julesjones

Not without detectable trends. 1979 is the cut-off because I am using the Locus records and that's as far back as they go.

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I have olive bread, sharp cheddar, orange/cardamom tea, wrist braces, & 16 unscheduled hours. This draft dies today.

http://musapublishing.blogspot.com/2013/05/are-european-men-best.html

by Sloane Taylor

I don't know about "best", but they sure are damn appealing to me. That fact is evident in the books I write because my heroes are from a variety of European countries. Readers have asked me why. One indignant lady wanted to know why I hated American men.

For the record, I don’t hate any man. If anything it’s the complete opposite. I love them all and can’t seem to get enough of them. Men of every nationality, race, and creed are a major turn-on for me. Tall or short doesn’t matter. Either a flowing mane or a pate that shines works for me. I am the original rah-rah queen for the male gender.

Please don’t get the wrong idea. I do not hang around street corners in a tight skirt and skimpy top waiting to jump in some guy’s car for twenty dollars, but I have no problem staring to my heart’s content when I see a male who interests me. From their bone structures to their attitudes, and some of them do have the best attitudes, men fascinate me.

The main reason most of my heroes are European is that I’ve had more experience with men from that part of the world. Now behave yourself, I’m not talking in the biblical sense.

Long before I ever considered being a writer, I worked for a paint manufacturer in the international division. My job was to develop formulas for industrial coatings and deal one on one with the representatives from the contracted British, French, and German companies. Those business associates became longtime friends and I treasured every second of our time together.

Since that job, I have been fortunate to spend a great deal of time in Europe. It has been my pleasure to expand my study of men. The men I’ve met along the way have enthralled me, angered me, and consumed me. Most were reserved with a clipped speech pattern that to a fun loving American bordered on rudeness, but as they came to know me that guarded attitude turned into warmth and great loyalty. And in two marvelous cases a protectiveness that was welcomed.

From all those awesome traits of all those fabulous men the Magnificent Men of Munich series was born. It’s a four book series that opens in Munich and ends in Venice. Here is a bit from Heated Negotiations, Book One.

Mergers and negotiations are not just for the boardroom, especially when things heat up high over the Atlantic.

BLURB:
Travel agency owner Teddi Howard is Hell in high heels when she jumps a plane to Munich. Her goal—strangle the German tour operator who reneged on their exclusive contract.

German businessman David Stiefel well knows the feeling of being screwed over and is resolved to avoid emotional attachments. This strategy has served him well, until his chance encounter with the enticing Ms. Howard.

EXCERPT:
David Stiefel’s eyes kept track of the copper-haired female while he rolled up the sleeves of his striped shirt. The woman was oblivious to the stir she created as she strolled through the crowded O’Hare Airport Business Class Lounge. He stroked an index finger over his lips and studied her sleek figure clad in formfitting slacks. The appealing rear view was too good to miss. The pleasure of not seeing a panty line forced him to shift in his chair to adjust for the sudden pull in his jeans.

She bent over, hung her jacket across the chair back, and glanced over her shoulder at him. Their gaze held as a smile tweaked the corner of his mouth. He crumpled the wrappings from his beef sandwich and knew he’d just been offered dessert. Now all he had to do was make his move.

As his good luck would have it, right there on the floor just a few meters away was an airline ticket dropped by some unsuspecting person. He knew that delicious-looking woman had done it as a ploy to meet him.

He stood and paced off the few steps, never taking his eyes from her. He stooped, scooped up the packet, and walked the few extra feet before he glanced at the name printed in bold marker across the front. When he held it toward her, she fumbled with her purse and carry-on as if she did not know she had lost such an important set of documents. Very cool.

Standing in front of her, he leaned down just enough to catch her scent. A fragrance that reminded him of herbs.

BUY LINK

To read excerpts from any of the other five books Sloane Taylor has published through Musa, please click HERE.

