My Recent Comments

Funny part of all this, I played along on a whim.  I've only read 2 of the origninal 64 books, and I ended the first round of voting tied for 4th.  I had managed to pick 26 of the 32 first-round winners.

I love both Magic Bites and and Silent in the Grave.  I didn't realize that Magic Bites had a wider apeal. :-D

I'll be really shocked if I maintain my high standing throughout Round 2.  

Part of the reason I joined those other challenges was to help me be more organized about my reading -- not letting a favorite series, or author, get over looked.  I meant to read at least one Georgette Heyer novel last year and I didn't; I wanted to read more "first published" in 2007 and didn't.  I may have over extended myself a bit, but there's no pressure for me to successfully finish any of the challenges:  if I do, hooray for me; if I don't, no biggie and try again next year (if that particular challenge is held again)

There's still plenty of flexiblity for me to pick what I might be in the mood for, even if it's not on any of my lists.  If nothing else, I can count it in the "A-Z Challenge" and here, of course.

One of the "lessons learned" from this year's challenges:  if at all possible, leave the alternate lists "TBA".  

  Thanks!

The sad thing is, I've seen more challenges that I wanted to sign up for.  I had to tell myself NO.

I'm curious to see how many of them I actually complete. 

I made the insane decision, late last year, that I would participate in different reading challenges on my personal blog, while still participating in the Harlequin challenge. The real "fun" part was chosing/finding imprint books that fit the requirements so I could also maintain the requirement for this challenge.

I have a master list here, if anyone wants to take peek. Feel free to leave condolences and words of pity. ;-)

LIke others, the romance genre is new to me -- beyond books by Georgette Heyer, Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, Jane Austen.  Until last year, Star Wars novels made up the largest part of my TBR.

I'm been trying to balance what I read.  Last year I thought I did pretty good, when I compared it to the year before.  I read, and enjoyed, a lot more contemporary-set books, for instance.

Last year, I read approximately a dozen books with a 1st publication date of 2007: not all were romance, and a few never got past 50 pages.  I had more books with 2007 pub date, but somehow I never got around to them.  I really wanted to read more.  This year I'm starting off on better footing:  two of the four books I've completed this month are 2008 publications.  If I keep that up, maybe I'll be able to vote in All About Romance's poll next year. 

As for my old stand-bys, I did pretty good last year getting my Star Wars fix, but I never got around to reading at least one Georgette Heyer. 

Since half the books I read last year were written by new-to-me authors, I'll just mention the two that come to mind first: Unbound by Lori Devoti and The Dark Gate by Pamela Palmer. Don't remember who's review of Lori's book finally convinced me to pick it up (thank you, whoever you are!), but I'm pretty sure it was your (Lady A) review of Pamela's book that influence me.

And your influence doesn't end there. Based on reviews from last year, I've added Bitten by Kelley Armstrong, Kitty and The Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn, and Good Liar by Laura Caldwell to my TBR pile.

Karen,

I had the same problem with loading a picture:  too small, too short, too tall.  Try finding something say, 250x250 pixels.

Christina 

It's the "behind the scenes" html of the WYSIWYG.

In code view the following

HI!

would be "<b>HI!</b>"

Having the code view is useful for the very thing I did when I was creating the example. I added a hard return after bolding HI! and it took the bolding with it to the next line. Without code view to see the "</b>" -- to insert the cursor in the proper spot after the ">", I had to unbold the word, add the hard return, and rebold it. Had I hit the return before bolding the word, it wouldn't have been a issue.

I also like the code view for the tweaking the spacing: "<br>" vs. "<p>" .

I hope this helps.

Christina

I have a Wordpress.com blog and the "creat a post" functions are nearly 100% identical. I would've liked the "code view" feature, but I guess you can't have everything!

Christina