Angieville

Today,  USA Today revealed  the cover of Marissa Meyer 's third novel Cress . The third installment in the Lunar Chronicles series, this one follows the mysterious girl we met near the end of Cinder and is (as expected) a retelling of Rapunzel . I have become a bigger fan of Meyer's scifi retellings with each entry. Given my unreserved love for Scarlet , I am fairly champing at the bit to get my hands on Cress . A computer hacker trapped in an orbiting satellite? Brilliant. Coverwise, I really do love the whole theme Feiwel & Friends has going on with this series. While Cinder' s cover   remains my favorite (nothing beats a cyborg leg in a red slipper), I get a little thrill from each one. Which cover is your favorite?

Because I am stressed today and need a good grin, you get the All-Time Hottest Hunks of PBS . A few of the usual suspects are there (Cumberbatch, Branagh, Isaacs, Stevens, always a pleasure) as well as a few unexpected gems as demonstrated above (Jeremy Irons + Anthony Andrews = the whole package ). Best of all, they are there for all the right reasons. Rocks a tweed. Good stubble. Broods attractively. You get the picture. Happy browsing!

Have you ever been reading a book, moving along quite nicely, and then-- bam --a character whips out a particular term of endearment that just yanks you right out of the story? It happened to me recently, and I'm sad to say I couldn't recover. I did try. But she just kept using that term and I . . . I had to get the hell out of Dodge. Buh-bye, story. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'm not saying this is the norm (thank goodness). I can put up with a certain amount of treacly back and forth when it comes to the exchange of terms of endearment, especially if they fit the characters, their background, culture, the tenor of their relationship, etc. And the history of these terms  at home and from around the world is often fascinating (at times hilarious). But there comes a point where I can't see past the cheese and/or weird anymore and I do not want to be with these people any longer . Shallow? Perhaps. But it's a very individual thing, isn't it?...

Today you can find me over at Romance Around the Corner talking about my favorite fantasy heroines . I was thrilled to participate in Heroine Week , Brie's week-long celebration of female characters from all genres and walks of life. There have been some pretty spectacular and thoughtful posts along the way and I've found several new authors and books to search out. Drop in and see what you think, will you?

Nothing draws me to a book like a passel of reviews that are all over the board. I literally cannot help myself. Where will I fall on the spectrum? Will my feelings be ferocious or will they dwindle away after leaving the pages and characters behind? The questions, the questions. So it was that I came to download a copy of The Coincidence of Callie & Kayde n by  Jessica Sorensen  awhile back. Pretty kissing in the rain cover aside (I might be a bit of a sucker for those), I had previously stayed away because of the said all over the board-ness. Originally self-published new adult contemporaries are turning into quite the beast of late. Some readers are immediately turned off. Others have enjoyed enough of them to keep their engines running, so to speak. I tend to go on a case by case basis. I've been burned before, but I've also been taken by delightful surprise. This was happily a case of the latter. For those interested, Grand Central picked this one up and will be ...

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme hosted at The Broke and the Bookish We've talked adaptations before , but it's been quite awhile and let's face it--I am always up for this particular discussion. I've recently engaged in a couple of marathon chats with my 13-year-old niece regarding the subject. A word to the wise: do not get her going on the disaster that was the Percy Jackson movie. She cried tears of rage similar to the ones I wept upon viewing that atrocious "adaptation" of The Dark is Rising . Which is just one of the many things I love about her (and which always reminds me of myself at that age). Thirteen-year-old nerdygirls are awesome, in case you'd forgotten. So. Today, let's eschew the horrific and go with the best of the best. The ones that give you shivers they're so good, or even the ones that leave some things to be desired but that you will never stop watching because that one pivotal scene? They nailed it. 84 Char...

I can thank the ever-reliable Carolyn Crane for inspiring me to track down an advanced copy of this one. I read her mini-review on Goodreads and was seriously sold. She said it was romantic, smart, and full of "character mysteries," a term I had never even really thought of before but that I instantly got and loved. So it was Carolyn's review and the following little teaser line from the novella that piqued my interest: I will meet you on Wednesdays at noon in Celebration Park. Kissing only. Um, yes. Yes, please. Shades of Ruthie Knox 's Big Boy began to drift over me (Knox actually blurbed this one). And we all know how I felt about that little bit of perfection . So basically at that point nothing--but nothing--was keeping me from giving Mary Ann Rivers ' debut novella a shot. Carrie had a minor existential meltdown at work. Just a minor one. It involved her supervisor (and friend) at the library offhandedly remarking that an Alaskan cruise with Carrie...