Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

In high school and college, I did very poorly in math because my brain was not suited to all of the different theories and formulas and numbers. I found the entirety of math too complex and honestly could hardly grasp the most basic concepts. There were not many services offering math help to those doing poorly when I was in school, at least not as far as what I could afford, so I ended up with grades that reflected my complete math ignorance. I know that I am not alone in this because a lot of people need help in math and would love to do something about it but lack the means.

That no longer has to be a problem for students today, or for you if you happen to be that student. With the advent of technology that makes communication efficient and easy, online math help is easily obtained. TutorVista is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week offering free online math help. Through TutorVista, you can get free online math tutoring by simply picking your subject and submitting a question. Once your question is submitted, it’s just a matter of getting the assistance that you need in a secure online environment. The online math tutoring is delivered via an online whiteboard– no explaining obscure and complex concepts through words alone, you get to see them work out for yourself. As you and your tutor work out math problems on the whiteboard, you chat with the tutor who is providing you the online math help. The real time discussion facilitates learning and question answering.

I can’t imagine help coming any easier.

If you find that you need help in multiple subjects, TutorVista offers a $99.99 package wherein you get unlimited help a month for all subjects.

What a good week for books. I got a lot of really awesome ones in the mail this week, which I am looking forward to reading as soon as Graduate School dies just just a little bit.

The Accidental Demon Slayer by Angie Fox (Won in contest)
Prim and proper preschool teacher Lizzie Brown is on the verge of her thirtieth birthday when her hitherto unknown grandmother shows up, quickly followed by a demon erupting out of her toilet who Lizzie surprisingly manages to blast into “a million flecks of light.” Raised by distant adoptive parents, Lizzie had no idea that she was born to be a demon slayer. Her granny, a biker who communes with spirits in a metal lawn shed, then takes her to join her coven of senior biker witches who will help her defeat the demons who want to kill Lizzie before she can go after them. Along the way, Lizzie meets sexy shape-shifter Dimitri Kallinkikos, a sometime griffin who claims to be her protector but may have a hidden agenda that will take her straight to hell.

The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers by Angie Fox (Won in contest)
Demon-slaying powers should come with an instruction book… Seriously. Why does a new hair dryer have a twelve-page how-to manual, but when it comes to ancient demon-fighting hocus-pocus, my biker witch granny gives me just half a dozen switch stars and a rah-rah speech? Oh, and a talking terrier, but that’s another story. It’s not like my job as a preschool teacher prepared me for this kind of thing. So I’ve decided to write my own manual, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, because no one tells me anything. Dimitri, my “protector,” may be one stud of a shape-shifting griffin, but he always thinks he can handle everything by himself. Only he’s no match for the soul-stealing succubi taking over Las Vegas. If I can’t figure out how to save him—and Sin City—there’ll be hell to pay.

CSI: Brass in Pocket by Jeff Mariotte (From publisher)
Far from the glittering lights and 24/7 spectacle of the Strip, the Las Vegas Crime Lab’s team of investigators is gearing up for a rough night ahead…. A brutal shooting at a cheap motel may be business as usual for CSIs Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes, but as they process the crime scene and quickly identify the victim as a noted local private investigator, nothing could prepare them for the shock of finding physical evidence belonging to none other than Detective Jim Brass…. Meanwhile, CSIs Greg Sanders and Riley Adams are called to a nearby airport where they must face the ultimate locked room mystery: how a pilot flying solo in a small private plane wound up murdered while miles above the ground….

Darker Angels by M.L.N. Hanover (From publisher)
When Jayné Heller’s uncle Eric died, she inherited a fortune beyond all her expectations — and a dangerous mission in a world she never knew existed. Reining in demons and supernatural foes is a formidable task, but thankfully Jayné has vast resources and loyal allies to rely on. She’ll need both to tackle a bodyswitching serial killer who’s taken up residence in New Orleans, a city rich in voodoo lore and dark magic. Working alongside Karen Black, a highly confident and enigmatic ex-FBI agent, Jayné races to track down the demon’s next intended host. But the closer she gets, the more convinced she becomes that nothing in this beautiful, wounded city is exactly as it seems. When shocking secrets come to light, and jealousy and betrayal turn trusted friends into adversaries, Jayné will soon come face-to-face with an enemy that knows her all too well, and won’t rest until it has destroyed everything she loves most….

