For Real Lemon Meringue Pie

About six months ago, I got an email from romance writer Alexis Hall. He wanted to know if I'd consider developing a lemon meringue pie recipe for this kinky book he was writing about a chef and a doctor. Of course I agreed and therefore ended up helping with this book, For Real (out everywhere today), in a super small and amusing way. But since I kinda qualify as a beta reader, I'm not going to do a full review. I just want to share some personal and HELLO BIASED reflections on why I thought this was a terrific book. And also pictures of pie. You've been warned.

There are lots of things I loved about For Real, mainly the large age gap between the heroes, the realistic, engaging portrayals of BDSM within the context of a really romantic story and the dueling first person, present/past point of view which could have gone really far wrong, but didn't. Toby is a short-order cook and he's believably, adorably, relatably nineteen to Laurie's jaded, cynical, tired thirty-seven. In a quirky way, their relationship kind of works because they have such a large gap in their experience--with life, with work and yes, with kink. When I discovered that Toby is the dominant in the book, I liked it even better because it's so not the typical romance pattern. Toby is a new dominant and has lots of questions, but also lots of enthusiasm which works for Laurie as nothing else has in recent memory. If I were writing a real review, which I'm not, I'd also go into how the book makes some really insightful points about sex and kink in romance.

Laurence Dalziel is worn down and washed up, and for him, the BDSM scene is all played out. Six years on from his last relationship, he’s pushing forty and tired of going through the motions of submission.
Then he meets Toby Finch. Nineteen years old. Fearless, fierce, and vulnerable.  Everything Laurie can’t remember being.
Toby doesn’t know who he wants to be or what he wants to do. But he knows, with all the certainty of youth, that he wants Laurie. He wants him on his knees. He wants to make him hurt, he wants to make him beg, he wants to make him fall in love.
The problem is, while Laurie will surrender his body, he won’t surrender his heart. Because Toby is too young, too intense, too easy to hurt. And what they have—no matter how right it feels—can’t last. It can’t mean anything.
It can’t be real.
- See more at: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/for-real#sthash.jIPDQKcK.dpuf

Laurence Dalziel is worn down and washed up, and for him, the BDSM scene is all played out. Six years on from his last relationship, he’s pushing forty and tired of going through the motions of submission.
Then he meets Toby Finch. Nineteen years old. Fearless, fierce, and vulnerable.  Everything Laurie can’t remember being.
Toby doesn’t know who he wants to be or what he wants to do. But he knows, with all the certainty of youth, that he wants Laurie. He wants him on his knees. He wants to make him hurt, he wants to make him beg, he wants to make him fall in love.
The problem is, while Laurie will surrender his body, he won’t surrender his heart. Because Toby is too young, too intense, too easy to hurt. And what they have—no matter how right it feels—can’t last. It can’t mean anything.
It can’t be real.
- See more at: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/for-real#sthash.jIPDQKcK.dpuf

And scene with the lemon meringue pie recipe in it is a very kinky, very sexy scene. It's also creative, funny and tender. But it's not actually my favorite. For all that For Real is a smoking hot BDSM romance, it's also incredibly romantic. The scene that melted me was when Laurie takes Toby to a dinner at his old college and at the tail end of this slightly awkward excursion...I can't even...Toby teaches Laurie to quickstep in a courtyard. I don't think it's just because I'm a dancer that this scene put a completely silly smile on my face, but it might be. It's as sensual as any of the BDSM scenes in the book and even requires Laurie surrendering to being led--in a venue he's much less familiar with than being tied up. But mostly I thought it was a brief moment of utter loveliness--romance perfection even--that has stuck with me for months and that I now think about every time I quickstep. It's about love and trust and becoming a "we" instead of a "you" and a "me" in a way that has the potential for a healthy amount of humiliation. And that's something I love about all of Hall's books: how he fills recesses of hurt and vulnerability with things that are better. Maybe not all the way, and maybe not perfectly, but better.

For Real isn't Hall's cleverest, most daring book, with the lushest language, the starkest metaphor or the largest concept. It's just real and glorious in equal measures. I think it's his best one yet.

But hey, I'm biased.

Oh, and the recipe for the pie is in the book. So you should, ya know, get it. In fact, until June 7th, there's a giveaway going on over on my post at Read a Romance Month where you could win a copy of For Real, Rose Lerner's Sweet Disorder or any number of other fabulous foodie romance prizes.

Disclosure: In case you somehow missed it, I beta read a section of For Real, wrote the lemon meringue pie recipe in the book, have a review column once a month at All About Romance with Hall and pester him via email frequently. I also received an ARC of For Real from the publisher. So you should obviously ignore everything I have to say about this book because BIASED in all the ways.

