News:
Superfabulous and awesomely talented author Sherry Thomas (her debut novel, Private Arrangements is in my TFE – Top 5, Evah), interviewed me for her blog about fairy tales, badass heroines, and what I’m writing next.

Reviews:
Lynn Spencer at AAR (All About Romance) blog gave Cat’s Tale a “Desert-Island Keeper” Review.

…Bettie Sharpe’s novella Cat’s Tale ended up being wonderful. This inspired retelling of Puss in Boots is definitely a Desert Island Keeper read for me.

DearAuthor.com posted not one, but two dueling reviews of Cat’s Tale here. A few choice excerpts:

All in all, Cat’s Tale: A Fairly Tale Retold is a charming novella that made me hope for more stories in the same vein. Beauty and the Beast, anyone? My grade for this one is a high B+.

– Jennie

It occurs to me that many readers probably aren’t going to like Catriona much. She’s selfish, shallow, spoilt, ruthless, and, occasionally, downright mean. But I liked her. In fact, I think Catriona is the cornerstone and foundation of this book. She’s the one driving it, both as a character and as a narrator. I was rather charmed and delighted by her bad behavior. I appreciated it. I’m tired of these heroines who can’t wait to crawl up on the cross and crucify themselves for the most asinine of reasons. It is rather relieving to read about a heroine is does the exact opposite.  Catriona makes this book. Like Scarlett O’Hara and her own namesake, she always lands on her feet. She’s the one who drives the story…overall, this is solid book, an enjoyable and engaging read. B-

– Lazaraspaste

 

The blog, Escape by Fiction gave Cat’s Tale 4 of 5 Stars

I like this retelling of Puss in Boots. It’s humorous, easy to read and wicked hot! Cat is a selfish, lying, manipulator…Cat’s character grows a lot in the story and so does Julian. The chemistry and affection Cat and Julian feel for each other is sweet and passionate. I look forward to more fairytale retellings from Bettie Sharpe.

And on those fine notes, I end my post and return to my current work in progress. Want to know what it is and what it’s about? Check out that interview on Sherry’s blog. Good night.

Stella's Spotlight on Fairy Tales Retold

I get around…admittedly, not far and not often, but in honor of Cat’s Tale, I’m guest blogging a few different places. Stella at Ex Libris is doing a two week feature on fairy tale retellings with a great line-up of authors (yours truly, among them) including fellow Carina authors Tia Nevitt and Nadia Lee (I enjoyed Nadia’s A Happily Ever After of Her Own and I’m looking forward to reading Tia Nevitt’s Sevenfold Spell–it’s loaded on my reader, all I need is a bit of time to read.)

I’l also be at the Carina Press blog discussing my problem with princesses, and at Booklovers, Inc. with a post on Who Deserves a Happily Ever After.

Also, my agent–yes, I did just say that, my agent! — Diana Fox of Fox Literary is giving away a copy of Cat’s Tale through her blog.

In other good news, Stella liked Cat’s Tale. Her review is here. A few quotes:

Bettie Sharpe’s writing has everything one would wish for in a great story: wittiness, humour, emotions and great characterisations, all packed together through excellent and fluent writing.

Cat’s Tale is an amazing modern fairy tale retelling, one that I believe every fairy tale fan should read!

Plot: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Writing: 10/10
Ending: 10/10
Cover: 10/10

However, I don’t feel comfortable putting up that great review, which really made my day, without admitting that Cat has also taken a drubbing from readers who didn’t like her character. I’m taking the Hendrick’s Gin approach to this issue and just saying flat out that I know the story is not for everyone. I knew it when I wrote it, but I was having too much fun to stop. So, you know, consider yourself warned.

Catriona was a horrible character… Imagine Catriona as that girl you went to high school with, you know who I’m talking about. I’m talking about the pretty popular girl who lied and cheated to get whatever she wanted…She was quite vile…

–Mocha Latte on Goodreads

CAT'S TALE, Available June 27, 2011 from Carina Press

Wow. It’s a little more than a month before CAT’S TALE: A FAIRY TALE RETOLD will be available for purchase from Carina Press and many other fine e-tailers–I’d better get pimping.

To the left, you will see the lovely, lovely cover done by the fabulous Frauke of Croco Designs.  I’ve always loved Frauke’s work, but I’m just over-the-moon about this cover. Not only is it 100% Mantitty-Free, it captures the focus and mood of the story wonderfully.

