Scrap Metal – Harper Fox

I first wound up on the Samhain Publishing website through a Goodreads group announcement about a big sale there. Every now and then I remember it and go wander around for a while. I do believe my luck there has held up better than with several other smallish presses I could name; I have come across some stinkers, but most of the books I’ve sampled have boasted some genuinely fine writing, with good characterization and well-formed plots and all the things you basically look for in a book to read for enjoyment. (Oh, and usually lots of sex.)

Something in the description of Scrap Metal sounded interesting, so I clicked on the sample, and my eyes widened. In a good way.

Glass shattered somewhere off in the dark. I jerked my head up, listening. That was all I needed, for the wind to have broken a barn window. I’d have to get out there and patch it, or we’d lose another set of lambs to the cold.

The sound came again. Exactly the same as the first time—brief, deliberate.

Human agency, then. I threw back the quilt. Prodigal son or not, I didn’t really have to guess at the source. I knew every inch of Seacliff Farm. My nerves twitched out into the night, my body responding as if the broken glass had been my bones. Me, my mother, Harry, untold generations of us living and dying on this land… Two panes from the window at the back of the second-largest barn, enough to get a hand inside and undo the catch.

I surged out of bed. Heat blazed through me, a pure and perfect rage. God, it felt wonderful. I had a bloody burglar on my hands. He couldn’t have arrived at a worse or better time. I grabbed my dressing gown, shrugged into it over my pyjama bottoms and slammed out of the room.

This is Nichol, the first-person main character. He grew up on the farm, and was giddy to get away from it and go off to school – he has a gift, and he was having a wonderful time developing it (along with his social skills in a city far less judgmental than the too-close-knit isle of Arran). But when a terrible accident killed his mother and older brother, he had no choice but to go home and try to help his grandfather, Harry, keep the family sheep farm. Which may be impossible. The place is bleeding money; it seems like sheep are straying and dying every other minute; it’s winter and he’s been ill and every day is a brutal slog through just to bail out most of the water pouring in and stave off sinking just a little longer. He dreams about installing Harry in a nice rest home and going happily back to school, but he knows that won’t answer – even if there was money for it, he would never be forgiven, either by Harry or himself. He’s trapped.

And into that comes the intruder breaking into the barn: Cam. He’s young, he’s scared, he’s running from something he won’t discuss; he can only bring trouble to the farm … and Nichol can’t stomach sending him off into the cold. The fact that Cam also happens to be beautiful has nothing (really!) to do with Nichol’s inspiration to help him (though it doesn’t hurt). Nichol has an innate need to fix things, and if anyone’s situation needed fixing it’s this young man’s – and even if he doesn’t know one end of a sheep from another, perhaps he’ll be of use on the farm. It’s a turning of the tide, in many ways, and a quiet example of karma: Cam changes things on the farm and for both Harry and Nick in ways that could never have been predicted. I as the reader didn’t predict most of it, which is always a good thing.

The writing is several rungs above the vast majority of what I’ve been reading. This immediately climbed above “romance novel involving gay lovers” to “good lord, I’d recommend this to absolutely anyone except a) I don’t recommend things anymore and b) the idea of two men in love is not going to work for everyone. I loved the heavy use of Gaelic. I loved the slight edge of the supernatural – not enough to push it over the brink into paranormal romance, but enough to fix the story securely in its Gaelic setting. The tale’s ending might have been a little too tidy; but – to risk spoiling things – a happily ever after is, sometimes, just what is needed, particularly when the characters have earned it as thoroughly as these lads did. I really enjoyed it.

 

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers – Best. Concert. Ever – Again!

These guys couldn’t give a bad show if you paid them.

Saturday night was the long-awaited Red Hot Chilli Pipers concert at the Warner Theatre in Torrington. First, a moment of wistful silence for the absence of Malcolm McEwen who, if I have a favorite in the band (and, really, how can I?) might be it; he was not present for this one. I am informed that he is on tour in Asia with his fiancee – and they just missed the calamities in Japan. Thank God – or it would have been something a lot stronger than a moment of silent wistfulness. Safe travels, Malcolm – hope to see you soon. I’m still seriously thinking about red glasses.

