The weather may be cooling ...

by Anna Sugden

... but September is a hot, hot, hot month here in the Bandits' Lair! (And I'm not talking about cute cabana boys, sexy Romans or yummy hockey hunks ... okay, we'll include them too LOL)

We have at least two exciting Bandita book launch parties (you know what fun they are!)and a fabulous line-up of special guests. Plus, an insider's view from the spectacular Dragon*Con.

Let's kick off then with two important dates for your diary: Lair Launch Party Dates!

Jump into your gondolas and hang onto your oars! We'll be having an extra rowdy party in the Lair on September 4th as Aunty Cindy celebrates the launch of her second romantic suspense, The Treasures of Venice. The Cabana boys will be dressed as gondoliers and there will be plenty of cyber-bubbly, treats, a treasure hunt, and plenty of real-life prizes! Don't miss the fun!


Then, on September 14th, we get to party to celebrate the release of another awesome Tawny Weber book, Feels Like the First Time! Go to her website http://www.tawnyweber.com/ to see her wonderful new trailer.


September is chock full of wonderful guests, some new to the Lair and several returning favourites.

On September 2nd, hilarious Regency writer Janet Mullany (http://www.janetmullany.com/) talks to Anna Campbell about her wonderful new release A Most Lamentable Comedy.



Get out your shape-shifting gear on September 3rd, because Pamela Palmer (www.pamelapalmer.net) is here to talk to Anna Campbell about her fabulous series The Feral Warriors. (pause to drool over that cover!)

On September 6th, another Lair favourite returns. Claudia Dain will be dishing on her latest sexy, lush and incredibly witty book, How to Dazzle a Duke. Check out the awesome book trailer on her website: http://www.claudiadain.com/.



Anna Campbell's great run of guests continues on September 7th, when she hosts fabulous Silhouette Desire author Bronwyn Jameson (http://www.bronwynjameson.com/) who will talk about her newest release The Magnate's Make-Believe Mistress.

On September 12th, debut author Leanna Renee Hieber's Strangely Beautiful Haunted London Blog Tour and Book Giveaway rolls into the Bandita's Lair!
(http://www.leannareneehieber.com/haunted-london-blog-tour-book-giveaway/) This celebrates the launch of her novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker.


We welcome back another Lair favourite, MJ Fredrick on September 15th. She will be talking about her new release from Samhain, Beneath the Surface.


Join us on September 16th, as Harlequin SuperRomance author Kay Stockham discusses her latest book, Simon Says Mommy, in which a sexy surgeon plays doctor ... um, host to his newly adopted son's nanny. But, will her ex-husband ruin their happy-ever-after?


We'll have exciting coverage of Dragon*Con on September 19th, thanks to Trish, Nancy and Tanya Michaels - our reporters on the spot. Dragon*Con is a huge, multi-media popular culture convention in Atlanta that focuses on science fiction, fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music and film. It's held Labor Day weekend each year. You have to see it to believe it - and the gals have promised loads of pics!


September 21 Celia Bowers, a first time guest in the Bandit Lair, is here to tell us about her newest release Anything But Love a fantastic story about two opposites who have to merge their life styles to fit a love they never expected to find. She'll also give us a peek at what her alter ego, Kennedy Shaw has been up to!



We're thrilled to have the gorgeous and talented Kathryn Caskie in the lair on to talk about her October release, The Most Wicked of Sins on September 27.


(Pause to drool over another delicious ... cover!) To finish off this fabulous month, Jessa Slade joins us on September 30th to talk about her debut urban fantasy novel, Seduced by Shadows.


Don't forget you can always check out the latest Bandita releases on our sidebar. Click on any cover and you'll go straight to its page on Amazon, to buy!

Finally, Bandita contests for this month:

Anna Campbell is offering readers a chance to win Captive of Sin!

By the time this contest comes to a close, Captive of Sin will be available from a bookseller near you. To celebrate this portentous moment in the history of the world (or at least in the history of Anna Campbell), she’s giving away not one, not two, not three, but FOUR signed copies of the book to people who enter this contest.

