Tag: sunshine blogger

Sunshine Blogger Again

On By Jennifer Mugrage19 Comments

Just as the sun must come up every day, rain or shine, so I am cursed to plod forever through an endless treadmill of answering questions. The questions are ever the same, but on the plus side, my answers keep changing.

I wasn’t exactly “awarded” this tag, but I did see it on the blog of one Bookstooge, who closed his post with “You aren’t hardcore enough!”

I am so hardcore. But, as usual, Bookstooge, thanks for doing everything exactly like Puddleglum. Or Trumpkin.

Here’s the participation rules

  1. Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog
  2. Thank the person who nominated you
  3. Provide a link to your nominator’s blog
  4. Answer your nominator’s questions
  5. Nominate up to eleven bloggers
  6. Ask your nominees eleven questions
  7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blogs

What’s your favorite book and why?

The Bible, because so many reasons, but among others, it’s got some really wild ancient history that you won’t find anywhere else. At least, you can find stuff elsewhere that’s sort of similar, but you won’t know which parts of it are true.

Can you share some obscure/unusual words you like to use when writing?

I like “interlocutor.” It means whoever the person in focus is speaking to. I also like “salient” and “equivocation.” But obviously, which fancy words are the most salient changes depending on the context of the writing.

When I’m writing narrative, I prefer to describe the action and people’s thoughts as simply as possible and let the actual events deliver the emotional impact.

Do you have pets (if yes, photos!)

Not anymore, sadly. Our last remaining rabbit passed just a few weeks ago. We (my son and I) hope to get another batch of chickens this summer, but standing between us and them is a large run-and-coop building project that, to me at the moment anyway, seems as intimidating as the Tower of Babel.

What brings you joy?

Beauty.

Landscapes, especially if I can paint them; beautiful folk clothing from around the world; beautiful items knitted or crocheted by myself or others; the simple, unforced beauty when your favorite mug is sitting on your favorite coaster and they match. The beauty of a plant: hens & chicks filling a planter, a Boston fern spilling towards the floor. Sunshine on my dining room walls. I love beautiful music, even though I’m not very gifted at it, which is no doubt a trial to the people around me.

I also love things that are beautiful even though they are ugly. “Brutalist” jewelry, that looks weathered, like it came through the apocalypse. Things that are painted, knitted, or sewn in unexpected colors, like browns and greys, or colors that you’d think would clash but then don’t. Stuff that looks worn or pieced together, like an old farm quilt. Well-told tragedies, like the recently reviewed story of Jason and Medea.

Here’s an example of a “brutalist” ring.

“All things counter, original, spare, strange;/Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)/With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;/He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change/Praise Him.”

–Gerard Manley Hopkins

If there’s anything that can make you look forward to tomorrow, what would that be?

My husband and children.

Best vacation destination from your experience?

I have a whole bucket list of ancient sites I want to see, but that’s not what you’re asking about.

I have fond memories of a little cabin hut bungalow on a small island called Gili Air, off the coast of Lombok. Go out and snorkel in the morning, come back in the afternoon and sit on the porch and read. Look across the bay at sunset, and see the mountains of Bali looming out of the sea. Beach is not even my favorite setting, but boy that was one relaxing vacation.

Do you count steps?

What?

Favorite meal?

Fish and chips and coleslaw.

The last song you listened on repeat?

Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.

I realize you all have been aware of this song for years, but I just heard it in its entirety a few months ago. Like probably every listener, I found it to be a stunning work of art and also kind of a puzzle, and I listened to it a couple of times in a row for several days until I felt I understood it. I’ll spare you my analysis, as I think volumes have already been written.

How many blogs do you have?

Just this one. I used to have a recipe blog and a book review blog, both on Blogger. I haven’t checked them in years and am not even sure if I could find them anymore.

But don’t forget to buy my books! And for goodness’ sake, please don’t return them. My publisher charges me when you do that. If you buy a hard copy and hate it, just burn it or send it to Goodwill or something.

What’s your favorite quote?