Here’s the back-cover blurb:

Once upon a time there was a scheming, lying tart who cared for nothing but her own pleasures and her shoe collection.

Once the peerlessly beautiful Lady Catriona, consort to the king, Cat’s fortunes fall far when her aged husband dies. The king’s wizard turns her into a cat and tries to drown her in the mill pond. Fortunately Cat is a clever survivor and enlists the help of Julian, the miller’s youngest son, in her plan for revenge.

She originally sees Julian as a mere pawn for her plans to break her curse, but as they work together Cat comes to know and care for him. Even if the curse can be broken, can a good-hearted man love a woman who has been as vain and selfish as Cat?

34,000 words

CAT’S TALE will be available June 27, 2011. In the mean time, keep an eye on this blog for an excerpt or two.

Get it while it's hot…

I’m taking a break from my nonstop writing orgy (32K since Thursday) to pimp the book of a friend. Now, I just bought my copy today, so you will have to wait a bit for me to rant and rave about Evie Byrne‘s new novella, Dante’s Inferno, but I’ve read another book of hers that will be coming out soon from Samhain, and I’m currently reading one of her works in progress, and they are both fab-u-lous.

And if you want a professional opinion, just check out Mrs. Giggles’ review of Dante’s Inferno.

Not bad for book number one, eh? So buy yourself a copy. Get hooked.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled lack of blogging.

Now that I’ve read it, I wish I hadn’t liked it quite so much. Perhaps then I wouldn’t have read it so quickly. And if I hadn’t read it so quickly, I would have had more time to enjoy it.

Private Arrangements is a grand book. Really, that’s the only word I can think of to describe it, except, perhaps, “delicious” and Delicious happens to be the title of Sherry Thomas’s next book, which I will be buying the day it comes out in August, 2008, so I really should conserve that word for further use this summer. And speaking of this summer, expect another terse blog post telling you to go away. I apologize, in advance, for my future rudeness, but if today was any indication, I won’t be in my right mind.

I should start by saying, this is not a review. I’m lousy at reviewing, and I’m suspect, besides, since Sherry Thomas wrote a lovely double review of my novellas Ember and Like a Thief in the Night for Dear Author back in January which probably sold more copies of Like a Thief than all of my confused, sorry little attempts to promote the story, combined. But please don’t think I am biased just because I have reason to be, because if you do, you will miss out on one of the best historical romances ever. Ever!

You think I’m exaggerating. I must admit, I’m prone to hyperbole. What I love, I love, and I can’t shut the hell up about it. Which usually leads people to nod and smile as they back away from me. So I try to tone it down. I try to mention any possible flaw in a book when I recommend it so that people won’t think I’m some sort of blindly rabid fan girl. So that people will think I’m reasonable.

This time, I’ll just admit it: I’m not reasonable. Technically speaking, Private Arrangements’ wind-up to the end was a little slow, and the end felt a little fast, but really, that’s just me grasping at straws trying to think of something critical to say about a book I devoured in three hours and forty-two minutes, and plan to start rereading at a more leisurely pace once I finish this post.

You must understand, when I read this book, I got shivers. The experience was akin to the first time I read a book by Judith Ivory, Loretta Chase or other authors from the very short list of names on my Read Everything They Ever Wrote list and Keeper Shelf (actually, it’s more of a cabinet…).

I didn’t think about the writing, or the plot, or wonder where it was going. I just read. Page after page. I was entranced, insatiable, totally p0wned. I could not put it down. To be blunt: Sherry Thomas made me her bitch, and I liked it!

I was swept away by the grand, Gilded-Age setting (note, I love this time period, and I wish there were more novels set in it), and the grand passion between Gigi and Camden. The hero and heroine are intelligent, beautiful, rich, passionate, larger-than-life…and they are idiots. Complete, utter idiots. They are complicated, proud and obsessed — and completely irrational because of it. I adored them.

The plot is this: When Gigi and Camden were young, they were terribly in love. But love made him stubbornly noble, and her passionately deceitful. When his nobility met her deceit, the clash of two such indomitable, unreasonable personalities drove them apart. Camden rejected Gigi and put an ocean between them.

The story begins eleven years later, when Gigi has filed for divorce. Camden returns to England from New York to tell Gigi that he will grant her a divorce–if she will give him an heir. Huh? That seems backwards and dumb and completely illogical. But I totally bought it because these characters are experts at deceiving themselves. They are each their own worst enemy.

