Fictional Worlds I'd Rather Not Visit

This topic from Long and Short Reviews’ blog hop was an interesting one. I’ve read a lot of dystopian fiction and have, on occasion, found myself staring at the book thinking “You know, this doesn’t actually sound that bad.”

Take the “Uglies” series, for instance. The concept there is that teenagers are classified as Uglies until a certain age (16 or 17, I can’t remember which) when they are given extensive surgery to make them manga-inspired Pretties, at which point they move to New Pretty Town and spend the next couple of decades partying with their pretty friends. Sounds fine to me. The characters want to remain Ugly on principle, especially when they discover that Pretties also have brain surgery to make them more docile, but even with that I found myself thinking I’d be quite happy to go ahead.

However, if you take something like “The Hunger Games”, that’s a world I’d like to stay away from. A corrupt government who pits children against each other for entertainment and makes half the population live in poverty? Definitely one to avoid.

And the other one that I would hate to visit? “Matched”. This is a series about a controlled society where the powers that be choose your partner for you and everything is limited – they only have one hundred songs, one hundred stories, one hundred poems and so forth. The matching of a partner is one thing – it seems to work out OK for a lot of the characters. But only having one hundred stories? I could work through those in the space of a year.

So which fictional worlds would you avoid?

What to read to learn about the Princes in the Tower

This week’s topic in Long and Short Reviews’ blog hop was a tough one. While I write erotic romance, I don’t read a lot about it, so that was off the table. The main subject I read about is history, and my favourite era is the Wars of the Roses. So my best topic is probably Richard III and the Princes in the Tower.

It's a part of history that always fascinated me. What really happened to the Princes? Were they killed? Did they escape? Who was responsible? History, of course, is written by the winners. What if the official line wasn't actually the case?

I didn’t know much on the subject until I read Bertram Fields’ “Royal Blood”. This was the first Ricardian take on the Princes in the Tower I had ever heard of. Most historians, over the years, have followed the Tudor line and blamed Richard III for their disappearance – but what if it wasn’t him? Fields comes up with numerous suggestions, the primary one being Henry VII, who scoured the Tower immediately upon taking the throne. He seemed very sure they were dead – so did he do it?

A good background comes from “The Mythology of the Princes in the Tower” by John Ashdown-Hill, but a particularly interesting take is “The Survival of the Princes in the Tower” by Matthew Lewis. Their survival, or at least of one of them, has been discussed before since Perkin Warbeck attempted to take the throne, claiming to be Prince Richard. But Lewis suggests that the Princes never died in the Tower and were hidden away to live out full lives in hiding.

It’s unlikely we’ll ever know. The bones which were found in the Tower are highly unlikely to ever be tested for DNA. But it’s an interesting idea.

So what do you like to read?

Most Romantic Memory

When I saw this topic come up on Long and Short Reviews bloghop, it was a tricky one. Despite the fact that I write erotic romance, I’m not a very romantic person. On gift-giving occasions I’ll always prefer a proper gift rather than flowers, and we never do Valentine’s Day on the actual day to avoid the fancy menus restaurants always do.

So what would be my most romantic memory?

It would have to be the day my husband proposed.

For anyone wondering if this was an elaborate grand gesture, hearts and flowers, down on one knee, it wasn’t. We were sunbathing on our favourite beach, Cala D’Or beach in Majorca, watching the waves.

And later that evening, to celebrate our engagement, we went to our favourite restaurant on the marina and had cava sangria.

So what’s your most romantic memory?

Favourite Movies of All Time and Why

I love the cinema, so this topic from Long and Short Reviews’ blog hop was perfect for me. I can think of hundreds of films that I love – the difficult part is narrowing it down to a few favourites. I watch so many films – often horror, but not always – that my top ten tend to shuffle a lot with time.

My longstanding favourite film is “Heavenly Creatures”, a Peter Jackson classic starring Melanie Lynskey and a young Kate Winslet as two schoolgirls who murder one of their mothers. The spectacular acting, passionate direction and shocking ending – even after I’ve seen it dozens of times – make this one a masterpiece for me.

More recently I discovered the mockumentary horror “Hell House LLC”. Found footage has become something of a cliché now, but this film carries a sense of dread throughout, throwing in little moments you only just notice but that make your stomach turn. Its sequel was almost as good, but did suffer from an excessive amount of exposition towards the end.

