Musings on Romance
Here’s why: The Importance of Pseudonymous Activity with added extra Storify and also this: Poisoning the Well and a really interesting examination of the history of it all here at Alex Hurst’s blog.
For a list of blogs participating in the blackout and the various ways they are doing it, go to Book Thingo’s post here. Kat also has some great pieces on the Hale story, which I also recommend reading.
Most of you will probably already know this. (I haven’t had a chance to get to the computer for a day or two to update the blog.) But better late than never as they say.
Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches Trashy Books has started up a Dear Author/Jane Litte defence fund at Go Fund Me.
Here are the details, from Sarah’s post:
Many people have been asking if and how they can contribute to Dear Author and Jane Litte’s legal defense in the defamation suit filed against her.
Consequently, and at Jane’s request, I have established and am administering The Dear Author Jane Litte Legal Defense Fund.
Why a fund?
Because lawsuits are expensive (that’s why they’re so often used as a threat, if you’ve ever wondered).
Because of that, and because the duration of the litigation is undetermined, Jane will need financial assistance. Jane’s attorney, Marc Randazza, is contributing by discounting his hourly rate. Even with a generous discount, it’s still expensive.
Jane Litte has set aside $20,000.00 of her own funds to fight this defamation suit and has paid the large retainer out of that amount, but that money will be depleted quickly as the case progresses.
How do I contribute?
If you’d like to donate to the legal fund, you can follow this link to the GoFundMe site, and make your donation. Please note: these are NOT tax deductible donations, as this is NOT a 501(c)3 not-for-profit
entity.All funds will be used for Jane’s legal defense, minus the fees charged by GoFundMe, and because Jane does not know what the end result will be, she has no way of knowing what the total amount required will be. If the fees do not exceed $20,000, we will attempt to refund the donations per the GoFundMe policies. Countries with the following currencies are supported: $ USD, £ GBP, $ CAD, $ AUD and € EUR. I also want to make it clear that I will receive absolutely zero money for this project, and other than as administrator, I’m not involved in the litigation of this case. I’m the administrator of the fund itself at Jane’s request, but all donations go to Jane’s legal defense. If there are any funds left over when the suit is finished, they will be donated to the Society of Professional Journalists Legal Defense Fund.
Anonymous donations are accepted, and we will not reveal your identity if you chose to donate anonymously.
It may seem that because $20,000 is an enormous amount of money (and it is), that additional funds are not required. I would not have set up the legal defense fund if that were the case. Any amount that you can contribute is most appreciated. Thank you.
At the time of writing, the fund was already up to more than $44,000 which is AMAZING and AWESOME and shows how passionately bloggers and readers feel about free speech and about Jane’s contribution to the romance community.
Sonoma Lass also has a post about alternate ways to donate if Go Fund Me is a problem for you (and I understand if it is). My understanding is that Go Fund Me was chosen as the best of the practical alternatives for such a large funding goal with the big ticket item being an easy way of refunding the donations if they are not needed. In any event, you can use the PayPal address as suggested by Sonoma Lass or contact Sarah Wendell at Sarah AT SmartBitchesTrashyBooks DOT com.
Also, for some light entertainment (things have been so heavy lately, no?) I present to you this. Get out the popcorn (maybe also really tiny violins) and enjoy the meltdown.
#NOTCHILLED (STILL)
I posted here about the lawsuit Ellora’s Cave and Jaid Black have taken against Dear Author and Jane Litte. Jane has requested assistance from Ellora’s Cave authors, editors and cover artists who have not been paid.
Courtney Milan has also posted about Jane’s request and makes an offer of her own for those who are worried about the confidentiality clauses in their contracts with Ellora’s Cave.
I don’t have any information which will help Jane. Boosting the signal (slightly) is about all I can do, so I’m doing that.
Blonde Date by Sarina Bowen – A I developed a little crush on Andy Buschnagel while reading Blonde Date. He’s so adorkable and kind and sweetly charming. I was a little worried Katie would tear him up because he strikes me as someone who’d be so devoted that he could be taken advantage of. But perhaps I’m doing Andy a disservice there. Fortunately, in the course of their blind date (the story is almost all set in the course of one night), Katie comes to appreciate just what she has in Andy and my feeling is that she’s not planning to treat him badly. Katie is “blonde Katie” from The Year We Hid Away. Her character isn’t terribly developed in that book, but by the end, there is a hint of there being more to her. I liked that this novella didn’t try and recreate her character, but rather, it expanded the reader’s knowledge, and in that expansion was the nuance and the depth we didn’t see in the earlier book.
I loved that Katie unashamedly loves sex and I liked the way slut shaming was handled in the book. It felt very authentic to me – because we all think things from time to time which are unflattering, let’s face it. What made the difference was that Katie realised and called it.
