Introducing The Romance Backlist (and A Farewell)

Long time no see! It’s been *checks calendar* way over a year since I last wrote something, and I can’t express how sad that makes me. The evil combo of exhaustion and shitty life events became this epic burnout that ended up with me ghosting my own blog. This place was a labor of love and yearning for connection with a community that’s given me a lot throughout the years, and a deep wish to give something of myself to the genre that changed my life. And now eight years have gone by and not only have I made the connections I craved, but they have surpassed every expectation and wild hope I had. So it was really hard to come to the realization that I no longer could, or even wanted to, keep up with the blog, even if I still saw myself as a blogger/reviewer. But I also love the genre and love talking about all the books, and I’m proud of the way this blog made me a better reader, so when I had this sudden idea that I could start fresh and change the dynamic and talk about books again, I felt the same excitement and joy I had all those years ago when I first started to blog.

There’s been a lot of talk about the state of traditional blogging and reviewing. I don’t have the answers to the issues nor do I want to get into it now, but we all want to talk about books, we all want to discuss the genre, and we all want to maintain that sense of community, which is why I believe that blogs are (still) viable resources and places to gather and connect. And also, I want to do this for myself, because I really love it. So I’m going for it and instead of picking back up where I left, I’m moving on to a new blog that will have a similar essence, but with some pointed differences. I will only feature books that are at least one year old, so no new releases. I will write reviews, kind of, but they won’t be as structured as what I used to do, more like musings about the genre and the way each book fits within it. I want to experiment a bit, see if there’s an audience for a blog that won’t cover anticipated releases (please, let there be an audience for it!). I want to look back a bit, maybe revisit old favorites, or do whatever! I could’ve done that here, and it’s incredibly bittersweet to say goodbye to Romance Around the Corner, but I really like the idea of starting from scratch and see how the experience I’ve gathered these past few years shapes this new site. And mostly, I just want to know what it feels like to have a blog whose name isn’t a mouthful! The Romance Backlist won’t be a prolific blog, simply because I can’t keep up. I haven’t flexed this muscle in a while, and I had forgotten what it takes to write a blog post, but I want it to be consistent, so my initial goal is to write one post each month, which doesn’t sound like much, but at this point it’s the only realistic commitment I can make. We’ll see how it goes. If you go there now, I have a post up giving more details about the blog and the plans I have for it.

As for Romance Around the Corner, well, it will stay up for as long as Blogger allows it, but I’m saying goodbye for now. I’m thankful for every person who read, commented, subscribed, and emailed. I have met so many amazing readers and authors that I still can’t believe my luck. Even better, I get to talk about romance novels every day, and that’s all because of this blog and the community that welcomed me. It’s been an absolute blast, and I can’t wait to see what the new blog brings. I hope you join me! (*threatening voice* you better join me)

Housekeeping Note: if you're reading this on your email because you subscribe to the blog, and you want to keep up with the new blog via email, you will have to subscribe again (go to this link and click on the "subscribe" link at the top of the page). Same goes for those who want to follow the new blog that way.

Holiday Hiatus

Credit/Source: someecards 

I wanted to post my "Favorites" list before the winter break, but time wasn't on my side, so it will have to wait until January, and hey, this time I'm actually letting people know I'm on hiatus instead of disappearing for 6 months!

In the meantime, here's a link to my previous post, which I'm willing to bet you never saw. Yep, it's that time of the year when I find any excuse to promote old reviews.

I wish you all the best, most amazing holidays/break/winter/summer. Be kind to yourselves and don't feel like you have to do everything and be cheerful all the time.

See you next year!

Changes!

I put an exclamation mark there to convey a cheerful mood so it doesn’t look like I’m closing up shop, but I am making a couple of changes to the blog, the first one being that I’m back, kind of. But I don’t want to deal with the pressure of writing the more traditional reviews, so I’ll be posting more round-up posts and reviews that don’t follow such a structured format. Or maybe it will all remain the same. All I know is that I really want to blog again, but I didn’t want to just post a random, surprise review tomorrow after months of silence, so hence this mini-post to give you the heads-up that I am, in fact, back. Kind of.

