Review of THE BLOG AFFAIR from Goodreads

"Chick-lit great! The Blog Affair is witty, intelligent, funny, sweet, deep, real and honest. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the heroine, Emma Bradshaw grow from aloof and unlucky-in-love to making a genuine authentic discovery of who she really is. 

She starts writing a blog which is psychologically in depth and contemporary-clever too about the kind of men women out there date. And of course her learning curve is prompted by a sexy secret male commenter to her blog called Sugar Water Man who challenges her at every turn and forces to her look within herself.

The supporting characters, her roommates and friends each have their own uniqueness - Andre was adorable - and added beautifully to the over-all tone of the story. Set in South Africa, Cape Town, the setting had a life of its own. A fun, well-written read about a woman's journey to finding who she really is and ultimately finding love by an author I will definitely want to read again and again."

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/877668538?book_show_action=false&page=1

Online Dating and Pop Culture - Ubuntu Line Blog Hop

 

 

 

 

I'm next up on the Ubuntu Line Blog Hop and today I will be discussing online dating and its relevance in pop culture. Remember you can win a $30 Amazon gift card as well as a bundle of books if you enter our Rafflecopter (see below).

A decade or so ago, online dating in South Africa still had something of a stigma attached to it. Relationships created with the click of a mouse were considered slightly strange and if you did happen to form a relationship with someone you met on a dating site, it wasn’t something you would readily admit to. Fast forward ten years, and online dating has become part of pop culture and it is one of the main avenues single people in their twenties and thirties use to meet one another.

Something that was once the exception has now become the norm. But what exactly is this new norm? How has online dating affected our view of potential partners and the way in which we form relationships?

Online dating has a number of positive elements. It can be reassuring to form a connection with someone on an emotional and mental level before having to meet them in person. Also, as most online dating sites have compatibility questionnaires that all members are requested to fill out, you can tell at a glance that the cute guy with the GSOH (good sense of humour) and the baby blue eyes might be a great potential partner for you. It’s an easy way of sorting the wheat from the chaff (or in this case the chavs).

It’s also nice that you don’t need to go out on the town in order to meet the boyfriend or girlfriend of your dreams. You can get to know someone in the comfort of your living room, while sitting in your PJs. What’s not to like?

However, online dating, I fear, has taken the “grass is greener” syndrome , and added an extra layer of AstroTurf. In fact turfing your current partner out in favour of the mysterious unknown is something which is almost impossible to resist if you’re a committed online dater. When you belong to an online dating site, it isn’t easy to forget that your Prince or Princess Charming could be just around the corner. You may meet someone who has 98% of the qualities you are looking for in a potential mate, but when you are surrounded by an abundance of potential dating prospects, you may well find it difficult to relinquish the idea that you could meet your 100% perfect partner right after you commit to a relationship with Mr or Ms 98%.

This nagging thought, I believe, has contributed to certain people becoming serial online daters. It is easier to commit to online dating than it is to commit to someone from an online dating site. And our throwaway society simply compounds the problem. Are there plenty of fish in the sea or are we simply overfishing the ocean?

In my novel, The Blog Affair, my main character, Emma, writes a blog about “serial datists” and why they should be avoided. Read on to find out what she has to say…

PENELOPE’S PANTRY
…A PLACE FOR YOU TO POINT OUT YOUR VIEW
Serial Datism

The first time I ever met a serial datist, I was nineteen years old. At that age, I wasn’t capable of recognising the warning signs of this particular species of the human male. Needless to say, I got burned. Badly.

Serial datism is a concept I’ve been pondering recently. And it’s something I hope to examine in this blog. Any comments from readers are welcome, therefore, as I attempt to shed light on a variety of the dating male that has me completely bemused.

The best way to do this, I’ve decided, is to debate in an open forum—where I, and any other participants in the discussion, can flick on the switch, in a manner of speaking, and illuminate the matter.

 I attract serial datists, and so it is perfectly fitting that I should introduce this topic into cyber space. But this doesn’t mean I’m an expert at identifying them. You see, the tricky thing about serial datists is that they aren’t easily defined.

They come in many shapes and sizes and forms, and they may even mutate! They can start off in one form and end up in quite another shape and size within a small space of time. And therein lies their danger.