Peeking through the boughs of the Christmas tree, I snuck a closer look. When the girl shifted her face from one side of him to the other, I recognized her. Debbie Dunn. She wore an unhealthy amount of eye makeup. And was staring up into Dash’s face, and practically rubbing her boobs on his oxford shirt.
My first thought was: Ew. My second was: Have I ever done that? And did it cause someone else to say ‘ew’? My third thought was: Do I care? Am I actually slut-shaming Debbie Dunn because she’s wearing gloppy mascara?
I also loved that Andy came up with creative ways to defend “his girl” without being all he-man and included ways for her to take back some of her own power. It fit his personality so well but also demonstrated that he will stand up for those he cares for.
Frigid by J. Lynn (Jennifer L. Armintrout) – C+ I enjoy the friends to lovers trope and I liked Wait for You so I bought this one when it was 99c one day a while ago. Kyler and Sydney have been friends since they were toddlers and each has had deep romantic feelings for one another for quite some time. Kyler is a bit of a manwhore and enjoys a lot of one night stands. Sydney has only had one boyfriend and her sexual experience is very limited (and the one time she had penetrative sex it wasn’t very good and her boyfriend split up with her almost immediately after and complained to his buddies she was frigid). Both Kyler and Sydney think the other is out of their league for one reason or another but when they are stranded together at Kyler’s family ski lodge in a blizzard the truth finally comes out. The story is told from both main characters’ POV in alternating sections and, for the most part, the big misunderstanding the story is conceived on didn’t bother me too much. This is because things move apace and the whole book, in terms of their relationship, is about solving the puzzle, not setting up the misunderstanding. So, they spend the book learning how to be honest with one another and that gave them a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to my dislike of the “Big Mis” trope. However, they just had to throw in one too many of the misunderstandings in order to have the grand reunion and that was one too many for me. There is also a suspense plot in there which I thought was kind of unnecessary and bizarre but overall, it was an easy read and not taxing on the brain.
The Hook-up by Abigail Barnette – B This free short story takes place after the events of The Girlfriend and therefore contains spoilers for the earlier books. For that reason, I’d say best not to read it before the other two but if you don’t mind about spoilers, then I suppose you could. In this story, Neil is in London, away from Sophie who is in New York. He has a hookup with their mutual friend-with-benefits “Emir” and things don’t go the way one might expect. I enjoyed the story in part because it was sexy and hot. I liked that Neil’s bisexuality was shown on page and celebrated and it was nice to get some of Neil’s POV. I also liked the chance to enjoy a short which was low conflict. I expect there will be some other trouble ahead for Neil and Sophie – books would be boring without conflict – so it was nice to see them happy, even if they weren’t physically together in this instalment. Sophie wasn’t completely absent from the story, but she’s not the focus. It’s only 30 or so pages so it’s a short hot read and hey: free.
DOWNLOAD IT:
SMASHWORDS
Whisper Falls by Toni Blake – C I borrowed this book from the library after a recent DBSA podcast which mentioned that the heroine has Crohn’s Disease. Tessa Sheridan moved home to Destiny, Ohio some years earlier because she needed help due to her illness. Her mother lives close by and she has a part time job in a friend’s bookshop which allows her to work when she feels well but is very flexible if she’s unwell. She was an interior designer with a big Cincinnati firm but couldn’t keep up with the demands of her job. She has her own interior design business in Destiny but there’s little demand and she’s had no actual customers. Lucky Romo moves back home to Destiny after he took over at age 18. He didn’t plan to come back but he recently found out he has a son – the result of a one night stand some ten years earlier when he’d been (very briefly) in the area. There is little angst about the son and actually that was kind of refreshing. The big deal about Lucky is that he’s had a rough past. He was in an outlaw motorcycle gang for four years shortly after he left town and did some bad things. Part of the reason he stayed away was the potential for risk to his family.
It has all the ingredients of a cracking story but it was just okay for me. I admit I was kind of bored and I skimmed a lot of it. Tessa’s love for The Ellen Show was over the top and kind of nauseating. I liked a lot of the interaction between Lucky and Tessa and those were the bits where I read more closely. I did like that the book didn’t shy away from making the things Lucky did very bad things (they could still have been worse) and I liked that he had to work some things out with his family rather than being completely embraced as the prodigal son (though there was a bit of that). Crohn’s Disease wasn’t a huge focus in the story. Tessa has basically learned to manage it. She doesn’t want to be a burden and she doesn’t want people to define her by her disease so she prefers not to think about it. I liked how Lucky was happy to take care of her when she was ill and he had to push a bit to get her to allow that. I felt like she had a bit more balance by the end but I also think she had a relatively mild form of the disease. Some of the things which would have possibly changed my impression in that regard were glossed over – for instance, she had a limited diet but the story never disclosed what that actually looked like day to day.
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