Full Disclosure

By now I’m sure everyone knows that Jane from Dear Author came out as author Jen Frederick. This revelation has caused, and will continue to cause a lot of pain, anger, and disappointment (to say the least). So I wanted to come clean about my role in it.

A couple of years ago Jane emailed me to ask if I would help her with a secret project, when I said yes, she explained that she had written a New Adult book and asked if I would read it and told her my thoughts. I was happy for her, so I beta-read the book. After that, I also read the second book she wrote, Unspoken, and some chapters of books 3 and 4. I never had any issues with her writing a book, and I understood the reasons why she wanted to keep her identity secret.

Jane made a lot of mistakes, though, some of them very serious and perhaps unforgivable, and in hindsight, keeping it a secret was one of them. There were things I didn’t know, other things that I wrongly assumed, and some implications that never even crossed my mind until yesterday. I went from surprise to see DA reviewers feeling blindsided by the announcement, to appalled when I read about the times the books appeared on DA, and felt even worse when I read about the authors loops on the Passive Voice letter. And today I’m heartbroken after seeing the effects this is having in people who trusted Jane and Jen and in people who, regardless of how they felt about Jane and DA, are seeing the community suffer so much damage. I’m sad and disappointed for the role I played in this and for not voicing my concerns. I don’t regret supporting a friend, and I believe Jane always had the best intentions, but intentions don’t take away the pain or make the deception less bad.

I accept the consequences this will have for me, the blog, and my relationships with many people I like, admire and respect. And not only do I understand the criticism and anger, I think it’s entirely justified, and in many ways I share the feelings being expressed. I know this is probably a lousy apology/announcement, and you don’t have to believe or trust me, but I don’t want anyone to feel dismissed by what I’m saying here. I’m no longer Jane’s beta-reader, and I’m saddened by how many relationships have been damaged and for the breach of trust. I'm still sorting out my feelings and what this means for me.

Finally I want to make a few clarifications:

I don’t know who else knew. I made some assumptions that were proven wrong yesterday, but I always only discussed the books with Jane alone.

I sincerely like the New Adult... whatever it is (genre, sub-genre, etc.). I have been critical when I thought the book(s) deserved it, and when I've praised a book it had nothing to do with Jane or her books. You can check all my NA reviews here if you're curious. I've also been talking about NA since before I knew Jane had written a book.

I haven’t read the books Jane co-authored with Jessica Clare, in fact, I learned about them when I saw the first one on Goodreads. I also didn’t know about the Berkley deal until the publisher sent me its monthly ARC email. I say this because I’ve talked about how much I like Clare’s Games series, and I want to state as clearly as possible that those tweets and comments were motivated by my enthusiasm and nothing else. I’ve had a couple of interactions with Jessica Clare on Twitter (most of them were me asking her about new releases), but that’s as far as our relationship goes. I also never promoted or mentioned Jane’s books either here on the blog or in social media; I only mentioned the first one on twitter once during release day and I stated that I knew the author and that I had beta-read the book.
I’m not an author (aspiring or secret); I have no issues with authors who also review; I used to review for Heroes & Hearbreakers, which is sponsored by McMillan, but I stopped because I didn’t have the time. I’ve always been honest in my reviews and online interactions. I don’t beta-read for anyone else, and I have no inside information on any other book by any other author. My relationships with the authors and other industry members I follow go as far as what you see on twitter.

One last quick note: I won’t be online much until Sunday night, so I probably won’t have time to reply to comments until then, but I’m not ignoring anyone and you can always reach me through email. If this post seems rushed, is because I wanted to have it out in the open as soon as possible.

Thank you so much for listening.

Blogger Blackout

Badge made by Kaetrin. Image attribution: Jorge Stolfi 

I almost used a hashtag on the title, but I decided not to. You’re welcome!

By now, and especially if you are a blogger, you have probably heard about how author Kathleen Hale went through great lengths to obtain a reviewer’s personal info, her home address included, and then proceeded to use that info to visit the blogger’s house and call her at work. Then she wrote an article about it and The Guardian published it (I'm not linking to it, but I'm sure you can find it).

