Review: This Life Is In Your Hands by Melissa Coleman

I've struggled with this review. While I think Melissa Coleman's book deserves all the acclaim it will gather, I also have a serious problem with fictionalized memoir. Adding complexity, I have strong feelings about the movement that she (and I) grew up in.

This Life Is In Your Hands is an exceptionally beautiful telling of a story too rarely told, by a modern day Laura Ingalls Wilder.

This Life Is In Your Hands is a fictionalized memoir. Conversations, expressions, interactions are presented as directly factual where the narrator has no knowledge of events. Things in quotes may be imagined, not documented dialogue.

Each of these two sentences is true. Melissa Coleman relates conversations her parents had upon their meeting - conversations she could not have been present for and they are unlikely to have written down. She is also a gifted writer who has composed a memorable telling of her upbringing with far more forgiveness in her heart than I have. During this resurgence of food-as-medicine anti-technology all-organic glorification, her tale is even more important.

The author strongly defends her parents against charges of neglect, despite laying a strong case for parental neglect with her own words. As another child raised in the glow of kerosene lights and left to my own devices while my formerly affluent white parents found themselves through poverty, I think she is too kind. When she relates her public school experience, it rings very true for me. There are things to embrace in the lifestyle that her parents chose. If her parents had been present and engaged, not worn down by hard work and their own hubris, perhaps her story would have gone differently. Sadly, it did not.

Perhaps her most important message is that food is not medicine, organic will not solve all, and diet cannot prevent everything. (Having faced cancer at 39 and 43, with a sibling who became a type 1 diabetic at a young age, I certainly have trouble being polite to people who beg me to consider holistic and homeopathic care. Been there. Done that. Pass the modern medicine my way, please.)  If there is a secondary flaw to This Life Is In Your Hands it would be the relationship between Coleman's parents and their mentors. Her disappointment in them is obvious, the cause obscured. How she feels failed by them remains veiled. In all other respects, she has presented a brilliant illustration of her childhood and the forces that shaped it.  After reading the book, my spouse largely agreed with my take. I asked him for a second opinion as I recognized my own experiences were coloring my feelings about the work. "Her mother would have been better off in a Burka." was his one sentence summary. I am not sure I disagree.

I do think this is an important book, and an important read. Each generation has a certain amount of people exactly like her parents - driven to cast off what is wrong with their lives they go to the extreme edge. The Coleman's eventually pulled back to make a contribution in the world of organic farming, a goal we can all recognize as in our interests. It's the extreme edges that too often get overlooked.

Review: Royal Weddings by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley & Loretta Chase

I don't really understand this marketing.

Avon isn't the only imprint offering short stories to celebrate the wedding of William & Catherine of England, but I still don't quite get it. These weddings are royal in name only, as none of the couples concerned are themselves royal. To earn the Royal Weddings moniker, the events take place during other weddings - but not at them. I know, I already said the marketing confused me. So let's ignore it. Is this worth your cash? Yea, I think so. This isn't a bargain priced full anthology, these shorts are super short, but it's two bucks. What's two bucks these days? (Ok, yes, it could be lunch. I give you the point.)

Stephanie Laurens and I have been planning to break up. I read the final book in her last series and just couldn't bring myself to read The Black Cobra Quartet at all. Imagine my surprise when the best, most satisfying short is hers. Taking a woman who's drifted into wedding planning and a French aristocrat, she delivers a tasty bite size treat without annoying me at all. It's like running into an ex at a party and realizing they don't make you feel vaguely sick anymore, but not quite waking up at their place the next day.

Gaelen Foley wasn't for me. We split up during her India series and I'm not even sure what she's done since. In this one she takes the set up of a happily (from the outside) married couple and their failure to talk. While she gets the biting internal conversations down, the story itself did nothing for me. Pout, have sex, change jobs. Or something like that. Mostly it felt like an erotic short which works for plenty of people but bored me. Gaelen, we weren't meant to stay together. I know you don't miss me. It's ok. I still have Loretta.

Loretta can call me up at 3 am, ask me to meet her in a pouring rainstorm in a dodgy area of town and I'll have my keys in my hands before she stops speaking. (At least, she can right now. I'm fickle, the future is uncertain, void where prohibited by law.) Her couple were supposed to be at the wedding of Princess Victoria and Prince Albert (Now there is a setting - go to the wedding people!! Describe it! Be there! Discuss it! That's your marketing... oh never mind.) but instead find themselves... elsewhere. It's such a short and so beautifully constructed I don't want to tell you anything about it. It's like someone starts folding up a paper and I yell "Goldfish!" before they've even got to the tail. Ultimately, it left me wanting. The characters were ready for a full length book, or at least a longer novella. I enjoyed every bit of it but it's like settling down with a lovely dessert, slowly savoring it, licking the fork between bites and suddenly someone walks up and says "Wow! I love this cake - thanks for sharing!" sticks a fork in and takes the rest away. It was perfect, but it's gone.

Review: The Vampire Voss by Colleen Gleason

This is a unique case.

It's rare for me not to finish a book that I've taken to review, much less move forward with the review. But this is not your typical DNF. So much is right with The Vampire Voss that I think I could adore it if it didn't hit my particular buttons quite so hard. Right, so here is the solution.

I am not going to review The Vampire Voss. Mostly. I'll explain what kept me from enjoying it, and if those are not things that would keep you from enjoying the book then I think it's worth a look. Gleeson has an easy writing style with a nice eye for characterization and description, her pacing is solid, and her worlds are well realized. There's a lot more to The Vampire Voss than my displeasure. (If my Sony hadn't bricked twice during my third go at the book I might have made it to the end!)

In this world of Vampires and Vampire Hunters there are also rare persons with The Sight. One of those is Angelica. Her ability to see the moment of a person's death brings her to the attention of (say it with me) The Vampire Voss. Voss is the kind of kid his mother might describe as 'intellectual, sensitive, easily bored' and the other kids might describe as 'a serious pain in the ass'. My problem with Voss, and thus my problem with the book, is that he is a date rapist of high order. He sees a woman, he roofies her with his magic eyes, and they can get it on. He admits he doesn't really care how willing she is at first because hey, she'll like it later. Maybe he comes to realize this is wrong. I don't know. I didn't care. He 'thralls' half a dozen women and I just see rapist.

