Amanda Osborne's Blog
April 26, 2019
Book Recommendation!
Hi there! This is my review for my favorite book I've read in 2019!
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have so many thoughts running through my head as I write this. One of them being that (even though I'm sure I've said this before) this is one of the best books I've ever had the very great pleasure to read, maybe even THE best book that I've ever read.
This story is gorgeous. It's heart-wrenching and beautiful and inspiring and infuriating. Evelyn Hugo, the subject of this fictional biography, is one of the most well-conceived and filled out characters that I've got to know. I fell in love with her during the course of this book, even if there were moments when she was cold-hearted and calculating. Her love story, her *real* love story, brought me to tears more than a couple of times, as well as the relationship between her and her closest male friend and the one she had with her daughter.
This book spans several decades and lays out the decadence and over-the-top lifestyles of film stars in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. It's a very visual book and so easy to perfectly imagine the many settings and cast of characters. It's a very feminist novel, but not in a manner that smacks you in the face with it. It's a piece of LGBTQ+ history that I was largely unaware of. Beyond all that, it's just a beautiful book that will linger in my mind and heart for a very long time.
View all my reviews
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins ReidMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have so many thoughts running through my head as I write this. One of them being that (even though I'm sure I've said this before) this is one of the best books I've ever had the very great pleasure to read, maybe even THE best book that I've ever read.
This story is gorgeous. It's heart-wrenching and beautiful and inspiring and infuriating. Evelyn Hugo, the subject of this fictional biography, is one of the most well-conceived and filled out characters that I've got to know. I fell in love with her during the course of this book, even if there were moments when she was cold-hearted and calculating. Her love story, her *real* love story, brought me to tears more than a couple of times, as well as the relationship between her and her closest male friend and the one she had with her daughter.
This book spans several decades and lays out the decadence and over-the-top lifestyles of film stars in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. It's a very visual book and so easy to perfectly imagine the many settings and cast of characters. It's a very feminist novel, but not in a manner that smacks you in the face with it. It's a piece of LGBTQ+ history that I was largely unaware of. Beyond all that, it's just a beautiful book that will linger in my mind and heart for a very long time.
View all my reviews
March 23, 2019
Writing Again!
I've started on the sequel to An Eternity of This! I took a 3 month break to toss around ideas, get some health-related issues sorted out and focus on my family and significant other, but I've started on the next book.
After a lot of thought, I've decided to make the series a trilogy, with the second installment focusing on Erik and Genevieve's life after the birth of their child and the threat of pieces of their pasts coming back to haunt them. The third and final installment will be set some twenty years later and be a historical romance centering on their child.
I am hoping to have the second book out by the end of the year, perhaps sooner. I don't have a title yet, but I'm open to suggestions!
After a lot of thought, I've decided to make the series a trilogy, with the second installment focusing on Erik and Genevieve's life after the birth of their child and the threat of pieces of their pasts coming back to haunt them. The third and final installment will be set some twenty years later and be a historical romance centering on their child.
I am hoping to have the second book out by the end of the year, perhaps sooner. I don't have a title yet, but I'm open to suggestions!
January 2, 2019
Stalking in the Romance Genre
I love Phantom of the Opera and almost all of its incarnations, including a great deal of the published fan fiction that is out there. Especially the novel by Susan Kay. I've now written my own and because of that, I wanted to talk about the inescapable fact that Erik is a stalker.
Erik stalks Christine. He intimidates her, manipulates her, threatens her and verbally abuses her at times, in the original and in the other versions. In my own novel, Erik is still a stalker and for portions of the book, his behavior towards Genevieve, my OC, is also in the same vein of a stalker. He manipulates Genn and spies on her.
This is part of Erik and I'd rather be true to the character than to write him as something that he is not. There's room for reformation and realization, but any true to form book about the Phantom is going to contain stalking.
This doesn't make the stalking romantic.
I've read romance novels that have nothing to do with Phantom, where the hero stalks his heroine, obsesses over, gets violent with others and her if he can't have her and the behavior is treated as deeply romantic, a manic sort of devotion that proves just how much this guy loves his girl.
Stalking is not romantic. It's not sweet, attentive devotion. It's abuse.
Stalking crimes are not taken very seriously in many American states and in some countries. Often, the abuser can't be held accountable until he or she actually hurts their victim in some way. And it could be that by that point, it's too late.
Plenty of the behavior of classic and beloved literary characters is reprehensible. We can still love the books, but it bothers me to a great extent when I see it in modern-day romances, especially those aimed at the YA audience. Maybe this makes me a hypocrite. These were just my thoughts this morning.
Erik stalks Christine. He intimidates her, manipulates her, threatens her and verbally abuses her at times, in the original and in the other versions. In my own novel, Erik is still a stalker and for portions of the book, his behavior towards Genevieve, my OC, is also in the same vein of a stalker. He manipulates Genn and spies on her.
This is part of Erik and I'd rather be true to the character than to write him as something that he is not. There's room for reformation and realization, but any true to form book about the Phantom is going to contain stalking.
This doesn't make the stalking romantic.
