Sunday Soup - June 30

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...
✽Good lord, I fell into the "WTF Bad Romance Covers" tumblr  the other day and almost didn't make it back. So funny, and so wrong. Not exactly SFW.

✽I am SO looking forward to RT14.  I had a lot of fun at RT12 but I feel a lot more connected in to the community now and plus, NEW ORLEANS! Also? the convention is being held at the hotel where my husband and I honeymooned in 1998, so that is pretty cool too.  This will be my first time back. Why do I bring this up now? Hotel reservations are now open!

✽More plagiarism. Teresa Mummert gives a detailed overview of a plagiarism "ring" that might be one person? or seven people who share a similar technique?  If you're going to go to all that trouble, people, you might as well ACTUALLY WRITE A BOOK.  The redeeming thing about all this hoopla is that the internet actually makes it kinda hard to get away with this kind of crap.  Book bloggers and authors will go to pretty great lengths to make sure of it.  There are hours of unpaid investigative work behind that one post, and there are many others-- because plagiarism hurts all of us.

✽If you feel like branching out from romance this summer, here is an intriguing-looking list of SFF titles for July.  Included are titles from Devon Monk, Jenna Black, and Ilona Andrews, so I know they've got taste.  I'm definitely interested in a couple of their picks.

✽Are you a lover of tropes? Honestly, I had no idea what that even meant until I started reading romance blogs and figured out that it meant, basically, story patterns.  I used to love to pick up pirate and captive type romances, but that was many, MANY years ago.  I started reading mostly by author in the 90s, and of course everything changed five or six years ago when I joined Romlandia online -- now I have more recs than I know what to do with, but I really don't read by trope.  If you do though, there's a great discussion over at DA and lots of recs-by-trope in comments.

✽To continue the reviews of the re-released Wickerly trilogy by Patricia Gaffney, here is Brie's review for To Have and To Hold. This title in particular has been dividing romance readers for years, on the question of rape versus "forced seduction," (a term I'm a bit uncomfortable with) and power dynamics in romance. I bought the paperback a few years ago to re-read when Jessica (of The Hypeless Romantic) was planning to use it in a class.  It's still on my TBR list, waiting...

What I'm reading
✽So I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was picked for Open Road Media's Retro Reader program, but somehow I missed the June email.  Finally I contacted them and got the two titles I'm supposed to be reviewing and have spent most of my reading time on those two books this week.  Both westerns, which is a genre I usually pass over, but I enjoyed them very much.  You should see something about them from me this week.


On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
OK, I know this blows my cover and exposes me for the pedestrian beer drinker I am, but I do like Blue Moon quite a lot. And over the winter, they had a Blue Moon Abbey Ale which I completely adored. It's got caramel and brown sugar and cinnamon and clove flavors. If you're thinking that it sounds like a Christmas cookie, you'd be right. I happen to like Christmas cookies. A lot.

However, this is a seasonal offering, so it's not currently very available. I've had decent luck with some mild blondes, so I picked up, somewhat randomly, a six pack of Abbaye Leffe Blonde from Belgium.

Sadly, I did not like it.  I had difficulty placing the fruit flavor I was getting, so I browsed a couple of reviews, and one of the reviewers from Beer Advocate said it perfectly:

Taste is very banana forward with a hint of funk.

I'm not really sure about what funk tastes like, but I don't think I like it. And I really, REALLY don't like bananas.  I'll be passing the rest of those on to a friend and I filled in the week with Henry Weinhard's Blonde.  It's getting super hot here though, so I think some Pyramid Apricot Ale is in my near future.