Book two is The Vampire Dimitri.  Dimitri's mom might have described him as 'studious, committed, ethical' while the other kids probably called him 'a serious pain in the ass'. You know that these two men will end up together. Dimitri is the required pigs blood drinker, the vampire with regrets. There's a scene where Voss marvels at the unneeded pain Dimitri puts himself through for his beliefs, since in this universe Lucifer continually sends physical signals of his displeasure to the bodies of his men. Being good hurts, what can Voss tell you. Voss proves he's the good kind of rapist when after a scene that's a little bit Merchant Ivory Slasher Flick, a little bit West Side Story With Fangs he comes upon a defenseless Dimitri and... doesn't hurt him. Ok then.

I understand that the Vampire genre either skirts with or embraces non-consent as a very fact of it's existence. This makes many of the books fail for me, because my bad boys need to be a little less bad than the whole 'She'll want it by the time I'm done' thing. Angelica, of course, is somewhat immune to being enthralled. She can't be the one girl in all the world if she isn't, right? Don't let them have the milk, make them buy the cow.

I like Gleeson's style, I like her mechanics, I will absolutely try her again. For me, the sheer Vampireness of Voss keeps me from falling in love.

Puff Piece: Pieces Of Paper by Jeannie Lin

I generally like Jeannie Lin's writing, but I like her impulse to offer a piece of fiction set in Tokyo with the proceeds benefiting Japan even more. I don't know if there are region restrictions on this, but I can't see why there would be.

Here is an excerpt.

Try it out and see if it's something that appeals to you. If it does, double bonus. Meet a new author and kick a buck (or part of one)  to Japan all at once. If it doesn't - hey it was one mouse click and just a few seconds of your time.

No, I wasn't implying anything by.... Hey, my time is valuable too. Ok! Fine! Look, it was a suggestion! I'm not the boss of you!

A Brief Note From Our Sponsor....

I've got some reviews preloaded, but if there is a temporary lull please check back. We're taking another ride on the cancer train around here, so things may be erratic for a few weeks. No Worries, Righty Tighty.

Review: Treachery In Death by J.D. Robb

Does Nora Roberts even need reviews?

With a star author like Roberts it can seem pointless to write a review I could devote to a less well known author. As I only review books I think are worth looking at or ones I think are worth avoiding (I'd say I read five or six for every book I feel inclined to discuss) I generally give the major releases a pass.  Then Roberts writes something like Treachery In Death and knocks it out of the park.

Peabody dies.

Ok, ok, I'm kidding. (Spoiler alert!) Peabody does not die. (Maybe. I think. Who knows? You'll have to read it yourself.) One thing Peabody does do is find herself in an extremely dicey situation. So dicey that everything ends up on the table. This is the In Death I would go ahead and drop the cash on now. It's not that much more as an e-book than the eventual paperback will be and it's one of the best in the series. Tightly focused on Eve and her team, free of the angst that's been weighing the series down, this one brings the page turning suspense to the front and puts several major characters in new situations. This, the 40th (Really? Is that even possible?) story to feature Eve Dallas is also a great place to join the series. Everything you need is in this volume, no wasted time, no wasted characters.

Of course, Eve still ends the book a bit battered. That's how she likes it. Someday Eve is going to have to examine why every case needs to be closed with her face (even her husband is starting to notice) but it won't be today. Eve is too busy showing that she will eventually lead the NYPD and the only thing standing in her way is time.

Blatant Yet Heartfelt Product Placement For SodaStream USA

Meet my friend, the Penguin. We got together a few months ago over an earnest conversation with my family about the role of Cola Addiction and High Fructose Corn Syrup in my life. You might call it an intervention, but I think I'll stick with earnest conversation. I freely admit that I am powerless over sugary fizzy drinks. I was one of those kids raised by parents who put discount grocery soda in my baby bottle. (It was cheaper than milk and I seemed to like it.) Soda and I, we go way back. Caffeine  was my close friend, aluminum cans littered my life like beer bottles after a frat party. I would talk to my kids about soda like other parents do about beer. "That's for grown-ups, honey. Get away from Mommy's stash." Just like kids everywhere, things for grown ups took on an impossible allure. Soda was the most desired item on the planet.

It was time to quit.

That lasted about three days. Maybe two if we're honest about it. I actually snuck out of the house to buy and drink a soda. Really, it was like that. I started to get defensive. What's wrong with a little sugar? A little carbonation? Who was I hurting? Pepsi Throwback didn't even use HFCS. Meanwhile, I was getting caffeine shakes and stockpiling cans against future shortages. My girlfriend Amy suggested I get a SodaStream because she lost like, a bajillion pounds cutting out commercial soda. Given that I'd rather skip food than soda (and ultimately deny myself neither) this had it's appeal. Instead of raising a generation of fat soda addicts, I could mix juice spritzers for the kids and sell it as soda. This was huge. Penguin and I hooked up.

SodaStream makes a line of flavors, but the organic ones were out of stock and the basic line was Splenda infested. (Hate Splenda. We had a bad night once.) Penguin and I came home to experiment. I discovered that a 1:5 ratio of orange juice to seltzer makes a pretty outstanding Orangina clone. I stuck to carbonated juices for about three weeks before my eye started to wander. Orangina is delicious and all, but what about a nice lemon lime? Perhaps a slightly sweeter taste.... I was off to the world of flavoring syrups. I woke up a few days later with a litter of Torani syrups around me and a new understanding of the Swedish affinity for Lingonberries. Suddenly I realized I was off the caffeine, my garage was ant free and I hadn't hauled the recycling bin out for over a month. That was a lot of consumer waste avoided by keeping a pitcher of cold water on hand for carbonating.

I still wasn't going to come here and let my addiction flag fly, this is a book blog. You're here for the reading. Two things happened. The first was an offer to review a Soda Cookbook. Seriously! A book on how to actually make soda from a pile of sugar and a dream? Count me in! The second was a school fundraiser. With donations down a call had been made to find desirable items for a silent auction. I am all about the kids having toilet paper and crayons, but our taxes don't pay for glue sticks, let alone fresh markers to sniff. With so many of the parents shopping at the Whole Foods or the Greenwise or the Gourmet Good For You markets, why did I find out about SodaStream from a friend in the (insert regional shudder) North? Obviously our market was underserved. (Do you know how much I've heard about Mona Vie and Acai berries? This isn't a market to keep fads to itself.)

