A handful of mini-rants
I utterly and completely loathe unnecessary questions at the end of a blurb. You know the ones.
Can Rebecca Skiffington find true love and happiness with the gambling pirate she so despises?
But will Jennifer, a simple schoolteacher, find the solution to the serial killings that has baffled local police and FBI alike?
Can Orissima, alone and separated from the kingdom she is destined to rule, ever defeat the cruel usurper calling himself the Duke of Zal?
Once the question is asked, I no longer want to read the book. I figure that the author has already told me how the book ends. In fact, when I read such blurbs, I imagine what could happen if the answer to the question was a resounding NO.
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I distrust blurbs that contain feminine or ambiguous nicknames for male characters. Fairly or not, when I read of a man named Lucius who is called "Luci" or a man named Andrew who is called "Andi" or "Annie," I tend to think that the author will turn the character into a chick with a dick. Regrettably, this is often the case. This is especially true when the book in question is a romance. All too often, a gay romance becomes a het romance in all but name.
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I am now sick and tired of shapeshifters and want to drown them all in a vat of silver nitrate. Too many people are writing about esoteric animals like were-sloths, were-octopuses, were-bobcats and--my personal favorite--gay Nazi were-unicorns. ENOUGH ALREADY. Can we please declare a moratorium on shapeshifters for the next twenty years or so?
And yes, I KNOW that some people love them. They have a perfect right to love such stories. And I have a perfect right to loathe them.
***
Can Rebecca Skiffington find true love and happiness with the gambling pirate she so despises?
But will Jennifer, a simple schoolteacher, find the solution to the serial killings that has baffled local police and FBI alike?
Can Orissima, alone and separated from the kingdom she is destined to rule, ever defeat the cruel usurper calling himself the Duke of Zal?
Once the question is asked, I no longer want to read the book. I figure that the author has already told me how the book ends. In fact, when I read such blurbs, I imagine what could happen if the answer to the question was a resounding NO.
***
I distrust blurbs that contain feminine or ambiguous nicknames for male characters. Fairly or not, when I read of a man named Lucius who is called "Luci" or a man named Andrew who is called "Andi" or "Annie," I tend to think that the author will turn the character into a chick with a dick. Regrettably, this is often the case. This is especially true when the book in question is a romance. All too often, a gay romance becomes a het romance in all but name.
***
I am now sick and tired of shapeshifters and want to drown them all in a vat of silver nitrate. Too many people are writing about esoteric animals like were-sloths, were-octopuses, were-bobcats and--my personal favorite--gay Nazi were-unicorns. ENOUGH ALREADY. Can we please declare a moratorium on shapeshifters for the next twenty years or so?
And yes, I KNOW that some people love them. They have a perfect right to love such stories. And I have a perfect right to loathe them.
***