However: there still was a modified drum duel, with the two magificent Stevens (Steven ‘Stav’ Black and Steven Graham of the Ferrari hands), so I couldn’t be disappointed – and filling the bass guitar gap admirably was Ben Holloway, whom I had not “met” before. I hadn’t realized there’s a rotating cast of bandmates, which accounts for the different faces now and again; and Ben was fantastic.

Our seats were very good; last time I thought for some reason we were going to be front-ish and center, and we were … not; we were in the balcony. This time I found a seating chart of the Warner that seemed to indicate we’d be in the front corner of the second section of the orchestra. And … we were! It was excellent.

I’ll get two beefs (beeves?) off my chest early. 1) I’ve never quite understood the concept of paying a decent amount of money for a ticket and then getting so drunk you’ll never remember a minute of what you paid for. There was a couple in the last row of the first section, so just ahead of us, who had been going at it hard prior to the concert; he seemed far worse off than she, and she was at least two sheets to the wind. I think he was up to four. Put this way: when you go to clap your hands over your head, and you miss, it’s time to go home and go to bed. Also, when you go to fist-bump a friend, and you miss … see sound-of-one-hand-clapping, above. They did disappear shortly after intermission; I was literally praying that they were staying in the hotel across the street.

2) There was a very young, very full-of-himself security boy in a yellow shirt scurrying around constantly during the concert. He didn’t seem to do anything but scurry and get in our way, but every five minutes or so, there he went. He seemed remarkably put out about people dancing in the aisles for someone working in a theatre that sells alcohol – he tried (ineffectually) to put a stop to it a couple of times, I think, which was futile, earpiece or no earpiece. Officious twit. My sister was beginning to threaten to catch him, tie him up, and put him in a corner. I was more than ready to help.

OK, and that’s all the negativity I have about the concert. (Except the parking was rubbish.)

I’m not going to even try to provide a set list, but among the songs were a breathtaking Amazing Grace (People always ask two questions: can you play Amazing Grace, and what’s under your kilt: yes, and covered in the intro to Gary O’Hagen); “Hey Jude”, which will never be the same in my head again (our side won in the nana-off); Coldplay’s “Clocks”, which I really do prefer with the pipes – I miss them when the song comes on the radio; Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars”, just gorgeous; and two new-to-me covers: War’s Low Rider (that was a surprise) and The Who’s Baba O’Riley (wow). I’ve got to say that now I listen to the radio with an ear toward what might be adapted to the pipes. And every time one of “their” songs comes on I smile.

Stuart asked who had been to Scotland, then who wanted to go to Scotland; his two pieces of advice for going to Scotland were:
1) Bring clothing appropiate for all weather, because in the space of one day you could go from shorts and t-shirt and sneakers to six pairs of socks and a jumper (which he adorably corrected immediately to “sweater”), to a raincoat. (So – like Connecticut, then.)
2) Go to Argyll. He believes it to be the most beautiful part of Scotland; it has lochs, and glens, and the Loch Ness Monster, and wee haggises running about (having just a few days ago come across this  I almost fell out of my seat) … A Scottish POW in WWII was so homesick for his Argyll that he wrote a song about it – and Dougie gave it to us on his pipe, which was goosebump-raising, and the Manchester Regional Police and Fire Pipe Band rejoined them. Again, I have never, ever, seen a standing ovation in the middle of a concert. Much less several.

Stuart has in the past told about how he wrote a song in college, and misplaced it for a while, and then rediscovered it. This time all he said was: Two things we should know about him were that he’s always late, and he always gets lost. “This is The Lost.” I’ll need to learn it for the many times I’m lost. I have a new theme song. (I love Dougie and Kevin – but I voted for you in Pipe Idol, Stuart!)

Among the Chillis, who as I said are all my favorites, I have to single out Nick “The Firestarter” Hawryliw, who is just tremendous, and I’m not just saying that because he left a comment on my blog last time. He does, indeed, put the “rock” in “bagrock”. One of my favorite things in all the world is a lad in a kilt and sneakers, and Firestarter is not only that: he is a rock god. It has to be said that telling many people I know that a guitarist in a bagpipe band is a rock god would raise skepticism. All I can say is “You haven’t seen the Firestarter.”