Under the "all they can do is say no" theory I sent out tweets and emails. Nora Roberts stepped up. So did Alina B. Klein. The book community is a generous one. Before the hour was up I was feeling pretty good about the first round of solicitation when suddenly both my tweet and my email were answered. SodaStream would be happy to donate a Genesis unit with a dozen or so syrups for the kids to auction off. Not only was SodaStream my new best friend, they also believe in kids having tissues and construction paper and fresh pencils. As I expected, parents from the two schools were unfamiliar with and intrigued by the product. I bid pretty high myself (hey, I need one at my brother's house, don't I?) but I didn't win. I felt bad taking attention away from the truly amazing Angry Birds cake someone crafted, but an Angry Birds cake is for an evening - SodaStream is more of a long term relationship. I offered to review the product at Amazon and both my blogs, which SodaStream said wasn't necessary, but was awesome. Since I think the product and their donation policy is several shades of awesome, I'm breaking my book only policy to talk soda. Ask me anything soda related, I'll answer in crazy obsessive detail.

I hear this product works great with booze too, but I have kids. If I started drinking alcohol I'd never stop.

Review: Ice by Ice-T and Douglas Century

I just want you to read this book.

Simple as.

If you're American you probably know Ice-T as either an actor, a rapper or as a symbol for what's wrong with the country. I think we need to flip that over and look at Ice as a symbol of what's right with our country. Ice is every American myth distilled into one man. Orphaned? Check. Troubled relationship with remaining family? Check. Lived in a war zone and / or wore our uniform? Check that twice. Self made man? Strong personal values? Honest about his faults? Works with our youth? Faced down political enemies? Willing to compromise? Strong work ethic? Whatever you've got on that Great American list you can go ahead and check it off. I have long respected Ice-T, but if the book was bad I'd tell you straight. So would he.

It's not. Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood (who titled this thing?) is fantastic. It's his voice, it's his story, it's uncompromising, and it's valuable. If you pay attention, you might learn something. Plenty of people have judged Ice without really knowing much about him. Was he a criminal? Yes. I would argue that there are any number of criminals respected in this nation, and Ice is far more honest than most in repudiating the sins of his youth. He's also a man capable of facing down the right and left when his career was hijacked to serve political interests. Faced with a public stoning, he reinvented himself and thrived. (Even at the time I found it ironic that the man doing the most to speak out against gang violence and thug life was being demolished as a symbol of the same. America, bunch of idiots, God love us.) 

If nothing else, it's a good read. If you pay attention, it's a real look at how America eats it's own and what a person with integrity can do to stay ahead of the mob.

Review: Eve by Iris Johansen

 The last few Eve Duncan books have been a grind. Eve promises to be the first of a trilogy that answers the big questions. With it's focus firmly placed on Eve it's better than the last few, but it doesn't avoid what's been bothering me about the series. Early on, Johansen had a choice to make. Either the series was about Eve, a woman whose personal tragedy forced her into the world of forensics, or it was about Eve, a woman searching endlessly for her child's killer. (Is it a spoiler to say we don't know who killed Bonnie? I've rather suspected Bonnie isn't dead.) By keeping a foot in both worlds the books have been oddly unsatisfying with too many side characters brought along. Eve begins by introducing yet another important man - Bonnie's father.

It's a natural place to go, but it also highlights what has been wrong with the series. Everyone Eve knows is a borderline psychotic or a killer or both. She can't get her hair cut without an operative asking to bang her and then declaring he'd kill half of Texas to help her find Bonnie's killer. She reacts to declarations of passion the way I do to panhandlers. I swear if Eve went to McDonald's for a bag of fries she'd get two hotel keys and witness a shooting. Eve herself walks the border of TSTL by her suicidal determination yet is oddly passive in her own story. Powerful men move around her and for her, but Eve does little of the heavy lifting. Moral ambiguity is another hallmark of Eve Duncan. There are no lines. People die, people are kidnapped, relationships are under constant threat of interlopers but the only thing that matters to Eve is if the person in question is on her side. She gives lip service to moral convictions, but that is all it is. People are tools to be used in her quest. Her inner voice at 16 is the same as it is at 35. She's a consistent character, Eve.

Eve serves as a reboot to the series as well as the beginning of a closing trilogy. More than ever I am convinced Bonnie is alive. There was a period in the series that flirted with the supernatural which would have placed Bonnie firmly in the dead category, but Eve undermines that conviction and reopens the possibility that Bonnie is a teenager somewhere. I'm not sure I care anymore. A subplot in Eve and the last few books has been Joe Quinn resenting Eve's inability to set aside the search for her daughter and the emotional distance she keeps as a result. I'm sort of with Joe. I don't know that any ending for Bonnie could be satisfying for the reader at this point.  If she is alive, it's a bit deus ex machina.  If Bonnie was the victim of a random slaying, all the world building has been pointless. If Bonnie was killed as part of a larger plot against one of her parents it requires a leap of faith the reader might not have, to think that her parents as they were at the time of her kidnapping would be worth such a plot. Ultimately, there is no satisfaction for the reader in a resolution of Bonnie's death. Which, for me, is another arrow pointing to her survival.

Ugh. Who are we kidding? We all know I'm going to read the next two. Even if it's speed reading and page skipping, after ten years it's impossible to walk away when the end is in sight. At least the covers are gorgeous. This is a perfect way to represent Eve. The profile, the colors - true to character and eye catching. Fantastic cover design for the trilogy. Well, except for Bonnie. On her cover (the third and final book of the series) she looks a bit older than her age of abduction. Hm. What could that mean?

Review: Bringing Adam Home by Les Standiford & Joe Matthews

This is going to be one of those reviews where the reviewer offers up personal anecdote you may or may not be interested in. To facilitate your buying experience, yes, Bringing Adam Home is the definitive book on Adam Walsh's murder. You should read it and shelve it next to In Cold Blood (if you go for that sort of thing). It isn't a perfect book. There's a whiff of homophobia, a bit of repetition but it's as close to perfect as a book about police corruption and child murder is likely to be. So go ahead and buy it. (Now, back to me.)

I lived in South Florida for decades. I did when Adam Walsh was kidnapped and I did when my friend's young sister disappeared a few years later. The kindness the Walsh family showed hers from disappearance to tragic discovery has stayed with me always. I have no patience for those who blame them for their son's murder. You cannot imagine now what South Florida was like then. Shopping malls had playgrounds for the children to stay unattended while the parents shopped. Children of all ages walked to and from school alone. My parents authorized an area of more than five miles for me to wander, increasing it yearly. This was normal. Those who blame Adam's mother for stepping away inside a store have no idea what they're talking about.