The rest is (ongoing) history.

Winners!

The winner of WILD by Jill Sorenson is Lynn R.
The winner of RIDING DIRTY by Jill Sorenson is Justine.

Congrats, ladies! Please check your inbox and reply as soon as possible. If you didn't get my email, contact me at brie.clementineATgmail.com

To everyone else, thank you so much for stopping by, and thanks to Jill for providing the books and for the great interview. Have a great week!

Three Years of Reviews, Discussions, Community and Friendships

Image credit: April 

Romance Around the Corner turned three last week! It’s been three years of hard work, love and fun, so I’m going to celebrate it by giving away this unicorn to one lucky commenter so the winner can drink his blood and live forever. Forever!

Another Winner: Tear You Apart by Megan Hart

Sorry for the delayed announcement, but I didn't have time to pick a winner until now.

The winner of Tear You Apart by Megan Hart is Nancy R.

Congratulations! Please check your inbox.

To everyone else, thanks for participating!

Winner! Stay With Me by Elyssa Patrick

The winner of Stay With Me was Nath. Congratulations! I've already emailed you.

To everyone else, thank you so much for participating.

Heroine Week: Closing Thoughts and Many Thanks

That was good!

I wanted to offer some final thoughts and reflections, but I’m pretty much speechless and overwhelmed by every single one of the contributions. The guest posts speak for themselves and pretty much scream that our love and appreciation for the heroine is alive and well.

If there’s something I learned this week, is that our relationship with these characters is complex and personal. In a way, heroines (in Romance in particular, but also in literature in general) offer us a space to explore different aspects of ourselves, as well as serve as tools to reflect issues affecting women. But there’s still a long way to go, and my wish is that Heroines and the books they inhabit become more welcoming and diverse.

Heroine Week: Wherein I Tell You How Awesome It’s Going to Be and Why

Welcome to Heroine Week, an event whose main purpose is to celebrate female characters and focus the conversation on them.

Heroine Week is all about, well, the heroines, but also about the guests. They made this event possible, and I’m grateful and honored to host their insightful, funny and thought-provoking posts.

Here’s a tiny preview of what you can expect:

A New Feature and an Update

Credit: ginnerobot

All reviews and no play make Romance Around the Corner a dull blog, so I’ve been thinking about ways to improve and freshen up the blog. The one I came up with still involves reviews, but there’s a twist.

We have talked about hype and how popular new releases get all the attention. I will be the first to admit that shiny new books are hard to resist, but we should make room for older books, especially those we hold dear. Our perception of old favorites can change during time, because while the stories remain the same, readers tend to grow and change. However, new perspectives don’t necessarily lessen the value of the books, and may even give us a new view and appreciation of the stories. So I thought that it would be an interesting experiment to re-read these old favorites and see how (or if) our reactions to them have changed and how they hold up to the test of time.

Update on Heroine Week

Image courtesy of Sura Nualpradid at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The response to Heroine Week has been really positive, so I’m feeling overwhelmed and happy.

Here are a few updates:

• The tentative date is July 1-7. This can change depending on whether people can write the guest posts on time or not. I’m very accommodating! Final date is July 8-14
• I’m looking for more people to guest post, so please email me your ideas at brie.clementineATgmail.com
• If you don’t feel like writing a whole post, but still want to contribute, send me a paragraph or two about your favorite heroine and why you love her (it can be Romance, Urban Fantasy, YA, etc.). If I get enough submissions, I will include them all in one post. 
• I’m working on a banner for the event (with my amazing knowledge of Paint) but if anyone wants to help me with it, I would appreciate it. It's done! If you're going to use it on your site, make sure to include the image credit to Sura Nualpradid at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I hope you guys are as excited as I am. Suggestions and ideas are welcome.

Heroine Week: Ideas and an Invitation to Join

Image courtesy of Sura Nualpradid at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about writing a couple of posts focused on Romance heroines. When it comes to characters, the conversation often revolves around the heroes, which is perfectly fine, but the heroines need love too.  Then I thought that one or two posts wouldn’t be enough, so why not make it a whole week dedicated to celebrating female characters? And because I’m just the best at naming things, I came up with the name Heroine Week*. I'm so clever I can't even stand it.

