Trash Reading, Duck Tape and Bad-Boy Birds

I finally did it. I got my fill of reading military/action adventure romances. Yes, I know I said that once before but I had a relapse. I didn’t mean to do it, I swear. And you don’t have to tell me that I should be using my reading time to improve my mind, not giving my fantasies fodder that make me feel young and kick-ass strong again. But it was late at night and I couldn’t sleep and there was my Kindle begging me to download some testosterone-on-steroids to kick the pandemic worries out of my brain. One book later I left author Susan Stoker in the dust and for good this time, after being turned off by a third book of hers that was treating S&M like its normal. It’s not, ladies and gentlemen. It’s just not! I think she was trying to ride the Fifty Shades of Grey train back when that was ‘the thing’ and while my ultra-ego might like alpha males I want my alpha males to have a code of honor that does not include physical or mental abuse no matter how much the "little woman" claims to like it. If I could, I'd lock the Christian Greys of the world up in one iron cage and throw away the key. Okay, they might like that, so I’ll need to re-think that idea if I ever get put in charge of the world. Maybe a bullet in the head would be better. Ohmygod, am I turning into a blood-thirsty bitch or what!

But I do need to thank Susan Stoker for leading me to Pippa Grant. Apparently there is a trend in genre fiction marketing these days where 2-3 authors promote each other by using the same characters. A secondary character in, say, Susan’s book will appear as a main character in Pippa Grant's book. And all the authors work their way through a group of men who share the same careers to intro-connect their stories. Susan is into Navy Seals and Delta Forces, Pippa is into former boy bands and pro hockey and baseball players. The biggest difference between these two authors, though, is Pippa’s books are billed as ‘romantic comedies’ and I was hooked on her writing style from the first one I read, America’s Geekheart, which had me laughing out loud at 3:00 in the morning, pandemic stress be damned. I’ve since read four more of her books but that’s still my favorite. I’m going to sound like a guy who claims he only subscribed to Playboy for the articles when I say this but I’m only reading Pippa for the humor. Her 'players'---and I don’t mean sports here---are the naked photos I overlook. Well, as much as anyone could ignore the stud muffins in romance books. But believe me when I say this in my best Scarlett O’Hara voice, “As God is my witness when this pandemic is over I will finally finish reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace.” Ya, it really is on my Kindle and I'm planning on reading it to the very last page before I die. Don't let anyone tell you I don't have lofty goals.

Okay, only 427 more words to write to fulfill my minimum, by-weekly quota. It’s hard to come up with things to write about when stay-at-home orders are still in effect and I’m not doing anything but sorting out my past life through e-Bay sales. No doubt I’ll write about that topic again---after all my blog is my diary. But for now I’m bored by that topic so I’ll opine about the other big event in my life. Yes, the ghost in the house who likes to look inside the refrigerator and leave the door standing open. If you’re thinking I’m just getting old and forgetting to shut the door myself after all those pandemic grazing trips I make inside my Whirlpool, I thought the same thing the first couple of times I found the door standing up. On closer examination I figured out that along with the ghost theory there’s the other theory that the seal is wearing out. 

In my heydays of being a Spoiled Woman I could have just told---aka nagged---my dad or husband about the problem and like black magic they’d one day produce a new seal and repair the appliance. There wasn’t a single thing inside or outside of a house they couldn’t fix. And now days I bet I wouldn't even be able to find someone to replace a refrigerator seal. Darn! I. Do. Not. Want. To. Buy a new, expensive appliance when I don’t plan to stay in this house. So far, I’ve avoided using Duck Tape to keep the door from swinging open on its own, but I might buy a white roll to have on hand just in case it comes to that. Every woman needs Duck Tape and bungee cords in her tool box. They can temporarily fix anything and isn’t it nice that they come in colors, now, so you don’t have to be like Frazier’s father with his silver-on-green, taped-up La-Z-Boy in his son's fancy-ass penthouse living room. I loved that TV show back in its day. 

Ninety-nine words to go and I think I’ll use them by writing about the show of testosterone on my deck railing this week in the form of a pair of breeding mourning dove and a robin who seemed to think he should get in on the action. Yes, you read that right. A plump robin, an uncooperative dove with lady parts and male dove who seemed to up to the task of protecting her honor. In all the years the doves have been hanging around my deck rail and a near-by pine tree where they build their nest, this is the first time I’ve seen an attempt to throw off the balance of the species. Mother Nature is off her meds again! ©

From Dogs and being Ticked Off to Laughter and Fun

As I sit here writing Levi my Mighty Schnauzer is barking his lung out at the three giant puppies across the street as the fly back and forth along their fence line, two on one side and one on the other. The single dog is needier than the other two and she tries her darnedest to dig under that fence. Come warm weather when the dirt has thawed I suspect his daddy will be out there putting cinder blocks along the lot line that separates the two yards. 

