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

Ann Aguirre has offered 25 ARCs of her new book Wanderlust for the readers of this here blog. Yay!

Want one? Yes? Hook us up with the name of her next book. All the Jax books have compound word titles: Grimspace, Wanderlust, Doubleblind and Killbox. So, what’s the 5th book? Give us an idea, serious or silly.

Drop a comment with your choice of a compound word title, and we’ll pick 25 winners from among the best. 

But there is one condition - as Ann is a master of the viral market (in a good way, not in an ineffective antibiotic kind of way) she asks that if you win a copy, you review it, either on your site, or by emailing me your review. So enter as many times as you like, and “goodluck.”

ETA: Ann asked that I post a heads up for anyone in the NYC area: want to meet Ann personally and beg for a review copy of her book? July 22nd is your chance. 

Can I just say that I love the title “Wanderlust?” If you rearrange it, it’s Wanderslut. Which is almost as good.

Anyway, Ann Aguirre got busy with the long ass comment thread and came up with 25 springtime fresh winners of an ARC for Wanderlust! Behold! If your name is below, please with your mailing address asap! And congratulations!

This evening, traffic, children, and weather permitting, I’ll be at the Ann Aguirre BBQ-a-Thon Gathering aka “Someone has a hella layover and decided to turn it into a PARTAY.” There’s going to be bbq, a lot of napkins because holy crap is that messy food, and a few rounds of my favorite game, “Wait, are you Maria or Marisa?” with the Romance Novel TV twins. Perhaps there will be pictures.

There is no doubt, however, there will be a stain on my pants from dripping sauce. It’s a given. And if it’s not on my pants, it’ll be on my shirt. I’m a lightning rod for indelible stains. 

A list in no particular order to illustrate what happens with a bunch of romance fans, bloggers, readers and authors descend upon a Times Square BBQ place with big honking holy shit huge drinks.

1. I arrive late because I went home, took care of the fam, then drove back into Manhattan. This was bad idea jeans, because a few hundred other people had the same idea at the same time and I was taunted by sitting on the helix into the Lincoln Tunnel looking at New York but unable to get there. And, to make matters more embarrassing for me, the restaurant wouldn’t seat the party until we were all there. What the crap?!

Now I’m one embarrassed person. Sorry, y’all.

2. The drinks were huge.

3. No, really. The drinks were huge.

4. DO YOU SEE THE SIZE of the FISHBOWLS they serve the DRINKS in?!

5. See #1 re: driving. Hence I drank barely a quarter of the fishbowl, chugged water (which did NOT come in the fishbowl, damn them) and donated the rest of my margarita to a worthy cause: the inebriation of someone who didn’t have a drink. Yay!

6. I don’t go out much, really, which makes me lame, but I forget how funny it is that a table of 15 people with one major genre in common will always find something to talk about, and will undoubtedly have a kicking time. It’s like a book club on crack. With margaritas.Or beer. In fish bowls.

7. There are funny pictures of me circulating out there. I promise I am about 200% more funny-looking in real life.

8. Ann Aguirre was angelic and very cool, and if you ask her how she met her husband, the story will make you wet yourself with laughter.

9. We talked about any and all of the following: writing, books we’re reading, Magic Hoo-hoos, San Francisco, juicy pink velvet things, Twitter, and dial up modems. Also books. But you guessed that.

10. My camera phone takes grainy ass pictures in low light, but that doesn’t mean I can’t caption them. Enjoy - and thanks to everyone who came for creating a kickass evening.

Gillian won a copy of Wanderlust on this here site, and since she doesn’t have a blog of her own, she sent her review to me. Enjoy!

Note:  I play far too many videogames.  Whenever Jax’s PDA speaks, I hear it in GlaDOS’ voice.  Just...throwing that out there.

Onward!

Wanderlust is the sequel to Grimspace, which detailed the trials and tribulations of one Ms. Sirantha Jax, whose job used to be navigating spaceships through the grimspace of the title for the Farwan Corporation.  Then there was some unpleasantness with a crash and a cover-up, and a psychic mercenary and a symbiotic baby, and a bounty hunter who was really a giant insect, and so Farwan Corp ceased to be.

Thus, Jax needs a new job, as ambassador for a newly empowered government.  Her mission is to persuade a whole planet of giant bugs to join the Conglomerate.  She is not a qualified ambassador, nor is she particularly diplomatic, but she’s the only person the giant insects will accept, and so she is hired on principle.

Honestly, I didn’t enjoy Wanderlust as much as Grimspace.  It was entertaining, but it didn’t keep me gripped the way the first book did.  I read a lot of it whilst waiting for my merry band of idiots to regain their health points in Mass Effect (Oh Garrus!  Dead again, are we?).  It lent itself quite well to keeping me entertained for short bursts of time when I had nothing to do, but it was pretty near the end before I hit a point where I didn’t want to put it down.