 Okay—to introduce myself. I’m Penelope (well, that’s one of my names) and this blog is called Penelope’s Pantry, because like Penelope from ancient Greek mythology, I’ve had loads of suitors in my life.

And the pantry part? Well, a pantry is a dark storeroom, and this is where I hope to stockpile my thoughts and feelings and emotions. On neatly stacked shelves, of course. I’m a fanatically neat person, and like things to be tidy.

So let’s start at the very beginning (my ordered mind demands this) with a definition of a serial datist: He is a male who, like a bee, goes from one woman to the next, landing on each female blossom for a short period of time. When he leaves, he stings them.

But unfortunately, unlike a bee, a serial datist doesn’t die after he stings. He goes on to sting again and again, and the only way to kill him is to swat him, or stomp on him with your heel. Or leave out a bowl of sugared water in which he can drown. But, on second thoughts, I think the latter technique is for ants....

Be that as it may, before anyone starts wondering whether I’m a convicted killer, I hasten to assure you I am not. I’ve certainly felt a strong desire to stomp on the various bees that have entered my life, but fortunately for these creatures, the thought of killing causes me to break out in hives. Therefore, it is only a fantasy I have indulged in from time to time.

Now that we’ve cleared up the fact that I’m not a murderer, I would like to point out that the bee who delivers his nasty stings is the real killer in the scenario. Why? Well, it’s obvious. He kills your feelings, and leaves your emotions bleeding to death. Some more pedantic readers out there might point out that bee stings don’t cause you to bleed. So what—I’m using it in a figurative sense.

But, and here I’m not being figurative at all, bees can make you swell up. Besides the fact that their stings can cause you to comfort-eat, it is possible to develop a life-threatening allergy to them. And I’m afraid that’s what’s happened to me. I am allergic to serial datists AKA bees AKA Emotionally Unavailable Men.

But I’m jumping ahead of myself. That is simply one of the categories of serial datists. According to my calculations, there are at least four others.

Allow me to list them:
1) The afore-mentioned Emotionally Unavailable Male
2) The Wannabe Player
3) The Commitment-Phobe
4) The Bad Boy
5) The Misogynist (before he finds a woman to control)

I will be examining each category in more detail later. But in the meantime—any comments from readers on what I’ve already expounded are most welcome.

Posted by Penelope on Tuesday, July 8 at 08:32 p.m

It’ll be interesting to see how online dating evolves in the future. With the rapid advancement of all sorts of technologies, the way people interact with each other is changing at an amazing pace. Who knows? Perhaps our grandkids will laugh at how their old-fashioned grandparents used to date online. Because, although online dating may well be part of today’s pop culture, the very nature of pop culture is that it is ever changing.


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The Dashing Debutante Print Book by Alissa Baxter
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a Rafflecopter giveaway



Stop by Kathy Bosman's blog tomorrow where she will conclude the Ubuntu blog tour and give you a final opportunity to enter our Rafflecopter giveaway! A big thank you to Kathy for arranging this Blog Hop. It's been great :-)

THE UBUNTU LINE BLOG HOP AUTHORS:

8 April - Kathy Bosman
9 April - Zee Monodee - Author's Corner
10 April - Nana Prah - Writing Romance and Loving Life
11 April - Inge Saunders - Inside These Lines
14 April - Kiru Taye Writes
15 April - Alissa Baxter
16 April - Kathy Bosman

Great reviews for THE BLOG AFFAIR

 

I'm happy to say that I've received some wonderful reviews for THE BLOG AFFAIR:

Eclectic Reader on Amazon - 5 STARS

"Alissa Baxter has done a wonderful job of depicting modern life for young professionals in South Africa, including the ups and downs of jobs and living arrangements and awkward "digsmates." (Roommates.) At the same time, her protagonist, Emma, is shown growing and changing and developing deeper insights into her issues as she blogs her emotions and jaded opinions of dating into an anonymous blog. By the end, she has a much clearer, less black and white view of romantic relationships, and the courage to risk her heart. Baxter's psychology is intelligent and compassionate--and as applicable anywhere in the world as it is in Cape Town. I look forward to her next book!"