They must have put a new rule in place in my neighborhood because it seems like everyone around me is getting big ass dogs. A new dog behind me has figured out how to get past its electric fence and he makes a beeline to my house to mark the shrub that Levi claims as his personal potty. I see his tracks in the snow and I know instantly that Levi will be spending the next five minute emptying out his bladder on that poor shrub. Take that! Levi must be thinking as he works his way around our mammoth Yew, I’m still top dog around here! And another guy who lives two doors down just got a new dog, a big breed of questionable parentage. He had another, very well trained dog who died two years ago of old age. He spent a lot of time with her and you could tell he loved that blonde collie as much as he did his two toddlers. He played with her and walked her like clockwork and she was so affectionate and obedient. I was jealous. 

I’ve finally got off the Susan Stoker book reading marathon I was on. I read eleven all total but I got major turned off by the last two and won’t be buying any more of her books. Those two included Fifty Shades of Grey kind of submission and domination stuff between the main characters and if there’s anything I can’t stand in books marketed as Romance it’s the attempt to normalize stuff that I first learned about by reading the Encyclopedia of Human Behavior…under the heading of “sexual deviations.” Call me old fashion, I can take it. But I will never understand how an author of romances would think a woman who’d been kidnapped by a serial killer, tied up, tortured and had her eyes taped open so she had to watch another girl get the same treatment would then be all hunky-Dorie when a man who supposedly loves her ties her up and orders her around. He gave her a whole two weeks to recuperate after her rescue. What a sweetheart! Ya, I caught the explanation that she was proving that she trusts him completing. Fine, if he needs to feel trusted trust him to pick up milk on his way home from work. Trust him to put his dirty socks in the clothes hammer. Trust him to not drink OJ straight from the bottle. But don’t trust him in the bedroom with anything that can be found in a sadist, serial killer’s tool box. Okay, enough of the kinky talk. Rant off. Well, almost. Can you tell this topic ticks me off? At least this past Valentine’s Day I didn’t see any S&M kits being advertised on TV like they did back when Fifty Shades of Grey books and movies were so popular. Lowering the acceptance threshold in the general population on the line between ‘normal’ and ‘deviate’ is not a good thing in my high-and-might opinion. So there Susan!

New Topic: This week five of my Gathering Girls pals met at the Guy Land Cafeteria for a 2 ½ hour brunch and we laughed so much at one point my belly ached and I didn’t think it would ever be normal again. I had tears in my eyes and I couldn’t talk to explain what it was that I found so funny. It was silly, really. Another woman at the table said she got new hearing aids but she "still couldn’t hear words.” That is SO me! I could hear the cook thirty feet away cracking eggs. I could hear car doors slamming outside but key words in sentences said across the table often get lost in the background noises. And half the time we talk in It-Takes-a-Village mode where it takes all of us making guesses to fill in the blanks of what others can’t remember. “It’s that place south of Applebee’s on the other side of the road.” “Do you mean near the apple orchard?  “Yes!” “That the heck is the name of that place?” “I love their gift shop.” “They have great walnut cranberry salads.” “For crying out loud! Why can’t we remember the name of that place?”

That day at lunch we talked about a wide range of topic from the soups our mothers made to who had the cell phone with the biggest keyboard to wills, trusts and buses without seat belts. Someone always says something outrageous when conversations get too serious that has us all laughing. We tease each other and cause people at near-by tables to lean in to eavesdrop. Strangers sometimes walk by and make comments like, “You ladies need to loosen up” or “you guys are having way too much fun.” And sometimes my gal pals affectionately grumble about how their kids lord over them in a role reversal way and I tell them they are lucky they have kids to watch over them. I mean it and so do they when they agree. God, I love these ladies! © 

Reading Susan Stoker

I’ve been such a good little worker bee for so long I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I went off the rails. Yup, I’ve been binge reading again. And late into the night, dragging myself out of bed with only five hours of sleep just to pick up my Kindle again to polish of a few more chapters before breakfast. Four days, seven books downloaded and read and I don’t want to stop. What bothers me more than binge reading is the type of books I’m reading and I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve gotten caught up in Susan Stoker’s Navy SEAL books. I’ve never been a fan of military themed books and movies and her fiction seems to be a cross between action-adventure and romances but she labels her writing: contemporary romantic suspense. Unfortunately for me, Susan is a prolific writer. Since her first book debuted in 2014 she’s written over 60 and at the rate I’m going I’ll be dead from sleep-deprivation if I keep downloading a new one within minutes of finishing another. (I should examine why I'm avoiding my 'real life' by binge reading...but time for that in another post.)

