This week I am mostly reading...

So with the fibre blahs ( as The Sherriff so aptly calls it) still firmly in place despite the fact that I have merino waiting to be spun into Christmas pressies which normally would have sent me into a whirlwind of pleasant activity...
I have instead plumped for putting up my still baddie leg and reading delightful trash. This is good trash though. A bit like Turkish Delight, you know that there is no content but sugar in there and you know that really it is doing you no good, but oh it is just so very tasty. The lit snob in me was shrieking the entire time I was read this - about six hours, yes it is that lite. But then who wants Dostoyevski all the flippin' time? Not this bunny. (I've never actually read Dostoyevski. I have always wanted to, but I take his books out of the library and then discover that my eyebrows need plucking or I have to paint the bathroom etc etc)

So, here we have exotic, wild and beautiful settings; New Orleans, Paris and the Highlands of Scotland and exotic, wild and beautiful creatures; too many to mention but the cast include vampires, werewolves, Valkyries (no less) and some wraiths. As an honourable mention, a Valkyrie is a creature I could really get behind, not like the rather prissy LOTR elves...Aragorn is another matter entirely but I digress.
Ahem...

Ah yes. There is the obligatory devastatingly handsome hero and the stunningly beautiful heroine so far so ho hum. But he is a werewolf and she is a vampire cross valkyrie (some girls have all the luck) and this little tale is their adventures across half the globe: she escaping all kinds of stuff by the skin of her teeth and he literally fighting the hordes of hell for his lady fair. The way I am feeling right now, this piece of mental bubblegum really hits the spot. I love a hero. I loved the way Cole described desperation of loss and I loved the (occasional quite literal) tooth and nail fight for love.
The pace is very fast, the (rather gory) fight scenes lucid, the sex scenes... umm raunchy might be an appropriate desciption and there is fairly liberal use of the f word too. Altogether a book that a good Christian woman might think twice about reading. And I did think twice about it too and then I went ahead and bought it. And now I am going to go and buy the sequels because sneers aside, this is a damn fine tale and there is nothing wrong with that in my book.

Jessie's Diets

Jessie was a favourite character on a favourite sketch show of mine called The Fast Show. It didn't last very long and has long since been eclipsed by Little Britain, which passes me by completely, which is a sure sign of getting old.

Anyway, Jessie used to come out of his shed on his allotment, hitch up his grotty trousers and bark at the camera in broad Devon
"This week I have been mostly eating..." and then say the most bizarre ingredient like "Figs" or "pate fois gras" and then he'd scrabble back into his hut and bang the door closed.

I found it hilarious.

So I rather liked the swiping of it in This week I have been mostly reading...in the titles of some of my posts. Just wanted to clarify that for some reason.

The point of that was to let you know that this week I have been mostly reading...

Enchanted, erotic fairy stories for women
by Nancy Madore

Man, it is nasty. There are some glowing reviews on Amazon - don't believe them. This book is just yuk. And there I'm leaving it.

But it did get me thinking that I am certain that I could write better than that. I've loved Mills and Boon for many years and they can get decidedly racy in places so I know that erotica can be written well. So I got my serious writing hat on and away I went.

So then I thought some more and considered that this is a craft blog, but I put an awful lot of poetry and stuff on here. So organisation waved its tiny paw at me and suggested I start another blog for the creative writing that I have done. So I have. And I'm filling it up slowly with the stuff that I have had hanging around and had nowhere to put. So...there it is I've told you.

Link removed, see below

I've only put a snippet of the erotic fairy story up on the new blog and there is nothing to frighten the horses there, but I would be grateful if you could give a bit of feedback if you felt like it.

Also, and it is a valid question to ask, V - my arbiter in most things of sensible behaviour (as I foul up in that department so often) - doesn't like the idea of erotica at all and thinks that a good Christian woman should have nothing to do with it. This despite almost daily evidence that I am not very good at being a Christian anyway. I just happen to be rather fond of Jesus, that's all, I'm useless at listening to Him though.

