Miss Representation

Some incredible facts that shocked me. (Watch the documentary for yourself to get the exact percentages. I was too riveted to stop the movie and take notes)


Before the age of 7? an equal number of boys and girls happily declare they want to be president. By the teenage years, this number changes drastically, not in the girls' favor. Somewhere between 7 and 13, girls are taught that politics is for men.

American ranks like 90? as far country with percentage of women in government. We're way behind. The numbers of women in our gov't compared to the population on women contained within in the United States is appalling.

In this case, who is representing us? WHO?

Men.

And just what do they know about women's issues? An even better question, why are we letting them control our lives?

Also something that really struck home for me as I watched this is...how we're being taught that the most important thing about a woman is her looks. We are to look sexy. We are to strive to be those women on the cover of magazines, in movies, on the runway. Everywhere we look...women are sex objects and sadly, many women who claim they are empowered--Angelina Jolie as Tomb Raider, Halle Berry as Catwoman...they claim to be empowered, but really, they are--like the rest of us--just striving to please men's ideal idea of a woman. They're half naked and stick-thin, tits hanging out of their clothing...How is that empowered?

We are taught to look sexy and we are taught what sexy is.

What this documentary told me:

Everything is airbrushed. The thin model, they still take a few more inches off before they make the ad. They narrow down the cheekbones, erase a few blemishes...it's all computerized and what we're seeing is not real, so when we strive to look like these women...we are struggling to obtain an impossible goal because that woman does not exist.

This results in depression. According to this documentary, in 2010, more than 50% of women in U.S. suffer depression. And it is because we continue to strive to be something impossible.

And men...we can't place all the blame on them. While we are taught through movies, advertising, and Hollywood that we should look computer perfect, it also teaches boys that that's what they should expect from us.

Something else I thought was cool was the comparison of women in movies today to the women in movies in the 30s and 40s and the roles they were allowed to play. I wonder...when did it all go wrong? When did women begin to oppress themselves again?

And that's all I'm going to say...this is a documentary that I highly recommend ALL women watch. It's powerful, it's sad, it's truth.

I recorded this on Direct TV, but a DVD is available on Amazon.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Amelia Hamilton

Book: Revealing Hamilton
Author: Sarah Jayne Carr
Heroine: Amelia Hamilton

A week prior to Amelia's 23rd birthday, she's a sissy and she isn't strong. She runs away from confrontation and has a difficult time standing up for herself. Over the course of the next week, that's all about to change.
For years, she has suppressed events from her childhood that cause her to wake up from inescapable nightmares in cold sweats. When Amelia's grandfather resurfaces in the world, she is forced to face her demons and dig deep for an inner strength to face him before he takes away everything she loves. Marius Benedict isn't willing to stop until he gets what he wants: Amelia Hamilton in his back pocket for his sinister deeds.

Blurb:

A conversation with a stranger changes Amelia Hamilton's life forever. When she learns her grandfather faked his own death, normalcy slips from Amelia's grasp. To make matters worse, he is coming for her in less than seven days. What she hasn't determined is why.

Amelia's grandfather, Marius Benedict, once headed The Physician Coalition, an elite group of doctors who threw the Hippocratic Oath out the window. Years ago, they used a low-risk medical research study as a front for their experiments. Without their consent, innocents were injected with JackRabbit7, a hazardous substance used to alter their DNA. The victims were left with less-than-desirable super-human powers or excruciating death. Years after he disbanded the group, Marius has a new plan and is reforming The Coalition.

Max, a mysterious stranger from the Insurance Agency, offers to help keep Amelia safe. He introduces The Agency as an underground government organization that contains and eliminates those who intend to harm the world. To protect The Agency, the truth of their activities are concealed and replaced with sugar-coated stories in the media.

Over the course of the next week, Amelia has to accept the truth and learn who can be trusted. At midnight on her 23rd birthday, a contract between The Coalition and The Insurance Agency will expire, giving Marius full rein to approach his granddaughter and finish the project he started with her so many years ago.

Are you an author with a strong heroine in your book? Want to see her featured? Find out how here.

Another Print Edition for You & NEW Release for Those Who Loved Ride...

I have a lot to celebrate this fourth of July. I'll keep this down to basics so ya'll can get back to your fireworks. :)

First of all, the long-awaited sequel to Ride for Rights is available in ebook on Amazon, MuseItUp, Barnes & Noble.

It’s the Women’s Air Derby of 1929 and four women all want one thing: to win.

For Angeline Miller, it’s one last hurrah before she finally takes that leap into motherhood, but will her husband be waiting on the other side of the finish line?

For Penelope Burns, it’s a chance to stick it to her patronizing husband and win her son’s pride and affection back—she hopes.

Veronica Truman just wants to make her ailing mother proud.

Nancy Devine, Hollywood starlet and diva, wants to be the next Lady Lindy of the Air...and will pay any price.

One week, a group of very determined and capable women pilots, sabotage, and fate comes together. Who will fly to success? Who will fail? And what awaits them in Cleveland, Ohio?

Second, I have awesome news for those of you who have expressed an interest in Reading Ride for Rights, but don't have e-readers. I have a print edition!!! And even better, it has Derby Dames in it too! So for 9 bucks (It's like 8 something at this moment) you get two books in one.

