REVIEW: The Midnight Rose by Lucinda Riley

Time hopping, reincarnation, and romance with a little last miute thriller thrown are the rage of late. The most recent entry into this compilation of genres is Lucinda Riley's The Midnight Rose. What begins with a 20-something actress filming in the English countryside while a 90-year-old Indian matriarch entrusts her legacy with her business obsessed grandson travels through the first world war in England, a maharajah's palace, and a young Indian woman coming into her own and crossing cultural and caste barriers for love.

Rebecca is a talented actress at the rising peak of her career. She needs to decide whether or not to accept her boyfriend's proposal of marriage as she embarks for her next movie filming in England. She finds the palatial Astbury Hall imposing and beautiful and quiet as the current lord of the manner welcomes her into his home while she is filming.

Anahita is an 11-year-old girl of royal lineage whose family has fallen on hard times. When she makes friends with the wayward and headstrong princess Indira, she changes her fortunes. Anahita, Anni to friends and family, becomes Indira's companion and is schooled in England along with her friend. Life is very different in cold and wet Britain, but it also offers Anni a chance to broaden her horizons and discover love -- and death.

These two young women are fated to cross paths through Anni's grandson who is trying to find out Anni's history and the truth about her son Moh's fate.

Riley cuts a broad swath through three continents and nearly 100 years of history in her attempt to bring the intricate tale to of The Midnight Rose  to life. The characters are interesting but come off a bit 2-dimensional outside of Anahita, Rebecca Bradley, and Ari, Anahita's grandson, Ari. These three are more richly developed than the rest, although there are quirks and some details that stand out in all the characters.

What is difficult to believe is the ending of the story, or at least the high point of a last minute intrigue that was not well developed or worked into the plot. The Midnight Rose is a sprawling book that could have been longer and fared better with all the plot lines. So much of the situations and relationships seem rushed and incomplete as though some of the details got lost in translation.

Outside of mentions of filming and sitting in Makeup, there is little information about the career that is central to Rebecca's life. The zenana in the Maharajah's court is more detailed and given much more time and attention. Much of the venues in The Midnight Rose are sketched in, but Riley seems more interested in life in India and Anahita than the rest of the characters and plots she attempts to weave together. Riley wastes no time in using every trick in the romance guide in setting up and breaking up the relationships and little of that is useful or believable.

However, I did enjoy much of The Midnight Rose, even though the actual rose plays a cameo role -- a very small cameo. The first part of the book is slow and doesn't really get moving and interesting until about a third of the way through where it plods and loses its way a bit in the middle only to go racing through the last part of the book. Anahita's story is fascinating and her view of London and the world outside of the British Raj is predictably difficult and clannish. The book could use a few hundred more pages to do the subject justice and give the characters room to grow and evolve. I'd give The Midnight Rose 3/5 stars for effort and some wonderful historical details.

Review: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I was fascinated by the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha, and decided, as I often do, to get the book. I was not disappointed.

There were several changes from book to movie, like changing the Minister of Finance to an American army officer and giving Nobu-san back his arm, among other things, but reading the original did not take away from the experience of the movie. It is best in cases like this where the movie is good to treat book and movie as separate. There was no mention of Sayuri's danna or the trip to the island where Sayuri plans to make sure that Nobu-san does not become her danna as this was replaced by the American army officer. Again, it did not detract from the book or the writing.

Memoirs of a Geisha is written in a flowing conversational style that is more like confidences between new friends sharing their lives. This is mostly because Arthur Golden took Chiyo/Sayuri's story directly from the source and retained her style and voice. It was very well done and made the story move quickly. I often had a hard time putting the book down and got through the whole story in about 2 days even though I worked and did other projects as well.

I was captivated by the story and the details of life in a geisha district. It was different from the world I know, but not completely unknown since I have been exposed to Japanese culture through my father and our military travels. I already knew that geisha were not prostitutes but entertainers.

Where the movie excelled was in depicting the artistic moments of dance, the richness of the culture, and the beauty of kimono. The book did well to describe the scenes and kimono, but there is no substitute for seeing the real thing, and yet Golden did an exemplary job of describing the scenes and characters with rich detail that sparked imagination.

There is so much detail in Memoirs of a Geisha that reading it several more times will be a pleasure, gleaning every detail to its smallest moment. The book is rich in cultural detail and emotion and the story, although simply told, is one that crosses cultural boundaries. Who has not loved and lost only to find love again while bearing the anguish of possibilities hoped for that may never be realized? Memoirs of a Geisha is such a story and one that remains poignant and palpably real in the shifting landscape of a disappearing Japanese culture that had lasted for centuries. I highly recommend the book -- and the movie.

He Likes Me

Chili Bob called me yesterday morning to chat. Aside from his ankle issues, he mostly talked about his youngest daughter and her first boyfriend. She has commented on her Facebook page that she's feeling wonderful. That can only be the whores moaning -- in the vernacular, hormones talking.

Beth is in the first flush of love, her first love and she's nearly out of high school. He likes me rings through her mind as she mentally plucks the petals of a mutant rose or daisy filled with petals that tell her 'he likes me, he likes me, he likes me...' There are not petals so perverse as to whisper 'he likes me not,' not at this stage of the flush. The world is brighter and the colors more spectacular. Food has no taste because the words 'he likes me' taste so good nothing can compare, not even her favorite deep fried turkey and sweet potato souffle.

Nothing tastes as satisfying as those words, probably because Beth has come to love so late in her teenage years and, for the first time in her life, she knows how it feels to be liked -- by a boy -- a cute boy. It's the same feeling that Sally Field set the movie industry snickering over and Stephanie Meyer turned to box office and literary gold -- the late bloomer overwhelmed by endorphins and questionable judgment. He likes me.

