Summer heatwave got you down? Why not stay inside a cool place, with a cool book! Some exciting books are coming out this month. From uplifting stories, to thought-provoking literary fiction and to a return to a bestselling series, August book releases will have readers completely entertained as the summer weeks start to wind down:
Continue reading “Books to Read This Month: August Edition”
For the month of July, I’ll be listing great summer reads, in different genres, that will give you a headstart on your summer adventure. So sit back in your lounge chair and getting ready to start your tantalizing journey!
Continue reading “Summer Reads for an “Indoor” Summer: Romance”
Princesses standing up against the patriarchy, a royal marriage turning into a royal nightmare, horror and murder mysteries to keep you up at night…all great recipes for an entertaining summer! These exciting new releases are looking over will keep you your attention on the exciting story instead of your disappearing (or lack of) tan lines:
Continue reading “Books to Read This Month: July Edition”
Hello again everybody! It’s Joe Pascullo here, guest writing once more for my friend Tabrizia’s blog. We’ve just wrapped up Pride Month here in June. But to keep the celebration going, Tabrizia asked me to pen a blog with some LGBTQ titles for all you readers to check out. I was happy to oblige! Fandoms and conventions (remember when we used to attend those!?) for the yaoi (boys’ love) and yuri (girls’ love) genres have exploded in popularity, with many manga fans simply choosing to read only titles within those classifications. Need some recommendations? Try one (or more) of these on for size!
Summer is just only a couple of weeks away and that means to start piling our beach bags with exciting reads! And this summer, we have great book selections that will not only get your summer off to a good start, but definitely will have entertained from the beginning to the end! Continue reading “Books To Read: June Edition”
Format: Ebook
Pages: 464 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: April 7, 2015
Genre: Fiction & Literature, Romance
Synopsis:
“American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy-tales. Her twin sister Lacey was always the romantic, the one who daydreamed of being a princess. But it’s adventure-seeking Bex who goes to Oxford and meets dreamy Nick across the hall – and thus Bex who accidentally finds herself in love with the eventual heir to the British throne. Nick is everything she could have imagined, but Prince Nicholas has unimaginable baggage: grasping friends, a thorny family, hysterical tabloids tracking his every move, and a public that expected its future king to marry a native. On the eve of the most talked-about wedding of the century, Bex reflects on what she’s sacrificed for love — and exactly whose heart she may yet have to break.”
I had high expectations for this one. Some of the reviews I read for it were decent. I love reading about British history so an adaptation based off a real-life royal romance was really interesting and a great jump-off point. It had great promise on being a terrific, however, I wish I could say that for this book. It was not bad but it wasn’t great either. It had a lot of promise but it just continued to get wrong at every turn.
Continue reading “Book Review: The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan”
People love to read romance novels, but unfortunately it is not receiving the same affection from the online book subscription, Scribd.
Scribd, like Netflix or Spotify, offers an unlimited library of books, ebooks, and comic books. This is a great model but when the company shells out more money to authors than what they make back in subscription fees, this can be problematic, especially towards a genre that is heavily read.
So in a released letter, Scribd announced that to ensure a substantial business model, the company may have to cut some romance titles from their collection. The statement reads:
We’ve grown to a point where we are beginning to adjust the proportion of titles across genres to ensure that we can continue to expand the overall size and variety of our service. We will be making some adjustments, particularly to romance, and as a result some previously available titles may no longer be available.”
In simple terms…subscribers are reading too much, particularly romance books, and simply can’t afford that.
What did you expect when you offered unlimited reading for a low price? It’s like Netflix saying, “People are watching too many comedies so we decide to cut TV and movie comedies from our catalog”.
Most likely expecting backlash from this decision, Scribd CEO Trip Adler asserts the company’s commitment to readers with this response:
“Let me state loudly and clearly that we remain committed to our romance audience. We’ve grown to such a point that we are beginning to adjust the proportion of titles across genres to ensure that we can continue to grow in a sustainable way. We are in the subscription business for the long haul, and while we are facing some growing pains today, we remain fully committed to our readers.”
I know they have to think about their business model but how is signaling out one popular genre showing commitment to your readers? Maybe they should have done survey to see which genre readers read the most before launching the service.
Here are two articles discussing the issue in detail:
Scribd cuts romance and erotica titles – The Guardian
Scribd slashes many romance titles because people read them too much-Entertainment Weekly