The thing is that I can’t do it alone, and having diverse input is way more fun than hearing the same person talking over and over. So if you like the sound of this idea, I would love for you to join Heroine Week by writing a guest post. It can be anything heroine-related, for example: a list of your favorite heroines; a recommendation of books that feature unique or remarkable heroines; one post dedicated to that one heroine that deeply resonated with you; a post about the way traditional gender roles have shaped the genre; the different, more subtle ways a heroine can be strong (besides the obvious kick-ass way); the appeal of unlikeable heroines; the top 10 heroines of 2013 (or of each sub-genre); etc. It can be fun, serious, light and/or complex; the goal is to talk about female characters, discover new books to read, and above all, to have fun.

This is an open invitation to everyone: readers, bloggers and authors. Email me your ideas, thoughts and recommendation to brie.clementineATgmail.com You’re all welcome to participate, and I look forward to hearing from you, so don’t be shy.

I’m still in the early stages of planning the event, and whether it happens or not, it will depend on how many people are willing to participate, so fingers crossed that you guys like the idea. I’ll keep you posted!

*I will also accept ideas for a different name.

A Hiatus, a New Post, and a Picture of My Cat’s Ass

Say hello to our very own LOLcat.
Looks familiar? Yes he does.

Once again life gets in the way of blogging. Oh, life, don’t you know that I have books to read and review?

She doesn’t.

That's why I’m putting the blog on hold until next week, when (hopefully) I’ll be back with the not-so-regularly scheduled reviews.

I know you will miss me, so I won’t blame you if you ugly-cry.

In the meantime, I have a new post over at Heroes & Heartbreakers that you can read while waiting for my return.

Winner! Thank You for Riding by Meg Maguire

As usual, thanks to everyone who took the time to comment and enter the giveaway, and especial thanks to Meg for visiting the blog and making the giveaway possible.

Thew winner is: Jena Briars

Congratulations, Jena! Check you email.

Winner: Twice Tempted/Irregulars

Thanks for the birthday wishes, guys!

The winner of the giveaway is Marie (writing as aweinthebooks). Congratulations!

I'll see you tomorrow when we're back to our not-so-regular blogging schedule.

A Paranormal Giveaway to Get Us Through a Hiatus

The blog is going on hiatus until next week, because I'm spending Easter at my parents'. I have a bunch of half-written reviews and post, but I didn't have time to finish them, so instead (and because Thursday is my Birthday and I'm feeling extra lazy) I'm going to add a bit of filler content and do a giveaway.

One of the things I plan to do this weekend is read Jeaniene Frost's Twice Tempted, the second Vlad book, so I'm going to give away one copy of the book. If you haven't read the series, then you can pick the first book, Once Burned.

For those who don't like vampires, the third choice is one of my favorite books of 2012, Irregulars. It's a fantastic M/M anthology that I recommend to everyone.

That's it! Leave a message telling me your choice, and you're in. This giveaway is open Internationally, but only if you accept a Kindle copy (I'm using an Amazon GC, so that's why it has to be Amazon). If you're in the US, I can send you the paperback of Frost's book, but Irregulars is only available on Kindle. 

I will announce the winner on Sunday, so you have until then to comment.

In the meantime, here's a picture of my evil cat:

Today Is Our 2nd Blogoversary, So You Guys Better Send Me Some Cake!

Image source: jnyemb

Reading is such an intimate, personal experience that when we meet people who share that passion with us, there’s an almost instant connection. So even though we haven't met in person, our virtual interactions feel a lot like a long-time friendship. You have been welcoming, supportive and kind. And every day I feel at home, happy and grateful.

Thank you. 

Winners: Crystal Cove and Dead in L.A.

I have a couple of winners to announce, but first, thanks to everyone who took the time to visit and comment.

The winner of Crystal Cove by Lisa Kleypas is: Ronnie Buck

The winner of Dead in L.A. by Lou Harper is: Anon comment #2

Congratulations, guys! I'm emailing you right now.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and Lou Harper for providing the prizes.