I remember those feelings. Doesn't everyone? I came to them early, before I started school, and felt them often whenever a new boy cast his eyes my way and smiled right before he rushed over to ask me to go steady. Parties where we played kissing games were extra sweet when THE BOY had to kiss me amidst titters, teasing, and tinges of red in my cheeks.

Beth didn't have those roller coaster times. She has spent her time playing basketball and auditioning for leads in plays all over the northwestern part of Ohio -- and getting most of them. She played ingenue and romantic leads opposite men and boys, feigning those emotions she never had the time or the interest to try on for real. It was all make-believe until HE came.

It's probably not that surprising HE was someone she knew from auditions and plays they acted in together and this time life imitated art. That they share the same passions (acting and singing and dancing, and a little bit of basketball) helps the romance along, but it's really just two teenagers getting together for the first time as they bounce around on endorphins while their whores keep moaning. Loudly. Often. He likes me.

None of us are immune to the power of 'he likes me,' not even as adults. Once the endorphins ping and the whores moan, we are lost -- unless we're too jaded and experienced to even notice. Not even money and stock options can take away that thrill. He likes me. The most secluded and antisocial of hermits will come out of their caves smiling, eyes twinkling when they realize -- he likes me. It's human nature. It's biology. It's the thrill of new love when everything is limned in golden light that blurs imperfections and hides flaws and inconsistencies.

Those first golden days, weeks, months (however long) allow carte blanche for mistakes, blunders, errors, and outright lies. The whores are moaning too loudly for anything else to get through. He likes me. It's no wonder that love turns to hate when the cracks in the foundation appear and all beings to crumble into the relentless sea of 'but he liked me.' From there, the rapid slide into pain and disbelief and outright stalking with intent to maim, torture, and punish drown out the last vestiges of 'he likes me' until there is only an infinetessimal skoch of hope. Even that little flicker of fading light will flare up again when the realization dawns that 'he likes me.' All hatred dissolves until all that is left is that all encompassing golden light and smiles ride the waves of endorphins and whores moaning once again. The subsequent crashes are more spectacular -- and far more dangerous -- until 'he likes me' whispers once again. No wonder people prefer the roller coaster to the carousel where there are no highs and lows, no depths of despair and volcanoes of anger and betrayal to counter the dizzying heights of 'he likes me.' But who can live on such titanic emotional struggles for long?

'He likes me.'

Remember how that feels, but be wary. Few loves can last such frustrating and delirious emotions for long before burning out and leaving the taste of ashes.

I hope Beth enjoys her first boyfriend and finds her passion for acting, singing, and dance as a balance for her first flush of love. It's safer when you fall if your feet are flat on the ground.

 

Magic at The Majestic

When I read a bad review I want to go directly to the source and read or watch what caused so much trouble -- usually. There are some writers and actors that get an immediate down turned thumb from me. Jim Carrey is at the top of the listu. Yes, he's a great comedian with his rubber face, flat feet and seemingly elastic joints, but he gives me a pain ever since Dumb and Dumber and his performance in Batman as the Joker. I much preferred Cesar Romero.

I decided to take another chance on Carrey and watched The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and I prefer the animated version with Boris Karloff reading the story. It was much closer to Dr. Seuss's tone and message. The multi-car pile-up that was the Carrey version was simply sappy and I didn't even finish watching it, although the little girl who played the little Who girl was quite charming. I avoid Jim Carrey at all costs -- until a couple weeks ago when I decided to give The Majestic a chance. At least it was drama and not comedy, or Carrey's brand of comedy, and he has done fairly well in other dramatic parts before he started believing his press. I was amazed.

The Majestic is nominally about the red scare during the 1950s when Joe McCarthy got a bug up his bottom about communism and communists. This time it was Jim Carrey as a screenwriter post World War II who gets it in the neck by the studio, his fiancee' and his government because he signed a membership roster of what turned out to be a communist group. The screenwriter was in search of the loose morales of a certain young lady of his acquaintance and did not have the hots for socialism or communism.

Carrey decides to run away, or at least put some distance between himsef and Hollywood and the witch hunt, and ends up in a wreck that sends him flying down the river and onto a secluded beach near a small town in northern California where he is mistaken for one of the hometown boys, now missing for nine years. Since he's lost his memory, he reluctantly goes along with the people in hopes of recovering what he's lost. Instead, he finds something he never knew he needed.

The Majestic is about the 1950s, but it could not have been written or produced or shown during that time. Joe McCarthy and his Red vigilante group wouldn't have killed it in its infancy. There is a nostalgic feel that fits post war America through the beginning of the movie that then descends to a bit of camp and thumbing noses at the senate inverstigative committee in front of which Carrey eventually appears. However, the movie still works with all the schmalz and good feelings that characterize this kind of drama. Carrey gives an -- for him -- understated performance that sparkles for the most part. He is real where he needs to be real and honest and eats the scenery a bit in front of the senate committee, for which I think this time he can be forgiven.

Despite the flaws in this movie, I did enjoy it and heartily recommend it for the underlying message of hope and hometown values espoused. It might remind you -- if you're old enough -- that there was a time when going to the movies was a big occasion. People called babysitters and dressed up in their best finery and went to the air conditioned confines of the magic factory where the seats were plush and the surroundings opulent and full of magic. That's the kind of entertainment I remember, the kind that is far from spectacular chase scenes, over done pyrotechnics, special effects that didn't need computers and acting that was dark and gritty and mostly well done. There were stinkers back in the 1950s, too, but it was also the time of Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, and movies that touched the heart like The Boy With the Green Hair. It was magic.

I miss dressing up and going out on the town and so much about the times of my youth, and movies like The Majestic go a long way towards bringing them back. If Jim Carrey continues in this less flamboyant style I may go back to watching his movies. This is the actor who tempted me closer with his short-lived comedy The Duck Factory and didn't completely ruin my belief in his abilities with The Truman Show. Of course, that was before he became famous and lauded for his comedic turns. Give me more of movies like The Majestic no matter who stars, like David Ogden Stiers and Martin Landau, among others, and I will get dressed up and go to the movies once again because that will be entertainment.