There are so many good ones, I can’t really pick a favorite. It goes in seasons with me. But for today, I’ll leave you with this one:

This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,/who depends on flesh for his strength/and whose heart turns away from the LORD./He will be like a bush in the wastelands;/he will not see prosperity when it comes./He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,/in a salt land where no one lives.
"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,/whose confidence is in Him./He will be like a tree planted by the water/that sends out its roots by the stream./It does not fear when heat comes;/its leaves are always green./It has no worries in a year of drought/and never fails to bear fruit."
The heart is deceitful above all things/and beyond cure./Who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:5 - 9

Now, my questions for you, Gentle Reader. These are inspired by our experience in grade school, where you were sure that you had to have a quick, permanent answer about your favorite color, animal, and favorite everything else ready to go. This is important! You never know when you might need to know this stuff! Answer with your first instinct and no cheating!

  1. What is your favorite brand of tractor?
  2. What is your favorite kind of cow?
  3. What is your favorite kind of chicken?
  4. Country or city?
  5. Ford or VW?
  6. Pickup truck or motor scooter?
  7. Star Wars or Star Trek?
  8. Beach or mountains?
  9. Sweet or savory?
  10. Sci-fi or fantasy?
  11. Favorite animal, domestic or wild, in your region or any other.

In Which I Read a Romance Novel from 1930

On By Jennifer Mugrage4 Comments

A year or two ago, someone challenged the famous curmudgeon Bookstooge to read Barbara Cartland. This was deliciously absurd, as Barbara Cartland is an incredibly prolific romance author from the last century, whose author picture, lest we forget it, looks like this.

These readalongs are supposed to happen in December.

In December 2024, Bookstooge and his 70,000 followers read Love Saves Day by Barbarba Cartland, which turned out to be essentially an unedited draft that was published after Cartland’s death by her children. Even so, the consensus was that we didn’t hate it as much as we expected to, and that for all its flaws, Cartland is a very professional hand at plotting.

This year, Bookstooge announced that the Cartland of choice was A Rainbow to Heaven. I purchased my copy, and everything was all ready to go. And then, after reading Chapter 3, Bookstooge bailed on us. He had his reasons. You can read them here.

But I am happy to tell you that I finished the book, and boy, did Bookstooge miss out because the plot really heats up after Chapter 3! Below, I will summarize chapter by chapter, and you will see what I saw, that Cartland has the touch when it comes to twists and turns.

And by the way, though this book was published in 1976, it is set in (and, according to the author’s note, written in) 1930.

Chapter 1

We meet Diana Headley, beautiful heiress whose father is a self-made man. We see her go to a party with the other “bright young people,” especially eligible society bachelor Hugo Dalk. We see that they are shallow, good-hearted snobs. We learn that Diana is a celebrity, whose picture is always appearing in magazines.

“I feel morbid,” she told Hugo brightly. “Let’s go and have a drink.”

p. 12

Chapter 2

Hugo proposes to Diana. She brushes him off. We get a little backstory about how this notorious playboy first got the bug for Diana.

Diana manages to get herself invited to the country home of Jack and Loelia Standish, a married couple whom she admires and who seem to represent some stability and kindness in her world. They have an estate called Huntsman’s House in the Malvern hills in Worcestershire. Jack mentions that he has an old army friend name Barry Dunbar who is “one of the most intellectual young men in Europe today.”

Chapter 3

Diana arrives at the beautiful, isolated and peaceful Huntsman’s House.

“So very, very pretty,” Loelia thought. “What a pity she leads such an aimless existence!”

p. 30

We hear more backstory about how Loelia came to marry Jack after a loveless first marriage to a man thirty-five years her senior. We hear how Jack, a sad, cynical soldier in WWI, met Barry Dunbar and was given hope and spiritual elevation by him. We learn that Barry has a project of retrieving obscure Hindu and Buddhist texts and getting them translated into English, and that Jack is helping him with funds.

Then we meet Barry himself. He is not impressed with Diana, and relates an incident in which he caught “three native boys” looking at a copy of Tatler, in which Diana appeared wearing a crazy costume that featured a bikini and top hat. Diana is embarrassed but tries to defend herself. Loelia is disappointed that Barry does not like Diana.

