Dan Phillips Christmas Songs: Keep Feeling Christmas

I'm a huge fan of Dan Phillips, even though I know next to nothing about him, except that he used to post lots of great Christmas songs "re-imagined".

Here is Keep Feeling Christmas!

You can find more of his Christmas music HERE.

Another Krampus Night!

I didn't scour the internet for more pics of Krampus. (If you're interested and missed them a few years ago, HERE is my collection I wrangled previously.)

And HERE is a link to my Christmas Story "Krampus' Christmas Wish" which is a sequel to "A Hundred Little Lies."

And, finally, here is the trailer to the movie which opened yesterday.




And, in case you need to know more about Krampus, here is a video "about" Krampus.

Happy December (+ a second-hand Dorothy Parker story)

So, the plan was to post wintry pictures this month with brief, erudite (haha!) explanations of why they appealed to me. And I still might. In the meantime, however, I've just finished reading "An Unfinished Woman", Lillian Hellman's first memoir, and came across a laugh-out-loud funny line.    Apparently Dorothy Parker once told Ms. Hellman that all she wanted on her tombstone was:

"If you can read this you've come too close."

Works for me!

RELEASE DAY: Every Unworthy Thing (Declan Colette #2)

The new book is officially released via all sources today!

Gay PI Declan Colette finds himself in the middle of a gang war between resurgent Japanese mobsters and the black gangsters who expanded operations during World War II. Complicating matters is crime boss Max Harrold. Whether he’s stoking the fires of racial hostility or not, Harrold is definitely making things difficult for Colette, shanghaiing the detective and planting the body of a murdered Japanese gangster in Colette’s office.    Now Colette’s only hope is to find the kidnapped daughter of a powerful Japanese businessman and return her home safely. And he has to do it with criminals standing in his way and police hot on his tail.

Here's BOLD STROKES BOOKS website.

Here's my author page on Amazon (with scary pictures of the author)!

Every Unworthy Thing (Declan Colette #2) ~ Goodreads Giveaway!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Every Unworthy Thing

by Jon Wilson

Giveaway ends November 30, 2015.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Review: Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt

Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

MOSTLY SPOILER FREE ZONE!

With the admitted caveat that I am not even close to the target audience of this book, I will say I enjoyed it. My worry is, would it appeal to the target audience?

To begin with, it's entirely epistolary. And we get just one side of the conversation. So even while it is fan letters written to Hank Williams, it eventually starts reading like a diary. Fortunately Tate is engaging. Unfortunately most of that engagement is due to the fact that you know she's playing fast and loose with the facts. Truths are doled out slowly. More than once Tate fesses up that she wasn't exactly honest before. I would imagine a lot of this might prove difficult for MG readers. Or, maybe I'm underestimating them.

I felt the M. Night Shyamalan twist was a little over the top, even though I saw it coming a mile off. (Again, I'm not the target audience. Trying to imagine myself as a twelve year old boy reading this, I confess I may have been blown away by the last reveal. For me it was just, yeah, I know. ((I knew about the time the other saleswoman's daughter visited! Yeah, I'm bragging...!)))

A very good MG book. Probably 4.25 or 4.34 if GR allowed fractions.

View all my reviews

Love Wins

Maurice said it, in the film named for him, based on a novel by E.M. Forster: "I think I shall not marry."

Given my current situation and what I can predict about the future (necessarily, a sketchy accomplishment), I can confidently say the same. But, y'know, I'm glad I've lived to see the day I could marry...Marry someone I truly loved and was in love with.

For all of those out there eager to celebrate this new right, I applaud you, and wish you well.

As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote today, speaking for the majority (himself, Stephen G. Breyer, and the three women on the SC: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan):

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right." -The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered."

Review: The Vines

The Vines by Christopher Rice

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I'm surprised by how much I liked this novel. I had some difficulties with my last stab at Rice's work--something about an ex-military guy and sex on the beach which I DNF.

This was quirky horror that managed to keep me on my toes, even while it never really scared. I admired the pacing and the characters, though I felt often "backstory" was substituted for "characterization"--a trait that seems to be becoming more and more common (e.g., rather than flesh out the character in real time, I will keep interrupting the narrative with snippets from this painful episode he experienced a few years ago). I'm one of those readers that groan aloud every time a flashback begins.

Still, highly recommended as fun, fast and facile. Like a cheeseburger at that drive-thru that has easy freeway access.



View all my reviews

Cover Reveal ~ Every Unworthy Thing

Here is the cover for the next book in the Declan Colette series, Every Unworthy Thing, coming November 2015 from Bold Strokes Books...

Chris L. McKenna is Haunting My Dreams

Okay, maybe that's a bit too regency romance. But, dude, is this dude not perfection?

Apparently, State of Affairs, hoping to lose a legion of gay fans (and probably as many straight women) killed off his character Nick Vera on the Monday (2/9/15) penultimate episode. Altho the entrance to the tunnels was directly behind him (and open) when the missiles struck. And afterward we were not shown a body!

SquareHippies ran a spread of screen caps from the episode HERE. This one is my fav tho:

Enter to Win a Signed Copy of the New Book Over at Goodreads!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Cheap as Beasts

by Jon Wilson

Giveaway ends February 28, 2015.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win