The day has arrived

Great Love Letters Valentine Contest

Unafraid to appear silly or be seen as vulnerable, Elizabeth Barrett wrote to Robert Browning, "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach."

From Winston Churchill missing his wife Clementine or Napoleon Bonaparte longing for Josephine, separated by distance, war and circumstances, lovers put their longings, feelings and thoughts on paper. In Past Imperfect, my heroine took five years and a lot of pain and heartache before she made her feelings known to Adrian Cahill in person. John Logan, who was my heroine's friend and companion, kept his love to himself until he is about to lose it and her. Their story would have been much shorter if they had written their love in a letter.

In honor of Valentine's Day, imagine a time without telephones, cell phones, and email and write a letter to your great love and capture a prize. Use your great love's name or keep your great love a secret like Beethoven's Immortal Beloved. Write what you cannot or have not been able to say and follow the rules to the letter.

From January 5, 2010 to February 5, 2010 is your chance to join the great lovers of history. In 100 words or less, pour out your heart and soul in a letter to the great love of your life and send it to me at fixnwrtr@gmail.com by midnight Mountain Standard Time on Feb. 5, 2010. On February 14th, Valentine’s Day, the winners will be notified by email and the winning entries published on my blog, Cabin Dreams.

Prizes & Rules

All entrants must include a signed release to publish their love letter if chosen as the winning entry. The following prizes will be awarded:

First prize: A $75 Visa gift certificate one copy of Love Letters Of Great Men And Women: From The Eighteenth Century To The Present Day by C. H. Charles, 22-pc. Godiva Dark Chocolate Truffle Gems and an Autographed copy of Past Imperfect by J. M. Cornwell.

Second prize: A $50 Visa gift certificate, 22-pc Godiva Dark Chocolate Truffle Gems and an autographed copy of Past Imperfect by J. M. Cornwell.

Third prize: A $25 Visa gift certificate, 22-pc Godiva Dark Chocolate Truffle Gems and an autographed copy of Past Imperfect by J. M. Cornwell.

Rules:

1. All entries must be original and less than 100 words included in the body of an email with Great Love Letters Valentine Contest in the subject line with first name only at the end of the love letter, and include a digitally signed and dated release form. Entries found to be copies or plagiarized will be immediately disqualified.
2. The release form must include full name, home address, date of birth, phone number and email must be clearly printed or type on the release form only, and attached to the entry email. Entries without this information will be immediately disqualified.
3. Entrants must be 18 years or older on 01/05/10 and live in the United States, U.S. protectorates, Mexico or Canada. This also includes U.S. soldiers with APO and FPO addresses.
4. All love letters must be written to a person. All entries written to an inanimate object, animal (other than human), food or place will be immediately disqualified.
5. All entries must be dated by midnight February 5, 2010 U.S. Mountain Standard Time. All entries received after that time will be disqualified.
6. All prizes are awarded as is without substitution.
7. Family members of J. M. Cornwell and employees of Creative Ink, LLC are prohibited from entering the contest.
8. The winning entries will be published on Cabin Dreams on February 14, 2010 and winners will be notified by email.
9. All prizes awarded will be mailed by March 1, 2010.
10. All questions or comments may be addressed to Great Love Letters Valentine Contest at fixnwrtr@gmail.com
11. No profanity or explicit sex. Keep it clean and PG-rated.
12. Void where prohibited by law.


Release

Release Form and Copyright Transfer

The entrant hereby grant and assign to J. M. Cornwell and Creative Ink, LLC the royalty-free rights to publish the love letter created for the Great Love Letters Valentine Contest if the undersigned is the winner of the contest. This assignment of copyright grants J. M. Cornwell and Creative Ink, LLC the exclusive right to publish the winning entry to the contest on the blog, Cabin Dreams. All rights subsequent to initial publication remain with the author.

The entrant acknowledges that this work is original to them and has not been submitted elsewhere. The entrant further acknowledges that the work is not libelous and does not infringe on any copyright or other proprietary right. The entrant are responsible for obtaining permission to use any material that is not their own.

The winning entry will receive compensation as outlined in the contest rules. This is the only compensation that the entrant will receive for contributing their work to the Great Love Letters Valentine Contest.

All entrants must sign and submit this release form with their manuscript to:
Great Love Letters Valentine Contest 2010 at fixnwrtr@gmail.com by midnight February 5, 2010 in order to be eligible. Entries without this release form will be disqualified.


Name:____________________________________Date______________
Date of birth:___________

Contest news

With the new year barely begun and sights set on Valentine's Day, I've decided to put together a contest with good prizes -- really good prizes. Interested? Stay tuned for more information. Contest launch will be January 5, 2010.

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Self-serving promotion

A little while ago I received another review of Past Imperfect from Night Owl Romance and it's a good one.

Here's the money shot:

One thing about Diana is that she is one determined lady and no matter what the problem is she prevails. These are three people with so many obstacles yet one chance for one of them to find their true love. I just loved it.

That's 4.5 out of 5 stars. I can live with that.

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In 25 words or less

Julia pruned the mini roses and tidied her feng shui relationship corner. Lance walked out with his suitcases. He didn't look back.

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The cyber touch

Well, I've jumped on the bandwagon, albeit a bit cautiously, and joined up with Twitter, so if you're interested and would like to find out what I think or am thinking, hop on the bandwagon with me. I'm still not sure how it will be working without a net -- a cell phone for the rest of the world -- since I do not have and have no intentions of getting one. After all, I work at home and don't travel all that much, so why add another expense I'll have to lose the rest of my weekends working to support? I'll stay out of that particular end of the tech pool, at least for now.

