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.

Ready, Set, Runway!

by

If you think Tim Gunn should come and give you a fashion makeover, if you imitate Heidi Klum as she tells designers they’re out, if you would love to put Wendy Pepper (Season One) and Crazy Vincent (Season Three) in a boxing ring together, then you need to come play with us.

Where? At Electric Tangerine of course. I’ll be joining four other fashionistas in blogging Project Runway, and you’re invited to come dish some designer dirt.

So, grab your score cards and your snarkiest attitude, slip your feet into a killer pair of shoes, and strut down the runway with us.

All are welcome.

Even if you think tangerine really is the new pink.

Coming Attractions: November

by

First, I won’t be reading or reviewing much this month, as I’m writing up a storm. I’d say that I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, but I’m not, exactly. I’m cheating. For details, please read this post at my regular blog. The post in question has a link to fragments and snippets and suchlike.

Second: Interviews with Keith R. A. DeCandido, and Julia Holden will be posted this month. Both of them. Really.

Third: I’ve finished Rises the Night by Colleen Gleason (who is turning out to be a great correspondent as well as a kickass novelist. Go buy her stuff and then read it), so a review will be posted soon-ish.

Fourth: I’m currently reading Sex, Murder, and a Double Latte by Kyra Davis and What They Don’t Teach You at Film School: 161 Strategies for Making Your Own Movies No Matter What by Camille Landau and Tiare White, which was recommended to me by The Fabulous Clay, and is, as well as being helpful to moviemakers with no money, one of the best writing books I’ve ever encountered.

And that’s all for now.
Any questions?

Music Review: Stomping Grounds, by Joseph Clinebell

by

While I listen to music almost constantly, and have a full 30gig Creative Zen Vision M to prove it (in lime green, thank you very much), I tend to get in ruts where I listen to the same thing over and over. Still, when someone says, “Hey check out this cool Singer Songwriter, I think you’ll like his work,” I’m usually happy to do so. I’ll listen to almost anything once, after all.

Joseph Clinebell’s first CD, Stomping Grounds, is quickly becoming one of the discs I listen to more than once. He calls his collection of mostly-guitar-and-vocals songs “road trip music,” and really that’s the best description I can think of as well. For one thing, while his music is technically on the pop side of rock, there’s a vagabond-esque quality to it stolen from folk and country, that adds depth and dimension to tunes that are essentially pretty simple, with wonderful lyrics “….as a hailstorm draws near…the imperfect falls around…”

His voice is warm, vaguely reminiscent of early Michael Stipes or John Cougar Mellencamp at his most mellow (that folksy appeal coming out, I think), and overall Stomping Grounds is extremely listenable. So far, my favorite song is “Last Dance,” but they’re all good. And yes, perfect for hopping in the car, dropping the top, and enjoying the last warm days of Fall.

You can read more about Clinebell at his website: http://clinebellmusic.com/singer-songwriter.html, and you can grab this CD from CDBaby.

A little light reading

by

LED light

After much searching online, I discovered that the closest thing I could find to the LED light I mentioned a few days ago is the one pictured here which, apparently, you can get for about $2 from Amazon.com.

I got mine for $4.98 at Half Price books, but if you’re doing an Amazon order anyway, tossing in one or two of these might not be a bad idea. (Ordering JUST a light would be a waste of shipping costs.)

This is the light that’s working for me, at the moment. As with any such thing, your mileage may vary.

I have to ask, though, what’s your ideal booklight? What do you use now?

BookLight

by

I’ve seen those cute little LED clip-on lights at Borders and Barnes and Nobel and resisted buying them, but last weekend we were at Half Price Books and they had them for $5 so I bought one with the intent of testing it for reading in bed.

Now, you wouldn’t think light for reading in bed would be a problem if you saw our bed, because it has a lightbridge that casts illumination down on us from above the headboard, but the problem is that if you’re holding a book and reclining in the bed as well, a shadow is cast on the book. We do have an overhead light, but that’s too bright, especially if I’m awake and Fuzzy is asleep, which often happens when he’s working a more normal schedule than the vampire hours he’s been keeping since his return from San Jose, and while I often joke that our back neighbor’s outdoor lighting is bright enough to read by, the light is blocked if the wind blows the trees the wrong way, and gone if they remember to actually flip the light switch (which is a rare, but possible occurrence). Hence the LED.

I have to say it’s impressive. Light enough for a paperback. Completely bendy. Has a clip wide enough to stick on the screen of my laptop so I can see my control keys if I’m computing in the dark, and they claim the battery will last three years. Also, the light is bright without being harsh, which is great for working with text.

So, I spent about $5, and I’m tickled to death by the light, and I suspect many of my family will find similar gadgets in their Christmas stockings or Hanukkah stashes this year.

The Rest Falls Away

by

by Colleen Gleason

I’m not a huge fan of the Regency period, and especially not a fan of Regency romances. All those demure teas and heaving bosoms tend to cause a lot of eye-rolling around here. When an author takes the time to visit my blog, however, and pitch her own work, without being at all arrogant, but just being another blogger, I take note. Colleen Gleason left a comment here a few weeks back, and even though the period her Gardella Vampire Hunter series is set in is not my favorite, I’m a sucker for bloodsuckers being offed by spunky heroines, so HAD to check out her work.

The Rest Falls Away introduces us to Victoria Gardella Grantworth, debutante (though a little older than the other young women coming out that year, due to family issues), and the latest to be called to the family tradition of vampire hunting. In this – being chosen rather than doing the choosing – she is not unlike the more modern Buffy, whom the author herself notes is an influence.