Chapter 4

Still at Huntsman’s House, we find that Barry has a way with both children and animals. Sitting in the morning room, intending to write a letter, Diana overhears a conversation between Jack and Barry. They discuss Barry’s travels, how great Buddhism is, and the need for a spiritual awakening in modern England, which apparently Barry’s Buddhist texts are going to catalyze. Jack presses Barry about whether he will ever marry. Barry admits to wanting a son, but doubts whether any woman could put up with his traveling lifestyle. He reiterates that he doesn’t find Diana attractive because her “mind is completely unused.”

The group walks to The Castle, a building on the Standishes’ land. They have fixed up a portion of it so guests can stay there. Eager to impress Barry, Diana asks for a copy of one of his books, and he lends her A Way. Diana finds it “extraordinarily beautiful,” but hard to understand.

Reflecting on the emptiness of her life of luxury, Diana returns to London, where she encounters her friends Cecil and Bebe,

a small vivacious blonde of her own age, who had startled London with her debut, and had continued to keep it considerably surprised ever since.

p. 51

Bebe and Cecil insist on Diana’s throwing a party, which they will organize. Hugo shows up and is disappointed that he can’t spend the evening with Diana alone.

Chapter 5

Diana and her large group of friends move from restaurant to theater to bar, drinking oceans of champagne and wasting lots of fine food which they can’t appreciate. Eventually, in the wee hours of the morning, Hugo brings Diana back to her London house. He wants to come in and “talk to her” (get an answer about his proposal), but she puts him off until tomorrow night.

Before going up to bed, Diana sees a light on in her father’s study and finds the body of her father, who has shot himself.

After the police are called and Diana’s brother Jimmy shows up, it is revealed that their father got into serious financial trouble and shot himself rather than declare bankruptcy. He was so active in the financial sphere that his ruin causes a crash, and causes many other people to lose their fortunes as well.

Chapter 6

There is a media frenzy making Diana’s father, Robert Headley, the villain. He is portrayed as intentionally looting the public, and luxuriousness of his house is exaggerated.

Quite normally decorated rooms were described as though they were treasure-houses of barbaric splendor.

p. 69

Diana and Jimmy lose everything, but the lawyer encourages Diana to keep her jewels, which she may be able to sell later. She assumes that Hugo will now not want to marry her. She boards a train and goes back to Huntsman’s House for a few days to get away from the publicity and to collect herself.

Chapter 7

Staying at the The Castle on Jack and Loelia’s property, Diana gets a letter from her brother Jimmy. He has taken a job at a garage, with the understanding that he will work under an assumed name so as not to damage the garage’s reputation. The other mechanics can tell that he’s upper-class, and they don’t respect him until he gets into a fight. Diana realizes that she does not have any marketable skills. Although she can ride horses, dance, and speaks several languages, she is not equipped to teach any of these things.

Barry catches her sitting outdoors, crying, and tells her that she still has “the only thing that matters … Courage.”

A friend of Diana’s finds a potential job her. She is to be a “companion” to the daughter of a socially climbing family called the Schnibers. This is quite a change for Diana, but she decides to take the job. Once in their home, she sees how Mrs. Schniber raises money and contributes to a lot of charities, but the wealthy patrons she is helping still don’t treat her with courtesy, much to her frustration.

The Schnibers go to Monte Carlo for the summer, and Diana accompanies them. At one point, she gets away from her duties to have supper with a nice young man whose eye she has caught. He reveals that he lost his fortune in the Headley Crash and will be starting work when he gets back to London. Diana excuses herself before he can realize who she is.

Also in Monte Carlo, the Schniber family bump into Hugo. Hugo is shocked to see Diana in reduced circumstances. He still seems to like her and want to get alone with her, but Mrs. Schniber has hopes that Hugo will pursue her own daughter.

Chapter 8

The Schnibers and Diana return to London. Diana sells her jewels to help her brother Jimmy pay off a debt that he became liable for while he was still at the university. Diana and Jimmy become closer, and each is impressed with the other’s resilience.