So...what do you think? Should I be stoned for thinking up stuff like this? Or should I not be stoned, but let it go anyway, or doesn't it matter? I honestly want your opinion. Please share. I know comment moderation has been enabled but I promise to post up every ones point of view regardless of wht you say.

Thanks

Additional
Have removed link to writing blog as I really need to think about what I want to do with it. Thanks for the input guys, it's appreciated

This Week I am Mostly Reading...

Beloved Exile by Alexander Cordell. (Can't find an image sorry)

Thanks to Jethro, I have read this book in just over twenty four hours. Bad idea really as it is quite intense. It was written in the 90's, a long time after the Welsh Trilogy but it is centred on Iestyn, the storyteller in Rape of the Fair Country. It tells of the retreat from Afghanistan in1842 and every politician should be made to read it. I knew a little of the history as a great uncle of mine was shattered in Afghanistan just after WW1, but that's another story. Britain has crashed up against this rock time and again and we still haven't learned.

This book is not for the sensitive, it has all the casual brutality of some of the later Sharpe novels. The horrors are not described in lavish language, but the very starkness of the words allows the reader license to dwell where more florid images would deter. Anyway, it is a very fine book but I cared more about the characters in the Welsh Trilogy because they are my people: I know people like Hywel, Iolo, Morfydd and Mari. Durrani left me cold and the Royal messenger was a royal pain more like.

However the book had a different purpose for a different time. Our poor blood soaked little planet, mans inhumanity, luxury and poverty, perversion and beauty and against all odds and rather unexpectedly for Cordell, Iestyn ends up safe. He must have got fed up with bleak endings and lands our hero in safe haven in the end. At least one Mortymer ends happily. Thank goodness!

This Week I am Mostly Reading...

The Celtic Devotional by Caitlin Matthews

This is a non Christian devotional, this means that all faiths can use it. Some reviewers on Amazon think it is a little new age for Christian tastes, but I am a pentecostal nutter and I don't see anything wrong with it. You just have to substitute the terms for the Divine for one that suits your particular faith. This lack of boundaries often unnerves your avarage churchgoer, but why lose out on beauty (and this book is very beautiful) for lack of nerve? As long as you know what or who has your worship.

This Week I am Mostly Reading...

Such an easy book to read. Rather more than gardening, more like a horticultural chicken soup for the soul. Dip into or read all the way through and what a lovely bloke he must be - well read, intelligent, sensitive, muscular, hard working and self aware. Rather like my own V, no wonder I like him.

This Week I am Mostly Reading...

Country Wines and Cordials by Carol Wilson

I can feel another hobby coming on...

Ginger Beer
1 oz root ginger
1lb sugar
0.5 oz tartaric acid
0.5 oz citric acid
0.5 oz baker's yeast

Boil the bruised root ginger with half a gallon of water for 20 mins then decant onto the sugar and both the acids. Add a further half gallon of cold water and the yeast.

Allow to ferment in a demijohn fitted with an airlock until there are no signs of gas escaping then place in bottles primed with half a teaspoon of sugar. Cap the bottles.

Stand in a warm place. It will be ready to drink after three or four days.

NB Use stong bottles for this or else you run the risk of them bursting. Very nasty.

This week I am mostly reading

Silverthorn by Raymond E Feist.

Yes I'm back into the sword and sorcery for the mo, I got Eddinged out a few years ago and haven't really been back since LOTR film made it all so much easier if I needed a fix rather than having to put up with clumpy writing.
I haven't read much of Feist and this one was written in 1982 so I think he was fairly new to the game and it shows, but the story is good if well worn. Ii think I will probably read the Riftwar books but no more and I will stick to Guy Gavriel Kay for the fantasy stuff because he really is a Tolkien clone but with rather a softer touch for female characters. His Summer Tree stuff is some of the finest I have read in the genre. But for now, Riftwar and scary elves.