Unlike Adam, I was fortunate. I was not a trusting child and those who approached me, who promised me things, I ran from. I hid under cars, I cut through yards, the one thing I did not do was approach the police. Our neighborhood officer was a pederast. I have met some truly wonderful police officers in my life, but in South Florida I met only two amid dozens of less pleasant encounters. In my experience the local officers were either criminal themselves or too apathetic to be bothered. I would like to tell you things have changed, but from dozens of stories I will share this one. In Sailboat Bend a group of men have been assaulting and robbing people walking home from their low income jobs. The police have been given solid leads, they have been offered eyewitness identification, once they were even begged to just walk outside. The criminals were behind the station. The detective for the case simply hung up the phone.

I can understand why those reading Bringing Adam Home might react with disbelief to the account of willful obstruction of justice leveled at the Hollywood PD. Even the Walsh family took decades to understand what many of us in South Florida already knew. When the press conference was held naming Adam's killer, I viewed it with some doubt. So did (and does) the local media. It seemed like a way for the department to make the infamous case go away. If this was the killer, why wasn't the case solved years ago? Bringing Adam Home answers that with certainty. There is absolutely no doubt who killed Adam. None. The Walsh case is closed, the killer is dead. If Adam had not died, many other children would not have been saved, many criminals would not have been apprehended. If Adam's case had not been deliberately kept from prosecution, the same would be true. Even knowing that, the reader desperately wishes there could be a miracle ending. The head wasn't Adam's, his death wasn't painful, his family wasn't relentlessly tortured by the killer, by the police, by the public. Something, anything, to relieve the horror. There can't be. All of it is true.

And yet Bringing Adam Home is not a cruel book. It is a relentless one due to the nature of the crime and the crimes that followed. Unlike many True Crime books it doesn't sympathize with the killer or turn murder into a graphic pornography of horror. What happened to Adam is presented factually and concisely, the reader is haunted because there is no way to tell it gently. The focus is on the investigation and it's procedural aspects. What went right (precious little) what went wrong, and who lost track of their own morality. In searching so doggedly for  answers, the Walshes opened themselves up to one last victimization, one last horror inflicted by a man who had taunted them over the unspeakable end of their child. In doing so they once again used their pain to change their country.

Bringing Adam Home is about more than Adam Walsh. It is about how the worst of human nature can be seen not just in our killers, but in any one of us. Protect a friend here, doubt the truth there, offer a bone to a hungry public and soon you've created a wall only the most dogged and determined can break through. In the Walsh case, it took decades and immense resources. Even the killer himself offering proof of his guilt repeatedly couldn't break the Blue Line. Reading this you realize how many other cases have fallen under the same spells. (Jon Benet Ramsey, Trenton Duckett  - the list goes on.) The news cycle and the territory contests, the parent blaming and the street corner experts. The trust in authority and the distrust of the same. The things we just know, just decide, the obvious things.

We should all do better. At the very least, we should do as the Hollywood PD did, stand up and admit our flaws. Apologize for our errors and face those we failed. Remember that the truth is not something ephemeral or emotional,  it is a thing we discover piece by painstaking piece, regardless of the picture we wanted it to form. Adam has stood for so much in America. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he could stand for that? 

Review: My One And Only by Kristan Higgins

Kristan Higgins is a best selling author for a reason, she delivers the goods. She also bucks the trend of sexually descriptive romance to show that real intimacy happens with our clothes on. I'd feel comfortable handing this book to a young adult reader or my great grandmother. Since books are more fun when they're shared, I appreciate her choice.

 90% of My One and Only is engaging, realistic, heartwarming and rewarding. 10% of it made me want to toss it out the window. It's not that the 10% was bad (far from it) but it threw me out of a story I was totally engaged in. Our heroine is a hard charging divorce attorney jaded by life and jaded by her clients. What she hasn't done she's seen and what she's seen has made her deeply cynical. Harper's self protective and prides herself on being free of illusions. She also curses like a three year old child.

This might not bother you, in fact it might please many readers, but for me when the hardbitten Red Sox fan lets loose with "Crotch! Crochety crotch!" It's hard for me to take her seriously. Sure, she can conjugate it "Well, crotch! Oh, crotch!" but it doesn't help. Really, who says that? Do you have a friend who pulls her cell phone out of her pocket, looks down and says "Crotch. It's my boss." (Maybe I just need to get out more.) The other thing that threw me came in the last few chapters. Everything gets tied up neatly and cutely and by everything I mean every single little thing. I'm shocked the dog didn't get a surprise litter from a pedigreed princeling. It's a bit much. However! There's the other 90% of the book.

Our heroine has a pretty tidy life with an island home, a firefighter boyfriend and a priest for a best friend. She's doing alright. Sadly, she also has family. In Harper's case there's a little sister who likes to marry guys she's known about five minutes. Her most recent engagement is to Harper's ex-brother-in-law. As Harper would say, "Crotch!" (Ok, I'll let it go) Harper boards a plane and heads out to confront her sister's latest folly which means confronting one of her own. Nick is more than ready to reexamine their past. Since their divorce, he's moved on with his life but he never moved past Harper. They may have married too young, but they weren't wrong to marry.

Harper and Nick are savvy people damaged by life and afraid to invest too much in each other. They are also achingly familiar.  There's an element of "Just communicate!" at play, but it works here because the characters are afraid to talk to each other. Exposing their fears means exposing themselves to pain. Neither is the trusting type. I have to say I'm Team Harper all the way. I'd have divorced Nick too. But I can't blame her for taking him back, either. Older and wiser, he's still the right one for her. Even though he's a Yankees fan. Which reminds me - Kristan Higgins totally won the cover jackpot. Right down to the NY plate on the car and the dog by her side, My One and Only has the perfect cover for the story inside. Bold, charming and appropriate, I love the cover as much as the contents.

Review: An Unlikely Countess by Jo Beverley

*Why can't we have eyes anymore? I feel like this cover is saying "Hello! Up here!" to the Art Department. 

Rothgar, it's time to go. I adore you, you are one of the great romantic heros, you make other romantic heros look like pale anemic vampires, but I think we need to take a break. Here's the thing, I loved An Unlikely Countess, I adored An Unlikely Countess, I was ready sleep with An Unlikely Countess under my pillow, and then your wife showed up. She was kind of a total buzz kill.

