Re-Reading the Handmaid's Tale

You've probably heard about Hulu's new series, The Handmaid's Tale, which is based on Margaret Atwood's novel of the same title. Maybe you've read the book. I read it years ago, so long ago that I don't remember much beyond the main premise. Except that after all these years a gorgeous phrase from the book has stuck with me, an observation Offred makes when looking at a dark purple flower in the garden, its color "like black cat ears in the sun."

Gorgeous, right?

I want to watch the Hulu show, but I decided to re-read the book again first a) because I think it's an important book and b) because I wanted to know the book better before I watched the show, which will inevitably make changes to the original story.

Here's the thing. The first time I read it I didn't find it nearly so grim or difficult to take. I don't know why it's different now, maybe it's just that I'm older, but it's suffocating in a way I didn't experience before. I think it's Atwood's intention for me to feel this way, but it's not pleasant, and so guess what? After a couple chapters I put the book down and started reading Strange the Dreamer instead—escaping from a dystopian future into fantasy.

Sometimes I just don't want to go there, which I guess is why I'm such a big fan of all things romance. Certain books do a number on me. I'll be horribly unhappy and then realize it's because of the book I'm reading. This happened recently with the wonderful Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. But I consider this a failing on my part, to some extent, because some of the most moving and gorgeous books out there will also make you sad, or uncomfortable, but I'd be missing out if I skipped over them. 

Which is why I always have a romance on deck to pull me out of the emotional depths and into the light of a happily ever after. 

Kindred Spirits

It's fitting that last week I blogged about Anne of Green Gables, because she was all about finding kindred spirits and I have just finished Rainbow Rowell's short story of the same title.

I've been waiting for this story to become available, because it was originally released only in the UK for World Book Day and none of us non-Brits could get our hands on it. But at last it's available to all her fans the world over.

It was worth the wait.

Anyone who loves Rowell's books will love this little gem, but if you also happen to be a Star Wars fan (as I am) you will appreciate it on that level too, because the two main characters meet in line for the first Star Wars sequel. I loved the characters and dialogue and Rowell's unique voice. And you can't help loving Elena, the heroine, who says that her favorite movie is Empire Strikes Back because of the kissing.

Oh, yes.

I'm assuming that Rowell is working away on another book, so this little chocolate truffle of a story will have to hold us all over until the next one is released. And then we'll gobble that one up, too, knowing we should slow down because we'll be sorry when it ends, but loving it too much to do anything but read until the end.

I keep a list of favorite authors so that I can periodically check if any of them has a new book out. That's what I was doing when I discovered that Kindred Spirits was released worldwide. So now I need to keep moving down the list—and hoping that the authors I love write a lot faster than I do.

My Old Friend Anne

When I was eight or nine my mother gave me a stack of used books for Hanukah, along with a grown-up brown leather wallet. That was after she and my dad divorced and before she got remarried and landed a better-paying job, so times were tight. But back then kids we knew didn't get crazy gifts for Hanukah, plus I was a big reader, so books were always cool with me.

Anne of Green Gables was in that stack, and I lived and breathed it and read the whole series of books over and over. The romance between Gilbert Blythe and Anne was one of the great romances of my early life, second only (chronologically anyway) to Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder. 

I still have that first copy of the book, but it's fragile now and the cover fell off years ago, so I recently bought a fresh copy I could break in anew. This past week I was sick as a dog and did nothing but cough and blow my nose and take my temperature (I need up-to-the minute intel when I'm sick), and my fever left me feeling wiped out and dull. I needed the comfort of a beloved book, and so I put down the new Laini Taylor book, Strange the Dreamer (which I will blog about when I finish) and picked up Anne. 

I'm so glad I read it when I was really young, because there's no way to go back in time and have the full effect of a book if you miss the window when you're young. There are so many books I didn't read when I was a kid—many of them because my brothers read them, which made them boy books and therefore to be avoided. I never read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or A Wrinkle in Time as a kid, and by the time I wanted to, there was no way for them to be magical. I could appreciate them, but that's different than living and breathing them. 

But luckily I found Anne at the right time, and I'll always have that. Every night since I started it again, I've gone to bed smiling.

New Adult is for Everyone

So my current book project is a new adult romance set in college, and while I was hesitant to read other new adult novels while writing one for fear that I would discover that another writer was covering similar territory, in the end I couldn't help myself.

Earlier in the year I read Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you do. Even if M/M romances aren't generally your thing, my guess is you'll like reading about two hot hockey players who fall for each other. It's really smart and realistic, and did I mention HOT?

Elle Kennedy and Sarina Bowen write both adult and new adult romances on their own, and I recently read The Year We Fell Down and The Year We Hid Away, the first two books in Sarina's The Ivy Years series. Both were excellent, but The Year We Fell Down was especially moving because the heroine is partly disabled from a hockey accident. It's handled so well and the hero—another hockey player—is perfect. If you start reading Sarina Bowen you'll find that there's a lot of hockey going on.

I started reading one of Elle Kennedy's college books and the heroine had the same name as mine does, so I put it down. I'll pick it up again when my book is done.

