Sunday, September 26, 2010

Okay...a surprise for everyone, including me! This week Ellora's Cave released Stress Relief in print -- yay!!!

This is a novel that really isn't for the faint-of-heart. I know I've said that about others, but this one deals with some of the darker issues in BDSM. It's gotten my worst reviews, mostly because there are a lot of readers who prefer romances to follow a fairly strict path, even when a little kink is thrown in. Stress Relief actually follows that path, but widens it to include several activities most wouldn't in a romantic meandering.

Plainly said? There are incidents of group sex and humiliation in Stress Relief that have offended some readers and critics.

If you haven't gotten it yet, now you have an option between ebook and print delivery systems. I wanted to give you a juice excerpt not available anywhere else, but in my computer crash, I've lost a bunch of files. To add insult to injury, I can't find the backup disk I made just a few months ago. I'm afraid you're stuck with either the excerpt at EC or the one on my website for now, but I promise an extra-special one when I get my data back (keep good thoughts flowing to my old hard drive!).

Play safe!
Diana

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

During the early weeks of September, I read not one, not two, but three books. And since the 10th, I haven't read any :(. But here are my impressions of the three that started the month off right!

First up was Nora Roberts' Black Hills. This is a stand-alone, full-length work from Nora...my favorite kind of hers. In this one she combines a little of JD Robb in that it's a romance inside a mystery. Or a mystery inside a romance. The hero is alpha, the heroine is too -- and all's right with the world by the end of the book. It was a fun read and at 439 pages gave me more than just a few hours' pleasure.

The second one I read more quickly, that was Nicholas Sparks' The Lucky One. He has cool characters and again, all's right with the world at the end although, true to Sparks' style, he does pull at your heartstrings and messes with your head along the way. Good suspense along with the romance!

And then of course, there's The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling. I've read all the Harry Potter books, reading them with my daughter when she was in 4th grade and right on up through (she's now a junior in college and we still swap them back and forth). We've watched the movies, lamented over the parts they left out while still enjoying the imagery and characters they captured. This past summer we even made a trek to the new Harry Potter section of Universal Studios in Florida (and I have to say, butterbeer is WONDERFUL!).

I wanted to re--read Deathly Hallows before the movie came out (haven't seen the trailer? You can see it here) and it lived up to my memories of it. I read it first three years ago when it came out and hadn't revisited it since then. Good suspense, wonderful ride of emotions and a very satisfying ending to Harry's battles over the years. She done good!

That's all for now. I'm currently reading another non-fiction (Coming of Age in Second Life) that's really a textbookish ethnographic study of the virtual world called Second Life (disclaimer: I'm active in SL and so have a vested interest in how he portrays the culture). I'll post more about it later when I've finished it.

Till then, Play Safe!

Diana
PS. I always provide links not only to the books but also to the authors in case my readers (all five of you) want to go to the author's official sites. Enjoy!