Must-Watch Friday - He's Just Not That Into You

Modern Heat author Heidi Rice suggests you sit back and enjoy this chick-flick-a-rama which deconstructs the dating game and takes no prisoners. But be warned, hopeless romantics may need a large glass of wine and a bar of Green & Black's on hand to truly appreciate it...

As that somewhat discouraging title suggests, this star-studded and surprisingly affecting rom-com takes a When Harry Met Sally.../He Said She Said approach to the dating game among a group of beautiful people in modern-day Baltimore.

The script is based on a book subtitled 'The No Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys', so it's probably no surprise that we start out firmly on the guy side of the equation.

With the suggestion that women are programmed from childhood to ignore the signs if a guy's not really interested in them. You remember, that moment when your mum told you snotty little Billy from down the road pulled your hair because secretly he liked you. Well, apparently according to this movie, that wasn't true. I know, I was a bit gob-smacked by that one (and more than a little miffed to discover little Billy hadn't been secretly harboring an unrequited crush on me all these years). The film then goes totally AWOL and suggests that these dating misconceptions about whether a guy gives a toss or not are not a guy's fault (for being so totally obtuse and insensitive) but actually the thought of the datee's happily-paired up female friends who will give her false hope by being all nurturing and supportive and not telling her the truth... That Mr Right is a figment of women's imagination.

And to prove it we had Justin Long's cynical, laddish bar tender who gives sweet misguided little singleton Ginnifer Goodwin the low-down on what guys are really thinking when they say they'll call (ie: I'll forget you the minute I've walked out the door) but she still basically refuses to get it because, well, she's a hopeless romantic. (And this was supposed to be a bad thing!!)

Then we have lovely Jennifer Aniston who's long-term boyfriend Ben Affleck won't marry her after seven years and professing he loves her because, well, he doesn't do marriage. (Poor Jenn, doesn't this keep happening to her for real?)

And also kooky Drew Barrymore whose somehow got caught up in a new technology vortex and hasn't even managed to meet anyone in the flesh before she's been dumped by email, or MySpace, or Twitter or answerphone message.

And finally Jennifer Connelly who is having trust issues with her husband in the middle of a house renovation (talk about timing fella!!). In fact the only relationship that seems to be working is the one between Scarlett Johansson's husband-stealing blonde and hunky cheating hubbie Bradley Cooper (yep, that's right, he's the one Jennifer Connelly wasn't sure she could trust).

Here's a little tastette....

All of which made me laugh out loud, and at the same time feel kinda depressed (that's where the wine and the G&B comes in, for purely therapeutic purposes you understand).

I mean, there really is such a thing as too much information. Where was the rom in this com? I was so not getting the warm and fuzzy vibe I wanted (unless it was from the wine). But then, just as I began to smell a rat. And think is this a chick-flick or a dick-flick? Everything started to magically take on a fuzzy pink glow...

I'm not going to go any further... Because that would be giving the game away. Surfice it to say that by the end of the picture, it turned out that if a guy says he's not that into you, just as we always suspected ladies, he's lying. And Mr Wrong can become Mr Right as long as you believe in true love (and you don't believe a word he says).

All was right with the world and I was able to save the last two cubes of my G&B for my next Must-Watch Friday Film..... Which will be The Proposal... Just in case anyone else is trying to put dibs on it... I got there first!!

Warm and fuzzy rating: a very respectable 6 out of 10!

Heidi's June UK release Hot-Shot Tycoon, Indecent Proposal is out now as a Sexy Sensation in Oz and will be a Presents in the US come September, while her the follow-up book, Public Affair, Secretly Expecting is due out in the UK in November. A mouth-watering sneak peek is now up on her website, while the even more mouth-watering cover (check out those biceps!!) is discussed in more detail on her blog.

Thursday Talk-time - Linda Style is a bookaholic!

Please welcome Linda Style to What are you Reading Thursday!

Seriously! I will stand up and confess. I’m addicted to books. I love to collect books, certain authors, certain genres, new books, old books, sets of books, first editions or even those that are tattered and torn and thrown in the trash. It doesn’t matter the size, condition or content. They’re books. They’re meant to be read and savored. The fact that I don’t have time to read them all is moot.