What follows, once Victoria takes up her stake and commits to her destiny, is not bodice ripping (a little slow unbuttoning, perhaps…) or bosom heaving, but a realistic presentation of what a female action hero would have had to deal with if living in such a time. Skirts not meant for running and fighting, pants not acceptable on the female form, sleeves meant to be frothy rather than fitted…fashion alone is a major issue, and not just in terms of where one can hide a stake.

There is, of course, requisite romance with Phillip, the Marquess of Rockley, and – as always happens when one of the characters is a hero – romance is not a reward as much as yet another thing to be balanced and protected, or pushed aside when a life must be saved.

Gleason’s characters all ring true, even those like Sebastian the owner of the vamp-friendly bar who are a bit over the top, and her plot moves at a comfortable pace. Maybe I was inspired in part by the season – I’m writing this review having just given the last of my candy to a stray trick-or-treater, after all – but not only could I not put this book down, I’m already a third of the way through the sequel.

You’ll note Ms. Gleason’s presence in my blogroll. You’d do well to include her works on your shelves.

Halloween Hit List: Carpe Demon (& Sequels)

by

Since it’s Halloween week, I thought I’d spotlight some of my favorite books with monsters, vampires, and other supernatural themes. As it’s Monday, and I’ve got a slight cold (just enough to make me crabby) I thought I’d start with a lighter offering.

Julie Kenner’s Demon Hunter books, which began with Carpe Demon are all about Kate: wife, mother, and secret demon hunter who has to balance raising a teenager, keeping her young son from her second marriage in baby clothes, helping her husband’s career, and, oh, yeah, killing demons in places like Wal-Mart and the school basement.

Along the way, she drags in a good friend, and has many adventures of both the comic and creepy sorts, with some great sale items picked up along the way.

If you’re tired of the protagonists in such books being teenagers and college students, and want to read about a horror heroine with chick-lit sensibilities, you must check these out.

STTNG: Q & A

by

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Q & A

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

The thing about Star Trek novels, for me, is that they’re sort of like Caribbean cruises: you get a taste of the exotic, but you do so from a safe, comfortable environment.

Keith R. A. DeCandido’s Q & A, his latest addition to the Star Trek: the Next Generation collection is no exception. In fact, it’s like the part of the cruise that involves fruity drinks with cute umbrellas and dancing into the night, and that, really, is how it should be.

In this novel, we see a different side of Q, the part that actually has a purpose, and a motivation beyond just having fun – though fun is never ignored if it comes up – but we also get to have some emotional closure for the loss of Data in Nemesis, as Geordi warms to the woman who has his friend’s old job, and some story swapping and healthy reminiscing goes on. We have Picard and Beverly Crusher in an actual, healthy relationship, and we have the usual saving the universe story, and all that is wonderful.

But then DeCandido transcends wonderful, by mixing in references not just to every single appearance by Q in the television canon – EVER – but also by relating the plot to key moments from the show that many of us would never have expected.

If you’re any kind of fan, you’ll appreciate the in-jokes. If you’re not, you’ll still enjoy the story. Either way, for a good time, read Star Trek the Next Generation: Q & A as soon as you can.

Five For Friday: Formulaic.

by

While I confess, I’ve been known to mock formula romances like those offered by Silhouette and Harlequin, I also recognize that they’re great for quick escapist reading, perfect for the bathtub, and have helped a lot of really good writers get their starts in the industry. Besides, it’s a market dominated by women, and that’s never a bad thing.

For this week’s Five for Friday, then, I offer five characteristics of formula romance heroes:

  1. They’re handy. If they don’t have a workshop full of Ingersoll Rand air tools that they use with ease, they at least know how to change a tire, unclog a sink, and chop firewood, all without ever staining their shirts.
  2. They cook. Granted it’s usually one meal like steak or an omelet, but they do it really well, and are proud of their achievement in the kitchen.
  3. They twinkle. Oh, I don’t mean Dumbledore-esque twinkling, I mean that there’s a reason some people call these books “twinkling brown eyes” novels.
  4. They’re debt free. Oh, they might have business trouble, or they might be poor, but you never read about them freaking over not being able to pay their Visa bill.
  5. They communicate with their mothers. There’s just something about romance novel heroes and their mothers – they all have parents who give good advice that they actually listen to, or who manage to somehow help them seal the deal with the heroines of these novels, who generally don’t have mothers of their own.

Carpetbagging

by

Writing about having to throw out a piece of luggage on my main blog the other day has me thinking about literary luggage. Yes, another list, but as I’m a little muzzy-headed I’m not committing to a number.

  1. Jane in A Dangerous Dress has her luggage stolen (she thinks) early in the novel, and is mortified because her grandmother’s dress is in it.
  2. Anne in Anne of Green Gables arrives on-scene with a very old carpetbag, with one handle that is partly broken. She manages to find romance even in that.
  3. Speaking of carpetbags, we can’t forget The Importance of Being Earnest and a plot twist involving one, or rather, a valise, as well as a lost baby.
  4. Hemingway’s Suitcase is a novel that doesn’t just feature a suitcase, but a stolen suitcase that contained everything Hemingway had written up to 1923, which is found by an author decades later in Los Angeles.
  5. And finally, another carpetbag – one owned by a Miss Mary Poppins – that must have been somehow multidimensional, because it held simply everything.