This book was so good without her. It was Joanna Bourne good. It was Sherry Thomas good. It was Meredith Duran good. Hey, I'll go all the way - it was Jo Beverley good. And then it was easy. The thing is, Cate (can I call the Earl Cate?) was a great romantic lead on his own. His family doesn't understand him, his mother can't really stand him, his older brother is a know it all bore, and Cate likes to rescue girls he finds in alleys. He's adorable. Sure, he's got a bit of an inferiority complex, being suited to caretake a manor and finding himself without one, but that's totally not a problem.

Then there's Prudence! She's a total snob and I love that she can still be one after falling so far down in the world that up would be defined as a change of clothes. That whole thing she's got going with her neighbor? Will tutor for food? Love her! As an older sibling myself, believe me when I say I've got her back. Younger brothers can be the very devil. Look at Cate! By the time the two of them find themselves shacked up as Earl and Countess I'm fascinated. The intricacies of upstairs / downstairs life, the dizzying tightrope of small town life, the nuances of family dynamics. I love that stuff. It was like Downton Abbey with half the cliches.

Then the drama had to escalate. And with the drama, a sudden resolution of all their problems, some of it initiated by a certain overbearing nobleman's charismatic wife. I'm not naming any names, Rothgar, but I think you know her. Really really well if you get where I'm going with this. Really. Well. Indeed. Yes. Her. She shows up and it's like a giant tying of the plot lines. I liked it better when Cate and Prudence were muddling on as best they could, without the big jolt of charisma. And really, if you sponsor all the lame little ducks, aren't you going to start to get a reputation for it? Rothgar, Lord of the Ducklings and Holder of the Socially Unformed. It's a bit of a mouthful.

Ah, why am I blaming you? You weren't even there. Probably, when you heard about it, you didn't even approve. Ok, you're right, you can stay. In fact, you can show up in every book of your time period ever. Because you're awesome. And so were Cate and Prudence, before A Certain Person cast them in her shadow. Can't you talk to her? Well I was just asking. No need to get like that about it. Fine! I'll read the next one. But I'm not promising to change my mind.

Review For Two: Heat Wave by Donald Bogle & Blue Smoke by Roger House

I've already raved this week about R. A. Lawson's Jim Crow's Counterculture. I read it as part of a trio of books over the last few weeks. Heat Wave and Blue Smoke take very different paths to the same result, a definitive look at an artist and their time period.

Donald Bogle is well known for his exhaustive research and meticulous detailing. Heat Wave is no exception. Things get off to a slow start as he explains the background behind what begins to seem like every person Ethel Waters ever met or could meet. Once he gets rolling, however, he offers a comprehensive look at this pioneering artist that is refreshingly free of rose colored glasses. Perhaps it's fitting that Waters, certainly not an easy woman, is so well documented in what is not an easy book. Heat Wave is worth the time, and it will reward the reader willing to explore not just Ethel Waters but the world she lived in. Ethel has largely been forgotten, but Bogle respects both her place in history and her absolute talent. Here she is in a clip from a film intended for black audiences only, with a very young Sammy Davis Jr as the President. I chose this clip because it illustrates the difference in the artist when she is not beholden to please a white ticket buyer. Instead of the cotton picker of her 1929 recording of this song, an elegant woman takes the stage before expounding on the power of Harlem life and completely refuting cotton as a profession.

Blue Smoke has a different aim. Rather than a comprehensive exploration of the times and people that made the artist, Roger House uses the art to explore the man. Taking Broonzy's discography to tell the story of his life, House quote his lyrics before expanding on the times in which he wrote them. It makes for an instantly accessible and compelling read. House writes as economically as Broonzy sang.

Unlike Ethel Waters, Bill Broonzy did not find his fortune with his guitar. It certainly led him to many experiences he would not otherwise have had, but it never allowed him to fully leave manual labor behind. as with other artists of the time his interaction with the Lomax family both gained him a wider audience and a minstrel version of himself to perform for the white blues enthusiasts. House details his work bringing other musicians to be interviewed by Alan Lomax, stressing that we have to view those tapes through the lens of Lomax's own bias. Broonzy knew what Lomax was looking for and he delivered it. We can't therefore take those words as a full and accurate representation of Bill Broonzy himself. In the music House finds a fuller picture of the man and through that man the era in which he worked. LSU Press has great pricing on Blue Smoke, both in paperback and ebook.  I think it is definitely worth your time. Since it's only fair, let me follow that look at Ethel Waters with a look at Big Bill Broonzy, a guitarist that should be familiar to everyone. The effects of his popularity in Europe are certainly seen in the work of the European musicians that followed.

Review: Jim Crow's Counterculture by R. A. Lawson

As a music fan and a person of Southern descent, my celebrity obsessions might be different than yours. I had the opportunity to review three very different books recently. Heat Wave is a biography of Ethel Waters from Donald Bogle put out by Harper Collins, while Jim Crow's Counterculture and Blue Smoke both come from LSU Press by authors new to me. I'm on my third read of Jim Crow's Counterculture. It's not as instantly accessible as Blue Smoke, but it's far and away my favorite. There's something about Lawson's style that says Pay Attention Now.

When I was young it was an established 'fact' that Blues were most authentic when they were most rustic, that accomplished musicians had been tainted by white cultural influences. This was racist poppycock, of course. Then (as now) black musicians were serving two very different masters. The first was what the white public wished to hear and by extension the white executives wished to record. The second was what the black public wanted to hear. Covering the period from the beginning of Jim Crow to the end of WW2, Lawson illustrates how the male blues musician (who performed a very different type of show than the female) was a vehicle for protest against Jim Crow and the dominant culture. Even so, it was a very constrained avenue. (During WW2 songs of revenge against the Japanese are quite common, but it's a rare song that dared to speak out against the Germans. As much as they were our enemy, they were still white.) Within those confines black artists  recorded their lives, their aspirations, and changed their own possibilities. As Lawson says - 


"Black southerners during Jim Crow were forced to be deferential, yet bluesmen projected powerful braggadocio. Black men were often emasculated or condemned as rapacious beasts, yet the bluesmen openly celebrated their sexuality. Plantation sharecropping, levee building, and logging exploited black workers in the Delta, so the musicians tried to abandon manual labor." 


