Bettie Sharpe

SOPA Sucks

bettie — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:25:09 +0000

For the record, I oppose SOPA and PIPA. If you don’t know what those things are or why they are ignorant, ill-conceived, and a threat to the Internet as we know it, you should check out this site: http://americancensorship.org/.

Link!

bettie — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:03:37 +0000

Fellow Agony/Ecstasy Author and international woman of mystery Lily Daniels posted an interview with me on her blog last week, but I forgot to link to it! I missed an opportunity for shameless self-promotion. Bad Bettie. Well, a week late, but still shamelessly self-promotional, here it is, an interview with meee. I actually have some interviews to get around to, as well, one of them with Ms. Daniels, herself, which will probably prove far more fascinating than reading me going on about fairy tales again, but I think that will have to wait until after the holidays. Happy Merry, everybody.

Agony/Ecstasy Out Today!

bettie — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:58:58 +0000

Agony/Ecstasy is out today. I wish I had more time to do promo-y things, but life, work, family, and the holidays keep getting in the way. So, if you don’t have your copy yet, go forth and buy.

Visit the official Agony/Ecstasy website
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kindle | Book Depository
ISBN-10: 0425243451 | ISBN- 13: 978-0425243459

Tomorrow Janine and I are going on an expedition to find A/E in the wild (a.k.a. a local Barnes & Noble’s). I’ll post pics if there are any. Also, look forward to interviews with fellow A/E authors Lily Daniels and Cameron Belle. Their stories are two of my favorites in the antho, and both have given me permission to ask them questions.

Fun Fairy Tale Food Facts

bettie — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:55:33 +0000

I’ve been meaning to post this link for a while. Slate.com has an interesting snippet on the hunting practices of the French aristocracy, class distinctions, and the evil queen in Snow White. The article posits that the queen’s demand for Snow White’s heart (or lungs, or kidneys, depending on the version) revealed her as a social climber. Had the queen been a born aristocrat, she would have demanded the huntsman carve off a different trophy as proof of her stepdaughter’s demise.

Bon apetit!

Ember is EA’s Pick of the Week

bettie — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:09:32 +0000

Novelist Evelyn Archer just named Ember her pick of the week. You can read her write up here. And while you’re at her site, look around. I am in love with the illustrations and design. Those of you who know me know that I am a total fan girl for Frauke of Croco Designs, who, in addition to making kick-ass covers for Carina Press, including the cover for Cat’s Tale, has created many lovely author sites. But I think from now on Frauke is going to have to be co-queen of my website dreams. Archer’s site is just that awesome.

Q&A on A/E

bettie — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:15:31 +0000

Our intrepid editor, Jane Litte, is hosting a Q&A thread with Agony/Ecstasy authors at Dear Author today. She’s also giving away 10 copies of Agony/Ecstasy to random commenters. What are you waiting for?

Woo hoo! New!

bettie — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 07:36:53 +0000

Inspired by the ease of constructing a web page for Lily Daniels, the alter ego of my lovely and talented CP, Janine Ballard, with the super awesome and free Pagelines Platform theme for WordPress, I decided to redesign my site as a wordpress site using Pagelines Platform Pro. This is the first post on the new blog. I don’t have as much flexibility when it comes to page design, but oh-my-goodness, this thing is easy to use! Creating pages is a snap. And when I’m done here, I’ll get back to writing!

Really.

I totally wasn’t procrastinating.

Okay, maybe a little.

Anyway, if it’s of interest to anyone, I actually re-edited most of the content before I transferred it over. Ember is now minus a few typos and a bit of awkward phrasing. My news page is up to date.

Guest Post

bettie — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:50:24 +0000

At Shiloh Walker’s Blog. The topic is fairy tales. Comment to win a copy of Cat’s Tale, and while you’re there, check out Shiloh’s blog for more awesome posts about fairy tales, rules for the big contests, and excerpts from her latest.

News and Reviews

bettie — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 05:49:29 +0000

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.

In Praise of Difficult Women

bettie — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:54:07 +0000

Lazarapaste has a great post on Dear Author about Romance heroines, beauty and virtue–with the upshot being that she’d like to see some heroines with a lot less beauty and virtue, or with beauty decoupled from virtue. I’m probably saying it wrong. You should go read it. And if you’ve ever wondered about my motivations for writing difficult heroines, you should really go read it. I commented. There are a lot of comments (many from the “heroines ought to be sympathetic” camp) and I’m a lazy blogger, so I’m reposting my comment below.

Wonderful post! So insightful and well-put. In the future, instead of trying to explain my motivations for writing difficult and/or unlikable heroines, I’m just going to link here.

Plenty of people out there are loved and they do not deserve to be. And plenty of people who deserve to be loved, aren’t.

This. This, exactly. And to add to it, the amazing, wonderful thing about love is that true love sees flaws and loves not despite, but because of those flaws. Love is diverse, love stories should be, too. There is no universal standard of lovability. The very qualities that make me hate a person could be the reason someone else is head-over-heels in love–and I think that’s awesome.

I know quite a few very nice men who are married to very mean women. For a long time I wondered what they saw in each other, until I realized that perhaps each saw in the other qualities that they, themselves, lacked. The reason those men are so nice is because they don’t have to be mean. Their wives are the ones who demand better seating in restaurants, and tell people talking in movies to shut the hell up, and bitch out people who don’t treat their husband right.

As cheesy as the phrase “you complete me” is, if we’re lucky, that’s just what we get when we love–we are complete. Not completely good, but whole and functioning and happy. And when I get to the end of a romance novel, that’s the way I want to see the hero and heroine–not shagging from sunrise to sunrise, not having scads of babies or fostering deserving orphans, just happy, whole, and better than they were before.