Diana encounters the young man from Monte Carlo, but this time he knows who she is and treats her coldly.

Diana goes to Huntsman’s House for the weekend, where she tells Jack and Loelia about her new job and begins to find it funny. She is happier than when she was wealthy. Jack admits to Loelia that he misjudged Diana.

Loelia and Diana discuss love, marriage, and Barry’s tragic backstory. Barry is unexpectedly also staying with the Standishes, and by the end of her weekend there, Diana has realized that she is in love with Barry. She is surprised by the intensity of this new sensation, and she feels more alive than she ever has.

Chapter 9

Diana goes back to working for the Schnibers in London. She remains obsessed with Barry. Hugo has continued to call at the Schnibers, and Mrs. Schniber has finally realized that his interest in is Diana.

While out shopping, Diana bumps into Loelia, who mentions in passing that Barry has joined a Buddhist monastery. Diana is devastated and moves through her days in a daze.

Mrs. Schniber notices the change in Diana and concludes that it is because she is wasting away with love for Hugo. She encourages Hugo to press his suit. He does, and Diana, feeling that nothing matters anymore, agrees to marry him.

Chapter 10

In the midst of preparations for her wedding, Diana hears that Barry is no longer at the Buddhist monastery. He spent only three months there as a monk in order to prove his seriousness and gain access to one of their priceless manuscripts. She flees London, leaving letters for Hugo and Mrs. Schniber, and winds up in a village that she picked essentially at random.

Diana spends a few months living with and working for a very poor young couple, Ted and Rose, who run a roadside garage and a small tea room. She is happy living in poverty and obscurity, but she is not eating well.

On a stormy night, Diana stays with Rose, who is in labor, while Ted goes off on his motorcycle to fetch the doctor. Ted crashes in the rain. Rose delivers a baby boy, and both she and Diana are hospitalized.

Diana has caught pneumonia from running around in the rain. In her fever, she continues raving about whether the doctor will come in time. The doctor can’t identify who Diana is from her possessions, but he finds her book A Way, which has “Huntsman’s House” written on the inside. He contacts Jack and Loelia, who bring Diana to recuperate at their home.

Chapter 11

Barry comes to visit, where he spends time with the thin and weak Diana. He tells her that he is going to go to his house, on an isolated island off the coast of Cornwall, to write a book. Diana decides to risk everything and pursue him there.

She manages to get Barry’s address out of Loelia, who admits, “Somehow … I’ve always felt that you and Barry would suit each other, even in the days when you were a very frivolous person.” (p. 150)

Diana hops on a train, charters a fishing boat, and manages to beat Barry to his house. It is beautiful, peaceful, and unique, with a vast ocean view and two Chinese servants. There, she announces to the shocked Barry that she is going to stay with him. After ascertaining that she is not planning a large, wild party, and that she is the only guest, Barry finally figures out that Diana is in love with him. He reciprocates. The two of them enter directly into Nirvana.

What’s in My Purse?

On By Jennifer Mugrage6 Comments

I got this post idea from snapdragon .

Behold, my purse! Note the Native American-style fabric. I have long had a culture crush on American Indians.

Let’s see what’s in it …

First, the basics: wallet, lip gloss and lipstick, reading glasses, key fob with a little Minnetonka moccasin.

Now, the walking pharmacy: Two kinds of Aleve, two kinds of Claritin, Tums I forgot I had, Kleenex, dental floss picks, hand lotion, and a loose lipstick that is probably twenty years old, but I can’t bring myself to throw away. The Claritin is generally for my kids, not me.

Finally … air fresheners from the oil change place, Band-Aids and antibiotic ointment, tabs for when I simply must flag a passage in a book, business cards in case I need to give one out, and, oh, look! A pair of earrings that needs to go back to my jewelry box.

No, I don’t carry a brush. I have curly hair. One does not brush curly hair; the results are unfortunate.

I occasionally carry a comb in case one of my sons needs it, but they are getting older and starting to comb their own hair before they leave the house.

Other things that might, from time to time, get thrown on top of these: a hand-knitted hat or bonnet, a hair band, clip, or pin that I have taken off, a book that I want to have with me. And of course, the phone.