One quite divine femme wrote about how easy it is to misunderstand a simple flirtation online and turn it into a budding romance -- or first step on the stalker trail. It's something I have lots of first-hand experience in.

My profiles are pretty businesslike, fact-based information with a bit of word play that have been misconstrued as flirtations and come-ons. They have garnered me quite a few propositions and numerous proposals of marriage. I could say I don't get it, but I do because I used to be the voice on the line that spun fantasies and helped men find the orgasm within. That's writer code for phone sex operator. It was many years ago, but a sexy voice, a creative and imaginative mind, coupled with a way with words and it's a recipe for instant romance. Funny isn't it that I really don't care much for hard core romance?

I shouldn't say I don't care for romance because I love romantic gestures and romantic men. I even appreciate romantic women; I'm one after all, bearskin rug in front of a fireplace in a snowed-in cabin is the essence of romance when you add a glass of wine or champagne, fresh strawberries or a decadent cheesecake to share with the lust man of your dreams (or at least my dreams). But to read some of the romance novels that have gone from bordering on soft porn right into hard core porn is a little much and my un-favorite romance is the saccharine sweet kind that drip syrup and relies on a formulaic approach. I'm not against any other kind of romance; the world needs a lot more romance and men need to learn about romantic gestures.

Dracula by Bram Stoker was definitely romantic, but it wasn't the blatant in-your-face romance and sex that hits the top of the Romantic Times Best Sellers list over and over. There's nothing more thrilling, or frankly more sexual and erotic, than being bitten on the neck. Think about it in more anatomic terms. In the 19th century, writing about sex was confined to a very profitable and lively niche called pornography, and 19th century pornography is every bit as racy and provocative as anything written today, even more so, if you want my opinion. Yes, I have read it. Everyone should. Pornography has been around since men first learned that charcoal would make marks on cave walls. Emperor Tiberius was a great connoisseur and consumer of pornography and locked himself away in his villa and gorged himself into a Dorian Gray picture stupor until he died. Dracula isn't pornographic, but it is erotic.

The act of a vampire sinking his teeth into a woman's vulnerable and unprotected neck to drink her blood is very erotic, but you knew that. It is in a way a substitute for sex. The act of intercourse requires the man to sink a part of his anatomy into a woman's most intimate essence, the deep, warm recesses of her femaleness.

Dracula, unlike his more virile and sexually potent modern offspring, wasn't capable of a phallic erection, but his fangs were erect and hard and probed deeply, over and over, and his victim, preferably a virgin, was penetrated, defiled and aroused to orgasm. When Dracula attacked men, his assault was vicious and homicidal. Although he ultimately killed his female victims, he was gentle, taking them into his arms, romancing them into baring their vulnerable necks and embracing him passionately. It was a surrender that eventually led to death, but sex in the 19th century often led to death in one form or another (childbirth, syphilis, rape, Jack the Ripper, etc.). It was beauty and the beast with a new twist; the beast wasn't changed into a handsome prince by Beauty's tears or her kiss. Dracula remained a beast while beauty died. Is it any wonder the book still sells and directors and actors still clamor to bring him to the screen?

What does that have to do with people falling in love with faces and words online? Romance.

It is so easy to fall in love over the phone or online because you get the essence of the person without all the baggage, and because romance is sadly lacking in the world. There are so many demands and claims on attention that an escape, any escape, is necessary to keep people from running wild in the streets raping and pillaging along the way.

The vikings probably wouldn't have been so vicious and blood-thirsty if the Internet existed then. Vikings weren't after romance, not in the general sense, but they were after something to spice up their lives, usually booty, wine, riches and women. There were seldom enough women to go around, not with women dying in childbirth, of syphilis, rape and Jack the Ripper. Even though it seems to us in our modern cyber-connected world to be vicious and antisocial, it was still at the heart about finding a woman to clean the house, bear the children, do the laundry, cook and be vulnerable to their less blood thirsty pursuits.

As a society, people are so locked into work, chores, family and money that they crave something more human, more intimate. The net provides that, and not just in the blatant sex ads and porn sites, or even in personals and dating connections, but in seeing someone through their words that stirs something inside. In the end, we all want the same things, to be seen, heard and touched. We want a connection that has nothing to do with plugs and liquid crystal displays. There are people on the other side of the cyber-chasm and they're looking, too. The farther we move away from each other physically into the world of computers, cell phones and television, the closer we yearn to be physically connected.

Sex and love are born in the brain, but it's the body that is starved for a simple human touch. The human touch is necessary to life and we forget that until words on a computer screen touch something deep inside and make us reach out to make the fantasy into real romance, to touch the flesh behind the words, to feel the heart beating in time with ours, to sink into those deep recesses impaled when we are at our most vulnerable.

The hidden secret of Twilight

A smart review that touted the first blush of high school romance and the overwhelming feelings that come raging hormones and the perfect guy, usually older and out of reach, made me decide to ignore the bad reviews and read Twilight for myself. There's good news and bad news.

The bad news is that, as Stephen King said about J. K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer never met an adjective or an adverb she didn't like, and she uses them all, frequently, sometimes many of them in a single sentence, and I won't go into the fact that there are no paragraphs devoid of overwritten, overblown and overused adverbs. The writing is sophomoric at best and needed a good editor. And how many times is it necessary to tell the reader how perfect Edward is? Certainly not in every single chapter or several times on the same page. Please. Now for the good news.

I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so I continued reading Twilight with the intent of being able to fall back to sleep. Eight chapters in, it hit me, a rush of emotions and memories that exploded as if they were happening all over again. First, it was a trickle and then a deluge. This is where the book should have started, not with all the drivel that went before.

It is that first roller coaster, heart and stomach jostling to reach the throat first and that low down, aching, humming void that threatens to engulf you that Meyer tapped into and wrote about. That's what makes the book so appealing to young girls and middle-aged women caught in the irreversible tide of aging, car pools, teenagers and bills. It's not the writing because that is facile. It's not the evocation of a place or characters that transcend the page. It's that wonder, awe and aching need to touch another human being that is too far above you to even notice a little nobody like you.