Love You To Death by Shannon K. Butcher (From publisher)
It’s been days since reporter Elise McBride has heard from her sister, Ashley. She’s convinced Ashley has met with some kind of foul play, especially when she learns that bodies of other missing women have surfaced in and around Chicago–all victims of a brutal serial killer. Convinced her sister is still alive, Elise vows to risk everything to save her… The last thing ex-cop Trent Brady needs is more blood on his hands. Yet when he catches Elise breaking into her sister’s house, full of reckless determination and fear, he knows she needs his help. But just as desire ignites between them, a twisted madman sets his sights on Elise. Hell-bent on possessing her for himself, this psychopath won’t rest until he has his perfect woman.

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters (From publisher)
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities. As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels? This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It’s survival of the fittest—and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

Yellow Moon by Jewell Parker Rhodes (From publisher)
In Rhodes’s superb sequel to 2006′s Voodoo Season, a wazimamoto, or African vampire, stalks Dr. Marie Laveau, a 21st-century doctor, modern voodoo practitioner and descendant of the legendary Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Haunted by the unquiet spirits of people killed by the wazimamoto, the young doctor vows to stop it with the help of new boyfriend NOPD Det. Daniel Parks; her Creole boss, Dr. Louis DuLac; and others devoted to Marie and her young adopted daughter, Marie-Claire. As the blood of the victims nourishes the vampire so it can completely assume human form, Marie must summon all her powers to vanquish it. Rhodes includes an informative author’s note about the evolution of the African vampire as a response and a warning about racist brutality and cultural vampirism, giving some cultural weight to this hypnotic thriller.

The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2 edited by Trisha Telep (Won in contest)
This exciting follow-up to the wildly successful Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance contains 30 short stories of hot blood, midnight pleasures, and inhuman passions. Containing the best names in the field, such as Eileen Wilks, Caitlin Kittredge, Jennifer Ashley, Dawn Cook, and Diane Whiteside, this compilation is sure to arouse attention.

Park-Avenue Princess is giving visitors a chance to win a Kindle 2, Sony Pocket E-Reader or the new Barnes & Noble Nook. This is in celebration of the Matthew Carter release Liquid Soul. So, of course, the best way to win the ebook reader is to purchase a copy of the book. For better chances to win, you will want to purchase a signed edition of the hardback for $30. Considering the value of what you could win, this is a pretty good trade off.

Here are the prizes:
Grand Prize: Ebook reader
Second Prize (2): Hardcover copy of LIQUID SOUL *signed* and a Gift Card for $20.00 to Amazon.com
Third Prize (5): A *signed* Trade Copy of LIQUID SOUL

You have until December 24th to enter, so good luck!

If you do enter the contest, can you say that Valorie @ morbid-romantic.net referred you? That would be just too awesome.

Lisa and Laura Write are giving away a brand new Kindle over at their blog! To enter the contest head over to Lisa and Laura Write.

You have until November 13th to enter, so get over there soon and get your entry in.

The holiday seasons are quickly approaching and that means having a house full of relatives and friends. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, it is unavoidable that someone should show up knocking at the front door to pay a friendly visit. Because of this, we all want our homes to look nice, to present a good picture of us to those who enter.

One room I am very picky about is my bathroom. I absolutely loathe those standard scenes of lighthouses or fish, or any of the author sea/nautical themes that people give bathrooms solely by virtue of the fact that bathrooms have water. If you are like me or perhaps just want to redo your bathroom for the holidays, SHOP.COM has a massive selection of unique shower curtains because they link to stores all over the net such as Target and Overstock. Some of the curtains are elegant, some playful, some youthful, some inspirational, and all at very good prices. With so many to choose from, you are sure to find one that will fit your taste and theme.