Sloane Taylor is a sensual woman who believes humor and sex are healthy aspects of our everyday lives and carries that philosophy into her books. She writes sexually explicit romances that take you right into the bedroom. Her books are set in Europe where the men are all male and the North American women they encounter are both feminine and strong. They also bring more than lust to their men’s lives.

Taylor was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago. Studs, her mate for life, and Sloane now live in a small home in Indiana and enjoy the change from hectic city life.

She is an avid cook. Check out “It’s Wednesday. So What’s Cooking?” with complete menus posted once a week on her blog http://sloanetaylor.blogspot.com/. The recipes are user friendly menus, meaning easy.

Learn more about Sloane Taylor on her website and blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

- and yes, it's got me in it, hence the ad, but look how many countries are represented! And who, having ever been a fan of Round the Horne, could resist going to a reading in the Balls Pond Road? It should be easy to get to, if you're in or near London. Here's the gen; for more, go to the Pelmeni Poets website.

Our next reading will take place on Wednesday June 12th, 2013 at The Duke of Wellington, 119 Balls Pond Road, London N1 4BN. 6.30pm for 7pm.

how-to-find-us

We are very excited to be hosting the award-winning Punjabi essayist and poet, Amarjit Chandam; the lyrical South African poet, Isobel Dixon; the accomplished fiction writer and poet, Martina Evans; Iraqi poet, novelist and painter, Fawzi Karim; the Shetland-based poet, novelist and critical writer, Sheenagh Pugh and the acclaimed Dublin-born poet, Roisin Tierney.

This would make more sense to me if I still read Analog:

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Marion Dane Bauer (born 1938) is an American children's author.

Born and brought up in Oglesby, a small prairie town in Northern Illinois, she was educated at LaSalle-Peru-Oglesby Junior College, the University of Missouri and the University of Oklahoma, where she graduated in 1962. She married Ronald Bauer, raising their two children as well as being a foster parent for other children. She has taught English at a Wisconsin high school and classes in creative writing in Minnesota.

Rain of Fire (1983) won the Jane Addams Children's Book Award in 1984. Bauer received the Kerlan Award in 1986. On My Honor (1986) won a Newbery Medal Honor in 1987, and won the William Allen White Children's Book Award in 1989. Am I Blue, an anthology of children's fiction about gay and lesbian issues, won a Lambda Literary Award in 1994, and the Stonewall Book Award for literature in 1995. The Longest Night won a Golden Kite Award for picture-book text in 2009.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Dane_Bauer

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I was going to look at the f/m for Clarke Award submissions to see if the fraction varies significantly with time but as far as I can tell they didn't make the list of submissions public before 2008.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2013/05/my-war-the-night-of-the-invasion-of-southern-france/

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/?p=5619

  See, I wanted to get into the action This was World War II, and it was my personal war. I wanted to fight. When I was inducted, they put me, as they did everybody, through a battery of tests, and when they looked at all the results they said, “Boy, you qualified for everything. [...]

We're in Huntsville, Alabama, for my father-in-law's funeral.

This morning we are the perfect image of two people who should really not have spent all of yesterday in transit. Two planes between three airports have played combinatory havoc with our various owies. Karen vanished into the bathroom muttering that everything hurt except her left hand; as it happens, my own left hand is actually quite painful. Though not as much as the arm that it's attached to, which is nowhere near as painful as the shoulder and neck above. That whole anarcho-industrial complex has been seizing up all week, despite anarchic interventions and industrial levels of analgesics; I can neither stand nor sit nor lie, move nor keep still except its hurting. (We have been here before - it's why I have stashes of codeine on two continents - and we know that it will go away. Last time, some serious massage drove it out early. I would like to try that again, but, y'know. Huntsville, Alabama. We're a way from our hands-on specialists.)

Talking of [placename, state], though, Jeannie made us watch Mystery, Alaska t'other night. I really, really liked that. A sports movie that actually works (largely, I guess, by dint of being about something else underneath: but that may actually be true of all sports movies that work? Or possibly all movies that work, regardless of genre? I dunno; I'm really not a movie buff, I just know what I like, and I liked that).