Guest Post, Disclosure and Carmelized Onion & Brie Pizza

Alexis Hall, Dabney Grinnan and I are at All About Romance today with a glowing review of Against the Dark by Carolyn Crane. I can't believe it took me so long to read one of her books, particularly after last year's RITA win. I already started the second one, but got sidetracked by other commitments. I can't wait to get back to it! There was also carmelized onion and brie pizza in this book that I just HAD to try out so I'm giving readers a bonus recipe today too so just scroll down for that. And head over to All About Romance for the review.

As long as I'm here though, I wanted to say a few things about trust and relationships and make sure that I'm being as transparent as I can be. It shouldn't be any kind of secret by now that Alexis and I are friends who chat pretty often since we review together once a month, but I have plenty of relationships like that with other authors too. All those relationships are disclosed in the body of review posts as I don't avoid my friends' books. I've talked about this before so I hope that's not news. In many cases, I became friendly with authors after reviewing a book of theirs for the first time so the first post about an author might not have that sort of disclosure.

It's a peculiarity of reviewing the way I do (a creative interpretation of another creative's work) that these relationships typically develop unbidden and I've not seen a reason to resist them. But it means that my blog has never been and will never be a "reader's haven" in the same way other review blogs are. If you're looking for that, Wendy the Super Librarian, Miss Bates Reads Romance, Immersed in Books and Feminist Fairytale Reviews are a few of my personal favorites.

In addition to maintaining friendly relationships with a pretty wide range of authors, editors and other reviewers via Twitter and email, I also do a fair bit of beta reading, which I also disclose when I review those authors. Sometimes my involvement is slight (proofing a food-related scene), sometimes it's more extensive (reviewing a manuscript at several points pre-publication). I will always say I beta-read the book in these cases, or if I have beta-read for the author in the past. I really genuinely love helping my friends with their books--it's one of the unexpected joys of having come to romance reviewing--so I don't ever want to give that up.

Finally, as far as my own ambitions are concerned, I have no plans to write romance fiction. That said, and I'm guessing this won't be a surprise to many given how many times I've been asked if I'd ever write a romance-related cookbook one day, I would like to write a cookbook. Someday. And I have no idea yet what shape that might take. If I ever do, it will be under the name Elisabeth Lane, which is a pen name and the only name under which I have ever written and ever will write anything remotely related to the romance genre. I've never been careful about privacy under my given name and when I started reviewing, I thought it best not to be quite so obviously easy to find, hence the pen name. If I ever change my mind and start publishing anything romance-related under my given name or any other pen name, I will disclose it.

Sorry for the serious turn, but I thought it was important to make sure all that was out in the open in the wake of the events of the last few weeks. So let's get to cooking without further delay!

This recipe definitely falls under the heading of "not pretty, but sooo delicious". I mean, just look at those lumps of brie! My husband assures me that artisan pizzas pretty much all look like this now and I know he's right--globs of real mozzarella, ricotta, etc.--but I can't help but wish it were just a little less beige. It's alright though. The flavor more than makes up for the humble visual.

Have we talked about pizza dough? I'm not sure we have. But when carmelized onion & brie pizza popped up in Carolyn Crane's Against the Dark, I just knew I had to try it out. I make homemade pizza about once a week. I mix up a huge batch of dough once every month or two and freeze each lump individually wrapped in plastic wrap and put all together in a freezer bag. It works pretty well and I always have pizza dough for a quick weeknight meal.

This recipe is a bit more time-intensive than my normal weeknight pizzas just because I'm aware of no way to speed up the process of carmelizing onions. It takes 30-40 minutes no matter what you do. That lovely caramel-sweet flavor just takes a while to develop. I use Julia Child's method of carmelizing onions, which I'll describe below. If you don't have a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I'm not really sure what to say you besides, "Get one."

I served this pizza with a pile of argula in a super simple dressing of oil & champagne vinegar with honey and a tiny bit of salt of salt and pepper. Oh, basically this recipe from my review of the Ruthie Knox book Truly. The brie makes this pizza quite filling so the light salad was plenty adequate as a side.

I don't suppose I need to make a case for the pizza, but I will. The slow-cooked onions and creamy brie with an underlying hint of Herbes de Provence was completely delectable, as I suspected it would be. Piling the arugula on top of a pizza slice was a pretty darn good move too. You should probably only make this for someone you really like a lot.