I Got Nominated … Sort of

On By Jennifer Mugrage17 Comments

(Is the above really the latest Sunshine Blogger Award logo? Looks kinda messy.)

So, Bookstooge sort-of-nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award! Thank you, Bookstooge! I am so flattered. I think his exact words were, “If you’re reading this, consider yourself nominated, because it means you have a pulse.”

Rules For The Sunshine Blogger Award:

  • Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
  • Thank the person who nominated you.
  • Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.
  • Answer your nominators’ questions.
  • Nominate up to 11 bloggers.
  • Ask your nominees 11 questions.
  • Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts.

Questions from Bookstooge:

  1. Why Would Anyone Consider Cereal to be Soup?

It’s because they are trying to categorize things according to algorithmic rules/decision trees instead of the way the human mind normally works, which is by constructing a schema for the thing in question and then eyeballing it.

With schemas, if the thing mostly resembles the schema, it is considered an instance of that thing, even if it misses checking some important boxes. And if it checks all the boxes but manifestly does NOT resemble the schema at all, then it’s not an instance of that thing.

Cereal is in the latter category. It’s an ungodly modern creation of Mr. Kellogg, who believed that eating meat was morally wrong as well as unhealthy, and sought to banish it from the breakfast table. And I say this as someone who very much likes breakfast cereal, particularly as an evening snack, even though I know it has wreaked havoc with my metabolism (see question #10).

2. Why Do You Blog?

I blog to get you interested in my books. Go buy ’em. BUT, warning, don’t buy the Kindle version of The Strange Land until the end of next week, when it will cost 99 cents because of a special promo.

3. How Do You Justify Your Existence? (I got that one from the Tales of the Black Widowers, good isn’t it?)

Yep, it’s a good one.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

“So God created man. In the image of God created He him, male and female created He them. And He said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, the cattle and the creatures that move along the ground.'”

Edit: By quoting this passage, I am NOT asserting that the only justification for our life is to reproduce … i.e., that your life somehow has no meaning if you are not a parent. I happen to have been given three children, but that’s God’s gift to me, not mine to Him. No, the point of quoting this passage is this: I justify my existence because God made me. He made us. He wanted there to be people. He wanted us to exist as male and female. And, per the latter part of the passage, He wanted there to be a lot of us. If you exist and you are a human, He is happy about that.

4. How Do You Choose Who to Follow?

Unfortunately, I’m a lot like Trump in this way. If you say nice things to me, I like you and then I follow you.

An alternative route is that you posted something that really interested me. This usually means book reviews, discussion about writing, theology, ancient history, and sometimes art.

5. If John McClane and John Wick were tied on a railroad track and you could only set one of them free, which would you choose and why?

O.K., I had to duckduckgo him, but John McClane is the Bruce Willis character in Die Hard. I would save John McClane instead of John Wick for the following reasons:

  • John Wick could definitely save himself.
  • I only saw the first Die Hard, but in it, John McClane is a family man, whereas John Wick doesn’t even have a dog anymore.
  • Once when we were in Indonesia, somebody swore that my husband looked exactly like Bruce Willis and now I can’t unsee it. That makes me think Bruce Willis is even more handsome.

6. In a game of Parcheesi, who would win, Spongebob Squarepants or the Doom Slayer?

I expect Spongebob to win in the same way that Bugs Bunny would.

7. Do you feel guilty about all of my oxygen that you are breathing?

Yes. My gosh, don’t remind me!

8. What is your favorite movie?

It’s a tie between The Princess Bride and a little hidden gem called Undercover Blues.

9. If you were going to be “accidentally but on purpose” killed tomorrow, how would you spend today?

I would write long letters to each of my children. If I had extra time, I’d move on to my husband, then other close family and friends.

I might try to transfer the rights to my books so they don’t go out of print, but I don’t think that could be done in one day. If you snooze, you lose, and I guess I snost and I lost.

10. Are mirrors Friend, or Foe?

Friend, but only in the sense of “faithful are the wounds of.”