Desere Steenberg - 4.5 STARS

"We all have different ways of venting our anger and frustration of life, the most powerful way being to get your words out into the open. This is what the heroine Emma does, she starts a blog and blabs away about "serial datists"and just how unsuitable they are, but she comes up short when her views are challenged by the comments of a man who in her opinion has no clue what he is talking about.

But his comments also get her to thinking maybe it is time she faces her past and goes on a journey of self discovery before she is lost to the world forever. Her journey includes a new job, but working for sexier than lace and satin romance author Nick proves rather difficult. The man seems dead set on breaking down her defenses and no matter how hard she tries it seems he's succeeding, which will all be okay if he was not the exact type of "serial datist" she so desperately needs to avoid. I really liked this read. It was fun , upbeat and witty! I laughed so hard at times at some of the lines the author lets the characters come up with that I found it hard to stop the laughter, even though it was more of chuckle than a full out laugh lines, it was the way the author brought them across that really made it stand out.

I loved the idea of a blog being used for someone to vent their anger, usually it is a letter, text message or anger social message that most people of today use, so the idea of a blog was really cool. I have seen it done before in one other read and to find it in this read again made it stand out as a really interesting way of approaching life's troubles. As we all know the best way to get over something is to talk it out, so of course we go running to our best friends but when we don't have any or even if we feel that our issues are not up for discussion with our closets of pals, they might think you nuts, but talking to strangers seems a good idea as they don't know you and thus they can look at the rant you are having with a different prospective. And the author using a blog as the go to place to rant and rave was great.

The characters of Emma and Nick were both well written and their emotions were well depicted throughout the read, but the main focus was of course on Emma . Nick was really neat in his manner of not backing down from letting Emma crumble and it was fun to see her fall. I'm taking away a message of not all men are what you think they are, sometimes you need to be thrown around a bit in order to be molded to the type of woman any man will want, and when the right one comes along you will be thankful for the lessons you learned from the past relationships.

The author also brought South African into vivid splendor in this read with stunning backdrop setting descriptions. I recommend this read for anyone looking for a different look at the romance world and what happens when you put your words out there for the world to see.

"One of the sexiest cyber affairs ever is about to change her life."

Amazon US
Amazon UK

 

 

Lessons from Cinderella

 

People often talk about “a Cinderella story” where someone triumphs after a period of obscurity and hardship. In romances, this theme is often played out when the “damsel in distress” is rescued from drudgery and oppression by the handsome hero.

This popular theme in novels can give the impression that women need rescuing all the time from dire situations. Although a spot of rescuing here and there (where the hero of the novel sweeps onto the scene and snatches the heroine from the clutches of the nasty villain) can spice up the plot of a romance novel, I do have a problem with heroines who are spineless and lack spunk.

If we look at the story of Cinderella more closely, she is no shrinking violet. In fact her behaviour indicates quite the opposite:

1) She lives in the moment, and while she is at the ball, she enjoys it, putting out of her mind the worries at home.

2) When she dances with the prince, she smiles radiantly at him, and then brings out his pursuing masculine side by disappearing, leaving a trail of mystery in her wake.

3) She does not chase after the prince like everyone else in the kingdom. In fact, she runs away from him, and the prince is so bewitched that he searches high and low for her until he finds her.

4) She does not try and get a job in the palace… instead she goes back home to her nasty stepmother and ugly stepsisters and continues working there, without expecting the prince to rescue her.

So for me, a true “Cinderella story” should be about a heroine who isn’t waiting to be rescued. She should be making the most of her lot in life, and her positive attitude should be the thing that attracts a good man into her life – with or without the assistance of a fairy godmother.

The Blog Affair is now available!

 

I'm celebrating the launch today of my fourth novel, The Blog Affair. The road to its publication has been such an exciting journey and I'd like to thank my editor, Zee Monodee for all her help and input.

The Blog Affair is a contemporary romance with a chick lit flavour, and has been released by Decadent Publishing’s Ubuntu line – a new line that focuses entirely on African romance and stories set in Africa. Here's a little bit more about the book...