I was a sophomore and had fallen head over heels for a senior. He was perfect, from his crew cut and athletic body to his black pants, black silk shirt and thin white silk tie. He radiated confidence and a worldliness that was so powerful I couldn't speak when I was near him, and he spoke to me, invited me to see him in the library where I stood every free period just to listen to him talk, half afraid anything that came out of my mouth would be inane and naive. I was besotted. He noticed me. Talked to me. Spent time with me. He was a god.

We went for a walk in the woods at Darby Park, wandering along the trails until we got to the river. He leapt from rock to rock, urging me to follow him to the island on the other side of the stream that joined the river surrounding the island. He came back for me and I started across. I fell into the water and he fished me out and got me to the island. That's when it happened, that yawning, aching void that opened just below my belly button and sent my blood hurtling through my body.

I was soaked, and so was he, so we took off our clothes, not all of them, just shirt, shoes, socks and pants. We lay down in the warm sunshine in a hidden glade on the island after laying the clothes out on bushes and grass to dry. Clad and bra and panties, I was nervous and shy. He wasn't. Even wearing just jockey shorts, he was impressive. And then he touched me, his hand warm on my chilled skin, and my body went up in flames. His caress was feather light along my trembling skin. He thought I was cold and moved closer, holding me in his arms. I wasn't cold. I was in shock. He touched me.

He was a gentleman and didn't take advantage of our situation. I didn't understand it at the time because I wanted -- more. He wanted more, but not from me. He was in love with someone else, a girl two years older than he who had offered her body to him and he had refused out of fear and awkwardness. He wanted her. I wanted him. His best friend wanted me.

I had the same effect on Paul, two years older than me and a senior, that Dick had on me.

Every time I walked into a room, Paul lost the power of speech. When I got near, I heard his heart drumming in his chest and see the sweat that beaded his upper lip and forehead. His hands shook and he always stuffed them in his pockets so I couldn't see. If I touched him in any way, like brushing off a piece of lint or taking his hand or arm, he trembled, sometimes so violently I thought he had St. Vitus' Dance. The first time he put his arms around me he nearly passed out.

Bella's feeling and reactions to Edward were the same as mine, and Dick's and Paul's, and reading about the two of them in the sunlit glade brought it all rushing back. All those feelings of unworthiness, awe, trembling and that aching void begging to be filled are there. That's what Stephanie Meyer captured.

There are stories that cannot be dimmed by a lack of technical skill and writing talent. No matter how bad the writing, the essence of the story, like a perfect diamond in a pile of muddy sand, shine with fiery clarity. Stephanie Meyer has a lot to learn about writing and a lot of bad habits to break, but she definitely found the diamond in the mud and reminded legions of women and teenage girls that they're not alone. What they discovered they share with millions of other teenage girls and adult women -- the first disconcerting, painful, awkward and reverent blush of love.

It's all about me

Yes, I'm going to promote Past Imperfect again, but only by way of the interview I did with Laura Fabiani of Nouveau Writer. Take a look. If you have any questions, please comment.

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Money shots

Last week was a difficult and challenging week and a few things slipped past my radar, at least in terms of putting them up on LJ. Two of those slip-ups involve reviews of Past Imperfect reviews. I warned you that I would get positively obnoxious with all of the book stuff, so be forearmed.

In order to keep the obnoxiousness to a minimum, I'll only post the money shots.

First, from Ruth Shelton, aka , "...The deft handling of Diana's contradictory emotions makes "Past Imperfect" a believable tale, and her character one that will resonate with everyone who's ever fooled themselves about what they wanted, and why they wanted it in the first place.

I only gave this 4 stars rather than 5 because I wish Logan's character had been more deeply developed. Dare one hope for a sequel?" .

I must commend Ruth on her correct use of the comma in the last paragraph. Bravo!

This morning's email list contained a review from Coffee Time Romance reviewer, Matilda, who ends her review with "...Past Imperfect is a pleasurable read, one that will touch your heartstrings and even complicate you on which man Diana should be with. Smooth flowing dialogue makes this a story you can breeze [through] without losing a thing. This is a book worthy of the shelf space.

There have been random reviews from gentlemen of my acquaintance who read the book out of friendship and were surprised -- pleasantly, so they tell me -- that they "thoroughly enjoyed" the book and the characters. They even related to the men, but I won't say which ones. That will remain their individual secrets.

One reviewer emailed to say that the book didn't hook her and she didn't feel she could review it since she couldn't get into it, but that is to be expected. I am not so naive as to think that everyone who reads Past Imperfect will like it or won't damn it with faint praise. If everyone liked only mysteries or nonfiction biographies, there would be no room for the diversity that currently abounds in the publishing and reading worlds. That's a good thing, a very good thing.

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True life romances

The first time they saw each other, they were eleven years old. He wore horn rimmed glasses and a boy scout uniform and she wore a dress and pressed her sweaty palms together as she struggled for a smile. Out of the whole class, he was the only one she saw. She didn't know what he saw, but he looked at her; the whole class looked at her.

Over the next few months he gave shy signs that he liked her. He even talked to her while she was on safety patrol duty. He never said anything out loud or gave her a clear sign. He thought she was out of his league and she thought he didn't like here that much.

At the end of the year, they went to different junior high schools and spun into different orbits, until one day they met by accident and he talked about John Denver's songs. She was interested and he offered to bring over his albums. She agreed and he came over.

