Another couple of new books on the shelf

Sherrilyn Kenyon - Acheron
Julie James - Practice Makes Perfect

I considered getting Karen Hawkins' To Scotland With Love but figured I'll get it on my next trip.  Right now, I'm craving something that takes place in the present-day, not historical.  Additionally, I aimed for something that had a strong female lead that can take care of herself and doesn't necessarily need a man in her life.  However, of course, someone special comes along, because otherwise, the story wouldn't exist.

And that's where I found Practice Makes Perfect.  The story involves two people in a law firm competing to make partner at the firm where they work - hence, very stiff competition.

As for Acheron, I figured I need to read a genuine Sherrilyn Kenyon novel that isn't just Brotherhood of the Sword series.  I want to read what's popular in the other Menyons' eyes so that'll be somewhere...by next year possibly, if I ever get to it.

Heck, I'm still trying to start reading Passion and Pleasure in London (Melody Thomas) but school keeps getting in the way.

It's so hard to write a book review

I've been going through books like nobody's business over the summer, and right now it's the middle of the semester at my university.  Go figure, I barely have time to read anymore.

Anyway I did get even more new books, reading as much as I can, when I can.

Recently added:
Ecstasy Unveiled - Larissa Ione
Sin Undone - Larissa Ione
The Promise - Brenda Joyce

Recently read:
Hot Ice - Cherry Adair
A Courtesan's Scandal - Julia London
Never Marry A Stranger - Gayle Callen
Love Letters From A Duke - Elizabeth Boyle

Currently reading:
How To Abduct A Highland Lord - Karen Hawkins

Just got back from shopping

...and picked up a couple of new books.

The one worth mentioning here is Stand By Your Hitman by Leslie Langtry.  More research for my assassin RP *nods*

I was a little down this afternoon, till I brought myself to Borders and there was live music going on, something that I've never seen happen while I've been there.  So I stayed a while and yeah, it did a good job of perking me up.

12 days till I'm 21.

What else have I been up to?

I just finished reading Hot Ice by Cherry Adair (finally got around to it) due to the fact that I had to do research for an RP I'm in.  It helped a bit...guess I'll have to get more romance novels with espionage plots.  Hm.

I've also been reading A Courtesan's Scandal by Julia London (I also have her book Highland Scandal) but I'm only halfway through it and still don't get what's going on.

There's a few new books on the shelf.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned them before.

Gaelen Foley - My Dangerous Duke (sequel to My Wicked Marquess)
Kat Martin - Rule's Bride (second sequel to Royal's Bride, sequel to Reese's Bride)
Larissa Ione - Ecstasy Unveiled (fourth book in the Demonica series about the Seminus demon brothers)

I've still yet to do several book reviews that I need to catch up on and finish the Bride and Prejudice movie review...hahaha.  And I'm back in school, so that's no help.  I haven't been paying attention to my romance novels since a couple of days before the Twilight: Eclipse movie came out.  It's only around the last couple of weeks of summer vacation that I actually started caring.

Seriously though, I thought I would've been done with the rest of my books by now.  The current count of romance novels on my shelf is now 75.  I'm not sure if I've missed anything but it seems more than that.  Then again, nowadays I just pick up books on the shelf and put them down after a long while.  But don't worry, there's a whole slew of new reads at Borders that I've found that I can't wait to purchase.

Sherrilyn Kenyon - Totally got the book signing accomplished!

You know...I haven't read a romance novel since the Twilight Pre-party last June.

But I totally got Sherrilyn Kenyon's autographs on my books.  All five of them.  : )  And she gave me a sixth - a signed copy of her Dark-Hunters manga!

Comic Con just got 10x better

Sherrilyn Kenyon will be appearing there!  I'm pretty sure she did last year but I didn't know who she was until I started reading her MacAllister series.  Thank God I'll be done with it for a while after I finish the review for Taming the Scotsman (which is in Drafts right now).  But this time I have a game plan.  Instead of getting Twilight swag this year - well more like, aside from getting Twilight swag, I'm also gonna hang out at Sherrilyn's booth and get freebies there.  Hopefully autographs for my books as well.  That means I need some new Sharpies.

The Origin of the Honeymoon

Today, the tradition of a honeymoon following nuptials has, long way from its original meaning. Today's "happy ending" to the wedding event is a far cry from its much different beginnings. The word honeymoon has its roots in the Norse word "hjunottsmanathr" which was anything but blissful. Northern European history describes the abduction of a bride from neighboring village. It was imperative, that the abductor, the husband to be, take his bride to be into hiding for period of time. His friends assured his and her safe keeping and kept their whereabouts unknown. Once the bride's family gave up their search, the bride groom returned to his people. This folkloric explanation presumably is the origin of today's honeymoon, for its original meaning meant hiding. 