This question is really easy. All you have to do is tell her the name of Gideon’s house and where in England it is situated. Just a hint – you might find the answer in the excerpt from Captive of Sin on her Books page: http://www.annacampbell.info/captivesin.html

Just email Anna on anna@annacampbell.info and she’ll draw at random from the correct responses. The contest closes 31st October, 2009. For more information, please check out Anna’s contest page: http://www.annacampbell.info/contest.html

Phew! Never a dull moment here in the Lair!

So, with a new school year upon us, a new season beginning and a new month launching, what plans do you have for something new or different this month? Is there something you meant to do last month that you'll complete? Are you starting a new course, class or activity?Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2009/08/
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Flowers wallpapers

Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2009/08/
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Railroad Corn

I was driving along MacCorkle Avenue just west of Corridor G yesterday and I noticed something odd. Every so often I noticed a stalk of corn growing next to the railroad tracks. I counted 12 stalks. I suppose that there was a train carrying a load of corn that was leaking.Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2009/08/
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Remix, Remake, Remodel

Dead Meat

There's something quaint about that phrase. Have you ever thought about it. Dead Meat. That's meat that is no longer living, like hamburger, or steak. Or maybe you if you fuck up bad enough. Well, I'm probably dead meat. I know that I'm going to have my ass handed to me when I go to my fair hearing because I will probably NOT have my medical records ready, neither will I be prepared to give my dissertation. I'm prepping my points now, but I'm reaching a state of nervous failure. A state where your own nerves block you from doing more. I think there is no more that I can do until I get my damn medical records.

There is little more that I can do.

So I'm not going to go off fretting. Thinking about it. Obsessing over it. I'm just going to go with the motherfucking flow. I'm learning how to disconnect, to unhook the heart and soul and get other work done. There is nothing good being locked in a small room, thinking about things that you have no control over. Karma. Karma is a wonderful thing. It allows you to move on and accept the consequences no matter how bad they turn out...or how good. Just do the best that you can and hope karma does not invite something else, a third element, to fuck all of your shit up.

That's what can happen to you if you lose your job. Other shit comes to fuck your shit up. It's like one of those race car crashes. First you're traveling at speeds that only the insane would drive at. You're moving about a ton and a half of reinforced fiberglass and steel through the air and there is nothing between you and an early demise but a leather suit and a plastic helmet. When you climb into one of these cocksuckers, your brain should ring a fucking bell in your boatcaptain head that you're about to meet heaven. But think about it? Are you? If you do...it's Karma, and if you don't...well, that's Karma too.

So, going on with my story about discon- necting and shit fucking up your shit, and how this all ties into Karma. So, you climb your dumb ass into this racecar and put on your plastic...plastic mind you..helmet and pull this little road rocket out on a curved track in the shape of an oval, with the sole purpose of pushing the engine, the frame, the axles to their mechanical limit. THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT TO DO! You want to irritate this fucking machine until you piss it off, and if you do...well that's karma

So you pull into high speed traffic, your tire inches away from the tire of your competitor. You are literally standing on the accelerator and weaving through the haze of other racecars, until you break the fuck out ahead. Your fucking fat head swells. You feel pride in your machine and yourself. That's karma. They say that there is no better joy on Earth than this moment, not even fucking. When your car and it's engines and parts outperform all the rest.

But some linkage throws a bolt, and a nut. The linkage goes to the chassis suspension arms, throwing them. The front right tire, without the arms allow the tire to work independent of the left, and it turns hard to the right. The car dynamics, being front preferred, lurches awkwardly to the right. Karma.

Now here's where the third element comes in. The invitation of something else to fuck all of your shit up. Karma could bring another race car up behind you, slamming into the rear of your vehicle with such force that it leaps onto your car. It's spinning, red hot axle landing in your lap, crushing you while par-boiling your balls in your pants. What a fucking nice death. Karma, dropped in the third element to fuck ALL OF YOUR shit up.

Third elements are a bitch, because you don't see them, they come at you sideways. All of your plans go straight to Hell. Who cares if you were going to uses that cock and those balls to fuck that hot blonde that keeps blowing you kisses when you come out and walk the grounds to your race car. You're not going to get a chance to do that shit now.