11. If you could change ONE THING about your blog, what would it be?

Every single visit to my blog would result in a book purchase and then a breathless review on Amazon GO BUY MY BOOKS PEOPLE!

Ahem. I Nominate:

I nominate seven friends (the number of perfection!) plus Bookstooge cause I want to hear his answers too. And I nominate you, Reader, if you want to do it! After all, you are breathing! Which might provide the answer to my first question!

To Answer These Questions:

  1. What is the best gift God has given you?
  2. Without sharing details you don’t want to share, how did you come out of your darkest hour/day/year?
  3. What kind of biome would you most prefer to live in (one that can be inhabited by people)?
  4. In real life, how are your social skills (and do you have any tips for me haha)?
  5. What is your favorite genre of fiction?
  6. Do you ever read nonfiction and what makes you pick it up?
  7. Tell me one nice thing about your grandparents.
  8. If you could speak any language, ancient or modern, fluently besides your native one, which one would you choose?
  9. What are your feelings on the Harry Potter series?
  10. Do you have a favorite YouTuber/podcaster? What do they talk about? Now’s your chance to promote them!
  11. When did you first seriously consider the claims of Jesus of Nazareth? If you never have, would you do me a solid and consider doing so?

The Book Titles Tag, Wimpy Version

On By Jennifer Mugrage5 Comments

I got this tag from Bookstooge, who found these lists at Emma’s site. The idea is to answer each question with the title of a book you read from the previous year. Emma and Bookstooge both filled in three sets of blanks using titles of books they read in 2024 alone. I, on the other hand, am filling in one of the three sets of questions, using books I read in roughly the last year. When I say roughly: If I am currently reading the book (now, in 2025 – In Cold Blood), I get to use it. If I read portions of it last year (The Seven Laws of Teaching), I get to use it. And so forth. Enjoy!

  • When I was younger I was Ellen Tebbits
  • People might be surprised to discover that I Hope This Finds You Well
  • I will never be The Sentinel
  • At the end of a long day I need The Hiding Place, Young Reader’s Edition
  • Right now I’m feeling (like) A Woman Underground
  • Someday I want to (fulfill) The Seven Laws of Teaching
  • At a party you’d find me In Cold Blood
  • I’ve never (seen) The Whisper on the Night Wind
  • I really don’t enjoy Race Marxism
  • In my next life I want Loves Saves the Day

Wrapping Up the Romance Readalong

On By Jennifer Mugrage11 Comments

To recap, I joined a readalong with Bookstooge of a book with a cover that looks like this:

and whose author looks like this:

… which gives you a better sense of what the book is like than the cover does, really.

Barbara Cartland turned out a book every two weeks for the last twenty years of her life. Keep that in mind.

So, I finished this book pretty quickly. I was expecting a formulaic romance, and that’s what I got. The book does not drag. I can’t say I was super invested in it emotionally, but that’s because I’m a cynical middle-aged woman. And when Richard thinks to himself,

Oh, God, he loved her so much.

page 109

… I believed him. Behold the magic of Barbara Cartland!

Now, this book remains a first draft, and there are some first draft-y things in it, such as a shawl starting out as “lace” in one chapter, and getting transformed into “green silk” in the next. My favorite of these “first draft” moments is this one:

But now — how can I bear to be his wife knowing that he is already be in love with someone else?

page 106

I mean, I can relate. The most comical and confusing typos always show up in my most emotional scenes … and I always get so carried away when re-reading the scenes, that I can never catch them myself.

So, all in all, this was a not-terrible romance novel that read sort of like an outline, because it basically was an outline. If the book had been re-written to be much longer, then I feel certain that many of the minor plot holes/historical vaguenesses would have been ironed out, plus the potential emotional heft might have been successfully deepened to actual emotional heft. But, every author has to say “done” at some point, and in Cartland’s case, that was after whipping up the first draft, because that was her business model. She let readers take care of the historical details and the emotions, handling them with suspended disbelief and imagination. And that’s fair.