BLURB:

Twenty-something South African Emma Bradshaw has a pattern of falling for unsuitable men and starts a blog about these so-called “serial datists”. Her search for new beginnings takes her to Cape Town, where she gets a job working for sexy author, Nick Reynolds. Romance with her boss is a no-no, but slowly, Nick works his way around her defenses. Trust him, or not, especially with her awful track record with men? When an anonymous male reader of the blog challenges her on her ideas about the male species, Emma realises she must confront her past and find her true self before she can move forward...and love can blossom again in her future.

EXCERPT:

“For the past few weeks, she had been thinking a lot about changing her life, and had been toying with the idea of creating her own blog so that she could clarify her thought processes. She’d always kept a diary, and a blog, in a lot of ways, was an online diary—with the added benefit that she could interact with people online. The idea of venting her emotions in cyberspace was appealing, and in some way, symbolic of letting go…. And she certainly needed to let go. She went through the blog registration process, and then frowned at the blank screen as she contemplated what she should write for her first post. After a few moments, she started typing.

PENELOPE’S PANTRY
…A PLACE FOR YOU TO POINT OUT YOUR VIEW
Serial Datism
The first time I ever met a serial datist, I was nineteen years old. At that age, I wasn’t capable of recognising the warning signs of this particular species of the human male. Needless to say, I got burned. Badly.
Serial datism is a concept I’ve been pondering recently. And it’s something I hope to examine in this blog. Any comments from readers are welcome, therefore, as I attempt to shed light on a variety of the dating male that has me completely bemused.
The best way to do this, I’ve decided, is to debate in an open forum—where I, and any other participants in the discussion, can flick on the switch, in a manner of speaking, and illuminate the matter.
I attract serial datists, and so it is perfectly fitting that I should introduce this topic into cyber space. But this doesn’t mean I’m an expert at identifying them. You see, the tricky thing about serial datists is that they aren’t easily defined.
They come in many shapes and sizes and forms, and they may even mutate! They can start off in one form and end up in quite another shape and size within a small space of time. And therein lies their danger.
Okay—to introduce myself. I’m Penelope (well, that’s one of my names) and this blog is called Penelope’s Pantry, because like Penelope from ancient Greek mythology, I’ve had loads of suitors in my life.
And the pantry part? Well, a pantry is a dark storeroom, and this is where I hope to stockpile my thoughts and feelings and emotions. On neatly stacked shelves, of course. I’m a fanatically neat person, and like things to be tidy.
So let’s start at the very beginning (my ordered mind demands this) with a definition of a serial datist: He is a male who, like a bee, goes from one woman to the next, landing on each female blossom for a short period of time. When he leaves, he stings them.
But unfortunately, unlike a bee, a serial datist doesn’t die after he stings. He goes on to sting again and again, and the only way to kill him is to swat him, or stomp on him with your heel. Or leave out a bowl of sugared water in which he can drown. But, on second thoughts, I think the latter technique is for ants....
Be that as it may, before anyone starts wondering whether I’m a convicted killer, I hasten to assure you I am not. I’ve certainly felt a strong desire to stomp on the various bees that have entered my life, but fortunately for these creatures, the thought of killing causes me to break out in hives. Therefore, it is only a fantasy I have indulged in from time to time.
Now that we’ve cleared up the fact that I’m not a murderer, I would like to point out that the bee who delivers his nasty stings is the real killer in the scenario. Why? Well, it’s obvious. He kills your feelings, and leaves your emotions bleeding to death. Some more pedantic readers out there might point out that bee stings don’t cause you to bleed. So what—I’m using it in a figurative sense.
But, and here I’m not being figurative at all, bees can make you swell up. Besides the fact that their stings can cause you to comfort-eat, it is possible to develop a life-threatening allergy to them. And I’m afraid that’s what’s happened to me. I am allergic to serial datists AKA bees AKA Emotionally Unavailable Men.
But I’m jumping ahead of myself. That is simply one of the categories of serial datists. According to my calculations, there are at least four others.
Allow me to list them:
1) The afore-mentioned Emotionally Unavailable Male
2) The Wannabe Player
3) The Commitment-Phobe
4) The Bad Boy
5) The Misogynist (before he finds a woman to control) I will be examining each category in more detail later. But in the meantime—any comments from readers on what I’ve already expounded are most welcome.
Posted by Penelope on Tuesday, July 8 at 08:32 p.m."