Focused on the music, he didn't notice she kept looking at his lips and wondering why she ever thought he couldn't kiss. That disastrous party a few years ago when he chose her while playing This and That and she described his kisses as a wet washrag were forgotten. Something about the way he smiled, one side of his lips quirked higher than the other, giving him a sweet, lopsided grin, convinced her that he knew how to kiss, but he didn't offer. She didn't offer either. She listened to the haunting strains of Rocky Mountain High and the evocative call of Take Me Home, Country Roads and wished that he would sing Annie's Song to her. He didn't offer. She didn't ask. And he went home.

High school was a blur of activities and whenever they met, they smiled and nodded, muttered a few pleasantries and spun into different orbits. She usually knew where he was, but was caught up in the trials and tribulations of raging hormones and high school social and academic politics. They spun into farther orbits when high school ended, she to marriage, children, divorce and work and he into another galaxy.

Little did they knew that their orbits spun closer together than they knew, like comets traveling similar vectors or binary stars without a clear line of sight. Time and tides brought them withing miles of each other time and again until the Universe, tired of waiting for the inevitable collision, pushed them closer.

Traversing distance, time and circumstance, he reached out and she responded, finally traveling an orbit that would lead to a closer orbit, and they orbited with joy, surprise, and unspoken passion that crackled in the air between them until a death brought them closer. It took over forty years, but they finally collided and the sparks flew.

People, unlike celestial bodies, have a mind of their own, and tend to change course when you least expect them. People don't realize the necessity, the inevitable and inescapable magnetic attraction of two souls in harmony. It frightens them and leads them to race to escape orbit. Some comets and stars are meant to collide, to share the same orbit, and so are some people.

This couple were meant to share the same orbit and eventually they did -- and do. Other forces pull them in opposite directions, but they keep coming back together, the attraction too strong to resist. That's the way it has always been and will always be. Some things -- and relationships -- are inevitable.

Alas for celebrations

Yes, I'm procrastinating about writing tonight. I'm hot and uncomfortable and tired and just can't seem to rev up the engine enough to tackle the three reviews I need to write tonight. It happens sometimes. I'm find once I get going, but getting going is difficult without the right kind of juice. No juice tonight.

Or maybe I'm still a little too relaxed from yesterday's veg out with books and movie and more books. I started and finished three books yesterday and they weren't little books either, but healthy and thick books. I napped and answered the phone (for a change) to thank all my family and friends who called to wish me happy birthday (yes, that was yesterday, too), enjoyed a catered dinner and flowers, and opened a few gifts from local friends. I didn't get dressed all day, just lounged around reading and relaxing, dozing and enjoying the day, knowing I'd have to get back to the real world today because hospitals don't close for holidays. That's okay, I have a vacation day coming next Monday and I intend to make full use of it.

Thinking about my birthday yesterday I was reminded of a conversation I had with my Uncle Bob a few weeks ago when he told me he didn't remember his wife's birthday or their anniversary and Aunt Lois didn't seem to mind. That put me in mind of the usual hullabaloo about Valentine's Day and the premium placed on gifts of love that seem more like emotional arm twisting for giver and receiver. Don't get me wrong. I like Valentine's Day and enjoyed the big red heart filled with candy an admirer left on my doorstep on Thursday. It was a lovely thought, but I wonder if romance can be confined to a single day or if a single day should be used as pressure in a relationship to perform romantic duties. Romance has so many faces and facets that we tend to forget it isn't all about flowers and candy and jewelry and gifts. It's about respect and loving someone enough to let them know in small ways every day. That's romance.

My Uncle Bob isn't big on cards and gifts, but he does appreciate them when they come his way. Instead, his idea of romance is taking care of his family and making sure they're safe and secure. He takes care of the cars and the houses and makes sure there's enough of whatever is needed, including antifreeze in the radiator and air in the tires. It may not seem like romance, but it is very romantic. Romance isn't -- or it shouldn't be -- all about gifts unless the gifts are from the heart. Having a day for romance is cheating in a way because it lets people off the hook the other 364-365 days of the year. They can point to February and say they did their duty. But did they really?

Fixing dinner and making (or buying) a special dessert out of the blue or taking out the trash to save your weary spouse a few steps; that's romantic. Romance doesn't need to be a big production. Sometimes it can be as simple as doing the dishes or drawing a bath, rubbing someone's weary feet or massaging a few kinks out of their neck and shoulders without being asked. It's the little things that count, the things you might not find in a romance novel or on Valentine's Day -- or maybe you will. That's the thing about romance, it can pop up at the most unusual and unexpected times, like a catered dinner and a vase full of fresh tulips or a heart full of candy left on the doorstep. Birthdays come once a year, but romance happens every day a little bit at a time.

That is all. Disperse.

News and views

I have created a new blog to document my experience with publishing my first romance novel. If you're interested, toddle on over to Eyes On Publishing and take a look. It may not be pretty, but it will be, as always, brutally honest. After all, someone needs to mark the trail and I'm fresh out of urine.

That is all. Disperse.

Facades

I just finished another review book and it is a doozy. The Liar's Diary has some flaws, most notably in knowing the difference between affect and effect, among others, but the story is riveting and disturbing, much like watching a train wreck at half speed. It brings up the memory of other families who keep secrets behind a perfectly normal and upstanding facade. Few on the outside ever glimpse the dark and bitter truth and those on the inside have a vested interest in ignoring the truth just to get by.

I have seen many marriages from the outside, and quite a few from the inside, but those that most directly affected me were my in-laws and a couple who employed me. In those three marriages I saw the good, the bad, and the undeniably ugly up close and personal.

