A Day Late...

I don't understand how life at times gets so busy. I spent the weekend catching up with this weeks RTBcolumns.

KarenTempleton's column about small town settings is very good. I live in a small town and love it. I'm a sucker for any book set in small town America, and I agree with Cynthia, the supporting characters shouldn't be "characters." I think the Sheik thing has to do with the exotic and different.

I loved Deeanne Gist's column about receiving her the first bound copy of her first book. I thought the "what's for dinner" questions rather apropos since it's the first question my husband asks almost everyday. There's only one other question that drives me crazy on a regular basis. If I get up at night to go to the bathroom, he asks "Where are you going?" Where the heck does he think I'm going at 2:00 am, out for pizza?

Nicole's first official column is about cats, a subject I adore, since we've always had at least one cat my entire life. Right now we only have one, Petey Cat that likes to sleep in sinks, begs like a dog and is 20 pounds of absolute loving affection. We think he thinks he's a dog. I think Karen Robards has a couple of books with interesting cats. I'll have to search it out--my sister will know, she's a huge KR fan.
Anti-heros are the topic of Kathleen O'Reilly's column, and I wish I had read it when it was first posted, I probably would have commented. I like her list of favorite heros, but I have to agree none are anti-heros:

My favorite heroes ever are: Johanna Lindsey’s James Mallory from A Gentle Rogue, Gideon from Amanda Quick’s Ravished, Lyon from Julie Garwood’s The Lion’s Lady. I asked some friends about their favorite heroes: Roarke from Nora Robert’s In Death series, Dane Hollister from Linda Howard’s Dream Man, and yes, lest we forget, Wolf Mackenzie from Mackenzie’s Mountain.

These hero's may be atypical, but they're not "anti." For me an "anti-hero" can just as easily be the villain of a story instead of the hero and is often just that, the villain of an early story. I love Anne Stuart's romantic suspense heros, they're always of questionable morals and that makes them fascinating. But, for me the biggest anti-hero is Graelam DeMoreton of Catherine Coulter's Song series. In the first books Warrior's Song (originally titled Chandra) he is the villain, he's not much better in his own book, Firesong and it takes the next two in the series to fully redeem him. Now, that's an anti-hero, not necessarily a favorite, but definitely an anti.

One more thing about anti-heros--Hans Solo is not an anti-hero!!

Loved Rosario's column about anthologies. She is so right about length. If done right a novella can be fantastic, but try to include to much and it's horrible. And, just because an author writes great full-size novels it doesn't mean that ability is transfered to shorter ones.

There have been some great columns over on RTB, I've got to try and get there everyday instead of once a week.

Have a great day, and happy reading.