“Blazing Saddles” is a comedy classic, starring the great Gene Wilder and skewering racism at every turn. And finally there’s “The Innkeepers”. An understated little horror movie with one of my favourite actresses, Sara Paxton, playing a young ghost-hunter who gets more than she bargained for. It balances fear and comedy perfectly.

So what would you choose?

Characters I'd Name A Baby After

This week’s topic on Long and Short Reviews’ blog hop was an interesting one. I can think of dozens of great characters with names I don’t much like (Marian Halcombe from The Woman in White springs to mind), as well as names I like which belong to characters I don’t. My first thought, upon reading this, was to remember how Art Garfunkel named an album “Angel Clare”, leaving me thinking “Why the hell would you name anything after that idiot?”

So who would I name a baby after?

My favourite Jane Austen heroine is Emma Woodhouse. She’s witty, intelligent, confident and yet flawed enough to make her interesting, plus she has the good taste to prefer Mr Knightley over Frank Churchill. I could definitely see myself naming a child Emma if I was going to have one.

Another favourite is Cassandra Mortmain of I Capture the Castle. She’s a woman after my own heart – intelligent and loves to write. I’ve often wanted to write an epilogue to that novel giving her the ending she deserved.

However, when it came to male characters, I struggled a bit. I ended up going back to books of my childhood and landed on Sebastian from the Sadler’s Wells series. Musical, sardonic and passionate – what more could you ask for? I’d have to put my foot down over his nickname, though. In the later books they start calling him “Batty” and sorry, I’m not having that.

While I don't have babies, I do have characters, and I have one I did name after a character in a film. Liam Wilder, one of the heroes in Photograph, whose name is a combination of Willy Wonka (of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and Gene Wilder, the actor who played him. 

Tara Thornton hasn't spoken to her sister in two years, ever since Azure married the man of Tara's dreams. Tired of the rift, Azure invites her to take a Mediterranean cruise on a friend's yacht and, bowing to family pressure, Tara accepts.

Forced to be in close proximity with the man she still desires, Tara is thrown into confusion. The presence of celebrity theme park owner Liam Wilder and the reality of his marriage to Azure send Tara into a tailspin and, in an attempt to regain control, she responds to the advances of hot fellow guest Ryan Hyde, while determined to feel no affection for him.

But Ryan has a way of getting under her skin, and Tara's plan to get closer to Liam is rapidly losing its importance as Ryan begins to break down her defences. Can she let go of Liam, let Ryan into her heart... and tell Azure the real reason for her silence?

So what would you choose?

Favourite Things to Do in the Winter

The topic on Long and Short Reviews' blog hop this week is "favourite things to do in the winter", something I'm very happy to talk about.

Winter, at least the first half, is my favourite time of year because of Christmas. Close to my workplace is a German Christmas market, where I absolutely love to go on lunch breaks to try the potato pancakes and fresh pretzels. But it also embodies everything I love about Christmas – dark nights lit with fairy lights, sparkling decorations and hot mulled wine. It’s a wonderfully Christmassy place.

But what to do for the second half of winter, after Christmas is over and we’re left with cold weather and slush? One of the things I used to like was to visit the skating rink. We often have an open-air one in one of the town squares which was fun to try, even though I’ve never been a great skater – I have no balance.

However, I’ve long since lost the urge to spend ages crashing down onto ice, and so my other favourite thing to do in winter is to sit inside with a steaming mug of hot chocolate and watch the snow fall.

So what do you like to do?

What I Would Do With a Million Dollars

I’ve not been able to blog much this past year due to health issues, so I decided this year I would try to blog more – and what better way than by Long and Short Reviews’ blog hop?

This week’s topic is “What I Would Do With a Million Dollars”. For me, that one’s easy. I would travel. While I don’t love getting from A to B (I’m a terrible flyer) I have dozens of places around the world I would love to see. I have always wanted to visit somewhere decadent and hedonistic like the Maldives, or walk the Great Wall of China. Not cheap, but a fascinating experience.

Another thing I would like to do is a cruise. Possibly around Alaska. The thought of standing watching icebergs pass the boat is amazing – and I would always rather be too cold than too hot.

So what would you like to do?