The Blog Affair is now available on Amazon.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS: Facebook Twitter Good Reads  My Website 

Realistic Romance

Is there such a thing as a realistic romance novel? People usually perceive romance novels as flights of fancy. However there are a number of authors who explore real life issues within the context of a romance novel, and do it very well. One such author is Iris Bromige. She wrote numerous novels from the 1940s to the 1990s and I’ve read as many of her novels as I could find in various libraries and second-hand book stores. (Unfortunately, her books are out of print, so I don't own many of my own copies).

I read somewhere once: “Choose an author as you choose a friend,” and I believe I did that when I chose to read Iris Bromige. When you invite a piece of fiction into your life, either you’ll “click” with the author or you won’t. Sometimes, you won’t understand why you don’t enjoy a book (the writing is good, the characterisation is excellent) but there’s just a missing element that you can’t put your finger on. That missing element is “book chemistry”, if you will. This applies to friendships, as well. We don’t choose our friends because of their excellent characteristics or their fine qualities, but because we click with them on some level; we have something in common with them and can identify with them to some degree. The same applies when you choose to read the work of an author in its entirety. If you choose to glom an author, you’ve chosen her/him as your “book friend” for want of a better expression.

Iris Bromige wrote gentle tales of love, family life and friendship. Her books are philosophical on a number of levels, and she portrays a wide spectrum of emotions. Greed, revenge, jealousy and hatred are themes she includes in her writing, and her books, although romance novels, are not romanticised. Instead she includes all aspects of human nature, writing about its many foibles in a perceptive, interesting way. I’ve learned a lot from her – and her gentle wisdom is something that I value.

When I first read one of her books as a teenager, I remember being a little disappointed. At that age, I liked reading romantic fiction that was very romantic, and Iris Bromige was a little too… well, unromantic for my liking at first! Strangely enough, a number of her female heroines tended to be idealistic and romantic in their outlook on life, while her heroes were invariably extremely realistic and matter of fact. This created balance in her books - between fancy and fact, romance and realism. However, as I read more of her work, I started to enjoy her writing more and more, as I realised I’d found an author that wrote romantic fiction with a realistic twist. Her characters are usually professionals, and I identified particularly with the female characters to a large degree.

It’s interesting to read the work of an author when it spans across decades. People no longer speak of “the permissive society” today, but in the sixties and seventies, this was something that was discussed and debated to a large extent, and Iris Bromige wrote about the changes she perceived in Britain as the years went by. Her books were always set in the year in which she wrote them, and they give a certain insight into the attitudes towards love, marriage, sex and family life in the society in which she lived.

Creating Strong Female Characters

Women can so easily be conditioned by society to believe that we aren’t worthy of love… everywhere around us there are messages that women are too fat, or too old, or not pretty enough… just not enough. I would say that all women suffer from some sort of insecurity or other.

A male friend of mine once told me that men see their romantic relationships as just one piece of the pie that is their lives, but that relationships for women can often be the whole pie.

Perhaps women do think about relationships more than men do, but a strong woman will never make her relationship the whole pie. It’s vital for a woman to remember her little girl dreams and go out and find them, and to focus on the things that bring her pleasure (her friendships, family, pets, hobbies, interests and sports, for instance). A fulfilled woman is an attractive woman.

In order for a woman to be happy in a relationship, she should choose to be with a man who is crazy about her otherwise she WILL end up hurt. Have you ever read a love story where the hero doesn’t madly cherish the heroine by the end of the book? And yet real-life women, for whatever reason, often stay in relationships where they don’t feel loved or cherished…

Creating female characters in fiction that are both strong AND realistic can be quite tricky, and a balance needs to be struck. Strong female characters must show their vulnerabilities in order to come across as both human and likeable. What’s important, however, in order for the female characters to be termed “strong” is that they don’t allow their insecurities to govern their behaviour at every turn. They should acknowledge their insecurities and hopefully grow and change as the novel progresses.

Healthy men are attracted to happy women who love life and aren’t dependent on a man for their happiness. And I would say that the key to creating a strong female character in a novel is to ensure that she maintains a healthy balance in her life, and loves herself first before she gives her love to any man. Only then will she be truly happy in a relationship.