Carmelized Onion & Brie Pizza
Makes: 2-3 servings
Time: 1 hour
Difficult: Intermediate

12-14 ounces fresh-made, frozen or store-bought pizza dough
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Herbes de Provence
4 medium onions, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white sugar
a few grinds of black pepper
1/2 pound medium-intense brie, rind removed and cut into chunks

1. Make pizza dough or use store-bought. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Stretch out pizza dough and put it on pizza pan sprayed with cooking spray to prevent sticking. Baste crust with 1 teaspoon olive oil and scatter Herbs de Provence over the crust. Pre-bake for 9 minutes, then remove and allow to cool while you make the onions.

2. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and 3 tablespoons unsalted butter to a large skillet with a lid. Heat over medium heat until butter is melted, then add sliced onions and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Remove the cover and set aside. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon sugar (to promote browning) and black pepper. Turn down the heat to medium-low and cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring frequently, until onions are thoroughly carmelized.

3. When the onions are done, spread them evenly over the pre-baked crust. Add chunks of brie on top and return to the oven for 7-8 minutes. When the crust is nearly brown, put the pizza under the broiler for a minute or 2 until the brie is lightly browned on top. Allow to rest until cheese stops bubbling, then slice and serve.

Liberty & Other Stories Smoked Tea BBQ Ribs

I'm a pretty cerebral romance reader. It's rare that I read one book by an author that so transports me I can't write anything intelligent about it, much less two. So when it comes to Alexis Hall's work, I'm three books in and still struggling to write anything coherent, both because it's just not how I want to experience these stories and because every time I try, I come out with a 6,000 word blog post (don't worry--this post isn't quite that long). There is plenty of meat on these bones. They're so infernally clever, complex, rich and varied that I want to do them justice.

Liberty & Other Stories is a book of short stories set in the same universe as last year's Prosperity, and there may be differing opinions on this, but I think it doesn't really work as a stand-alone. It's comprised of Shackles, Squamous with a Chance of Rain, Cloudy Climes and Starless Skies, and Liberty. I'm focusing on Shackles here because it's a prequel to Prosperity, the story of Ruben Crowe's first meeting with Milord. They're both characters I'm actually rather ambivalent about in terms of my personal feelings, but which somehow doesn't impact how I experience their interactions. Both characters have limitations in my eyes, which made them wrong for Picadilly, the charming, effervescent narrator of Prosperity, but perfect for each other.

Shackles was actually reminiscent of Rumpelstiltskin, the Grimm fairy tale. Both Milord and Ruben Crowe are struggling with identity here, a struggle which continues into Prosperity. Milord is a crime lord who can't be a crime lord from what is effectively death row. And Ruben feels out of place as a noble and has been defrocked as a priest. We get the sense he's just...drifting. And the way Ruben repeatedly leaves and returns to Milord in prison recollects the little man returning to the princess each night as she searches for his true name. I couldn't help but think of Ruben's desire for Milord's redemption, which definitely doesn't happen within the bounds of Shackles and barely happens within the bounds of Prosperity: trying to spin Milord into gold, despite his very straw-like, base capabilities.

There are some theological reasons that persistently annoy me about Ruben, but I'm not going to go into that here. Suffice to say, I find it hard to like him, which is actually a good thing. Otherwise, I might have had difficulty with the romance. And Milord is a master manipulator, controlling every move Ruben makes even as he pretends helplessness: both monster and princess. Knowing what's coming further down the line for them made Shackles all the more interesting because, aside from Ruben not dying at the end, there is little indication here that Milord is in any way redeemable in the way Ruben hopes for.

That said, the fact that I have doubts about both Milord and Ruben as people doesn't diminish my joy at their happy ending in Prosperity. Whether I like them isn't the point. The point is that they love each other and find a way to make it work, despite their limitations. It's a subject that seems to be emerging as something of a theme of Hall's: that everyone, regardless of their worth to society, is worthy of love. It's also the the perfect foil for the romance that develops between Picadilly and Byron Kae, the aethermancer of the ship that brings all of these characters together: a dramatic, tempestuous thing that highlights the slow-developing, quietly magical quality of Dil & BK's relationship. And it's that relationship, the one between Picadilly and Byron Kae, that I'm reluctant to spoil by writing about in depth. So you'll just have to read Cloudy Climes and Starless Skies, which is one of my favorite stories I've ever read anywhere. Ever.