It’s a known fact in the writer’s community that the number of books an author reads goes down proportionately with the number of books written per year. But that’s not the reason I’m a slow reader. I’m a slow reader because I love words. I love wonderful stories, but I also love how the words and the sentences, paragraphs and scenes make it all come together.

When I read a book, I savor each and every rounded vowel and each and every flat or sharp consonant. I like how the sound of some words can actually mimic the meaning… and the way some sentences are strung together. I like silly words and soft words, harsh words and redundant and/or confusing words. I like metaphors and similes (in the right places and not cliché), and speaking of metaphors, I just finished reading a Tom Robbins book titled “Skinny Legs and All.”

Robbins is the king of metaphors and I won’t even tell you how long it took me to savor every word in this unique book. Robbins not only writes from the viewpoint of a can of beans, a stick and a conch shell, he layers themes and ideas like pasta and mozzarella, tomatoes and hot Italian sausage in a homemade lasagna. I savored, salivated, and even drooled a little at his bizarre artistry with words. Salivated is a good word, isn’t it… kinda sounds like what it means. “Otiose” --pronounced “oh-she-ose.” Isn’t that a great sounding word? It means “idle, ineffective, not needed, lethargic…” It’s from “Skinny Legs…” and doesn’t it sound like what it means? Oh..kay. Back to the book. I will admit, Robbins’ style of writing is not for everyone and it took me a while to get into the zone. But what fun would it be if all books were the same?

I also have a tendency to choose books for a particular period in my life. I have books from my cooking period, books on history, government, (the political period) biographies, thrillers, mysteries, self-improvement, public speaking, chic lit (dating period), and I can’t even count the number of romance novels (my favorite genre) on my bookshelves and in my TBR (to be read) stack. Not only do I write romance novels, I’m a hopeless romantic.

However, my love of words, or rather, my need to savor words I love, has affected my reading. Since my first book, way back in June of 2000, my TBR stack seems to have grown exponentially and now looks more like a mountain than a stack. My new book, THE PROMISE HE MADE, is out in mid August. It’s my 13th book and my TBR pile is at least triple that number. It’s sad, really. All those books with all those wonderful words, just sitting there, waiting to be savored. Sigh.

So many books, so little time. What does your TBR stack look like?

Writer's Wednesday - What's Your Theme?

Please welcome Nina Bruhns to the PHS as she gives us a great Writer's Wednesday post about THEME!

What’s your theme?

I love a good challenge. It keeps me on my toes, and makes life interesting. True, some real-life challenges I could definitely do without. But as a writer, I believe in pushing myself and expanding the horizons of my craft, in order to give my readers better stories. So, every year I try to learn something new, some aspect of writing that I haven’t consciously tackled before.

Last year, my project was “theme.”

Theme isn’t something that a lot of fiction writers (especially genre fiction) talk about. Or even think about. In fact, a lot of us have no idea what theme really is. Not enough to be useful, anyway. That included me before last year. I still find it hard to define.

Every good book has a theme, but mostly an author does it by instinct, not through deliberate planning (unless you’re a screenwriter, which is a whole different ballgame).

Theme is not about the plot. Or a “message” the author wishes to convey. Often it’s kind of a philosophical hypothesis, which the story either proves or disproves...or sometimes it’s a broader human emotional need that the story simply explores.

For instance, the theme of my July SRS, PRINCE CHARMING FOR 1 NIGHT, runs something like: “Appearances can be deceptive. Look beyond the surface and you can find your greatest happiness.” Yep. It’s Cinderella (could you tell by the title? ☺). One of my favorites! Like all great stories, the Cinderella faerie tale contains several themes that work on different levels. The appearances thing. The “If you’re mean to those less fortunate you will not prosper” thing. Or how about “True love will find each other.” There are lots more.

As a reader, we recognize the theme or themes that speak to us, and we can enjoy that same story in different guises a thousand times and never grow tired of it.

But theme goes even deeper than that. Ever notice how your favorite author’s works all seem to have a similar thread running through them? That’s because as writers, who we are, what our hopes and dreams and fantasies are, they all shine through in our writing, in the form of our personal theme. At first a writer usually isn’t even aware she is writing to a theme. Not until she has six or seven books under her belt, and suddenly she notices a pattern.

For me, under the page-turning suspense and the sizzling sensuality found in all my books, I always write about the deep human need to find a place of belonging. The isolation we all feel, and the desire to seek connectedness, even in the face of overwhelming pain.