Romantic Movie of the Day

I went out to see Letters to Juliet tonight (Vanessa Redgrave, Amanda Seyfried).  It's actually pretty sweet, and quite comedic.  I almost thought I wasn't going to be able to see this movie because it's a very rare chance I actually go to the movie theater, if at all.

Finished another book

But I don't want to write a review just yet.  It's another Kinley MacGregor book and right after this, I'll be reading and reviewing an oldie-but-goodie in my library.

I first found out about romance novels when I was 8

Yes.  It's true.  I even read a couple of pages of it but I wasn't ready for that stuff yet of course, since I was just a kid.  I've been corrupted ever since then, ha!

Where'd I find this, you may ask?  It's presumably owned by my mom.  I don't know how she got it but lately she reprimands me for buying the books I have.  Hypocrite.

The book is called Chances, by Janice Kaiser, and it was published in 1987.  We still have it with us, even though I've moved houses so many times.  That book has been kept in so many damn places and it currently resides in my grandpa's TV room nestled in a bookshelf so unnoticed.  The only reason I brought it up today is because I saw it there.  No, I do not know what it's about, seeing as I've never officially read it.  But I think it was a contemporary at the time.

Not sure if I'll ever read it.  The Internet doesn't even have a stock photo of it, so is it even relevantly a known book?

I have seventy-plus books to go through

So how am I gonna pull this off?

I've been thinking about it, and while I do have plenty of books to go through, I still have many older ones to review.  After this next Kinley MacGregor/Sherrilyn Kenyon book, Taming the Highlander, I'm going to select one of my oldies and write about it here.

Bros before hos! Final take: Claiming the Highlander

As with most romance novels, this one pulled at my heartstrings, but it made me also laugh about the sheer absurdity of some things.

People advise me...

...that I should be writing my own books.

It's a possibility.  I'd like to.  I'm supposed to be extending the story I wrote during this past semester (which is now over, thank God, so I can finally get to work on this thing) but I'm not sure if I'm ready to be branching out and writing my own romance novels.

Continuing on with "Claiming the Highlander"

So all the guys of the two clans want is a woman to warm their bed, make their food, take care of the kids, and clean the house?

FUCK no.  I ain't doing that shit for ANYBODY!

The other thing is that Braden is trying to charm Maggie by calling her "baby" and stuff like that when he's not even in love with her.  It sickens me.  I wonder how I'm gonna get through this book but at least I'm continuing on where I left off.  It doesn't help that she's falling under his spell because she's been in love with him since she was a child, for saving her...on many occasions.

Not the first time I've seen this - the girl falls for the guy when she was a kid and then swears that he's gonna be her hero for the rest of her life?  Does that happen in real life?  It didn't for me!

And it's not like Maggie's got it easy, either.  The ladies are desperate to get back home to take care of their stuff (I'm not sure if they miss being ordered around by their men) and their kids, so they're getting a bit antsy in front of Maggie.  As for the guys, they tied up Lochlan (the clan laird and Braden's brother) as well as Maggie's brothers as hostages.

Seriously, is this how people dealt with situations in the olden days?  I mean one husband here in the book already bitch slapped his wife for refusing to come home!

Something I tend to notice in these books

In several of my books, it turns out the heroine knows something about accounts.  She tells the hero about that, so she can have a reason to stay around and "prove herself useful" so the guy will actually let her stay.


I can't remember all the books, but it was a feature so prominent in them, so I'm gonna try to flip through them after finals (all 70-something of my books) and see which ones actually HAVE that theme.  I KNOW there's more than one.


Book #1: Tracy Ann Warren's Tempted By His Kiss
Book #2: Adele Ashworth's My Darling Caroline (added 8/9/11)


You might be asking, "Why the hell is she talking about accounting in a romance novel blog?"  Well here's my answer.


I can't do accounting.  I'm a Pre-Business major, about to be dropped down to Undeclared because I'm gettin' kicked out of the system.  From what I've heard from other business majors, Accounting is TERRIBLY HARD.  Even if you're an accounting major - you've got study groups constantly burning that midnight oil, and I have to go through about two accounting classes as part of my requirements.  I took it last semester and didn't do so well.  So why the hell do these girls in romance novels act like they know so much about accounting and students today find it so damn hard?!


It's not fair!