I've said several times that these two books (Prosperity and Liberty & Other Stories) would make an excellent doctoral thesis in the future. But they also function as pure narrative: engaging stories that, in your excitement, you'll either rush to finish or pause to savor. I'd recommend reading Prosperity prior to picking up this volume. There is also a free short available in the same universe which further explores the dreams and desires of a minor character in Cloudy. And since anything to do with Byron Kae appears to be my kryptonite, I can only hope that more Prosperity universe books will be forthcoming, particularly as someone who was once kind to BK, Captain Edward Rackham, comes into focus in Cloudy Climes and Starless Skies and struck me as kinda dreamy. Probably needless to say at this point, I'd be overjoyed for more.

Smoked tea is definitely not for everyone. Which sort of makes lapsang souchong the perfect thing for Milord to love and for Ruben to bring him in prison because I think they're both sort of acquired tastes in their own ways. If you follow me on Twitter, you know that the first iteration of cooking-with-lapsang-souchong didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I tried several iterations of a sweet, dessert-like thing, but I apparently have odd taste because what tasted divine to me was too strange for everyone else.

Lapsang souchong has great body and complexity and was really fun to cook with. Instead of working against its smokiness like in the first recipe, I decided to work with it. And what says smoke more emphatically than BBQ sauce? From my searches online, it's pretty clear that this is not a new idea. That said, the recipes I saw tended to include things like pears in syrup and grape jelly and store-bought ketchup. Um...yuck. So I just decided to start from scratch.

The reason the smoked tea is perfect here is that I actually made these ribs in the oven instead of on the grill or in a smoker. For the simple reason that I don't have a grill. Or a smoker. And it's also January. And 10 degrees outside. Sometimes I really miss California. In the past I have often used smoked sea salt or bacon to give a smoky flavor to meat cooked in the oven, but in the future, I can see myself using a lot of finely ground lapsang. It's perfect for getting smoky depth without the fat and crunchiness of bacon or the...well...saltiness of salt.

This sauce is really easy. You basically just boil the heck out of it, puree it, then boil it again. So it's a bit time-consuming (more so than just grabbing a bottle of premade anyway), but since it makes 4 cups, you can freeze it in one cup portions and use it to dress up any grilled or roasted meat. I used it to make baby back ribs right off, which took about a cup and a half along with a spice rub that I'll also include below. It's sort of based off an Asian flavor palate too so it would be really good added to ground turkey turning these pork meatballs subs into turkey burgers with quick-pickled radishes, cilantro & jalapeno, but the options are really endless. I think that might be dinner tonight so I'll post photos to Facebook if it works as well as I hope.

But don't worry about using it up. It's good enough that you'll want it on pretty much everything.

Smoked Tea BBQ Sauce
Makes: 4 cups
Time: 30 minutes

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 teaspoon minced garlic
6 ounces boiling water
3 1/2 tablespoons lapsang souchong loose tea, separated (see below)
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes (fire-roasted preferable)
1 6 ounce can tomato paste
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon mustard
1/2 cup sweet chili sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3 tablespoons lemon juice
salt & pepper

1. In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add diced onions and cook until soft and translucent, approximately 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds more.

2. While onions cook, combine 6 ounces boiling water with 3 tablespoons of lapsang souchong tea and allow to steep for 3 minutes. When onions and garlic are cooked, pour the tea through a strainer into the saucepan with the onion.

3. Add diced tomatoes, tomato paste, brown sugar, mustard, sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, crushed red pepper and lemon juice and stir to combine. In a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, grind the remaining 1 tablespoon tea until finely ground, adding 1/2 tablespoon to the sauce. Boil for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Using a stick blender or by pouring sauce into a standing blender, blend the sauce until smooth. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired. I used 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Boil an additional 5 minutes to reduce.


Smoked Tea BBQ Ribs
Makes: rub for 1 rack of ribs
Time: 5 minutes


2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 tablespoon lapsang souchong tea, finely ground (dry)
1 rack of baby back ribs
1 1/2 cups Smoky Tea BBQ Sauce, separated

1. Combine chili powder, brown sugar, salt, pepper, cayenne, tea in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

2. Rub ribs with the spice rub and bring to room temperature on the counter (about 45 minutes). Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

3. Bake ribs for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and preheat broiler. Baste with 1/2 cup BBQ sauce on each side and broil 3 minutes each side.

4. Cut ribs apart and serve with additional 1/2 cup BBQ sauce for dipping. I also made hushpuppies and sauteed garlic spinach, but any kind of traditional BBQ side would be great with these: coleslaw, potato salad, mashed potatoes, cornbread--the options are endless.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of Liberty & Other Stories form the publisher and I am friendly with both the book's author and editor.