If you google Susan Stoker you’ll find the following paragraph all over the place: “Susan Stoker is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author whose series include Ace Security, Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes, SEAL of Protection, Unsung Heroes: Delta Force, and Mountain Mercenaries. Married to a retired army noncommissioned officer, Stoker has lived all over the country—from Missouri to California to Colorado to Texas—and currently lives under the big skies of Tennessee. A true believer in happily ever after, Stoker enjoys writing novels in which romance turns to love.”

I’m a little old lady---well, two out of three of those words are true---I’m old and a lady and a worry-wart who can’t even go across town without leaving a note behind in case I come up missing. I also don’t drive after dark and I have an irrational fear of dying under water in a submerged car. So why am I fascinated by the kick-ass and survival skills navy SEALs have? The only thing I have in common with any of Susan’s male protagonists is the cargo pants they wear. Let me explain. One of Susan's female protagonists called her guy’s cargo pants ‘magic pants’ because of all the life-saving stuff that he could product when needed. I don’t have ‘magic pants’ but I've been known to carry a magic purse. I once went on a day trip sponsored by the senior hall and was aghast that the woman next to me on the bus only brought with her a debit card in her jeans pocket. But guess who could produce a Kleenex, cough drop, safety pin and an aspirin when others near-by needed them. Now I’m lusting after a pair of those cargo pants to go with the cinematographer’s field vest with a million pockets that I’ve lusted after for twenty years. Wouldn’t it be fun to pack all those pockets up with essentials? If I had magic pants one of my fast-draw, bellowed flap pockets would be filled with raspberry chocolate truffles in a water tight box. If I’m going down to the bottom of the river, I’d want chocolate.

I used to read a ton of historical romance books back in the ‘80s and ‘90s and I credit them fondly for me FINALLY finding the joy of reading after struggling with mild dyslexia for the first 40 something years of my life. They also got me interested in woman’s history. I’d read something in a romance and not believe it was based on actual events like the authors claimed. Back then I didn’t google like I do now but I sure made plenty of trips to the library to research historical details until I learned which romance authors could be trusted for her accuracy. I don’t have much frame of reference for Susan Stoker’s accuracy but my instincts tell me her depiction of the military rings true. 

Another thing I find fascinating about Stoker’s book is how differently she handles sex and love scenes from the historical romance genre books I read in decades past. No more Rhett Butters throwing women over their shoulders aka taming the “wildcat" plots so to speak. Stoker’s guys are asking are-you-sure-you-want-this sort of questions and talking birth control. One of her older characters even told a young woman she’d have to make the first move because in this day and age guys had to be careful not to put pressure on a woman lest he be accused of sexual harassment. That's not to say that Stoker's men are not Alpha types. They are and a few of them were not all that likeable in bed. (Did I just type that?) And while Stoker is writing genre fiction, they are not what I'd call hardcore formula. Case in point: after finishing one book, I realized it didn't have a "hot and heavy" sex scene like the one I read before it, and another SEAL book had a few too many crude details for my tastes.

Susan also writes some of the best cliffhangers I've ever read. She might as well not even format chapters in her books because I’ve been blowing right past the intended pauses. And like a lot of books marketed in the historical romance section, her contemporaries seem to have the classic damsel-in-distress element with a modern twist of the damsels saving the guys a few times, but I've been enjoying the action-adventure side of the equation almost more than the romance which led me to wonder whose reads Stoker. I could see some men liking them. I googled and found a Susan Stoker fan page on Facebook and read some of the posts and comments. Didn’t find any guy-fans but there were some military wives. Duh, why didn’t think of that?

I will get back to my real life by Monday. I have to! I have places to go and things to do---one of them very exciting and the other just plain fun assuming I don't get snowed in. If I do I'm going to call in the SEALS. I'll bet they'd have folding snow shovels in their magic pants.   ©