Author Archives

Melissahttp://www.missmeliss.comWriter, voice actor, dog-lover, and bathtub mermaid, Melissa is the Associate Editor-in-Chief at All Things Girl. To learn more about her, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter (@Melysse) or Facebook. You can also listen to her podcast, "Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub" at Bathtub Mermaid or on iTunes.

Bagels, Books, and Beach-Reading in Bed

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Eating bagels while reading in bed is probably not anyone’s idea of a good weight loss diet, but sometimes it’s just the perfect way to spend an evening.

Last night, after my parents went to bed, I retired to the casita (their guest house) with a stack of books, a toasted bagel, and some chai tea. While old episodes of “The Middleman” played on my computer, mainly for noise, I finished one book (Lost and Found) and set aside another (Rebecca Well’s latest), in favor of Outer Banks, by Anne Rivers Siddons.

This book was probably one of mine, left here several visits ago. In fact, almost the entire “library” in this guest house is made of my cast-off novels and other paperbacks. Right now, I can see Eat, Pray, Love, cuddling with Angels and Demons, and I know both of those were mine, as was Left Bank, and this great book about a woman who smelled like figs and had an affair one summer.

But I chose Siddons’ novel because her work always puts me in a comfy reading zone, and I wanted that last night.

Of course, I still have four other books I brought with me, and I’d really prefer not to have to cart them all back home!

Bad Bookstore, No Business

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So, today, my parents and I drove from La Paz, where they live, to Todos Santos, the Mexican town which is home to the original Hotel California, among other things.

I wanted to buy some post cards, so we stopped in the local bookstore, which, I noticed, had some amazing local titles in both Spanish and English. I might have bought a book or two, as well as the postcards I’d been looking for, but the woman behind the counter was yakking on the phone the entire time Mom and I were shopping. We greeted her in Spanish, and she didn’t even acknowledge our presence. I don’t know what she was talking about – it could have been anything from lipozene customer reviews to what to have for lunch, but it was certainly keeping her focused on anything except furthering trade.

I finished my shopping and turned back toward the counter, when we realized that the music had been turned off, and the woman (I hate to refer to her as an employee or a clerk) had disappeared. She’d just left us in her shop with the door open and the lights on.

We waited ten minutes, but there was no sign of her, so I left the cards on the counter, and we walked out. I suppose we could have just taken them, but I would never DO that.

Later, on our way out of town in the car, we saw the store filled with tourists – and she had still not returned!

I bought my postcards, and about $500 MXP more merchandise, at the Hotel California gift store.

Booking Through Thursday: Influences

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On Thursday, May 13th, Booking through Thursday asked:

Are your book choices influenced by friends and family? Do their recommendations carry weight for you? Or do you choose your books solely by what you want to read?

While I’d like to think I make all my own decisions, the reality is that everything I use, from anti wrinkle cream to books to hair styling products is at least partly influenced by my friends – we talk about it all, you know?

True confession: I’m nearly 40 and my mother still has the power to destroy me if she doesn’t like my hair, clothes, or home decor.

Books however, are the area where I’m least influenced. Partly this is because I tend to read very quickly, when I’m in a reading mood, and partly it’s because I usually know what I want, but sometimes, my friend Deb will get a book to review, and hand it off to me when she’s done, and I’ll often do the same. I tend to hand off more books than I receive, but that, again, is because I read quickly.

And because I’m an addict, and I like to BUY my books, because the ones from the library smell like old people, and not the kind of old people I want my books to smell like.

Sorry for the rambling answer.

But there you have it.

Review: Lost & Found

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Lost and Found
Lost & Found
by Jacqueline Sheehan
Avon, 304 pages
Get it at Amazon >>

Because I’m a sucker for a cute face – especially when the face belongs to a dog with a number like ls4278 instead of a name, there was no way I could pass by the trade paperback edition of Jacqueline Sheehan’s novel Lost & Found. After all, there’s a cute dog on the cover.
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This dog, however, does not have a number instead of a name. When protagonist Rocky loses her veterinarian husband in the opening chapter, she decides to leave her job as a psychiatric counselor attached to a local university, and moves to a remote island in Maine to become the animal control warden. Once there, she meets Isaiah, the local vet, Tess, the local therapist, and Melissa, a young girl struggling with anorexia. She also meets Lloyd, after rescuing him from behind a dumpster, where he’s nursing the infected wound caused by an arrow.

Lloyd is the dog on the cover, a black lab who eventually serves as the catalyst for healing and change among all the women in the story.

This is a gentle novel, and I’m reading it on vacation, so even though I’m enjoying the story, it’s making me miss my dogs, more.

Goes well with an animal to cuddle.

I’m Curious

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So, you’re given a prepaid visa with a balance of $100, and two hours in your favorite bookstore. What do you buy? The hardcover new release that everyone’s talking about but has been out of your budget? A stack of magazines you’d never normally be seen in public with? Or an old favorite remembered from childhood.

I’ve been known to do all of the above on various shopping trips, or none. I’ve been known to buy seventeen books, and sometimes just one.

But hands down, my favorite place to begin is the New Fiction section. I love discovering authors when their work is new. Sometimes, I build lifelong relationships with them – I’ve been reading the Pink Carnation series since day one, for example, and I was reading the Anita Blake series years before it had gained any popularity – when it was being released only as mass market paperbacks, in fact.

So, if you’re reading this, tell me: what’s your fantasy book buying spree?