My first husband's family was an ugly sewer that I was forced to trudge through for seven years. There were times I had to live with my in-laws. I got a front row seat for the secrets and lies vomited up from their murky depths. The neighbors thought they were the perfect couple, parents to the perfect family, but that was far from the truth. My father-in-law was a long distance trucker and he had girlfriends in truck stops and cities all over the country. He and his best friend's wife were quite an item when his best friend was out on long hauls; he was a trucker, too. Ed made sure they weren't at home at the same time so he could take care of his friend's wife since his own wife sickened him to no end. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law was terrorizing her children and running up credit card bills she hid from Ed until it got to the point they almost lost their home. Ed worked harder, pulled more dangerous and much more lucrative loads and paid off the debts only to have to turn around and do it again and again every time Betty got the urge to spend more money, which was all too frequent. She made sure she had whatever she and her girls wanted, all the time playing the dutiful and frugal housewife who served her family cheap and utterly tasteless meals. After all, it costs money to buy herbs and spices, money she could spend on fabric painting or another closet full of clothes and toys and gadgets she nor her girls used.

My second husband's family was quite different. I met him the year after his mother died. I was close to my father-in-law and one of my brothers-in-law who spent hours showing me family photos and telling me stories about the mother-in-law I never met. I can still see the tears shining in my father-in-law's face when he talked about how Ethel was always late, even literally to her own funeral, and how whenever they had a disagreement she solved it by putting pepper in his food that would burn his other end a few hours later. Larry, my brother-in-law, told me about how strange it was not to see his parents holding hands while they watched TV or how Bill would Hug Ethel when she was doing the dishes or cooking dinner, a dinner she inevitably burned and he ate as though it were ambrosia. After nearly 40 years of marriage, Bill and Ethel were still on their honeymoon and sometimes Larry said it felt like he and his brothers and sisters were intruding. Bill missed Ethel so much he died 13 months after she did even though he was living with another woman, a woman Ethel had picked out for him, hoping he would go on with his life and be happy.

David and Connie aren't relatives but I worked for Connie for years. Those years felt more like slavery or indentured servitude than a job, but David made it a little easier for me. He understood his wife. Although David never came out and said anything, I had a front row seat for Connie's diatribes, recriminations and ego assassinations on too many occasions to miss what was going on. Connie was manic-depressive (what is now called bipolar) and almost always in the manic phase, especially on those Fridays when we did the payroll for Batelle. It was a rush job and Connie ran around snatching half finished batches from desks where operators were inputting the data to throw it on someone else's desk to be verified before it was even finished and balanced. We all prayed for her to get sick and be out those days, but she never was.

Connie was a control freak with a vile and vicious tongue and her favorite targets were her adopted son, John, and David. She never thought to cut them up into little quivering pieces of emotional goo when no one was around and she frequently sliced and diced them in front of me. David smiled and made light of Connie's attacks but she continually battered John, often calling me into her office or at home to ask me why her son was such a useless, lazy bastard. Few people outside the inner circle knew about the emotional abuse Connie honed to a fine art. Everyone thought Connie and David were the bright picture of success. They owned two businesses and even bought a shopping center to house their business, moving their way up from a pair of trailers on the 150 acres of their farm outside Columbus. David was always smiling and Connie was always driven but they seemed like the happiest couple on the planet every summer during the office picnic and at the Xmas party every year.

After reading The Liar's Diary and being reminded so starkly of the facades I have seen up close over the years, I have no doubt that the happiest facades, or the most normal ones, hide more secrets, shame, abuse and pain that anyone realizes. I have known many over the years and it never ceases to amaze me every single time. Husbands and wives who don't talk to each other for days or weeks or months, except when they absolutely have to and only about bills and appointments and the necessities of running a household and raising children. Husbands and wives who are virtually strangers to one another and haven't a clue to whom they're married and can't remember why. They just keep going through the motions, going to church, serving on committees and showing only their public face while they slice and dice and emotionally dismember and numb themselves and each other. Makes me wonder if it's all worth it.

When I moved here, my landlady told me she'd never divorce her husband even though they had lived separate lives in different states for more than eleven years. She changed her mind last year and got her Xmas wish. She got divorced. She says now she was afraid to change things but now that it's over and done with she's glad she did it and wishes she had divorced her husband sooner. She realized at last that she has a right to be happy and as long as she was married to him that would never happen. It was partly about money and mostly about fear but she got through it. I know so many people in similar situations and my hope for them is that they finally get it before it's too late and their lives are over before they even get a chance to live them and know true happiness.

That is all. Disperse.

We don't need no little blue pill

Even though older men lust for young women with that look of their tongues hanging out even when their mouths are still closed, they are not the only ones drawn to the vibrancy of youth. Older women, too, feel the urge but their tongues don't hang out whether their mouths are open or closed. Women tend to be, for the most part, subtler about their urges. There are still a few Flos among us, but not many and they are scattered far and wide.

What most people don't understand is that women reach their sexual peak in their middle years and even more so when the monthly tides have finished pulling their bodies and emotions to and fro. No longer dealing with the possibility of pregnancy and the emotional ups and downs, older women are up for just about anything and it seems older men are too busy chasing after women half their age or even younger to spark their dwindling fires even with the little blue pill. Men reach their sexual peak in the latter teens and early twenties and I'm still not sure why Mother Nature felt the need to design it that way unless it was to make sure she had willing partners with plenty of juice in the tube.

Young women need security and comfort and protection when they are bearing children, not that any of those things have been an issue for a very long time since women got out of the kitchen and from under their families' thumbs and out into the work place to earn their own living to buy their own security and comfort and protection. Society has over turned the proverbial apple cart on that biological situation.

In many older cultures, widows and older women taught juice-filled young men about sex and how to please a woman so that when they were old enough and could afford a wife, or wives, they would know what to do to keep their nubile child bearing charges happy and fulfilled. Nowadays, even though Demi Moore has cornered Ashton Kutcher, society looks on the relationships of older women and younger men with a jaundiced eye while it secretly--and not so secretly--applauds older men and women barely out of their teens. Society, in the guise of pharmaceutical companies, even makes it possible for grandfathers to stand and salute these nubile, child bearing women. That's okay. Older women don't need a little blue pill to keep their juices flowing or their stamina because they were built for the long haul.