Oh lets say that Karma is having a rough assed week, and just wants to take that shit out on you. Take it out on your ASS! So let's go back, your steering gives, your car goes right and slams into the wall, crumpling metal and fiberglass like a kids toy. Here comes the third element. The car decides to roll, and like a beer can rolling downhill, it does the same, fragmenting and throwing shit from your car in small pieces....oh yeah, I forgot, your ass too! Yahoo! And you wanted to use your head to think about fucking that blonde when you got off the track. That ain't happening today.

Karma throwing in a third element. The rest is the shit that rushes in on you the minute you encounter that third element. Karma may have thrown the linkage, the other racecar colliding into yours, the third element, and the making of your balls into warm applesauce was just another shit rushing in. The wall may have been the third element, but all the rolls that your car takes going down the racetrack...well that's just more shit rushing in.

Losing your job...that's karma. Not getting or running out of unemploy- ment, that's the third element being introduced, the loss of all your shit, your friends, your home, well that's just all the other shit rushing in. Karma is a wonderful thing, just hope it doesn't come with an invitation to bring friends. An like my fair hearing, with my records looming as my Third Element, all I can do is wait on Karma, and stop obsessing. Disconnect from the entire thing and enjoy myself while the time lasts on this Earth, because it's the brief moments that we have that we always remember, and the pain, if we survive it, we will soon forget.

Yeah, there's something quaint about that phrase, Dead Meat. Do you ever wonder if you can fuck up enough to become dead meat? Well, take a look at me and decide for yourself. Do yourself a favor, don't worry about it though. Disconnect, don't obsess.

Because it's all karma.

HobobobSource URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2009/08/
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Inglourious Basterds

If you are seeking a history lesson on the subject of World War II I suggest taking a trip to the nearest Borders, or perhaps Barnes & Noble, and seeking out the section labeled: World War II. If, however, you are in the mood for an extravagant re-imagining of that time and place, a movie that not only explicitly refers to and resembles old World War II films but uses them as a crucial plot point, then, by all means, plant yourself in front of a screen showing "Inglourious Basterds". The latest opus from mad genius Quentin Tarantino is not perfect but it is also never not interesting and almost always entertaining.

Like the "Kill Bill" movies, Tarantino presents "Inglourious Basterds" in chapters. Chapter One tell us: "Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France." Here we meet our obligatory Nazi villain, Col. Hans Landa, (a fantastic Christoph Waltz, who, because I avoided every single review and article regarding this movie over the last few weeks, I learned today is garnering Oscar buzz), the "Jew Hunter", the most pleasantly sadistic villain in movie history, who chats up a French dairy farmer for quite some time, over a glass of milk, who he suspects, correctly, is harboring Jews beneath the farmhouse floorboards. Only one of the Jews manages to escape. Her name is Shosanna (Melanie Laurent, resembling a less hoity-toity Scarlett Johansson).

She moves on to Paris where we catch up with her later, using a, shall we say, alias, as she has become the prioprietor of a cinema left to her by an aunt and uncle. A young and very famous Nazi sniper (Daniel Bruhl) takes a shine to her and works his charms - well, sort of - as he enlists her cinema to screen the world premiere of the Joseph Goebbels (ah, Goebbels) approved film based on his exploits, "Nation's Pride". (Was anyone else hoping to see Tarantino's take on Leni Reifenstahl? I was. Alas, it was not to be.) Shosanna agrees but only because she plans to burn the f---er down and take all the high ranking Nazis inside down with it.

I'm sorry. Was that last sentence harsh? It's nothin' compared to the basterds of the title, the third piece of this elaborate cinematic triangle, a special force put together by good ole southern boy Lt. Aldo Raine (a wonderful Brad Pitt, totally in his wheelhouse, with a hilarious accent and brilliant line readings - "We got a Nazi wantin' to die for country. Oblige him.") with one mission and one mission only - "Killin' Nazis." They are dropped behind enemy lines, disguised as local folk, and become legendary, even with the Fuhrer himself as they do not simply off Germans but also scalp them and sometimes allow the so-called "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth) to bash German heads in with a baseball bat.

Eventually the basterds become part of the plot to assassinate the Nazis at the same cinema with significant aid from a significant Nazi spy, a famous actress named (oh, I love this) Bridget Von Hammersmark (a suitably sultry Diane Kruger).