Author of Across the Endless River

How much do we know for certain about the life of Sacagawea? The answer is: almost nothing. She was born “around 1788.” She was abducted by the Hidatsa “when she was about 12.” The date of her death is similarly uncertain: the prevailing view is that she died in 1812 at Fort Manuel Lisa on the Missouri, but others contend that she lived well into her 90s and died at the Wind River Reservation in 1884. Even the pronunciation and meaning of her name are still disputed, a reflection of the unknowable transliteration that both Clark and Lewis tried to capture in written syllables.

Lewis & Clark — The Written Record Shapes All
The most reliable primary documents that have come down to us concerning Sacagawea are, of course, the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, through which she has entered the public imagination as an improbable but key player on the stage of American history. But even the journals, famed as they are, give us only fleeting glimpses of this young woman. She was one of Toussaint Charbonneau’s several “squaws”, a usage that covered everything from absolute servitude to common law marriage. In historical accounts, she is most frequently described as his “wife”, but the fact remains that we have no way of knowing the human contours of their relationship.

The instances of her mentions in the journals are themselves full of dramatic details: a difficult labor for her first child, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, born on February 11, 1805 in the bitter cold far-northern reaches of the Upper Missouri; her dire illness and near death in June of that year, when Lewis dosed her attentively from his meager medicine kit; her vote as an equal member of the expedition about the location of their winter camp once they reached the Pacific; her insistence at being allowed to accompany the party dispatched by Clark to the shore of the Pacific to investigate what meat might be recovered from a beached whale.

All of these scenes have survived in the clear and dispassionate prose of the two captains, and while they offer tantalizing glimpses of how Sacagawea reacted under pressure, they of course come from the pens of those whose business it was to give the expedition shape in daily journals. While history is indeed written by the conquerors, perhaps here it would be more apt to say that history is first written by those who can write. How would she have described the captains? Nothing certain remains from Sacagawea’s oral tradition, so the accounts of those whose language included an alphabet were bound to prevail.

Sacagawea, Repository of Legends
Even so, the degree to which the slender and infrequent mentions of Sacagawea in the Lewis & Clark journals have subsequently been weighed down with meaning is astounding. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, and gathering steam well into the twentieth, there developed an elaborate literature of wonder, almost of awe, around her being. She has come to represent resilience, courage, patience, loving motherhood, feminine independence . . . the list is virtually endless. It has been said that more images of her adorn public places than that of any other American woman. The latest iteration of her imagined likeness, the young mother bearing her papoose who graces the U.S. dollar coin, is as close as American culture is ever likely to come to an indigenous Madonna and Child.

And yet most of this is pure fabrication, a projection of our own changing needs and perceptions of the past. I am reminded of the elaborate hagiography that has built up in France around Joan of Arc, just enough of it based on the startling and dramatic facts of her life to lay the groundwork for a complete mythology. In that sense, Lewis & Clark is our own founding myth, and the individual actors in its story assume the proportions of legend as we embroider the fragile facts we have with our own imaginings. Sacagawea dances around the edges of the narrative: innocent, strong, pure of heart, and ultimately unknowable, an undying receptacle for our dreams about both past and future. The beaten and abducted young squaw stands alongside the mother of a mixed-race son, the determined woman who saved Lewis & Clark from failure by bargaining for horses with the tribe from which she had been torn. Could any refracted image we fashion to express our hopes be more ambiguous, or more captivating?

©2009 Thad Carhart, author of Across the Endless River

Author Bio
Thad Carhart, author of Across the Endless River, is a dual citizen of of the United States and Ireland. He lives in Paris with his wife, the photographer Simo Neri, and their two children.
For more information please visit www.thadcarhart.com