Those two, their love is like a blues song; it’s like the tastiest type of tragedy–the kind where it isn’t fate or the actions of villains that keep the lovers apart, but their own human flaws and foolish pride. They push, they pull, they rage, plot and insult — and in every instant, in every action, it is achingly apparent to the reader that these two characters are still madly, passionately in love. Oh, the drama! It’s delicious.

As the story unfolds, they begin to relate to each other as grown-ups instead of hormonal, over-dramatic young people. Camden comes to understand why Gigi did what she did, and Gigi experiences a bit of Camden’s old stubborn nobility. It’s lovely.

Also lovely is the secondary plot involving Gigi’s social climbing mother. I love the nuances to her character. She could easily have been the villain of the piece, a wretched caricature of a modern-day stage mother in historical drag. Instead, she is complicated, intelligent, self-deprecating, and, eventually, self-aware. In fact, all of the secondary characters are wonderfully well-drawn, with flaws and virtues all their own.

This “not a review” is getting pretty long. I suppose I should wrap up the love fest so I can start my rereading, but first, I need to say a few words about the writing: it’s wonderful. Smooth, sophisticated, elegant and intelligent, the narrative carried me along, never talking down, never dumbing down (I’ll post examples later–I was so busy reading, I forgot to mark my favorite passages). And, oh, that vocabulary. :sigh:

Private Arrangements is all the things I’ve always loved about historical romance. It’s a vivid, intense, Technicolor-bright tale of compelling characters and dramatic love painted across the wide, glittering canvas of a fascinating historical era. It’s one of three books I’ve read this year that I’m going to press into the hands of friends who love to read as I say, “You must read this. It’s grand.“

Now, since I was lucky enough to win an early copy of this book in a contest on Dear Author, I’m holding a contest to give away the copy I would have bought at precisely 11 am on March 25 from the Borders on Lake Ave (no Amazon–I hate to wait.) to someone who comments on this post. The deadline is Friday, March 28, 2007. As with the Dear Author contest, the catch here is that the winner will have to mention the novel in a forum, or blog post.

But come back on March 25th when I’ll give away the copy of Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas that I would have bought, if I hadn’t been so lucky as to win a copy in the Dear Author contest.

As for me, I knew I needed a new size, as my bras have been giving me backaches lately. The wonderful wizardesses moved me up from a 32C to a 32D–which is not as impressive as it sounds. Cup size runs in scale with band size, so the cup on a 32 is smaller than the one on a 36. On an almost 6-foot tall woman, a 32D can still look pretty darned flat-chested. Who’da thunk it? Anyway, the new bras are super-comfy, so who cares?

Mom called me again this morning to lament her F-ness. But here’s the thing, with the new, right, bras she actually looks less busty than she did before. Her cups do not runneth over. Plus, a properly fitted bra is the best way to avoid “matron-boob” you know, that mono-bosomed look that results from women wearing the size they’ve always been instead of the one they really are. And, no backaches.

Mom is now a sworn believer for life, and has vowed to tell all her friends about the wizard of bras. If you’d like to make sure you’re wearing the right size bra, follow the fitting instructions on their site.

Hard Boiled. It’s not just the name of one of my favorite movies, it’s one of my favorite subgenres of mystery, too. While Like a Thief in the Night isn’t a mystery or a detective story, I did sprinkle in references titles by two of the subgenre’s most famous authors. Why? Because I could.

Weird, right? But my thematic non sequitur can add up to cold, hard, Amazon gift certificates for one lucky reader.

Email me (bettiesharpe at gmail dot com) identifying Like a Thief in the Night‘s references to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet titles by February 28, 2008 and you’ll be entered to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate.

My ARC of Ann Aguirre’s Grimspace arrived in the mail today. If her vast Grimspace Publicity Juggernaut has somehow missed you, Grimspace is an exciting new sci-fi novel which Jane of Dear Author recently reviewed very favorably and of which Sharon Shinn said the following:

An irresistable blend of action and attitude. Sirantha Jax doesn’t just leap off the page–she storms out, kicking, cursing and mouthing off. No wonder her pilot falls in love with her; readers will, too.

This book is one of my top five awaited reads for 2008. I wanted to read this book so much that when Ann asked if she could hire me to do a bookmark for Grimspace, I said, “Love to, but you have to give me an ARC.”

And now my ARC is here, in all of its pristine, white paper covered glory. So, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go read.

I’m not naming names, but if you feel the same way about a particular candidate, maybe you should swallow your cynicism and vote your conscience, too.