Teaser Tuesday: Angelology

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

I’m watching the current episode of Glee as I write this (DVR’d earlier) and am trying to dash this off before it resumes. It’s been a pajama day for me, as I’m not feeling well. Again. I didn’t even read, but I have a stack of stuff waiting to be read. One of the books in question, is Angelology by Danielle Trussoni.

Suddenly a hot, sticky substance seeped over the skin of my palms. Lifting my hands, I squinted, trying to determine what had happened. A gummy golden film, transparent and glistening as honey, coated my hands, and when I held them up in the light of the angel’s skin, the substance refracted, scattering a reflective dust over the cavern floor, as if my palms were coated in millions of microscopic crystals.

Quickly, before the other angelologists saw what he had done, we wiped our hands against the rocky surface of the cavern wall and slipped them back into our gloves. “Come, Celestine,” Dr. Seraphina said, “Let’s finish with the body.”

(Angelology, by Danielle Trussoni, page 230)

I have never worn gogo boots

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I’m reading this book called What to Wear for the Rest of Your Life. It’s thick and yellow, and the pages are heavy, and I feel like it should be printed on glossy magazine paper, but It is not.

There are some lovely sketches in it, and cool fashion trivia. I saw a sketch of go-go boots and a note explaining that they came in as a response to the miniskirt.

I have never worn go-go boots, but suddenly I want a pair. I have pair of lovely cowboy boots with orange stitching and faux ostrich skin, and I love them, but they’re not the same. They’re not shiny plastic (vinyl) or anything like that.

Don’t you just love the power of words? I love that even a non-fiction style-guide can take me into a world where I have the perfect closet. I made mental checklists of my own wardrobe, and identified deficiencies as well as areas where I have too many items. I am not a fashionista – I work from home, and tend to chose comfortable black clothing most of the time (In my defense, I really DO need seventeen black t-shirts. I also need a new bathing suit, to take with me to Mexico, where I will read in the sun and splash in the sea for ten days.) but I love reading about fashion, and experiencing it vicariously through characters in novels.

And come home infused with new stories.

And perhaps, even, a new book.

Or two.

Booking through Thursday: Restrictions

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On Thursday, April 29th, Booking through Thursday asked:

God* comes to you and tells you that, from this day forward, you may only read ONE type of book–one genre–period, but you get to choose what it is. Classics, Science-Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Cookbooks, History, Business … you can choose, but you only get ONE.

What genre do you pick, and why?

*Whether you believe in God or not, pretend for the purposes of this discussion that God is real.

I would like to be the person who chooses the classics, because they’re timeless, really, and generally incredibly well written. However, there are a finite number of the classics, and frankly, women in them weren’t treated all that well. So, I’ll choose Mystery, please, because within Mystery there’s all those nifty little subsets – paranormal mystery, horror, thrillers – and ranges – cozies, hard boileds, procedurals, etc. And some Mysteries even have a dash of romance, so, simply because I believe it offers the most options, and is a genre that remains popular, that’s my pick.

I mean, where else can an insurance quote or the recipe for the perfect flan be equally valid plot points? What other genre visits historical settings as well as modern ones, has existed since Poe, includes Agatha Christie and Rex Stout, appeals to children (Nancy Drew? The Hardy Boy?) and adults (Come on, tell me YOU don’t want to see Penelope and Jack figure out how a bookseller and a ghost can have a relationship while fighting crime), and incorporates humor as well as drama?

Mystery, please, with a serving of tea and scones.

Teaser Tuesday: The God of the Hive

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell novels are some of my favorite mysteries ever, and not just because I like taking a break from a world where we discuss hair growth shampoo and spending time in a world where high tea is a normal event. I’ve been a Holmes fan since as long as I can remember, but I love the relationship that King has created with his protege’ cum wife Mary. It just works.

Like many of her readers, the “to be continued” ending of the last novel really disappointed me, which is why I’ve been counting the days until The God of the Hive was ready. My copy arrived today. I can’t wait to read it!

Evening, and I might have curled up to sleep fully clothed except it had occurred to me that children required putting to bed. Estelle and Goodman were in front of the fire, he on the floor with Damian’s sketch-book on his knee, she stretched with her belly across the tree-round he used as a foot-stool, narrating the drawings for him. I had found the book in my rucksack, astonished that it had survived this far, and leafed through its pages before I gave it to her, making sure it contained none of his detailed nudes or violent battle scenes. Some of the drawings I had found mildly troubling, but doubted a small child would notice.

— from The God of the Hive, by Laurie R. King (page 80)

Teaser Tuesday: Twelve Rooms with a View

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

To be honest, when I first began reading Twelve Rooms with a View, the new novel by Theresa Rebeck, I thought the lead character, Tina, was a bit dense. This is a woman who doesn’t know the difference between a prevera review and Prometheus Unbound, I thought. But it turned out that Tina had her own form of intelligence, and I ended up really liking the book. A lot.

Eyeing Mrs. White’s gorgeous pink outfit, I felt a sincere moment of sympathy for those teenage girls learning a broader system of values. I mean, their mother was running all over New York City in designer suits, and they had to throw on the same ugly pleated skirts every morning before heading uptown to hang out with a bunch of nuns. It seemed like a pretty nasty fate, especially considering that they lived in Manhattan, where I would have thought that nobody, and I mean nobody, went to Catholic school to learn values.

— from Twelve Rooms with a View, by Theresa Rebeck (page 94)