I've read romance novels that have nothing to do with Phantom, where the hero stalks his heroine, obsesses over, gets violent with others and her if he can't have her and the behavior is treated as deeply romantic, a manic sort of devotion that proves just how much this guy loves his girl.
Stalking is not romantic. It's not sweet, attentive devotion. It's abuse.
Stalking crimes are not taken very seriously in many American states and in some countries. Often, the abuser can't be held accountable until he or she actually hurts their victim in some way. And it could be that by that point, it's too late.
Plenty of the behavior of classic and beloved literary characters is reprehensible. We can still love the books, but it bothers me to a great extent when I see it in modern-day romances, especially those aimed at the YA audience. Maybe this makes me a hypocrite. These were just my thoughts this morning.
December 30, 2018
My First Blog, My First Book
I started writing when I was a kid. My very first foray into writing was in the form of fan-fiction (though at the time I didn't know what to call it) and the muses of my first attempts at writing were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Really. Swear to God. A friend and I would write these long stories featuring our favorite fab four and though all those writings are long, long lost, I still think of them with a lot of good memories and a little wincing. My friend was great at writing, I'm not sure that I was back then.
The next time that took to writing was in high school. I was in drama class and I was exposed to the wonder that is Phantom of the Opera for the very first time. Someone was listening to the original London soundtrack and Michael Crawford's and Sarah Brightman's voices set off little fires in my brain. I was in love. From there, PotO became an outright obsession for me. I dragged my poor mother to about eight performances of it across several states. (Thanks Mom, love you!) I bought everything Phantom related I could get my hands on, including whatever published fanfiction there was out there. (Kay, Michelle Rodriguez, to name a few.) And finally, a few years into this love affair with the Phantom, I started writing my own. An Eternity of This began in a large notebook, the first twenty-five or so chapters in my questionable handwriting until I discovered a fanfiction website that allowed writers to post their work and review others' writing.
That was in 2004, around the time that Phantom fever became an epidemic with the release of the ALW movie. I was twenty-three at the time and a fairly new bride, with my husband at the time overseas in Iraq. I had unearthed my notebook with Eternity in it and decided to post it on that website I had found. Writing was an escape when I was so worried and scared for the safety of my husband.
He came home safely, real life kind of gave us a hard kick in the ass and I stopped writing for a long time. I picked it back up, after a few stops and starts, in summer of 2018 and after getting a lot of encouragement from friends and family, decided I would finish the book and get it published. I was divorced at that point and recently graduated at last with my degree and had just taken a new job that allowed me more time to write.
Picking back up Eternity was like reuniting with a very beloved friend that I hadn't seen in ages. It was easy to slip back into that headspace and write again. I took the version that I had up on fanfiction.net and completely re-wrote it to better fit with the original novel by Gaston Leroux. (The first version of my story had been heavily based on the musical and I did not feel comfortable publishing it.) In re-writing Eternity, I felt I made a much better story, better characters and also felt as if the finished book was a better reflection of the writer I was now, rather than the writer I was in my early twenties.
I'm so excited to see the book go live and I hope that readers enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it over the years. I'll be sharing updates on future writing soon.
Cheers!
The next time that took to writing was in high school. I was in drama class and I was exposed to the wonder that is Phantom of the Opera for the very first time. Someone was listening to the original London soundtrack and Michael Crawford's and Sarah Brightman's voices set off little fires in my brain. I was in love. From there, PotO became an outright obsession for me. I dragged my poor mother to about eight performances of it across several states. (Thanks Mom, love you!) I bought everything Phantom related I could get my hands on, including whatever published fanfiction there was out there. (Kay, Michelle Rodriguez, to name a few.) And finally, a few years into this love affair with the Phantom, I started writing my own. An Eternity of This began in a large notebook, the first twenty-five or so chapters in my questionable handwriting until I discovered a fanfiction website that allowed writers to post their work and review others' writing.
That was in 2004, around the time that Phantom fever became an epidemic with the release of the ALW movie. I was twenty-three at the time and a fairly new bride, with my husband at the time overseas in Iraq. I had unearthed my notebook with Eternity in it and decided to post it on that website I had found. Writing was an escape when I was so worried and scared for the safety of my husband.
He came home safely, real life kind of gave us a hard kick in the ass and I stopped writing for a long time. I picked it back up, after a few stops and starts, in summer of 2018 and after getting a lot of encouragement from friends and family, decided I would finish the book and get it published. I was divorced at that point and recently graduated at last with my degree and had just taken a new job that allowed me more time to write.
Picking back up Eternity was like reuniting with a very beloved friend that I hadn't seen in ages. It was easy to slip back into that headspace and write again. I took the version that I had up on fanfiction.net and completely re-wrote it to better fit with the original novel by Gaston Leroux. (The first version of my story had been heavily based on the musical and I did not feel comfortable publishing it.) In re-writing Eternity, I felt I made a much better story, better characters and also felt as if the finished book was a better reflection of the writer I was now, rather than the writer I was in my early twenties.
I'm so excited to see the book go live and I hope that readers enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it over the years. I'll be sharing updates on future writing soon.
Cheers!
