Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Lori Love, Girl Mechanic, inherited her father’s auto repair business and her father’s home when he suffered a traumatic head injury and spent years in a coma. Drowning in debt and having given up her dreams of world travel and a life greater than what she has now, Lori decides to take back one form of excitement for herself: the thrill of having a no-strings-attached affair. Thanks to her friend Molly’s erotic novels and the spicy writing of other erotica authors, Lori has been thinking a lot about what turns her on, and she’s ready to start her own engine. When she meets up with Quinn Jenkins, Molly’s older brother, and catches his attention - something that’s quite a challenge to accomplish, as Quinn spends much of the time in his own head, completely oblivious to everything around him - Quinn nominates himself for the job of stringless hottie with whom Lori can indulge herself.

Unfortunately, someone seems to be trying to scare Lori, or get her to give up something she didn’t know was valuable to anyone. On top of that, Ben has decided to take another look at her father’s past, because something doesn’t add up right. So Lori is on the edge of deciding who she wants to be when everything she thought she was is called into question.

Inside this book, there are some amazing moments. Dahl is capable of writing some wonderful scenes, and creating images that speak louder than the character’s dialogue, like Lori’s map of jeweled pushpins and Quinn’s 3-d model tour. The writing is sneaky and fierce and evocative and I savored some of the descriptions and phrases, like this one where Lori is ruminating about Quinn:

Quinn was different… shiny and polished from the constant flow of letting his own dreams wash over him.

When he settled into the driver’s seat and flashed her a smile, Lori’s throat froze again, so full of need that she wondered if she’d cry. She wanted sex with him, there was no doubt about that. But maybe more than that, she wanted a little of that glow to rub off on her bare skin, wanted to feel what she’d felt as a younger woman.

Her glow was long gone[;] now she just wanted a taste of Quinn’s.

My problems, let me bulletpoint them:

The hero: Quinn had the potential to be so much more than he was. I love the distracted genius, the guy who gets so caught up in his work that he focuses on nothing else and comes out of that creative trance unsure of where he is or what he missed. When a person with that kind of focus uses it on an object he desires - rwor. But due to the plot of whodunwhatnow, he doesn’t really grow or even develop beyond the distracted hot guy who does his homework about what Lori might like in the sack, and is left playing a supporting role, and at times acting as a foil, for Lori’s growth.

The idiocy: I’d have had a lot more faith in any of Lori’s growth if she wasn’t so blithe and clueless at times. I recognized the significance of many points long before Lori did, and I thought someone as sharp and business-savvy as she is would have caught on earlier than she did. Plus, two separate times she makes a choice to do something totally irresponsible that absolutely floored me, considering how otherwise careful and not completely stupid she was.

The lack of satisfaction: the resolution of whodunwhatnow is so unsatisfying and completely (and unintentionally, I think) creepy, I shuddered. Lori’s reactions undermined her strength in my eyes.

The difference: there’s a marked and jarring difference between Lori when Horny, Lori when Happy, and Lori when Scared - almost like reading three different characters. I didn’t think there was any cohesion between them, and I only really liked one of them - Lori when Happy is hilarious.

Finally: the discomfort. One of the things that Lori learns to appreciate about herself sexually during her fling with Quinn is her enjoyment of some spicy experimentation in the nookie department. I’m all for heroines who own and nurture their sexuality and who frankly admit to having simmering hornypants. But all of the scenes that played with bondage, dominance, and role playing take place after Lori and Quinn have had some sort of personal conflict, either a minor disagreement or a full-on moment of anger. Because of that, the scenes - which normally do not bother me or squick me out - left me twitchy and dismayed, and deepened that disconnect between the different facets of Lori’s character.

Even though I didn’t enjoy Start Me Up nearly as much as Talk Me Down, I will still eagerly grab anything Dahl writes, because I enjoy her writing voice, her humor, and her deft development of scenes and characters. I wish that the personal wholeness that Lori sought in this book had been achieved, but even with my disappointment, I look forward to the next book set in this town, and with these characters.

