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    Ready, set, action …

    4 Comments

    So I’m currently reading Dead Beat by Jim Butcher (one of his Dresden Files books). I’m enjoying it, but something keeps jumping out at me — all the action. The book takes places over a couple of days. I’m about halfway through, and our favorite Chicago wizard has already been attacked/threatened/injured half a dozen times — at least. And we’re not even up to the grand finale yet.

    Now, I love me some action scenes, but it’s almost to the point where I want to reach into the book and say, “Harry, man, take some aspirin and crash for a few hours. The apocalypse will still be there when you wake up.”

    The last book I read before this one, Show No Mercy by Cindy Gerard, was the same way — nonstop action from beginning to end, with attacks and counterattacks and narrow escapes.

    I’m wondering if this is new trend — authors ramping up the action in their books. If so, then I’m on the bandwagon already. There’s a lot of action in my new Assassin series — lots of blood and lots of death. Gin kills something like 15 people — and that’s just in the first book. 😈

    What about you guys? Do you like lots of action in your books? Or do you like the characters to take a breather every now and then? Share in the comments.

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    Titles, titles everywhere …

    7 Comments

    So my editor, agent, and I have started talking about a formal title for the first Assassin book and the series as a whole.

    I’ve been pretty lucky with my titles so far in that all the titles I’ve suggested have been used. The only change was Karma (my original title for the first Bigtime book) to Karma Girl (the final title) — which I thought was much cooler.

    Anyway, here are some titles that we’re thinking about for the Assassin book:

    Gin on the Rocks (my title)

    Assassin, Interrupted

    Iced

    Spider’s Web

    Spider’s Bite

    I’d be happy with any of these titles, although I like Gin on the Rocks and Assassin, Interrupted the best so far. I’d love for the titles of all the books to be tied together, and I think it would be easy to do that using the word Gin. For example, I’m calling the second book Gin with a Twist and the third one Bitter Gin.

    But I also think using Assassin in all the titles would work too — and maybe we could use popular movie/book titles and just put Assassin in there. Like Assassin, Interrupted (Girl, Interrupted) or The Good, the Bad, and the Assassin (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly).

    What do you guys think? Which of these titles do you like? Share in the comments.

  • Spring is in the air …

    After a week of snow and cold temps, the weather here is beautiful today. Like, in the 60s beautiful — and it’s supposed to be this way all week. Makes me feel like spring is just around the corner … :bubbles:

  • 926 and counting …

    Finished Show No Mercy by Cindy Gerard. This is the first book in her Black Ops, Inc. romantic suspense series about a group of former soldiers who form their own private security company.

    This one is about reporter Jenna McMillan, who goes to Argentina to chase down a hot story on a reclusive billionaire. But when someone tries to kill Jenna with a car bomb, Black Ops operative Gabe Jones steps in to protect her. Gabe and Jenna have a history, and their past attraction heats up once more as they try to stay one step ahead of the madman who’s chasing them …

    I’ve been looking for some new romantic suspense authors to try and someone suggested Gerard to me. So I picked this one up at the bookstore.

    I thought it started out a little slow, as Gerard establishes some of the Black Ops members and shows how the group was originally formed. But after that, it’s all action, all the time — bombs, shootings, raids, and more.

    Sandwiched in between all the action is Gabe and Jenna’s romance. Overall, the romance works well given their past history, but I would have liked a little more downtime with the two characters instead of them almost constantly being in danger. I also would have liked a little more explanation about their past history together — and how they took down the bad guy the first time. That story almost seemed like it could have been a book by itself.

    One thing that I found interesting and refreshing about the book is that all the male characters are hyper-aware of their feelings. Gabe knows how he feels about Jenna and how she feels about him from almost the beginning of the book. One of the other Black Ops guys is also in love, knows it, and isn’t ashamed to admit it. That was a nice change of pace from the cliche hero who thinks that feelings are a sign of weakness.

    Overall, if you like nonstop action and a healthy dose of romance, you should like this book. Thumbs up.

    Up next: Something from the TBR pile.

    Books in my TBR pile: About 20.

    What about you guys? Reading anything good right now?