Where Is Your Bookmark? (02/10/2015)

What a lovely weekend we had! Mouse's soccer lessons started up again and this time one of her friends from school is in her class. It was a nice surprise for both girls. The other little girl is several months younger than Mouse and this is her first time playing soccer. It made my heart proud to see Mouse take the lead with her friend at times to keep her friend on task.

We spent Sunday decorating hearts and putting them on our Christmas Valentine tree. I think it turned out pretty well, don't you?  It was a fun family project.  I am not sure yet how I feel about having the tree up much longer, but Mouse wants it up for her birthday next month, so we'll see.

I finished reading Elizabeth Hall's Miramont's Ghost this past week and am now reading Under a Silent Moon by Elizabeth Haynes. Under a Silent Moon is quite different from Into the Darkest Corner by the same author, which I read and loved a couple years ago. Under a Silent Moon is the first in the author's Briarstone Major Crime series, and it is written more in the fashion of your typical police procedural. I am enjoying it so far.

My husband began reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte recently. I think he got tired of waiting for me (we're supposed to read it together). I will likely be starting it soon to try to catch up. It is his first time reading Jane Eyre and it will be my third. I am nervous about him reading it as it is one of my all time favorite books.

What are you reading at the moment?  Is it something you would recommend?

Every Tuesday Diane from Bibliophile By the Sea hosts 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where  

participants share the first paragraph (or a few) of a 

book they are reading or thinking about reading soon.

Here is the opening of Under a Silent Moon by Elizabeth Haynes, the book I currently am reading:

(The novel actually opens with a dispatch log entry, which I am skipping over in favor of sharing the actual story narrative.)
.
10:52

In years to come, Flora would remember this as the day of Before and After.

Before, she had been working on the canvas that had troubled her for nearly three months. She had reworked it so many times, had stared at it, loved it and hated it, often at the same time. On that Thursday it had gone well. The blue was right, finally, and while she had the sun slanting in even strips from the skylight overhead, she traced the lines with her brush delicately as though she were touching the softest human skin and not canvas. 

An excerpt from the Publisher:

Two women share one fate. 

A suspected murder at an English Farm. A reported suicide at a local quarry.

Can DCI Louisa Smith and her team gather the evidence and discover a link between them, a link which sealed their fate one cold night, Under a Silent Moon?

Would you continue reading?

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely ladies at Broke and Bookish.

This weeks' Top Ten Tuesday theme is Top Ten Things I Like/Dislike When It Comes to Romances in Books.

Maybe you don't read romance novels or maybe you do. I know a lot of people I know are very adamant that they don't. Five years ago, that would have been me. At least not books labeled as "romance novels." It is hard to completely avoid books with even a little romance in them if you are an avid reader, so I imagine you have some thoughts on what you like and dislike about romance in a book just the same.

Like with every type of book, every reader has different likes and dislikes.  Just because something may annoy me about a character or story line, doesn't mean others feel the same. These are just my personal feelings about romance in books, whether it's a romance novel or a book with romance as a side story:

1. I recently re-discovered an interest in reading actual romance novels where romance is the main focus of the plot.  Admittedly, I still have a preference for books in which it isn't the only story. I read and enjoy those too occasionally, don't get me wrong. But put a romantic suspense novel or a paranormal-mystery type romance in front of me, and I am more likely to pick those up over the straight forward romance any day.  Crossover genre books rule!  

2. I want actual romance. Not just sex. 

3. I am not a fan of what's commonly referred to as insta-love.  A story in which love happens gradually or blooms out of friendship is easier for me to buy into. Insta-love, in my mind, would be more aptly named insta-lust. Which leads me to . . .

4. I do not especially like it when characters jump into bed together in the first chapter. Or even the second and third. I have read and enjoyed romance novels that begin this way, but more often than not, I end up rolling my eyes and it doesn't leave me with a good first impression of the characters.

5. Communication. I get that mis-communication and secrets are often key in creating necessary conflict between characters, not to mention in building tension. But there is such a thing as too much of that. All I ask for is balance. I know when a couple has just met and aren't sure they trust each other, they might not want to share everything--I get that. It's when they are in the actual relationship and hide things from each other than clearly should be shared that I get annoyed. 

6-7. I have very limited experience with gay and lesbian relationships in romance situations, and so will focus on the male/female romance threads in books I have read.  Notice the overlap? I could have probably made one list.  

Male love interests - I prefer that he isn't arrogant/conceited, seducing every woman in the tri-state area, and doesn't have stereotypical ideas about women.  I like a man who can see a woman as an equal, supporting her right to make her own choices and who is willing to stand up for her and with her.  Being a good listener and honest and open are also musts. I like to see vulnerability in the character. It opens up a character for growth, I think, and makes him seem more real. 

Female love interests - I like a heroine who is independent, resourceful, and doesn't always need a man to rescue her. She can be sassy or more down to earth or in between. Any of these doesn't bother me. I like it when the heroine is supportive of her love interest, and asks questions and doesn't jump to conclusions. Honesty and being a good listener are desirable here too. Flaws are also good here; having a vulnerable side is important, I think, for the same reasons listed above.

8. I am not a fan of infidelity or cheating in books. As a back story where the hero or heroine has been cheated on is one thing. The subject of infidelity has popped up in my regular fiction reading on occasion. I tend to run the other direction when I hear a book is about infidelity.  That said, I have read a few books that deal with the topic that have been very good.

9. I do like a happy ending now and then--there's something refreshing about it, especially when I'm having a difficult day or week.  

10.. In novels in which romance is a side story, it doesn't always work out--and I'm perfectly okay with that too.  Relationships can be messy. 

What do you like or dislike about romances in the books you read?

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