And they were all very patient and sweet after the show as well - sorry about the blinding flash...

Stav and Kev

I talked in my post about my first RHCP concert about the deep and awed adoration I feel for these guys, in which it’s very obvious I’m not alone (it was, I heard, a sold out house, most of which tickets went through CPTV pledging, with twice the cost per ticket). What’s wonderful is that they seem to feel the same way about their audience. There is a sheer indefatigable joy in their performances, in the giving and in the taking. Stuart as spokesman expressed it: they’re grateful, they never dreamed they would be playing – especially playing bagpipes – in front of screaming sold out audiences. And they know how lucky we and they are to be able to enjoy ourselves so thoroughly when so many are in the midst of so much trouble. And they don’t forget how they came to be here. (Thank you again, Gail, and again, and always.)

After the concert I happily tracked down Gail McClellan of The Olde Burnside Brewing Co./Ten Penny Ale and Pipes in the Valley, who with her husband Bob were responsible for contacting CPTV and saying “We have a show you need to see”. “We hear that a lot,” said the CPTV rep who introduced the concert. But this was different. This was the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. Gail said the boys will be headlining at Pipes in the Valley again this summer (*clears schedule*), and after that – who knows? With luck, nothing but onward and upward. And it might be awhile before they hit Connecticut again. And I hope that’s true, in that they deserve a fully national stage – they deserve to be well-known throughout the country. We mustn’t be selfish. But lads? Remember: Connecticut loved you first. Y’all come back now, y’hear?

 

“Highland” romance with Karen Marie Moning

I’m almost embarrassed to post this one, but what the heck: I just finished To Tame a Highland Warrior by Karen Marie Moning.

I read a review on Amazon that described this book as cheesy. I went all defensive – I wouldn’t say cheesy!  ”Slang: inferior or cheap”. “Of poor quality; shoddy”.  Nah.  Silly?  Sure.  Guilty pleasure?  You don’t see me toting KMM to work to read on my lunch break do you?  Guilty pleasure: check.  Fun as all get out?  Yes.  Cheesy?  Noooo.

There are so many reasons I should hate KMM’s books.  These, the “Highlander” novels … Well, the series title probably capitalizes on whatever lingers of the Highlander TV show fan group; the Scotsmen involved aren’t all highlanders (and in fact the bad guy is the only one explicitly called a highlander).  But more, the first one of the series, her first published novel, completely rips off Diana Gabaldon: modern woman gets yanked back in time to be the perfect mate of a magnificent Scottish warrior.  And the language … Foul?  No. I could handle a few soap-in-mouth-worthy pages.  No, what it is is über modern – the heroine of TTaHW, who was born into the time in which the book is set, could in any given scene be pulling on jeans and slipping on her Jimmy Choos and dealing with her Berserker boyfriend after her three o’clock focus group meeting.  And in a couple  of memorable paragraphs the eyes of the Berserker, who calls himself Grimm (awww – ’cause he is.  And it’s his initials.  So cute!) are described as “incandescent”.  Incandescent? Really? They had light bulbs in 16th century Scotland?  I knew the Scots were brilliant.  (Seriously, the word was coined, afai can tell, in the mid 1700′s.  It probably wasn’t very widely used until the light bulb came about.)

“Incandescent” is even worse than “okay”.  An anachronistic “okay” will generally make me at least want to throw a book across the room (and occasionally I do it).  I never do understand why writers – and, apparently, editors – don’t remember that the word didn’t exist in the Renaissance or Restoration or whenever, pre-1830′s. But incandescent is so closely related to technology that I can’t believe a) it made it into the book (candescent would have been, er, okay, though) and b) I *didn’t* want to throw the book.

