My Recent Comments

If you get a chance, can you email me at samhunter@samanthahunter.com? Thanks. :)

Sam 

How could I have forgotten Sarah on my must buys? You can't lose with a Mayberry book.  Now I am wracked with guilt, and have to go email her. ;>

Sam 

I think, even among my own books, for Cady I would lean toward Untouched (which, while an Extreme, had fewer love scenes than typical because the heroine was a virgin and you can't just, you know, jump in there, LOL), and if you didn't like Jo's suspense-oriented books, I don't know how much the HotWires series would appeal. I hope you do find Blaze authors you enjoy, regardless of whether I am one of them or not. :) I love the line, and think it's great, obviously. :)

A few of my must-buys in Blaze are Cara Summers, Joanne Rock, Lorie Wilde, Tawny Weber, and Karen Foley. If you want to read a different kind of book by Jo, you might try one of her older Blazes, Truth or Dare, which is probably my favorite of all of her books, and really very different than the recent ones. I think you might enjoy it, and Jo is worth a second chance. :)

Thanks for giving it a try. :) 

I think you will be pleasantly surprised -- it's hot, of course, since it's Blaze, but I really enjoyed this book a lot. I have a review of it somwhere here -- I don't know if you can find it on my profile... Don't let the title fool you -- it's a very emotional book. I dare you to read the first few pages and not keep going. *G*

It's great you are giving the line a second chance. :)

Sam

PS: Here it is -- edited to add link:

http://community.eharlequin.com/content/sex-straight-blaze-kathleen-o-reilley 

Great interview... love About a Boy, as well. That and Love Actually remind me why HG always ends up back on my "list" even though I know he's really such a bad boy...

What kind of pet would you sneak in if you could? 

Thanks for sharing!

Sam

I agree -- Blaze covers are just so striking... I hope you enjoy the anthology. :) I can't wait to get the author copies, myself, since I haven't read the other two stories, so it will be a treat for me, too. :)

Sam 

Fair enough. And FWIW, I can't speak to it personally, never really seeing anything but positive reviews here for my books (thank you -- they are very uplifting!), but I just tend to try to err on the positive side! It's a personal thing, I suppose. I won't ever lie about liking a book, but I probably would never post about a book I didn't like. That's just me.

Anyway, life being what it is, I think I've said my piece, and have to really go back to focusing on work...deadlines await! :)

Thanks for the great discussion,

Sam

A Steeple Hill Blaze... I don't think I see that happening, though I completely agree with you about religion and sex. :)

Maybe I misread your original post -- I had the feeling it was the very evangelical content you found hard to read, having to put the book down, etc because you are not familiar with it, and found it offputting?

You realized that it's probably a cultural difference -- in France, there really isn't this evangelical community, so you weren't really familiar or comfortable with this mode of praying? I think that's how I understood it. And you felt conflicted about your opinion, because while you could understand the reason for your discomfort, you weren't sure about how to react to the book?

Several folks here then said that in their familiarity with evangelical content, they would not have thought twice about this kind of overt praying (in fact, that it was mild compared to some books they've read), you can assume it's not the book or the author, but the fact that this was new to you personally in some way.

So, you could simply say that -- that in France, you aren't familiar with the strong voice of evangelical Christian prayer, and that was new to you, but I would personally make sure you were careful not to imply the author had done something wrong -- KWIM? The book is set in a US context where the evangelical community would be familiar with that kind of prayer, which is probably the larger point. I think it would be fine to say this was new to you, as long as there was no implication of the author doing bad work. So, locating your response in your own situation, not in the writing, KWIM?

I do relate, believe it or not. :) There have been times when I've read a book that goes too far for me personally. Maybe there is a sexual practice or something that's way too "experimental" or whatever, and it turns me off. I have had that experience, in fact, in reading an erotica last year, I set the book down, very offended by a few of the things I found in the book, even being supportive and familiar with sensual content. I understood some people may not have found it distasteful, but I did.

But I realized the bias was my own, and because I had it, I probably couldn't really, truly be fair in a review of the book, so I didn't review it.

As Leslie points out, if I had been reading it for a contest, though, I would have had to try to get past my personal distaste and judge it on other criteria -- see if the action was consistent with the characters and story, if the pacing/plotting were good, etc and I would have had to set my biases aside -- which as Leslie pointed out, is very difficult to do, but it's only fair.

In any given review this not a big deal, probably (though you run the risk of hurt feelings with authors, I suppose, and that's worth considering, too, perhaps?) but it is definitely a problem with bigger stakes in other areas, like contest judging... And I think generally good practice not to confuse our responses with how the book is written, which I guess is my bigger point. We may not like something, or find it offputting, but the book may still be a great book. This is what makes it difficult, I guess... 

Sam

I see your point, but my view is that any reader should already know what they are likely to find in a Blaze, Inspirational, etc and I would be inclined to let others form their own opinions about specific elements, not bias them ahead of time with my own responses. IMO. It's very possible that same person who reads your rec may not be at all bothered by what bothered you, so why slant the review in that direction?

Sam

Ugh. How hard should it really be to get one's eyes open in the morning???

Anyway... Leslie, well said. I think personal bias is extremely hard to get over -- I can't believe you got all inspirational romance when you checked not to get them! Agh! But I think being aware of these biases is all we can do, and then trying to act fairly, keeping them in mind. Sounds like you did the best you could, and made the right and fair decisions.

I mean, it's interesting to me that in a way, any book would be reviewed on the basis of a single element -- sex or prayer or violence, for instance. What about the rest of the book? But it just goes to show how strongly we feel about those particular elements, that we make them our focus. I mean, we could just as easily not mention them at all, and focus on the things we did like, right? I think a few reviewers have mentioned doing that, and I think that's fair. So the answer to Sadhbh's original dilemma might have been, set aside your feelings on the prayers, don't even mention them -- mention what you found worked in the story. The hero, heroine, relationship, plot, whatever...

Leslie, thanks for the nod on the final -- it's a strange (though wonderful!) position from my end, too, because I know that there are a score of fantastic books out there in our line and the associated passion lines and they aren't getting their fair shake... I don't know what can be done about it, except that we keep fighting the fight... Sadly, I know a Spice author who wrote one of the most beautiful, emotional books I've ever read, and she didn't even enter -- I could see why, given the field and the problem authors of sensual fiction face, our books often reduced to simply being "all about sex," which is just untrue.

Sam