It is doubtful Maude would ever marry Harold but when he comes to maturity and is old enough to have the kind of stability and security that attracts a nubile girl of child bearing years looking for a safe and comfortable nest he will know what to do to please her and keep her interested in more than his financial stability once the little blue pill kicks in. He can thank Maude for that.

The little blue pill

In most of the books I've read over the past few weeks there is a recurring theme: older men falling for much younger women. Viagra has been just one of the reasons for this belief that an older man would be attractive to younger women, but it is Stephen King's reasoning in Bag of Bones that I find most interesting, especially contrasted with a recent article about men's preferences, and not just for younger women.

King, in the character of Mike Noonan, best selling author hiding a career ending case of writer's block, writes that younger women want older men because they are more stable and secure: financially and emotionally. Men of middle age have found themselves and are established in a profession. They have lived. Conversely, men are drawn to younger women not only because of the biological urge for procreation but also to women who are unstable because men see adventure and excitement, the very things they feel they have lost by becoming financially and emotionally stable and secure in their professions.

It reminds me of something I heard once. Men marry women expecting them not to change and women marry men expecting to be able to change them. It is the dichotomy of the species that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus attempted to explain.

It never occurs to men that the damsel in distress they find so appealing is probably going to spend the rest of her life running from one chaotic situation to another, upsetting his stable world and draining his finances if she sticks around for any length of time or that he is willingly taking on Sisyphus's task of eternally rolling the ball uphill only to have it crash to the bottom so that he must start all over. He doesn't see the jagged murderous rocks as he is lured to destruction by the siren's call.

Then I am reminded of Samantha Jones from Sex and the City who was successfully (for a time) lured to the stark reality of an 80-year-old billionaire's bed by the glittering promises of diamonds and Viagra only to run screaming from the sight of his wrinkled and sunken behind as he stopped in the midst of foreplay to relieve himself. Samantha got out of Dodge very quickly and the security and stability she saw in the aging Romeo with a pocket full of little blue pills.

Even Philip Roth in The Human Stain contrasts a writer who survived prostate cancer intact without his libido, something he felt he had easily and painlessly left behind, with a 71-year-old retired dean of a college having an illicit affair with an illiterate and battered woman whose Vietnam veteran husband stalks them and blames her for the deaths of their two children. The writer is drawn into Silk's life as a moth drawn to a flame just as surely as the stable and secure retired dean is drawn to Faunia, the beast of his youthful libido awakened by a pocket full of little blue pills.

I wonder if it is the chemical miracle of those little blue pills that has writers dwelling on the these May-December romances or the fact that the writers themselves are looking into the beast's sleeping face and daring to waken him while they stand looking after the damsels in distress with their tongues hanging out even when their mouths are closed. Or is this the libidinous version of King Midas's lust for gold that was nearly his undoing? Only time will tell as more and more authors look into their winter years and rage against the dying of that lustful light, reaching into their pockets and their dreams for one of those little blue pills.

Out of the flames

While checking my email and going through the posts on the herbal medicine tribe I found myself mentioned and not politely. I was being flamed. Since I get digest emails instead of the usual clutter of almost hourly messages sent from that very busy tribe I didn't realize this had been going on. Someone I've never met attacked me openly and very rudely and asked that someone use his flames for a haiku. Someone jumped in and did. I thanked them for their creativity and asked the flamer why he found the need to attack me. I then went to his profile on tribe.net, as he obviously had read my profile (he could've gotten the information he used in no other way) and sent him an email asking why he felt the need to attack me since I had no knowledge of him, had never written anything to or about him and hadn't posted anything other than a little information about a rude and crude individual who finds it necessary to attack people looking for information and asking questions about colloidal silver, something about which he is strong and rudely vocal. I wait for his answer.

This situation reminds of situations in the past when I have offered information and mediation only to be attacked. I went back to those posts and found that although my conciliatory words were still there, as were my responses to the flaming attacks, the attacks had been deleted. I'm certain the same will happen with the herbal medicine flamer. From what I know and from what I've read about the peacemakers, those who offer mediation and a chance to find some common ground in the midst of war and personal attacks, the peacemakers are usually cut down by those who do not wish to find an amicable settlement and do not want to listen to reason or find common ground. Seldom do the peacemakers die a peaceful death. Those who do not want peace and who are totally invested in their anger and need to demonize someone, anyone, find ways of creating chaos and strife no matter where they go or what they do. They are the drama queens who delight in feeding off negative and heightened emotions like vampires.

Vampires are seen nowadays as romantic figures doomed to walk the earth without a soul, victims of predators who made them the unwilling recipients of a dark gift, demon lovers who stalk the night and offer their bloody kiss, but vampires are predators who feed off the light and the energy of the living.

Vampires were unholy creatures of the night, fetid carrion eaters who stank of the grave until Dark Shadows gave us Barnabas Collins, the victim of a scorned witch who cursed him with eternal life and an overwhelming thirst for blood. Then came Lestat and Louis and a host of other vampires who offered romance for their pint of blood and suffered the torments of the damned, making us forget they are still predators who would rather drink the last drops of our blood than surrender to Death. Some preyed on rats or only on criminals, thus making them a little less repulsive as they wooed us with their grace and strength and marble carved beauty. Some vampires fed on the blood of cattle while we fed on cattle's milk and meat, making us civilized predators, but predators all the same.

Romance can be found in the strangest places and faces and people tend to romanticize everything and everyone at one point or another, turning the world upside down and seeing everything through rose-colored glasses. We fail to see the friend or lover who uses and abuses us, making us the butt of their thinly veiled jokes, as vampires feeding off our energy and light and intelligence like ticks and fleas and mosquitoes -- or larger more seductive predators. But we are all predators. Whether we feed off animals or vegetables or the bright energy of a peaceful soul, we are first, last and always predators standing on some rung of the food chain waiting to eat or be eaten with or without the flames.