Love is a Verb

Love in romance novels tends to be flashy. The memorable elements of a story are the ones where the hero fights off the bad guy and saves the heroine from the speeding train or when the heroine uses her family connections to keep the hero out of jail. There are murderous zombies and cyborgs to fend off; racist cow hands and vengeful gossips to elude. There's the dramatic, multi-orgasmic sex that occurs midway through the novel and the romantic wedding-baby-house epilogue: the trappings of falling in love.

And I love all those things. The bigger and flashier and plottier the romance the better as far as I'm concerned. But it's also fun and little bit subversive when those elements mask a simpler set of needs and desires. I'm reading a book right now, Genevieve Turner's Summer Chaparral (out today), that does this really well. The story revolves around a Romeo & Juliet style family conflict, an epic family story that results in a wedding midway through when the hero and heroine are unable to keep their paws off each other. That said, the deepest needs and desires of the couple are very simple. They're not looking for fame, power or riches. They want the security of a comfortable home and land of their own.

It's something those of us in the first world take for granted, I think. Especially those of us who have a roof over our heads and food on our tables, largely though minimal effort of our own. We go to school, we get jobs, we go grocery shopping each week and make meals or get take-out. So few of our daily tasks revolve around the sustaining of life, certainly not like it has been for most of human history. When the roof leaks, we call a handyman to fix it. We don't have to decide between canning vegetables for the winter or mending clothes. We go to Target.

I wonder to what degree our affluence (even those of us who live relatively modestly) affects us; how easy it is for us to merely survive interacts with how easy we expect life to be in other areas. After all, it isn't the bad guy or the beastie that brings together or separates most real couples or communities. It's how everyday actions are overlooked: preparing a meal, talking with a friend, having a cup of tea or taking a walk. The best moments in community are genuine inquiry with honest answers and jokes about glitter & squid. At the moment, I'm inclined to at least try to side-step anything else.

Alexis Hall's Prosperity comes out next week. I don't want to spoil the ending for those who intend to read it (and you should: intend to read it, that is). But there's a twist that romance readers might not see coming. I certainly didn't; though I was both frustrated and relieved that it ended the way it did, I didn't understand why until pretty recently. Now that I've had a few weeks to think about it, it's subversive in ways that hadn't even occurred to me when I first finished it. It got me thinking about the degree to which love is a choice, and not a choice we make once, but a choice we make every day. We choose whether to bring something up or let it go. We wade into a conflict or refrain. We make soup for dinner when we know the forecast is miserable at commute time. We read aloud to each other instead of watching TV. We walk the dog in the rain and wash dishes after a long day at work. We give the benefit of the doubt. We're oblivious or we're tuned in. We listen as well as we talk.

Making the right choice in a marriage or a romance or a community is rarely easy or obvious and love is a verb in addition to being a noun. It doesn't mean that any of these things can be undertaken without conflict. It does mean that we make choices about what we want to create. And every day, every action, every utterance contributes to that creation, whether we are intentional about it or not. Choosing to love is not an easy choice to make on a weekly, daily, hourly basis.

But making any other choice seems to lead to misery. So, in the end, what choice do we really have?

Queer Romance Month Rainbow Cake

Thanks to a new reader, I found out that October is Queer Romance Month. The kick-off was yesterday so you can go over to Joyfully Jay and read all about why queer romance is better than cats. Yes, those cats. The furry kind. It's very funny.

As a very new reader of queer romance myself, I don't have a ton of impressive insights and recommendations like the folks writing over at the Queer Romance Month blog do. But yesterday I saw KJ Charles post some chocolate chip cookies that spell out QRM on Twitter. So then I was like, oh we BAKE for QRM? Well, that I can do!

As it turns out, Queer Romance Month is a pretty good excuse for cake. It's a celebration of queer-identified authors and queer-writing and queer-supporting folks. Celebrations require cake. As Julia Child said, "A party without cake is really just a meeting." No one likes meetings, but everyone likes cake.

I'd been wanting to try making one of these rainbow cakes forever, but I'd never had an appropriate occasion. It's actually pretty easy. I started with this white cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen (remember the rule folks: if you're going to screw around with a recipe, make sure you start with a good one). The reason was that it makes exactly 9 cups of batter so I was able to make 6 equal layers using 1 1/2 cups of batter for each cake pan.

Then I added food coloring to each portion of batter to turn them all the colors of the rainbow. I felt like a mad scientist (complete with Coke bottle glasses and lab coat--okay, not really) as I mixed colors to get just the right shades. For the record, I use Americolor gel paste food coloring from the baking supply store (or online). They have dozens of colors and they're more concentrated than the ones you buy in the grocery store. I was just too lazy to drive all the way to the baking store to buy orange and purple.