New book

Scandalous Love, by Brenda Joyce

It's pink (or peach) and it has Fabio on the cover!  I've been wanting to collect the de Warenne Dynasty series for so long, ever since I first bought The Masquerade (1st edition, not the rerelease that happened in February, but I have that too).  There are quite a few more that I have to look for in that series, but I picked up Scandalous Love at a used bookstore (Crown Books.  There are quite a few of them around town apparently, and taking over other bookstores.)

I've been working on a movie review as well as school so that's why I haven't posted.  Not fun.  But yes, do expect movie reviews for romantic movies on here.

Yesterday I took my 33% off coupon to Borders, and considered buying another Sherrilyn Kenyon/Kinley MacGregor book, The Warrior (Lochlan, Kieran), but decided against it.  Oh well, next time.  I still haven't picked up Rule's Bride or the other book, either.

Two new movies

Made of Honor (Patrick Dempsey) and Sex and the City (Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Kim Cattrall) were both on sale at Target.  I intended to buy Reese's Bride and The Secret Duke as mentioned before, but I ended up with movies instead.

SO anyway, I watched Made of Honor today while I was at home during my break in-between classes.  This is, quite possibly, the true "test" so to speak for any woman fantasizing wanting to marry a Scottish (or Irish) guy who's a duke if you're lucky enough to meet him.

Would you really be willing to immerse yourself into a culture you're so unfamiliar with?  Not that I'm trying to diss anyone's culture, really, but the guy that the girl (Hannah) was planning on marrying is that Scottish duke whose family owns a whiskey distillery.  I couldn't understand the brogue except for small words you can pick up from any romance novel based in Scotland (i.e. bairn = baby/child, which the grandma was discussing with the couple).

I'm going to have a better review on this later, but right now I'm still working on Bride and Prejudice.  I haven't even read Claiming the Highlander in a while.

A new book

The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure (real author William Goldman).

I'd intended to buy this book sometime last year when I was out with my friend Stacey at a Barnes & Noble bookstore at a local mall.  We didn't buy it because the larger book was too expensive, and I was probably broke at the time.  But we love the movie, so it's only fair that we also get the book and compare the two.

No, I haven't read it yet, but I just bought it due to the fact that I had a Borders 33% off coupon.  I do tend to buy more books than I can actually read at a time, so there are plenty on my shelf (now 26 new books) that I have to read and review.  Plus...the other 50 or so books that I've read before and...also need to review.

Right now I'm working on a review for the movie Bride and Prejudice, which is pretty long, so I'll try to condense it as best I can without making a complete synopsis of it.  I apologize in advance, because that's usually the first thing I'll do, and then heavily edit later on.

But you all remember the Princess Bride movie, right?  "As you wish," and "true love," "Dread Pirate Roberts," and all that mumbo-jumbo?  Yeah, that one.

Sometimes I even ask myself...

...why do I do this so much?  Why do I buy so many romance novels, only for my money to fly out of my wallet and into the bankbooks of the authors whom I idolize.  And not just authors, it's anything that I purchase that benefits the bank accounts of someone else.

What am I working on? Plus, two new books.

I am currently reading Claiming the Highlander by Kinley MacGregor/Sherrilyn Kenyon. As far as I know, I think her regular name is Sherrilyn Kenyon, since that's the pen name she uses for most of her titles as well as her website, obviously SherrilynKenyon.com.

From my point of view

A twenty-year-old college girl with seventy-plus books about romance on her shelf.  From Shana Abé to Sue-Ellen Welfonder, and many other authors in-between, I can honestly say I am obsessed with romance novels.

Since 2006, I've been collecting these books of fluff and fantasies about eras long gone by, that people frequently ask me, "What the hell are you doing with all these trashy books?!"  Well, I don't have a straight answer for that.  I love them, sometimes hate them, occasionally want to throw them against a wall, but restrain myself from doing so.  And people sometimes tell me that I should either burn them or sell them.

What, a girl can't have her own collection of these in her room?

Anyway, I've seen the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books webpage, and am nowhere near their caliber of literary critique, although I do have a very big potty mouth, so that's to be expected along the way.  I've always wanted to write reviews about the books I've read (and video games I've played, and movies I've watched, etc...) but never really thought about an actual literary analysis until recently (my VERY cute grad-student English teacher bases his class on a lot of discussion, and I do very poorly on it, yet still have a good grade).

Not that I should feel intimidated by those Smart Bitches.  I think they're older than me anyway, so they can claim the "being wiser" thing, while I claim youth and inexperience (thank you, The Young Victoria).  I'm pretty sure it's true.

So I'm risking my college career, my health (lack of sleep due to persistent reading till the dawn breaks), and my social life just to fulfill a fantasy.  People think I'm crazy, but it's no biggie (hah, yeah right!)

Welcome, all ye readers to A Daily Dose of Unreality!