The first thing you will notice about this movie is the length of the scenes. Tarantino employs so-called setpieces left and right and seems determined to revel in them for as long as humanly possible. The old filmmaking adage is to enter a scene after it gets interesting and get out before it stops getting interesting and I suppose Q.T. follows that adage here but, man, a lot gets packed in between the two. But it's not simply the filmmaker indulging himself. These scenes are crafted with such extended running times to build, in some cases, almost unbearable tension. For instance, the sequence when Kruger's starlet meets with an English General (Michael Fassbender, who gets another one of those extended scenes earlier with Mike Myers, playing British, who is over the top but not any more than any actor ever has been in a black & white B WWII movie) disguised as a German officer in a basement tavern goes on and on and on and on and - suddenly! it devolves into a lightning quick, explosive release of all the apprehension and then poof....it's over.

Unfortunately, a couple scenes just feel long as opposed to nerve-wracking. The film is two-and-a-half hours and it could have used just a little trimming. The handful of voice-overs are totally uneccessary and most of the brief flashbacks are not just superfluous but a little boring. A tad more background on the basterds might have been nice, too. Not that it would have added "depth", per se, but because I think it just would have been darn fun to see.

If anything, this all reinforces the notion that a Tarantino movie is as much about moviemaking itself as it is about story. Hitler and Goebbels are cartoons and concentration camps are never overtly addressed because, hey, how many times do I have to say it? It's a TARANTINO movie. If you are attending his latest feature in the hopes of mining for real emotions, well, just what do you think you're doing? That's not how it works. Never has been.

"Inglourious Basterds" is a fantasyland. In a way this movie has arrived 70 years too late. It should have been an American WWII propaganda film. It may have been nice for all those American troops on the various frontlines around the globe to watch this, nod and smile and think, "If only...."Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2009/08/
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TV for Writers

by Susan Sey

I avoid TV. It's not because I have anything against it, though. I don't. In fact, I love TV. I love it the way I love ice cream. The way I love Diet Coke. The way I love books.

I love TV quite a lot.

In fact, when TV lives up to its potential, I am powerless to stop myself. I am an addict, & this is why I avoid it. In real time, anyway. DVDS are another story.

When the Sopranos ended its run to such acclaim a few years ago I thought, "Okay, time to see what all the fuss was about." Blockbuster.com sent me the first season on DVD over the Fourth of July. By Labor Day my husband & I (he's as bad as I am) had pounded through all eight seasons. I'll leave you to do the math but the number of hours we spent parked in front of the TV during those few weeks is cringe-worthy. We were lucky nobody staged an intervention. Especially since it wasn't the first time we'd behaved in such a fashion.

Lost did it to us, too. That pilot episode when the plane first crashed? Yowza. And five, six seasons later, bad guy Ben just keeps the passive-aggressive fun coming. Good times.

I mourned when we finished the last DVD of Arrested Development. In addition to the razor-sharp humor (a character with sexual identity issues inadvertantly bills himself as an "analrapist" on his business cards, a combination analyst & therapist), it also provided me with my first opportunity in a number of years to remark upon how darn cute that Jason Bateman was.

The Office (the British original) introduced me to a brand of cringing comedy that was so excruciatingly honest I didn't know for a solid three DVDs if I liked it or not. Turns out I do. (The American version introduced me to John Krasinski, on whom I instantly developed a minor crush. I still like the British version better, though. Ricky Gervais is incredibly talented.)

And now we're addicted to a new one--The Wire, a cop show set in Baltimore's west side. The writing is again razor sharp & the dialogue rings incredibly true. But there was one episode in the first season--one scene actually--that sealed the deal for me. It's a scene in which Detective Jimmy McNulty & his partner Bunk revisit a crime scene to role play a murder. They say nothing but the f-word for about four solid minutes, each time with a different intonation & a different meaning. By the end of the scene they'd drawn a completely new conclusion about the crime & so had the audience--through nothing but about four minutes of the f-bomb.

I don't know if that's quality writing or acting, or maybe both, but I was totally sold. We watched Season One in five days.

We start Season Two tonight.

How about you? For your money, what's the best TV show on the air right now? Off the air? Who's telling the best story these days? I'd love to know because, at the rate we're eating up The Wire, we're going to need a new addiction one of these days pretty soon.Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2009/08/
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