Tag Archives: Reader Guest

Special Guest: Pam! (aka VanillaOrchids)

31 Replies

Hi friends! We’re back with a special reader guest post! Yes! Can you believe it’s the third Saturday of the month?! Eek! I can’t! I always tell people I have the best blog readers – and I firmly believe that. Pam sometimes visits here, and she is definitely a great example. I’d love to feature more of you! Anyway, here’s Pam! (And, I’m going to be a massive jerk and hijack her post for a minute – I’ve actually been on hiatus-ish since the beginning of August. I’ve gotten thousands of emails, and have still over 1,000 unread right now. I know I owe a lot of people responses, and more importantly prizes – and I’m doing my best to get on that. Please continue to be patient, and accept my apologies!)

… And now I must apologize to Pam for being all “me me me” – luckily, she like the rest of you, is awesome, and I’m sure she understands. So without further ado, meet an awesome member of the romance community! A reader! <3

Hello everyone! First let me just say thank you to Lime for taking a chance on me and giving me this opportunity to write a post for her blog.

My name is Pam, although I tend to go by the username VanillaOrchids online. Until sometime in 2009, I didn’t like reading. I rarely ever read a book just for the fun of it. That was until I read the Twilight Saga series by Stephenie Meyer. You see, two of my sisters and two of my nephews and I went to see the movie Twilight when it was released. The movie was okay, nothing spectacular. I enjoyed it for what it was. While the credits were rolling, my sister Linda proceeded to tell me that the movie is based off of a book and the book is way better. Then she offered to give me all four of the books in the series to read.

Fast forward about six months. The power went out because of a storm so I thought I’d give one of the books Linda gave me a try. Well, she had given me two books from the Vampire Diaries series as well, and since those books were smaller reads than the Twilight books, I started with one of those first. I probably didn’t get five pages into it before I said forget it! It’s been so long since then, but from what I remember, I felt that the Vampire Diaries book was written for little kids. I found it childish. Because of that, I gave all of the books (including the Twilight books) to my sister Patty in case she wanted to read them. Patty couldn’t go the Vampire Diaries books either but she did start on Twilight. So then one day while she was still working on Twilight she tells me that it isn’t like the Vampire Diaries books and that she thought I’d like Twilight. When she was finished with it, she gave it back to me. I had it done in two days and wanted book 2 … like now! LOL Patty gave me book two though she wasn’t finished reading it, but she knew that I’d have it read quick enough. I had all four books read in a week.

I didn’t know what to do with myself then. I wanted more to read but didn’t have anything. Eventually I started buying books on eBay or in stores. There probably hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since then that I’ve not been reading. Then late last year I had created a blog, more for myself really, to keep track of books that I wanted to read or have read, my favorite authors, etc. Then when I started to write book reviews, I decided to use the blog for that instead. That’s also about the time that I paid attention to other people’s reviews of books that I was interested in reading.

Recently I started reading a series of historical romances. After I finished the second book in the series, I went to Goodreads to mark the book as finished. While there I saw a one star review for the book that I’d just read. Here I was thinking the book was good. One of things that the person mentioned was the historical inaccuracies within the book. I’m sure the author did plenty of research and knows a lot about the time period, but in my opinion, it’s a work on fiction, it doesn’t have to be so strict with the historical details. But that’s just my opinion. And the primary complaint was that in that time a woman would not be without a chaperone. That might be true but can you really write an interesting love story when the two main characters never have a moment alone to be steal a kiss or a touch? Ah well, what do I know, I’m not a writer. 🙂

So anyway, I’m just happy that I now have a love of reading. And maybe with time I’ll get better at reviewing books. As for the whole blogging thing, I doubt that my book blog will ever really take off, and I’m fine with that. It’s a place for me to post reviews or graphics (which is another hobby of mine) or whatever I feel like. I don’t ever want it to feel like a job. I’ve known all too well what that’s like since I’ve had a website online for nearly 15 years now.

One last thing while I’m here. Awhile back on my blog I asked people for book recommendations. Not one person posted any. LOL So if Lime doesn’t mind, I’d like to ask the visitors here what book(s) you recommend? In return, I’m offering one winner an ebook of their choice (up to $5) from Amazon.

Thanks again to Lime for allowing me to ramble on for a bit. 🙂

A Primer on Scandinavian Crime Fiction AKA Special Guest: Keishon

Leave a reply

My name is Keishon and I’m a romance reader whose latest interest in Scandinavian crime fiction prompted me to shut down my old blog and start a new one devoted to nothing but crime fiction. I started reading crime fiction when my favorite romance writers started disappearing on me (Laura Kinsale and Judith Ivory for starters). So, I started branching out and reading mystery and discovered that some mystery novels had a very strong romantic subplot in them that I enjoyed and I wanted to read more of these. Over the years, I’ve noticed that there are quite a few mysteries that feature some sort of romance in them but some authors do a better job than most. Also the subject matter sometimes would be too taboo for romance which was another plus for me leaving the nest. Let’s talk about: Scandinavian crime fiction.

