July 26, 2009

If like me you’re enough of a romance fan that you enjoy a periodic romance novel, yet you like a hefty dose of snark with your lovin’, then you should absolutely pick up a copy of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. This is the beloved child of Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, better known as Smart Bitch Candy and Smart Bitch Sarah over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books.

What do you get if you look past the heaving bosoms? A fairly decent overview of the modern romance genre, actually. Sure, there’s plenty of poking fun at the standard romance tropes, but there’s also very up-front and straightforward looks at things like how rape used to be prevalent in the genre (and glossed over as “forced seduction”), and how the arising of the No Means No movement rolled out into the books being written. (Needless to say, I’m much more a fan of modern romance novels than I am of the ones y’all are probably thinking of every time you think “bodice-rippers”.) There’s a review as well of the massive firestorm that the Smart Bitch ladies kicked up when they revealed on their site that Cassie Edwards had plagarized material for her novels.

So yeah, there’s plenty enough serious material here to make the book worth a read if you have any interest in the genre at all. But really, what makes it worth the price of admission? Five words: “Choose Your Own Man Titty”. Four stars.

It’s official: Underground, Book 3 of katatomic‘s Greywalker series, is ten pounds of fun in a five pound jar. And I say that not just because the ‘ship I was hoping for in this series sets sail as of this installment, either.

Now, zombies are the up-and-coming thing in urban fantasy these days, it seems. So I’m seeing more and more established series spend at least a little time doing a zombie plot, and this book is the Greywalker series’ turn. That said, it’s less of a zombie plot than you might expect, since what you get is a lot more supernatural of origin than it is viral or chemical, which seems to be where most zombie plots get started. Plus, as the plot really gets its feet under it, there’s a lot involving Native American mythos of the Pacific Northwest–and this in particular helps anchor the story well and firmly in this locale. I’ve read my share of urban fantasy where the setting isn’t terribly vivid, books you could set in any American city and have them still work as plots; this one, not so much. And I love it.

And like I said above, the ‘ship I was hoping to see launch does indeed launch in this book, which fills my little heart with glee. It’s not without a bittersweet note to it, since it’s in the wake of Harper having to go through the deeply unpleasant experience of someone else she cares about being unable to deal with the life she’s chosen to lead. Yet it’s all for the good. Look for the tasty, tasty background revelations that come out about a certain mysterious hacker-type of Harper’s acquaintance, which was for me by far the best part of the book. Five stars.