Another reason I should want to fling the book is the half-hearted (I was going to say half-assed, but I won’t) glancing blow at the brogue.  There is very little attempt at dialect, which when all’s said and done is preferable; there’s a word here and there, and Jillian is pretty consistently “lass” – but the brogue is mostly represented by people saying, instead of “do not” or “don’t” … “doona”.  Now, in other books where the writer is going for a brogue I’ve read “dinna” – “I dinna ken, lass” – but “doona”?  That doona compute.  (I unfortunately don’t know enough Scots to know if it is remotely phonetically correct; I don’t think so, but sadly I’m no expert.  Just an enthusiast.)  But I still didn’t want to throw the book.  The dialogue makes very little attempt at authenticity for the time period or location.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, really … Better to avoid entirely than to do it badly.  Fantasy and historical romancers could learn something here.

Oh, they talk about invading one’s space, too. My semi-educated guess on the earliest appearance of that one as a phrase is the 1960′s. I could be wrong, of course, but it has that smack to it: it was popularized then, at least. Eyes: rolled. Book: still not flung.

The premise is ridiculous: Jillian St. Clair’s father is tired of her scaring off all the men, because after all she is nearing spinsterhood at 21, and so as he and his wife go off on a months’ long visit to a new grandchild he sends off messages to three hunky rogues – “Come for Jillian”, more or less. Grimm Roderick, the Berserker, fostered with the family, apparently (though not really) as a landless, homeless, nameless waif; another foster son, Quinn de Moncreiffe, is also invited, along with a third man famous for his virility, Ramsay Logan. Off go the parents; in come the three studs; and into a tizzy flies Jillian, who wasn’t told about the competition her father incited. Interestingly, her father doesn’t much mind if one or more have bedded her by the time he and his wife; as long as the wench is married at some point soon, that’s fine by him.

Part two of the premise is that the reason Grimm was off appearing to be a landless, homeless, nameless waif was that in the course of one rotten day his father murdered his mother in a berserker rage; and enemies of the family (and/or of berserkers) raided his village and started a slaughter; and they didn’t finish the slaughter because Grimm – actually Gavrael McIllioch (it appears KMM created the McIllioch clan) – summoned a berserker spirit of his own at the ripe age of 13, and forcibly put a stop to said slaughter. With a slaughter of his own. He couldn’t stay at home after what his father did (though he thought his father was dead), and lost himself in the woods, where he was found by young Jillian, who first adopted him and then fell in love with him. He, of course, is afraid of what will happen if he lets her near him – after all, he has not only the taint of madness from his father, but he’s a berserker – so, like so many big strong stupid men in books before him he holds the woman he adores at arm’s length for fear he will hurt – or kill – her. Add to this comedy of errors a nice (and, in the words of the immortal Penelope Garcia, smokin’ hot) man who is also very fond of her and a roguish (and smokin’ hot) man who lusts for her and figures she’d make an admirable wife, and hijinks ensue.

But I don’t hate the book. I actually have a deep, if furtive, fondness for KMM’s books, including this one. I like Jillian, anachronistic as she is.  I like Grimm, thick as he is; the thickness is kind of sweet.  I like the minor characters.  They’re all a step above the moronic cardboard cutouts in the few typical romance novels I’ve dipped into.  Yes, they’re all, every one, smokin’ hot – but they have at least rudimentary personalities, and the writing, while not the Best Ever, is extremely readable. “Doona”s and space invasions and “incandescent”s and all.  At least Jillian has amber eyes, which is doable, instead of lavender or some such nonsense.  And while the other romance novels I’ve looked at (you can’t really call that “reading”) used absolutely mortifyingly horrendous language in describing love scenes, KMM manages to avoid many of their anatomical euphemisms.  Usually.

I’m a little hazy on why she would insist on setting the books in 16th century Scotland when absolutely no notable use of that time is made in the stories, and the only use the place is put to is to underscore that these men must be gorgeous because they’re Scots Highlanders.  They certainly don’t behave like the 16th-century men most romances throw around, praise be; again, they’re far too modern.  As stories, I think they would be better served by being set in a fantasy place and time … but then the publisher wouldn’t be able to throw them on the Outlander bandwagon, of course. Silly me.

So, in the end, will I keep reading KMM? You bet. Will I use her books as reference material in any way, shape or form on any topic at all?  Not a chance.  Will I admit my guilty pleasure outside this blog?  Heh.  Probably not.  Do I recommend them as a fun, unchallenging read, sort of sexy comfort books?  Yeah, actually, I do.