Through blues music the black southerner could move in white circles, he could amass material goods that were out of his reach through traditional means. While he was certainly not relieved of the strictures of Jim Crow, he could move between social boundaries more freely. The life of a black southern musician, while often itinerant, could offer far more independence than that of a sharecropper or manual laborer. Wearing the clothes of a laborer for his white audience the musician was defining how they saw him, but they were no longer defining who he was. Things could be said in song that could not be said in words. Of course there was not a total freedom of expression. As Ice-T leaned with "Cop Killer" the dominant culture still maintained a strong sense of what was an appropriate thing for the artist to say. Reading Lawson's section on the emergence of the bluesman as an identity made me reflect on modern black music. "Thug Life" isn't a far stretch from the lawless hedonism of the early bluesman's image. The refutation of morality and law as a path of rebellion for the project dwelling youth of today comes as a straight line from the refutation of same by the young southern sharecropper. Jim Crow may be behind us, but it's legacy of limited opportunities, of devalued black lives, of a dominant culture defining what is possible remains. Lawson uses music to illustrate points in his text, indeed Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere" could be about Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.

"Looka here the water now, Lordy, levee broke, rose most everywhere, That water at Greenville and Lula, Lord, it done rose everywhere, I would go down to Rosedale, but they tell me there’s water there."

Lawson has written a tremendously engaging book. It might not be for everyone, but it is certainly for anyone. I consider Jim Crow's Counterculture an absolute bargain as an e-book. Kindle has it at the standard $9.99 price, hopefully to all regions. A truly rewarding read.

Review: The Taming by Aleen Malcolm

All the Agency shenanigans going on right now have killed my interest in reading. I know it will come back, but in the meantime the hours I would have spent reading were spent divesting myself of 99% of my print books. I sorted them into pulp, donate, gift and other. I hadn't looked in these boxes in almost seven years and they comprised my 'keepers' from 1980 to 2004. I learned a lot about myself by looking at these with fresh eyes.

First, I discovered I was one heck of a curator. Then I found when it came to romance my keeper shelf wasn't just the warm and fuzzy reads, it included some serious WTFOMGBBQ book moments. I'd pull a book out and rattle off the plot without hesitation even though it has been twenty years and a lot of chemo since then. I knew the closing lines of several of Edith Layton's books. (I miss Edith) My once perfect memory is no more, but some things scar the soul forever. So it was with Aleen Malcolm.

See that chick there? She's 14. Maybe 13, I don't actually recall. I do remember that she marries this guy who is like, twice her age then follows him around taking all kinds of abuse (physical and otherwise) in a quest for his love. I think I was about the same age when I read this and even then I thought that was some messed up interpersonal dynamics. I think it was also about this time that Luke raped Laura on the American show General Hospital. There was this weird message being sent to American women that some guys are going to rape you just because they love you so darn much. The men and boys in my life seemed to think this was awesome. We've come so far in Romanceland. We may have a way yet to go, but the days of 14 year olds who are 'asking for it' from men twice their age appear to be behind us. Thankfully.

If you have never read romance from this era, you totally should. Not the good, quality uplifting stuff. The meat and potato rape-o-ramas, the racist plantation novels, the OMGWTFBBQ moments. The days when all the beloved rapists were Scottish, unless they were English, but they were never black. Because love meant being at least half European in your ancestry. (Some things haven't changed, have they?) Being a woman meant needing to be broken, needing to be tamed, needing to be shown your place and accepting of your master so you could be worthy of his name. Sort of like wanting to read e-books today.

iPad Killer: Dead On Arrival

Electronics is a bloodthirsty game. As soon as Sony's Data Discman came out... Ok, I'll grant you that it was a very long road from the Data Discman to the Kindle but the point remains, the cycle of life can be vicious. One moment you're the king, the next you're ducking shoes. Currently every predator has a taste for Apples.

I like my iProducts. My iThings work easily, they don't flake out on me, they do what I tell them and they seem to like it. Granted, iStuff isn't for everyone. There are people who seem to honestly dislike all things iLicious. It's cool. My pal lets his Windows hang out, we don't judge. Now everyone's talking about Androids, I'm open minded, I'll check it all out. I was asked to review one of the up and coming iKillers. (I said "Bring It!" because I talk all 80's like that.) I have to admit, the first impression really surprised me.

It was sleek. It had some serious tactile appeal. It looked like it was built for love and had storage for days. Even though Microsoft and I had broken up more than a decade ago, I was ready to consider reuniting. Cue up the Peaches & Herb, dim the lights,  and run the startup menu. We named it Godzilla, because it was going to stomp all over my iLove. A bajillion and a half years later I remembered that Windows has to get in the mood. You might be ready to rumble, but Windows, it needs to feel respected. A little wooing is required. (I wasn't going anywhere.) Finally, it was done playing the tease. A flash of blue screen, a hint of a start up menu and.....

A blaring series of beeps? What? Keep the sirens for Prodigy songs! My iPad Killer was turning out to be all talk and no action. The screen went black, the beeps kept coming and the power button quit working. I carried it into the garage and shut the door. It could come out when it was fit for company. So here I was, all ready to cheat on Apple and only a dead motherboard to show for my efforts. I called The Man about a replacement. Fed-Ex, walk in, what are my options? My options were to hurry up and wait. Talk about a buzz kill. Even though the $600 brick was only an hour old, it had to go to a repair center on a repair ticket for investigation of the problem. After all data was scrubbed and the problem determined, it would be sent back to me. In a couple weeks.

Um, what? A couple of weeks? Do they know how long that is in dog years? I tried pulling rank. I was soooo casual - "You know this is for a product review, right? I'm supposed to go several places and give people my opinion on whether or not they should buy your product? As in purchase? With money?" Turns out they could shorten the turn around time. Ten days. I don't know about you, but if I shelled out $600 for something that died in an hour, I wouldn't wait ten minutes. So I wrote my review. And I named the names I'm not naming here because I think part of the review process is seeing how the customer service would work for standard customers.

Flirting with the iPad Killer reminded me of what I already knew. People are willing to put up with an awful lot in a relationship. It's why I've stayed with Apple so long. My iBabies don't throw tantrums, and they don't need time outs. If someone's going to kill my iPad, they're going to have to move a lot faster.