My husband and I just bought our first house last spring and now we have a mortgage to pay and hedges to trim (seriously, I can't believe we have hedges to trim), so going back in time to my college years as I write is particularly fun. Much to my surprise, I've even discovered things about myself at that time that got translated to my heroine, so it's been pretty cool.

Also cool: writing about first kisses. Like, first first kisses. So fun.

Alpha Female

A few weeks ago everyone in my office filled out a DISC assessment questionnaire, the answers to which would determine what sort of behavioral profile we fall into, particularly in our work. The idea being if we understood ourselves and our coworkers better, we would be a stronger team.

There are four profile categories: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. You can be predominantly one area or a combination of two.

We had a workshop last week where the woman who conducted the assessment gave us our individualized reports and discussed what the categories meant. I thought I would end up in the category where the warm, charming, accepting, thoughtful people ended up.

Not so much.

Apparently, I am a DC, so I have some of the C characteristics, like wanting to make sure work is accurate, taking time to look at data before making a decision, that sort of thing, and I have aspects of the other categories, but the personalized report I got back emphasized characteristics like strong-willed, fast, blunt, results-driven, impatient, skeptical, and willing to take on a challenge.

Now, I knew I had these qualities to some degree, but I never gave them a whole lot of thought. I mean, I’m actually a pretty warm person--if you’re not incompetent or wasting my time. 

 

Basically, I’m just like my mother. 

My mother can be a little much, but she’s also pretty kick-ass, and she had high-powered jobs and was great at them. So there are worse people to take after. And now that I’m clued into these tendencies, I can temper them when appropriate. Also, using this sort of behavioral profiling will be a great tool for character development.

As for my husband, he didn’t seem all that shocked when I told him I was a D for Dominant. Then again, he can handle it.

Top Ten

In the grand tradition of New Year top ten lists, I present my own top ten favorite books of 2015. All of them are fiction, but not all are romances. Additionally, many of them came out before 2015 and I just happened to read them this year.


Drum roll please...

1.) Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

2.) How the Marquess was Won by Julie Anne Long

3.) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

4.) The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

5.) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

6.) The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg

7.) Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

8.) Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner

9.) Shadow and Bone (The Grisha Book One) by Leigh Bardugo

10.) The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer

Overall it was a great reading year, and I am currently reading another book that will probably make my top ten list next year. Stay tuned for a review in the weeks to come.

On a different note, I celebrated the New Year today by finally watching the second Magic Mike movie, and I cannot believe how good it was. I really liked the first movie, but the second one was even better. Sexier, funnier, more tender, smarter. And even more sexy dancing from my boyfriend, Channing Tatum. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. I streamed it for $3.99 on Amazon and it was so worth it. I only wish I'd made it to the theater to see it on the big screen. Yum.



Happy New Year everyone! Here's to another year of tasty heroes, both on and off the page.

The Ultimate Escape

I think most of us love romances for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the wonderful escape it affords us. Had a foul day? Crack open that romance and you'll soon forget all about it. Fight with your guy? Go into the other room and read about a man who would never do whatever yours just did.

I have been reading historical romances since high school, and one thing I love about them is the extra layer of escape they offer. Not only do I get to read about some delectable man and a happily ever after--with a few spicy bits thrown in--but I get a whole other time and way of living. Petticoats and corsets and the men who take them off.

But I confess to feeling let down the last few years by the historical romances out there. With a few exceptions they just have not been doing it for me, and I have been reading mostly contemporaries because of it. Judith Ivory was a wonderful discovery a couple of years back, but has she has not written anything in years, so there's nothing left of hers for me to discover.

One of the things I love about Judith Ivory is the way she stays in a scene and lets it unfold detail by detail, lets the characters notice each other in that heightened way people do when they are first falling for one another, building the tension until you're madly turning the pages, dying to know what happens and waiting for them to kiss.

Both of the below books have just this element to them, and it made me so invested in the story and characters that I couldn't stop reading even though I wanted to slow down and make them last.

I discovered the first when a friend emailed me to say she had just finished Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale and I should check it out. I'd had the book in my to-read list for a couple of years, so I decided I'd waited long enough. Thank goodness I finally gave it a try. It has wonderful, complex characters and a rich, unpredictable story. It also has some of the most sensual scenes I've read in a long time, and that's saying something. There was nothing cliched or generic about the hero or heroine, and in fact the plot is really unusual. But all the complications and obstacles the h/h face flow organically from their characters, and it's so satisfying. It's sexy and heart-pounding and I loved it.

My other discovery was How the Marquess was Won by Julie Anne Long. I had never heard of this author, and then I saw her recommended online somewhere and decided to check her out. This book is somewhere down the line in the Pennyroyal Green series, but I decided to start with this one because the reviews just raved about it. I loved it more than any historical I can remember reading since Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels. The heroine has smarts and spunk, and the hero is so delicious and wonderful and unexpected, I wanted it never to end.

Not everyone gravitates to historical romances, but if you have even the slightest interest, I recommend these two writers, as well as Judith Ivory. They are sophisticated, beautiful writers and I am betting you won't be sorry you tried them.