Start Me Up is available for pre-order at IndieBound, BN.com, BAMM, Amazon.com and may be at your local library.

A cursory plunge into the book’s contents reveals that Anderson has not only cribbed material from Wikipedia and websites (sometimes without accreditation), but that he has a troubling habit of mentioning a book or an author and using this as an excuse to reproduce the content with very few changes — in some cases, nearly verbatim….

EXAMPLE TWO

In a subsection called “The Three Prices,” Anderson writes about Derek Sivers’s “reversible business models,” but entire paragraphs from Sivers’s “Reversible Business Models” August 2008 blog post have been recycled with very few modifications.

Anderson, P. 32: “In China, some doctors are paid monthly when their patients are healthy. If you are sick, it’s their fault, so you don’t have to pay that month. It’s their goal to get you healthy and keep you healthy so they can get paid.”

Sivers: “In China, some doctors are paid monthly when you are healthy. If you are sick, it’s their fault, so you don’t have to pay that month. It’s their goal to get you healthy and keep you healthy so they can get paid. ”

Anderson, P. 31: “In one instance, he told his class at MIT’s Sloan School of Business that he would be doing a reading of poetry (Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass) but didn’t know what it should cost. He handed out a questionnaire to all the students, half of whom were asked if they’d be willing to pay $10 to hear him read, and the other half of whom were asked if they’d be willing to hear him read if he paid them $10. Then he gave them all the same question: What should the price be to hear him read short, medium, and long versions of the poem?

Sivers: “Professor Dan Ariely told his class that he would be doing a reading of poetry, but didn’t know what it should cost. He handed out a price survey to all students, but secretly half of the surveys asked if they’d be willing to pay $10 to hear him read, and the other half asked if they’d be willing to hear him read if he paid them $10!

“Those who got the question about paying him were willing to pay. They offered to pay, on average, $1, $2, $3 for short, medium, long readings.”

Not to toot my own horn, but lemme grab it and make that funny sound with my lips that’s sort of like a fart but not quite: Yo, Chris. You missed the second part of my advice on internet relationships: Generosity and AUTHENTICITY are the best currency for anyone marketing anything on the Internet.

Authenticity is not lifting crap from Wikipedia.

But wait, just when you thought we were done, from Wikipedia to Celiac disease we go!

First, ever met someone with gluten intolerance, or Celiac disease? It sucks so impossibly hard, I can’t even tell you. It’s brutal because gluten hides out in a TON of foods.

Allegations of plagiarism, however, are not so much with the hiding. Elisabeth Hasselbeck has been accused of copright infringement in a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts federal court. Susan Hassett, who published her book, Living with Celiac Disease (note: profoundly unfortunate website ahoy) independently, alleges that Hasselbeck lifted verbatim phrases and lists from Hassett’s book, as well as the names and order of the chapters.

TMZ has a PDF of the letter sent on behalf of Susan Hassett, and I have here a PDF of the complaint filed in federal court. (Thank you anonymous).

Both documents list examples, from the chapter names to specific passages. Further, the TMZ letter states that Hassett posted on the ABC News website a “blog” (sic) indicating that she’d mailed a copy of her book to Hasselbeck over a year prior to the release of Hasselbeck’s book, and had noted how much the books had in common. Her post was removed.

According to the AP, Hasselbeck said in a statement that she worked “diligently and tirelessly” on her book about Celiac disease, and that the claims are “without merit.”

While I haven’t seen a blogger take on the side-by-side comparison of Hassett’s book and Hasselbeck’s, the comparison work on Anderson’s is just jaw dropping. What the hell, people? How is it that the wily internet is all over the obvious similarities, and the author blames the troublesome nature Wikipedia editing, and the process of deciding whether or not to footnote while the publisher calls the whole mess “an unfortunate mistake.” They still plan to release the book 7 July:

Anderson added that the errors were “a lot less” than VQR suggests.