Pretty powerful stuff. Which probably would have taken years and years of therapy to bring out if I weren’t a writer!

Yikes.

Okay, so I’ve spilled mine. Now it’s your turn!

What is your personal literary theme? What theme speaks to you most as a reader, or a writer?

Good reading!!!

Nina's latest Silhouette Romantic Suspense is Prince Charming for 1 Night, Part of the Love in 60 Seconds series, July 09.

This month she also has Shoot To Thrill out with Berkley.

The Trouble With Tuesday...

Travelling Tuesday...Temptation Tuesday...and then there is the Temptation of Travelling. Pink Heart Society editor Jenna Bayley-Burke is ready for a tempting getaway...


I need a fresh start, a blank page, a clean house. Well, two out of three at least. After months of prepping a house to sell, selling our home, searching for a new place, dealing with the debacle of housing inspections (I HATE mold), and negotiating prices...we're finally set to move. It's all been so exhausting, I need a vacation!

Many of our stories begin this way - a character pushed to the brink of their personal sanity and politeness delving into a new start. A new town, a new job, or a return to someplace familiar with a new attitude.



After so much work (and no writing, just physical labor, blech) I need a vacation. But with so much to do to get a home set up and comfortable for the family before school starts, I think I'll have to settle for escaping a chapter at a time. I forsee a slew of sheikh books in my future...

Since I'm packing up my worldly possessions (I've held back 8 books, one for each day we'll be addressless) I have packing on the brain. And since it's Tuesday, when we turn our minds to travelling and temptation...

WHAT IS THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS THING YOU'VE BEEN TEMPTED TO PACK FOR A VACATION?

My husband is thinking 8 paperbacks is a bit extreme...I'm thinking if he'd sprung for the ebook reader he wouldn't know the entire library I'd have at my disposal...bwa-ha-ha-ha!

Jenna is not writing much of anything, and won't be for a few months. In the meantime, Compromising Positions is available with chocolate, Kama Sutra yoga, a decade old crush and a steady addiction to sugar. To find out what Jenna is up to now...check out her website or blog.

Wildcard Weekend - Fiona Lowe

Escape the daily grind this weekend with Fiona Lowe!

A few weekends ago my husband and I ‘escaped’ for a weekend away…well 29 hours actually… to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We had a lovely time visiting the big smoke of Melbourne, taking in art exhibitions, enjoying the shopping and just soaking up a cold and windswept winter’s day as the crowds swept by. I had a lovely time determining where people were going from the coats they wore!

It got me thinking about how weekends away used to be a large part of our life before school sport on a Saturday intervened in our lives! Before children DH and I would work a full day, drive six hours to Mt Hotham on a Friday night arriving around midnight, ski for two days and then drive six hours home and still make it to work bright and breezy on Monday morning…yeah we were younger!

When we lived in the US for a few years we would go away one weekend a month because we were ‘tourists’ and we had to ‘see’ everything we could in our 2.5 years. So we dragged our baby and then toddler everywhere, loving the breakfast on the farms in the summer and the cross-country ski-ing in winter.

When we came home I tried to keep this “weekend away” thing going but another baby arrived, we had a garden that needed tending and once a month was just too much. So we did picnics instead and as we live on one of the prettiest coasts in the world, there were lots of beaches and small towns to explore.

And yes all of our weekends away and day trips are fodder for books! When I was writing Miracle: Twin Babies, and creating Port Bathurst...or ‘Port’ as the locals in my book call it, I instantly thought of Mallacoota which is a sleepy fishing village at the end of a dead end road. When I decided there needed to be a children’s camp in ‘Port’ I remembered of Queenscliff with its Cottage By The Sea. Then tumbled into the mix was Apollo Bay, Barwon Heads, Port Albert and just about every little town on the coast of Victoria between Mallacoota in the East and Portland in the west.

No matter where you live I think that in Port Bathurst you can probably recognize a small seaside town that you know in your part of the world, and a perfect place for a weekend away.

I’d love to hear your favourite places to visit for a well- earned weekend away!

Fiona Lowe is an Australian Harlequin Mills & Boon Medical Romance author and her 11th book, Miracle: Twin Babies is available from August 1st in the UK, USA & Australia