There was only one thing I did not like: the angry almost-kiss. (“Almost” because the couple are interrupted by a maid, so they don’t actually kiss except once at the very end of the book.) Anyway … “angry” and “kissing,” they do not go well together, no precious, they do not. I do not want Tiana’s marriage to be the kind of relationship where Richard ever kisses her angrily. And in fact, in most of the book, that is quite out of line with his character. It just happens in one scene, where they both lost their tempers “horribly” (actually quite mildly), and then were nearly overcome with passion. I don’t know why this is a romance trope. I guess I’ve missed something during my four decades of living. But, tip for you guys, in the middle of a fight is not the greatest time to start kissing your beloved.

Readalong with Bookstooge: Love Saves the Day

On By Jennifer Mugrage5 Comments

My faithful fellow blogger, Bookstooge, is doing a readalong of a book someone, possibly as a prank, recommended to him: Love Saves the Day by Barbara Cartland. I went so far as to order this book from Amazon in order to participate. I don’t usually read in the romance genre, but I have read a few, and I don’t despise the genre or its readers or anything like that.

I waited to post this until after Bookstooge’s first reaction post went up on Friday, but I am composing my reaction before I see his.

First, let’s talk about this cover, eh? The word “terrifying” comes to mind. The guy looks more like Dracula – or a 60-year-old uncle- than like a romantic hero. Note that he is grasping the heroine by the upper arms. She, for her part, appears to be very concerned and trying to get away. I don’t mind the fact that this is impressionistically rendered – I don’t even completely mind that her hair is not, as it is described in the book, curly — but the emotional tone of this cover does not match the promised content.

I am, as of this posting, almost all the way through Chapter 4 because I mistakenly remembered that Bookstooge was going to be writing about chapters 1 – 6 in his first post. My impression so far: the plot is a very capable romance plot. The heroine is young, brave, idealistic; the hero is a little older, world-weary, etc.; there’s a rival romantic hero in the picture who is young, blond, and charming; financial circumstances are forcing the couple into co-operation they wouldn’t otherwise undertake. There’s even a bitter, scheming housekeeper a la Rebecca. I can’t see any big holes in the plot.

My first impression of the wordsmithing is that this is a first draft.

There are a ton of comma splices. There is head-hopping. (Though that may be intentional; sometimes it’s hard to tell head-hopping from an omniscient narrator. I omnish, myself.) The tone of the dialog is slightly inconsistent. It’s as if Cartland wants this to be an Edwardian-era novel, like Austen, or even earlier, but it’s set in 1903, and sometimes it comes off as if the characters are pretending to be from an earlier era. I can’t tell whether clothes, technology, and so forth, contain any anachronisms. The clothes are fairly generically described, but there are “omnibuses.” (Edit: I just looked it up, and oops! Edwardian is 1901 – 1910. So, spot on. So, the language sounds like it’s going for … Victorian? But obviously I’m not very savvy about this, so perhaps her language is also period accurate.)

Anyway, after noticing that this read like a first draft, I then went back to the introduction (which, like a good fiction reader, I had skipped), and, lo and behold …. it is a first draft.

Dame Barbara Cartland[‘s] most amazing literary feat was to double her output from 10 books a year to over 20 books a year when she was 77 to meet the huge demand.

She went on writing continuously at this rate for 20 years and wrote her very last book at the age of 97, thus completing an incredible 400 books between the ages of 77 and 97.

Her publishers finally could not keep up with this phenomenal output, so at her death in 2000 she left behind an amazing 160 unpublished manuscripts, something that no other author has ever achieved.

Barbara’s son, Ian McCorquodale, together with his daughter Iona, felt that it was their sacred duty to publish all these titles for Barbara’s millions of admirers all over the world who so love her wonderful romances.

So in 2004 they started publishing the 160 brand new Barbara Cartlands as the The Barbara Cartland Pink Collection, as Barbara’s favourite colour was always pink — and yet more pink!

The Barbara Cartland Pink collection is published monthly exclusively by Barbaracartland.com and the books are numbered in sequence from 1 to 160.

–the introduction

Barbara Cartland was cranking out about one novel every two weeks for twenty years. I’m not even mad, I’m impressed. And I am now a little bit jealous of her. Imagine having such high demand for your books that you can just dash off all your ideas and the publisher will publish them as fast as they can.

