby had been left leaves her uneasy, (as does the fact that she has first-hand knowledge of foster homes) so she decides to hide the child until she can figure out what to do. Little does she know that the baby has been abandoned for a reason, and she was not alone when she picked him up.

PITCH #2: Losing it by 30
I've been tossing around the idea of a 30-year old virgin story (NOT anything Steve Carell'ish, thank you very much!) but I thought it would be very applicable to talk about how the dating scene today makes it nearly impossible to find, date, and marry a man after you leave college. 

Key points to hit here are: 

• We have a single, attractive, career-driven woman who is very successful in the medical field. After graduating from a well-respected University with her doctorate, she finally "comes up for air" to realize that all of her friends are in serious relationships, her family members are all married and having babies, and she has--for lack of a better phrase, and in her own mind of course--missed her chance at all of those things everyone else has.
• She's the kind of person who was popular in high school and knows that she'd be teased relentlessly by her boisterous, over-the-top family (especially her brothers) if she even considers putting herself on the Internet. And not that she had really given it much thought, but at this point--and being the meticulous person she is--she briefly considers all options before totally ruling them out.
• No, it's the traditional route for her, so she starts going to happy hours hosted through work after hospital rounds, checking patients for wedding rings, and as a result, starts to get desperate; her 30th birthday is only 6 months away and she's still single, living alone in a one-bedroom apartment.
• Then, her sister announces that she and her longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend are getting married--and expecting--so in one last-ditch effort to find a man, she finds herself at a local college bar in her best dress, where she runs into one of her brothers' friends. And immediately gets to work. 

PITCH #3: The Lakehouse

A man moves back into his childhood home to live with his widowed father after going through a painful divorce that has left him broke, homeless, and wondering where it all went wrong. While trying to carve out a new life, Nick decides to join the local amateur theater group doing set construction in order to get out of the house a few times a week. His past experience in home construction makes him an asset to the group, and to the theater as a whole, as his work captures the attention of the theater’s owner/manager Teresa. While working to build the run-down theater into a show-stopping venue to bring profit to the local community, Nick discovers his purpose—and himself—as he helps to breathe life and prosperity into his hometown.

PITCH #4: Like Father

If you read back (waaayyy back) in my blog, you'll see a post for my WIP "Like Father." I still think this story has a lot of potential even though I have never touched pen to paper about it. 

Please let me know your thoughts!

 

(News and Book Review!) Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

I am so excited to share that one of my favorite books is on an incredible sale right now if you have an eReader! Sarah MacLean's "Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake" is $1.99 for the month of July through amazon.com. It's 436 pages of wonderfully written historical fiction (rated 4.4 out of 5 stars by 216 amazon users) and is published by HarperCollins.
http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Rules-Break-Romancing-ebook/dp/B003C2SP46/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

"Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake" is the first in Sarah MacLean's Nine/Ten/Eleven series and follows Calpurnia "Callie" Hartwell, the proper English miss, on her road to a more adventurous life. On the heels of her younger sister's engagement, Callie comes to the realization that following the rules for unmarried ladies have left her, first of all, single, but more importantly, unsatisfied with her life and the way things are going. She looks into her future and sees all of the things she doesn't enjoy but that she "has" to do--needlework, attending parties, dress fittings, teas--and decides that she has the rest of her life to follow the rules. For now, she wants to reach out and grab the life she has been denying herself for fear of ruining her reputation. Hence "The List" is born.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with historical romance, Callie's list is shockingly beyond the pale for a woman of her wealth, status, and--most importantly--her unwed state. She decides she's going to complete nine items such as drink scotch in a tavern, learn how to fence, attend a duel, gamble, smoke a cheroot, ride astride, all in addition to her most fear-inducing yet desirous item: kissing someone passionately. And she knows exactly who she is going to ask.

For the last ten years, Callie has been infatuated with Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston, who is known throughout London as a rake and a libertine. With a little sherry-induced courage, Callie finds herself on the steps of Ralston house in the middle of the night and led to the Marquess' bedroom, where she asks him to be her first kiss. Which he agrees to, but for a price.

The St. John family has had a little bit of an interesting surprise-- Gabriel and Nick, who are twin brothers--discover that they have a 20-year old half-sister from their infamous mother's marriage to an Italian merchant. Juliana Fiori will be staying in London with her brothers for the next two months (as part of an agreement that the siblings reached) and considering her age, Juliana must be introduced in London society. Who best to lead her through the intricacies and pitfalls than a pillar of the ton and an on-the-shelf, beyond repute spinster such as Lady Calpurnia Hartwell, the daughter of the Earl of Allendale?

This book--and series--are a favorite of mine and lead into the next of Sarah MacLean's series of the brothers of the Fallen Angel, starting with "A Rogue by Any Other Name." As a modern woman reading this story, I can't help thinking about how relevant Callie's story is to us today. Callie's list of things that constitute living should make us all want to evaluate our own lives to see if we are who we want to be at the end of the day because--as Callie shows us--our actions and choices determine who we are, not a silly set of rules or the lives we've lived in the past. Though smoking, gambling, drinking scotch, and kissing are not activities a modern unmarried lady is forbidden to do, we can all relate to the stigma associated with unmarried ladies and the expectations placed upon us by friends, well-meaning family members, and society in general. We do not have to live our lives in a way that will make us more attractive to a man in order to gain a husband; in Callie's case, doing the exact opposite and instead being true to herself was what, in the end, changed the course of her life. I love this story and all that it represents and I hope that you will too! Grab it while it's on sale and let me know what you think of it!