The layers only take about 15 minutes to bake since they're so thin, but I did have to bake them in two batches because I only have 3 cake pans. Then I made a metric ton of Swiss Meringue Buttercream and frosted it all up. Voila! Queer Romance Month Rainbow Cake!

Now for the really important stuff. The first few posts up on the QRM site are excellent: intelligent, informative, entertaining. I'm sure the rest of the month will follow suit since the line-up looks stellar. I'd highly recommend subscribing, even if you think you might not have any interest in queer romance. If you'd asked me before a few weeks ago, I wouldn't have been quite so excited about this. I didn't know any better. I thought heterosexual romance was for heterosexual people and queer romance was for queer people. But I feel pretty stupid about that now. Since I read Glitterland (my review is here), I've read a steampunk and an historical short story and they've all been terrific reads. So don't be like me. Don't wait until someone literally puts a book in your hands to try out some of these great recommendations. Really, if you're not reading queer romance in whatever subgenre you like best, you're missing out on a lot of wonderful love stories.

Plus, we have cake.

Glitterland Cottage Pie

Alexis Hall's Glitterland is a flawless gem of a novel. Certainly the best thing I've read all year. Maybe one of the best things I've read ever. When I start ranking books in my head, it approaches Prince of Midnight, my favorite Laura Kinsale book and Stardust, my favorite Neil Gaiman book. So I think I must have really liked it a lot. I liked it for what it is, a love story about two guys who are super different and yet still manage to find common ground in each other. I liked it for what it represented to me with its themes of forgiveness and redemption. I liked it for how it did both those things, with language that is elegant, funny, erudite and witty. I'm not sure what else one could look for in a book. So, yeah. Flawless.

Ash Winters is a novelist, a former Golden Boy of the British literary scene turned detective fiction writer with a trust fund and a Cambridge education. The detective books he writes keep him busy, but he thinks the work is beneath him. However, the state of his mental health makes him feel like he can't do anything else. Simply put, Ash is a mess and has been one for so long that he may even think he's more of a mess than he is. Technically speaking, he's bipolar, which manifests in manic highs and depressive lows, but he's also agoraphobic and suffers from anxiety. For much of the book, he comes off as selfish, callous, snobby and insecure. He feels awful about himself much of the time and some readers may not readily sympathize with him. But if you've even been on the inside of depression, his struggles will be intimately familiar. Like this:

In all these years, this is all I have learned: Depression simply is. It has no beginning and no end, no boundaries and no world outside itself. It is the first, the last, the only, the alpha and the omega. Memories of better times die upon its desolate shores. Voices drown in its seas. The mind becomes its own prisoner.

If opposites attract, then it makes perfect sense that Darian Taylor and Ash would want each other. Darian is an "orange glitter pirate" with an Essex accent, a lower class upbringing and little formal education. Between his fake tan, his sequined wardrobe and his modeling career, Darian is the last person Ash could have seen himself falling for. But right from the start they have an explosively hot sexual connection and even though Ash would prefer to dismiss the experience and call it a one night stand; Darian is more honest about how rare and special they really are together. Ash gives Darian the brush-off, but charming, simple Darian isn't easily dissuaded. He likes Ash and isn't willing to give up on him quite that easily.

The entire plot of the novel revolves around the differences between the two main characters. Different social classes, different hobbies & interests, different education levels, different work and friends and family situations. Ash is jaded, cynical and experienced while Darian is fresh, hopeful and innocent. Ash has largely isolated himself from the people who care about him. Darian has a cadre of close friends and lives with his grandmother. Though on the surface, Ash's life might seem the ideal one with his posh apartment, bespoke wardrobe and fancy education, it's Darian, who lives with his grandmother, loves reality television and is secure enough to wear a Union Jack onesie, who seems to have mastered the whole living thing. And Darian is gracious and patient in a way Ash has never learned to be, most especially with himself.

But even Darian can be pushed too far. Three-quarters of the way through the book, Ash finally succeeds in pushing Darian away. Once they're separated, Ash realizes two important things, one which is typical of romance novels, the other which really isn't. The typical thing he realizes is that he doesn't want to live without Darian. The atypical thing Ash discovers is that he has to let Darian make his own choices about what he can handle instead of making Darian's choices for him by persistently claiming that he will make Darian miserable and by minimizing their relationship. He has spent so long trying to control every variable in his environment in order to lessen his anxiety that allowing himself to let go of this one thing represents a huge step for him.