Are you interested in reading Scandinavian crime fiction and don’t know where to start? I hope to offer you some titles of interest to get you started. What do you all know about Scandinavian crime fiction? Did you know that the roots of this sub-genre started with Sjöwall and Wahlöö? They wrote the popular Martin Beck series set in Sweden. There are ten books in the completed series that started with Rosanna. Well most people credit them for starting the trend but the interest didn’t really gain momentum until Stieg Larsson published The Millennium Trilogy.  Then people started throwing out other authors of note in this area, Henning Mankell and Peter Høeg (Smila’s Sense of Snow). I haven’t read any of those authors yet but I’ll get there.

Meanwhile, I want to share with you some of my favorite writers. You see, I have a specific interest in reading European crime fiction. Why? There are several reasons I can list right off the bat: atmosphere.  I love a book that lays out the landscape and weather and makes both a significant part of the story. Novels like these tend to give you a good sense of time and place. I have authors I can recommend who add these elements to their stories and do this very well. Johan Theorin leads the pack of authors who writes/sets most of his stories in different seasons (winter, autumn and spring). His loosely connected quartets of books that start with Echoes from the Dead is set off the Baltic Sea have minor supernatural overtones and are character driven stories.

Second, I like stories with intelligent plots that don’t, preferably follow convention. Karin Fossum would fit that bill as her stories tend to focus more on the effects crimes have on regular people or she can be seen to spotlight regular people making bad decisions. She tends to humanize her characters even the bad ones. Her books are definitely atypical but there is violence that varies from book to book.

Sometimes themes are not all that original and have included at times the age old battle between men and women but what I’ve mostly read has heavily relied on revenge or scorn. I don’t much care for serial killers so I tend to avoid those at all costs. Although, in the right hands…I must mention Arne Dahl’s Misterioso, which featured a serial killer targeting the titans of the business industry in Sweden. The lack of evidence instigates the police to create a task force just to find him. Very action paced novel with a large cast of characters but I didn’t have a problem keeping up.

Do you like a strong female protagonist? Well, guess what? You can find a bunch of them in Scandinavian crime fiction. Asa Larsson is one author I personally love. Her debut novel, Sun Storm (The Savage Altar, UK) gives you two strong female protagonists: a workaholic attorney, Rebecca Martinsson and Anna-Maria Mella with a husband and kids and you see her juggle between having a successful family life and a career as a detective.  The author made both women very strong characters in her four book, continuing series set in Sweden. You shouldn’t miss her. Cravat: Her books have been labeled as having animal cruelty in them and I understand the complaint but I didn’t have an issue with that nor did I see that as being prevalent. The author herself is an animal lover and I don’t ascribe the actions of fictional characters to that of the creator. YMMV.

Do you like police procedurals with psychological suspense? How about giving Jo Nesbo a shot as he seems to be very popular right now and sells all over the globe. He writes the Harry Hole series set in Oslo, Norway. I like Jo Nesbo because his plots are tight and he loves adding elements of misdirection and suspense. Of course his main character is a bit of a cliché – a romantic loner, a maverick who fights his demons with alcohol. He’s disliked by some of his co-workers and he has problems with authority figures. Harry tends to throw us some surprises every once and awhile. He’s a man of routine. He loves to test out his new partners. There’s a subtle romance in the series as he has a thing for single mother Rakel and her young son, Oleg. Jo Nesbo’s books are always character driven and the violence can be pretty bad but the level of violence varies from book to book. There is a very interesting subplot that included three books in the series that dealt with police corruption. It starts with The Redbreast and ends with The Devil’s Star. Jo Neso seems to be well versed in American pop culture and politics, foreign politics and wars. I always feel like he knows his subject matter very well errors aside. Alas, the best book in the series has yet to be published in the U.S. It is The Redeemer  and can stand alone very well.

There is one last author I’d like to give a shout out to and that would be Arnaldur Indriðason. His stories are set in Iceland and feature yet another loner but more melancholy detective  – Erlendur. He has a continued embattled relationship with his drug addict daughter, Eva Lind. I think the author does such an excellent job of joining the personal life of his character with that of the everyday working of murder cases which tend to be old murder cases. Arnaldur Indriðason writes what he describes as “social criticism.” I’ve read three of his books already and they have been consistently strong stories. The first book in the series is Tainted Blood (or Jar City) and as I write this there is a new book coming out in the UK, Black Skies (2012) to continue the series.

Scandinavian crime fiction contains some commonality: most of these stories tend to be very bleak and melancholy. Do you mind dark stories? They tend to be very dark and also very atmospheric. Exotic settings are another plus. It’s the cheapest way to travel to say Norway or South Africa. If you enjoy Scandinavian crime stories, please share some of your favorites. I’m bound to have missed some. Thanks.