Review: Deadly Vows by Brenda Joyce

Ah, Francesca. You are so incredibly young and I have missed you so very much. What else would you do on your wedding day but run off to investigate a mysterious letter that threatens to expose you to ruin? If you stopped long enough to think it through, you wouldn't be the Francesca Cahill (Hart? Bragg?) we've come to love. So there you are, rushing off on your wedding day, planning to meet everyone at the church for a last minute slide into your dress and a picture perfect walk down the aisle. If we've learned one thing about you Francesca, it's that your plans always work out the way you expect them to. Can you leave a man at the altar and still marry him? Hart thinks not.

Deadly Vows is an absolute gift to fans of the Cahill series. There is all the nail biting "Francesca what are you thinking" action of the other eight books. Francesca continues to have more perils than the famous Pauline and Rick is still trailing behind her with his woeful face on. Calder seems to have had enough of it all, which makes sense. Calder's had about enough of everything. Thankfully, by the end of Deadly Vows the will she or won't she, does she or doesn't she is resolved (for now?) as well as the questions of Bertolla's pregnancy. If The Deadly Series ends here, it won't be the cliffhanger it once was. That said, there is no reason for Francesca to stop sleuthing. The series could as easily begin here as end, a reader could start with Deadly Vows and move forward, much as you can with one of Nora Roberts In Death books.

The Deadly Series is long on soaptastic action, which there is no shortage of here. Everyone is embroiled in some secret, heartrending angst, except Francesca's parents. (I have to tell you, I expect one of them to come out with some drama soon.) Deadly Vows finds them doing little but fretting as Francesca tries to find a stolen painting, eludes a madman (or three), children are kidnapped, and plots are revealed. Even Francesca's brother chooses between the Irish seamstress he might love and the pregnant mistress he certainly doesn't. Being late to leave the city for the summer house hardly compares. (Since Deadly Vows closes as most of the characters head for the beach, I can't wait to join them there in the next installment.)

My complaint, and I must always have one, is the relationship between Calder and Rick. As the series goes on it makes even less sense to me. Calder is the wealthy half brother to the crusading older Rick Bragg. Calder has mommy issues like woah. Seems Mommy always liked Rick best (even though she was really telling young Rick to look after his baby brother what with her dying and all) and his half brother's father came to rescue them while Calder's father wanted no contact at all. Rick sees Calder as a self important selfish tool incapable of true emotion, which I can understand. Calder has money, he has tantrums, and he has issues with Rick while Rick has been charged with caring for the cranky little snot. Calder, on the other hand, sees Rick as a self important windbag using his good works as a cover for his lack of character. I get both of those views. Where it starts to fall apart for me is the brothers are both close to Rick's father and Rick's other half brothers. Calder feels unloved and unloveable, which he seems to blame on Rick. Wouldn't he feel more of a bond with Rick, who shared their mother's struggle and death, than his protected and pampered youngest brothers? There has to be more to the Calder / Rick drama than Calder being in a snit over Rick's dad wanting him. This needs a bit more oomph or a working out of issues to satisfy.

I may sound like I'm Team Rick. You'd be wrong, I can easily list what my problems are with both of them but it will have to wait. I can't detail my frustration with Francesca, her men, and their serious problems with adult life, until the next one. The Deadly Series joys lie in being spoiler free as it all unravels and then ranting about how ridiculous this or that person was during the book. It's the very definition of guilty pleasure, but no guilt is required. I'm ready to give all three characters a serious time out, but I'll be back for the next book as soon as I can get my hands on it!

Review: One Night Is Never Enough by Anne Mallory

We all know I adore Anne Mallory. I think her name should be on the same list as Lorraine Heath and Julia Quinn, maybe just a half step (or not) below Courtney Milan and Sherry Thomas. (It's so hard to line authors up by height when they won't stop moving.) It's established that I am quite fond of Seven Secrets Of Seduction, the first book in this loosely connected series. So did I love One Night Is Never Enough?

Yes?

(Yes, but? Yes, and?) It surprised me. One Night blends one of my favorite (young self made street rat) and least favorite (lost in a card game) romance standards together. Roman Merrick is exceptional as the street rat in question. A card carrying member of the have-to-laugh-or-you'd-cry-club, Roman is charming and believable as a man who lives by his instincts. Charlotte isn't the heroine I expected to emerge from Seven Secrets of Seduction. Instead of the plucky best friend, Anne Mallory has chosen to work with the discarded fiancee, the ice princess being sold to the highest title. Unlike most ice princesses, Charlotte revels in her control. Her desire to dominate society shows that what Charlotte hungers for most in life is power. Lots and lots of power. Roman has power in abundance, but it's not the sort that's useful to her. Rather like dating a guy with a coal mine when you're trying to pull a stagecoach along. (I predict Charlotte will ultimately get the social power she desires as predicting Roman's brother is the Lost Duke Of Something is like going out on a limb that's already fallen and been bolted to the ground.)

So on to the ? mark. Anne Mallory's books are always slightly different. In this case, she's looking for a little added realism. If you're a street rat who has scrabbled his way to the top, you had to get your paws pretty dirty on the way up. Other rats are always going to be grabbing your tail, trying to climb the pile themselves. Men who run gambling clubs are not renowned for their honesty. But in Romanceland, once you make it big you make it clean. The gangster on the top of the mountain is molded into the respected businessman on the top of the mountain, above the teeming masses he once dwelled among. No drive-by shootings here. (Would that be canter-by? Gallop-by? How would that work?) Not so with Roman Merrick. The book opens with him attacking an enemy, it closes with him reminding her that his is a life of criminals and crime, his is a life that will never offer safety for himself or those with him. He is a Bad Boy With A Heart Of Gold not a Man With A Past.

Charlotte is ok with it. After some reflection, I think I am too. After all of our heros being told it isn't their fault, that the past is just that, the evil is gone, the trouble transported, the jails broken into, the cops paid off, we were due for a change. King Rat is always going to snap the neck of anyone who tries to take his cheese, and the rest of the rats are always going to make their play. Thug Life, Baby.

*I have to throw a quick cover note out here - blue and green, eye catching. That fist he's making for no reason in her dress? Disturbing. She's all relaxed lazy Sunday, and he's all Olestra side effects. Look at his hairline, those are some cold sweats he's got going on.

Review: Scandal of the Year by Laura Guhrke

I didn't hate it as much as the last one?