I enjoyed this story all the way through. It's hilarious and sexy and sweet all at once. The language is breathtakingly poetic in spots. But what has stuck with me in the few weeks since I read it was how tremendous the ending was. Ash undertakes a necessary journey of redemption, despite the pain and anxiety and embarrassment it causes him and Darian receives him with such generosity. The way Darian reacts to Ash's fumbling, groveling apology is miraculous, wise and generous. Of course Ash doesn't deserve it, but he gets Darian's forgiveness and love anyway. The miracle of that ending is what will keep me rereading this book for years to come.

I've got no idea where this recipe came from. I make it at least once or twice a month, mainly because my husband really likes it and I cook dinner for our Dungeons & Dragons group when we play and they like it too. I mean, what's not to like? It's basically meat and potatoes. I grew up next door to a British family who had a daughter just a year younger than me and we were constantly back and forth to each other's houses, mainly through the fence that divided our backyards. I remember my neighbor frequently making cottage pie for tea, which is the perfect thing for kids to eat at the perfect time of day. I think I searched this particular recipe out while I was at university, but I've been making it from memory for so long that I don't even think I could lay hands on whatever paper copy I might have had way back when.

This is pretty similar to the dish Darian cooks for Ash in Glitterland, with slight modifications. Darian's recipe even appears in the back of the book. The main difference between the two is the absence of grated cheese here, which is amusing to me because Darian makes fun of Ash for not being able to properly operate a cheese grater. For the record, I can't grate cheese either. I'm a fairly accomplished cook, but every time I pull out a cheese grater, I end up grating my fingers. I have actual scars from doing this. I will get the food processor dirty to grate a 1/4 cup of cheese because I loathe bleeding into my guests' food.

I've nearly always made this recipe with ground beef, but you can certainly use two pounds of whatever ground meat you'd like. In the past I've used ground lamb because my husband likes it, ground turkey and more veggies when I was feeding health-conscious people, and ground elk when a friend brought us some from a hunting trip. So this is a pretty flexible recipe.

Between the association with my childhood and the fact that it's an easy recipe I can make quickly from memory with stuff I always have in my pantry, this is definite comfort food. Which makes it pretty funny that Ash calls his fancy friend Max for a salad recipe and produces some froofy thing involving pears and blue cheese that doesn't go well with this dish at all. It's not unlike this recipe, only with pears instead of apples and cheese instead of hazelnuts. Hall reflects that they had "served each other a metaphor": Darian's simple comfort food and Ash's complex and weirdly inappropriate salad meant to impress. Rather, plain lettuce, chopped tomatoes and some generic salad dressing are probably what's called for here. At most, maybe a spinach salad with warm bacon dressing if you insist on being fancy, which I did (I'm much more like Ash than like Darian), so this one from Alton Brown is what's pictured here. I cut the recipe in half for two because it doesn't keep.

Oh, and one other thing: I often don't bother to make mashed potatoes from scratch like I did here. I sometimes just get two pounds of refrigerated mashed potatoes from the deli case, heat them up and spread them on top. That cuts the preparation time by about half an hour so if you're in a hurry, just do that.

See, I'm not a total snob.

Cottage Pie
Makes: 8 servings
Time: 1 hour (Hands on time: 45 minutes)

2 pounds Russet or other non-waxy potato, peeled & cut into 1" chunks
8 tablespoons (1 stick) salted butter, melted
1/2 cup half & half, hot

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 carrots
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
2 pounds ground beef
2 packets brown gravy mix
2/3 cup water
1 cup frozen peas
salt & pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Add potatoes and a pinch of salt to a large pot and cover with water by about 1". Bring to a boil and allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes, until potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork. Heat the half & half over low heat while you prepare the filling.

3. While potatoes simmer, peel and dice carrots and onions. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When olive oil is shimmering and fragrant, add the carrots and onions and cook until onion is soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for and additional 30 seconds.

4. Remove carrots, onions and garlic to a 9x13" glass or enamel baking dish (enamel is better because you can finish the dish under the broiler, but I don't have the right size--so sad for me). Add the ground beef to the same skillet and cook until browned, about 5-7 minutes. Drain the fat from the meat and return to the heat.

5. Return the carrots, onions and garlic to the skillet. Add the brown gravy packets and water to the skillet and mix thoroughly. Allow to simmer for 3-4 minutes until all water has been absorbed. Add the frozen peas and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. Remove mixture to the baking dish.

6. By now the potatoes should be done, or close to it. Drain the potatoes and return them to the pot. Using a food mill or potato masher, mash the potatoes until smooth. Add the melted butter and combine. Add approximately 3/4 of the half & half to the mashed potatoes and combine. Add more half & half as necessary to achieve the desired consistency.