“Take away the properly attributed quoted to the New York Times and others in the passages, the proper nouns and the random words that appear in sentences that are obviously my own, and the errors look a lot more limited,” he said in his email. “That’s no excuse – Wikipedia should have been cited, and will be in the electronic editions and online notes, but it’s more of a footnoting/attribution problem, and one that will be fixed before publication in all but the hardcover edition.”

You’re goddam right it was an unfortunate mistake, and once again, I and others are wondering why this happens again and again. In other words, someone isn’t doing their goddam job, and it’s not just the writer.

Perhaps it’s time to amend my statement, “IT’S THE INTERNET: you will get caught” to “It’s the internet! Do you really think we’re THAT gullible?!” As one commenter at VQR pointed out,, if Anderson’s book is all about the power of “Free,” how about that book hits stands for “free?”  How about it, Hyperion?

Color me surprised: radio silence.

While the initial forbidden attraction elements are delicious, the entirety of the novella did not live up to the promise of the beginning. Taran is out of his mind for Lark, and refuses to do anything about it because he believes she sees him as family.

I was intrigued by the shifter world Holley created, particularly in the little details that were revealed slowly and not dumped upon me. Some parts of her worldbuilding confused me. For example, I did wonder how Taran could be an alpha yet exist under another alpha in his pack - wouldn’t they spend most of their time growling and peeing on trees? Other elements added a clever dimension to the story, such as the idea that only a human who is a werewolf’s mate can meet and hold his gaze. Otherwise, no human can maintain eye contact with an alpha shifter.

Plus, shifter wolves do have a life mate, but that finding that mate is incredibly rare, and can cause some very realistic problems. One ancillary character had her heart broken when her boyfriend, a shifter, found his mate - and it wasn’t her. Ouch. A conflict based upon emotion for one person and compulsion for another? Double Ouch.

That conflict finds its way into this story as well. Lark isn’t going to fall in line or in bed for any dude who says he wants to boink her just because his wolfy senses tell him She is Teh One. Frankly, that’s probably one of my major beefs (no pun intended) with paranormal romance of late: much of the tension is slackassedly based on the lukewarm I’m a Paranormal Hero and You’re My Mate, That’s Why. Holley takes a different road with her ancillary characters, and I appreciate it.

My problems with the novella deal with that tension, though, and with the larger plot threads operating behind the course of this story. It’s clearly part of a series, and this visit into the larger narrative leaves SO much unsolved, it is too short by far. It ended and I thought, “Wait, that’s it?!” It was like turning into a plot-intense television series in the middle of the season without having read so much as a Wikipedia synopsis. Plus, all the concerns they had about revealing how they felt never materialized. So much happened off screen to resolve those concerns that by the end the two of them looked daft to have worried about it at all.

And because it’s a novella, there’s not a lot of time for the hero and heroine to resolve their issues and dissolve one another’s clothing with the red hot lusty action. The scene in which they have to admit the truth to one another and then submit to one another rapidly shifts (hur) from internal struggle to ZOMG SEX NOW and I didn’t quite get pulled along for the transition. It seemed to me that the emotional tension dissipated too quickly in the haze of lust and omgfinally, and I missed the blend of both that makes romances of this trope so delicious.

Holley’s novella is a clever take on a lot of the tired shapeshifter world tropes, and after reading this one I am going to do my bitchy darndest to remember her name and her world because I’d be happy to revisit to see if longer stories, particularly those of Lark’s best friend TJ, develop the emotional and sexual tension concurrently and sustain both through their resolution.

Kiss and Kin is available from SamHain except that that link will be broken when the book comes out, so try this one at Books on Board or maybe this Samhain link if you’re looking to buy. (Psst. Samhain: autoforwarding is a great thing, ya know?)