Scandal of the Year's main problems (outside of the book itself) are reader expectation and Agency pricing. I expect to love a Laura Lee Guhrke book. I resent not loving one far more when I've paid the full Agency freight. In order to detail what I didn't like about Scandal of the Year I'm going to have to spoil some major plot points. So let me say here that it is better than Wedding of the Season and does not depend on knowledge of that book for it's plot. There is every chance you will love it. Do not read on if you think you might wish to read this book free from plot details. Make your buying choice without me. It's better for both of us.

(Well that's out of the way. You've only yourself to blame from here.) So in the prior book, Aidan was an uptight dude who totally had contempt for the married Julia's free for all ways. She was a madcap blithe spirit who rubbed his fur backwards, the in-law he least looked forward to acquiring from his shiny new fiancee Beatrix. Now Aidan has lost a second fiancee (off camera) because he was caught naked with Julia by her estranged husband and was named in the divorce. (Ok, I'm cool with that.) The problem is, Aidan didn't really hate Julia he just told himself he did because he met her umpteen years ago when she was 17 and .... I know, right? Already the first book is starting to fall apart. Why didn't they mention this before? Why would he marry the cousin of the women he was obsessed with? What could be so awesome about that meeting... it doesn't improve upon inspection. Not only did he meet Julia for like, five minutes, but she had also recently found out her fiance was dead (barely a hitch in her stride) and was being forced to marry someone else. There are three different books being shoehorned into one to force a Sleeping Beauty theme here. You've got star crossed childhood sweethearts (but not really), lost love regained (but not really) and the uptight dude meets the free spirit that unlocks him all going on at once.

Now how much would you pay?

But wait! If you call right now you also get emotional shut down from an abusive relationship. Julia is the life of the party with the sad heart of a clown. She smiles to keep from crying. I have a problem with that part of her backstory as well. It's not that her husband is a crazy violent rapist, it's that for a time he finds a mistress who likes that sort of thing and he leaves her alone. So which is it? He was romantically obsessed with her and only enjoys raping women, or he's a BDSM freak who can't play vanilla? It's not the same thing. A true BDSM freak isn't into rape, and a true rapist isn't into willing mistresses. I'm all about the vanilla and I know that. So Julia's powerful story of overcoming socially condoned rape is tainted by the question of perceptions. Was he chalk? Was he cheese? If he was chalk, why did he let her go at all? If he was cheese, why didn't he let her go sooner? It doesn't fit.

But back to Julia. I liked that she dealt with her own problems, I liked that she knew she was emotionally damaged, I liked that she confronted her all consuming (and so trendy) debt without apology or a desire for self exploration. I liked that she was imperfect. (I think the subtext of this series might be imperfect characters.) I liked that she did bad things for her own reasons, but owned it. I liked the way she hid from reality when she could. I liked her not quite as much as I did in Beatrix's book, but that's probably because I wasn't grateful to her for giving me someone other than Beatrix to read about. If Aidan really had not liked her, if his disapproval was real but slowly eroded through understanding her, I would have loved them together. Aidan hating her to resist loving her just annoyed me. It makes no sense to the character of Aidan and it makes no sense to their prior interactions. There's no reason for it but hormones.

And yet. Aspects of Scandal of the Year are fantastic and original. Julia's sense of independence, Aidan's quiet responsibility, tennis games instead of boxing matches, so many details creating a fresher whole. It's that much more frustrating when the details need scotch tape to hold them in place.

Confessional: My Life As A Stripper

It's his day job. At night he's a rock star.

I read an interesting article in BBC History Magazine about the emergence of shadow markets in face of unneeded regulation (I feel like I should totally say I'm kidding, but hang in here for a second) and the perception that said crimes were victimless, because of the unneeded regulation or taxation level. Dude was preaching to the DRM choir. Except not. Because, you know, BBC History.

I am not on the piracy bandwagon. (Pirates bad, paying for things good, e-book pricing different conversation.) I've never been an advocate of DRM and moving into e-reading has made my beliefs gospel. I read on my Sony 505, on Ozy (My iPad, he likes to be called Ozy right now It's a thing we've got going.) an iPod touch of indeterminate ownership, and occasionally a Kindle. (But not often. We don't really speak.) I listen to music in my house, in my car, on my 3 iPods and Ozy.  I watch movies on ... you follow. Media Anonymous keeps tucking brochures in my door and I ignore them. My end of year cash flow statements make stern judgy faces about the entertainment column and I scoff at it. I'm a dirty girl, I'm not going to change now.

That's the thing about me, when I want my fix, I want it. I don't want to wait for an appropriate time, an approved place, the good underwear. I just want to get it on with my media of choice. I'll pay for it, I'll treat it like a lady, but it better show me a good time or I'm on to the next thing. That said, if I bought the dvd/cd/epub/mobi I'm not interested in buying every format. I will rip the cd, recode the dvd, strip the epub, I like my files ready to go where I want to take them. (I'm not into sharing, it's just about me and my stash.) So I get pretty annoyed when the DRM justifications start up. To me, it's a hurdle that encourages piracy. To them, it's protection against piracy.

Tomato. You know the rest.

Since Ozy came into my life I've been reading almost exclusively on it at home. When I go out in the world, it's the Sony or the iPod and I want to take the book (or film, or song) with me. I'm not going to buy it three ways. I experimented with several reading apps that preserved the DRM but they weren't seamless. I don't want to remember my passwords, check my settings, or otherwise screw around with making sure other people won't rip off people charging me $8 for a $5 mass market. (Oops, almost got into pricing. My bad.) I know margins are tight, I know the music industry has problems, I know theater ticket sales are tanking. I didn't do any of that. I buy my stuff, and a lot of the time I buy it retail. So while I don't support a shadow economy or black market (pirates!) I do consider taking it all off to be a legit endeavor for the consumer (moi) who wants to get her media on. (I'll throw out some numbers. I spent upwards of five hundred bucks on various media items last month. When I start to go blind, I'll stop. I promise. The budget is just grateful it isn't concert season. Alright, I may or may not have just spent $600 on a new DVR setup so I don't miss General Hospital. There's no shame in it! Actors gotta work!)

One of my favorite sayings, because I'm pretentious like that, is that water seeks it's level. The easiest path is the path it follows. The easiest thing to do in this new world of media is to steal things. The hardest thing to do is abide by all the DRM restrictions and keep someone else's ducks in a line on your dime. I'll be hanging out here in the middle of the road, where I will undoubtedly get mown over by a Mack truck. Y'all do what y'all do, as long as you remember that everyone has to put food on the table.