7. Smooth mashed potatoes over the top of the ground beef mixture. Bake for 15 minutes. If you're using an enamel baking dish, you can finish the dish under the broiler for another two minutes to achieve a slightly browned and crisp top. Don't do this if you're using a glass baking dish as the heat of the broiler can cause the glass to explode.

8. Serve with salad of your choice.

Disclosure: I received Glitterland from the publisher for review purposes. The book's editor, the book's author and I follow each other on Twitter.

Religion & Romance: a Non-Theoretical Perspective

Aside from the first romance novels consumed in utter stealth beneath my covers after midnight while still in high school, I've always been a pretty open romance reader. I mean, I'm not shy about cracking a vintage Harlequin while waiting for the bus or pulling out my Grace Burrowes at the doctor's office. My female friends have always known I read romance in addition to the fantasy and science fiction and YA that are our bigger points of reading overlap.

But when it comes to men, I'm a lot more shy. Most of the guys I play Dungeons & Dragons with don't know about my romance obsession. I'd guess they probably wouldn't be judgmental about it, but I'm not really sure. It's like our Christianity: it just doesn't come up all that often.

Speaking of my faith, it's not something that comes up terribly often here on my blog or on Twitter either. I'm more of an evangelist for Laura Kinsale than I am for Christ. But in the upcoming week I'm going to talk a bit (ha, okay, a lot) about Alexis Hall, who is a queer man writing m/m romance and I figure it might come up. Not because it seems weird to me, but because it will probably seem weird to some other people that I loved his book Glitterland so very much. People make assumptions about Christians and think it's a monolithic religion. It's not. It's so not. I have very little in common with Pat Robertson or any other conservative evangelical theologically other than a mutual belief in God.

I was raised Catholic in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm a feminist and a political progressive and I walked away from the church at 15 over issues with the church's position on birth control and the ordination of women. I'd been reading a lot of Mercedes Lackey, Robin McKinley and Tamora Pierce by then and I knew full well that there was no reason for any of the church's positions except to use traditional gender roles to reinforce traditional power structures and I didn't want any part of it.

When I wandered back to the church a few years ago, it was because even though I considered myself spiritual, I had a hard time exercising that spirituality without the structure of organized religion. But I was very, very careful not to put myself into any box that didn't mesh with my understanding of Christ's teachings, none of which involved the shunning, exclusion or persecution of sinners. Christ was much harder on the self-righteous Jewish religious and political elite than he was on the woman at the well. And I was very careful not to align myself with any group that wanted to label certain categories of people sinners while reserving the label of righteousness for themselves.

My specific theological positions are less important here than the bottom line, which is probably what you're looking for if you've gotten this far. And the bottom line is that I believe that we were put here for a higher purpose and that the purpose is for us to help each other muddle along together however we can. Because life on Earth isn't always easy or pretty and we're not fulfilling our purpose if our primary goal isn't to help each other. Also, which is a little more distinctively Christian (or at least theistic), that when I succeed in doing so I honor God. That purpose does not include leveling judgment at LGBTQ people. In fact, it excludes it. If I were told by the church that I had to, I couldn't do it. I've walked away from that twice and I'd do it again.

I don't read romance as a political or religious statement. I read it because I like stories with happy endings about people falling in love. I also don't belong to my church for political or religious reasons. I do it because life, especially life in America in the early 21st century is isolating and selfish and acquisitive and I'd rather not be like that. And so I'm a member of a community that encourages me to be otherwise. I'll be talking more specifically about Glitterland next Thursday and the following Monday, but for now, just know that in Ash I recognized myself in my brokenness and desperation and in Darian, I recognized Christ as I know Him. If I'm honest, I'm unable to process that story any other way. I can tone it down. I can use non-Christian, non-theological terms to express what I thought about it and how I felt about it. I've been doing it for a week, in fact: talking about mental illness, intellectual snobbery and class differences. But that was the intellectual taking over. The gut-level reaction was a relieved sigh: that love and redemption is offered to everyone, even the most messed up and selfish of us.

There has been a conversation this week taking place at Dear Author and a few other places about religion as texture or context for character relationships. And while I'm all for less superficiality in our examinations of work, philosophy, ethics and other cultural and contextual elements of romance, the fact is that in the best books, it's all there. We might wish for more of the best books, but that has been ever the struggle, right? There's superficial sci fi, fantasy, mystery, "literature" and every other genre. The key is relishing the good stuff where we find it and being enlightened enough to know when we have, whatever the form, for whatever our definition of enlightenment.