Also, I’m tickled. That selection above gets funnier every time I read it. I mean, it sounds made-up, like something from a Bertie Wooster novel. Even the names of Barbara’s son and granddaughter sound like characters from her books. And the fact that they are calling it the pink collection because that was her favorite color … the fact that she loved pink so much … the fact that her author photo looks like this:

Now that I think about, the section above might be my favorite part of the book. The romance between Tiana and Richard is going to have to get awfully good in order to compete with Cartland herself.

The Belated Hallowe’en / Horror Tropes Tag

On By Jennifer Mugrage6 Comments

I got this tag from Snapdragon Alcove. I hope it’s OK that I’m posting it after Halloween (life is busy!). Because of the relatively narrow range of my horror consumption, I’m freely mixing movies and books.

Pick your favorite example of a …

Zombie apocalypse

The Book of Eli (a movie)

Not exactly zombies, but as I recall, there is an older couple that seems normal, but then you find out they have some sort of neurological disease from having eaten human flesh to survive. Creepy.

Also, I love the characters Denzel Washington usually plays, and this is no exception. I like my apocalyptic movies to be somewhat uplifting, and this fits the bill.

Vampire

The Unwilling, by C. David Belt (a book). Cheating a little, ‘cause I recently reviewed it here. This one made me cry, because there is a child vampire who wants to be “a real boy.”

Haunted house

I guess I don’t read many haunted house books, because Monster House is the only one I can think of. It is just as sad as ghost stories usually are.

Psychological thriller

Fractured and Shutter Island (both movies). I was very angry with both of these movies, but Fractured probably made me angrier.

Creepy doll

The Collision series, by Rich Colburn. So far, it has only two volumes: The Resolve of Immortal Flesh and The Formulacrum. But The Formulacrum ended on a literal cliffhanger, so that means Colburn owes us another one.

Neither of these books is exclusively about creepy dolls, but one very memorable creepy doll is featured … and that’s just about the only book I have ever read with a creepy doll.

Monster

Beowulf, duh.

And, in case you are not up to speed on this, Grendel is a t-rex. But there are plenty of other monsters in this how-to-defeat-monsters book, including the sea monsters Beowulf encounters while swimming in the North Sea, and Grendel’s mother, who appears to be some sort of octopus.

Comedy-horror

The Tremors franchise. It is the best. Extreme gross-outs, but also extreme humor. Survivalist Ed really steals the show.

Teen Horror

Stranger Things.  I will die on this hill.

The series starts out where the kids are about twelve and it more resembles E.T. or The Goonies, but the events cover several years and we see the kids discovering the opposite sex, feeling left out as they grow up at different rates, dealing with problems with their parents and problems involving finding a career and their place in the world. Their lives have all the teen challenges, plus the ghosts and demonic creatures and stuff to deal with. And yes, there are a few make-out scenes that it would be nice if we could skip. I will also say that the series seems to be equally sensitive to the experiences of teen boys and girls.

Some people think the episodes are too long and detailed, but that’s the point. They work in a lot of human drama in addition to the scary stuff, and I am here for it.

Demonic possession

Perelandra and That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis both feature possession that gets more terrifying the longer you think about it.

In Perelandra, the possessed man gets to come out and speak instead of the demon once in a while, and this gives a more evocative glimpse into his mind than we might prefer.

In That Hideous Strength, the people that are serving the demons get dehumanized to an even greater extent, and we see the beginning of this dehumanization process happen to one of the main characters. There is also a memorable scene where one of the villains, who up until now has been the most formidable because of his intelligence, wants to put a stop to something, but “he could not think of any words.” This moment of aphasia shows us how close his mind is to total disintegration.

Science fiction

Science fiction reliably pulls towards horror, for obvious reasons. Human nature doesn’t mix well with dimensional portals … or genetic engineering … or time travel.

That second image is from a movie called Paradox. It turns out there are quite a few of those, but this one involves time travel being exploited by a bitter coworker to go postal, and even though the team has an awful lot of information, they can’t figure out what is happening quickly enough.