It's up on Amazon and for those who may not know much about my first book ever, here's a blurb:

In the summer of 1916 women do not have the right to vote, let alone be motorcycle dispatch riders. 

Two sisters, Angeline and Adelaide Hanson are determined to prove to the world that not only are women capable of riding motorbikes, but they can ride motorbikes across the United States. Alone. 

From a dance hall in Chicago to a jail cell in Dodge City, love and trouble both follow Angeline and Adelaide on the dirt roads across the United States. The sisters shout their triumph from Pike’s Peak only to end up lost in the Salt Lake desert.

Will they make it to their goal of Los Angeles or will too many mishaps prevent them from reaching their destination and thus, hinder their desire to prove that women can do it?

Thirteen years later, Angeline is determined to have one last hurrah before motherhood. She signs up for the Women's Air Derby, with no clue just how interesting the competition will be...and no idea if her husband will be waiting on the other side of the finish line. For Penelope Burns, the derby is a chance to "stick it" to her patronizing husband and win her son’s pride and affection back—she hopes. Veronica Truman just wants to make her ailing mother proud. Nancy Devine, Hollywood starlet and diva, wants to be the next Lady Lindy of the Air...and will pay any price. One week, a group of very determined and capable women pilots, sabotage, and fate come together. Who will fly to success? Who will "crash and burn"? And what awaits them in Cleveland, Ohio?

And I'm so excited about the cover art on this one, I'm going to share both the front and bad, because they just totally rock. Thanks to Erik Schubach for this design.

Happy Fourth!

Tasty Review & Giveaway: Armored Hearts By: Melissa Turner Lee & Pauline Creeden

When a crippled young lord rescues a girl falling from a tree, it reveals a secret about himself and his mother's side of the family that could put him at the center of a war with beings he thought only existed in fariytales.

Tristan Gareth Smyth lived his entire life stuck at home at Waverly Park and left behind while his Grandfather makes trips to London, all because of his blasted wheelchair.

Then an American heiress falls in his lap, literally, and he must find a way to keep her at a distance to protect not only his secret, but everyone around him from an assassin sent to kill him.

***My Review***

I like the basic premise: crippled man becomes superhero "The Flying Knight" in a historical period. The hero is very bitter on the outside, but on the inside he deeply cares for people. He grows on you. Even when he insults the heroine, he had me chuckling. The heroine...is sort of a villain in a way. I mean, she bribes this guy to marry her. Pretty nervy. She irritated me at first, but then she started making me smile too, namely when she says, "Consider this bed my web and you my fly. Prepare to be devoured."

She's a force to be reckoned with even though she comes across as more of a secondary character and the hero's aunt Tabitha feels like the main heroine, really, at least in the first 55%.

I also loved the "bonnet" club. The women getting together and making inventions..just too cool.

What I didn't like:
I didn't buy into the "I'm crippled and confined to a wheelchair, but I can hop around and stand just fine. I just can't walk" thing. I'll be the first to admit I'm not familiar with wheelchair illnesses, so I could be wrong. But I though at first--in light of him being able to stand straight--that he had a problem with his knees and couldn't bend them or something, but then he engages in sword fights and rolls on the floor and all this and also, his knees bend when he's sitting...so what gives? I came to the conclusion he had a selective handicap, which sorta bothered me.

I also didn't buy the "for the last seven years I've been flying up the stairs and leaving my chair down there and nobody has noticed" thing. 

It's a decent story though. I do feel it could have been fleshed out more. I mean, dude, you're flying! Tell us more! What's it feel like? Etc. 

Three bikes and I'm leaving this with a cool passage from the story.

"We are women with minds for automation. God did not intend us (to?) rot in a corner with them (men). When God created man, He saw that the man needed a helper and created a woman. Now, the God I serve is a smart God with grand ideas. How smart would it be to offer an idiot as a helper? To say, 'Here you go. She's not really good for much. She's kind of entertaining when naked but other than that, put her in a safe place so she doesn't hurt herself'?"

That gave me a chuckle.

Buy Links

Amazon / B&N / Smashwords

Author Info (Melissa Turner Lee)

Melissa Turner Lee holds a BA in Communications with a concentration in Journalism from the University of South Carolina. She has studied fiction writing since 2008, attending various writing conferences and workshops, along with guidance from professional writing coaches. She resides in Spartanburg, SC with her husband and 3 sons.

Blog: http://melissaturnerlee.blogspot.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/melissaturnerlee

Twitter: @MelissaTLee1975

Author Info (Pauline Creeden)

Pauline Creeden is a horse trainer from Virginia, but writing is her therapy. In her fiction, she creates worlds that are both familiar and strange, often pulling the veil between dimensions. She becomes the main character in each of her stories, and because she has ADD, she will get bored if she pretends to be one person for too long.

Website: http://paulinecreeden.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/paulinecreeden

Twitter: @P_Creeden

UP FOR GRABS: Five Digital Copies of ARMORED HEARTS & One Autographed Copy with SWAG



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Follow the TOUR.

Tainted Angel by Anne Cleeland

This is a nonstop Regency thrill ride. There's not a single dull moment in any of its pages.


Vidia is a spy...and she appears to be a double agent...or pretending to be. England or France? Where does her loyalty lie? Her "agency" has come to suspect her and has even gone so far as to send a fellow agent to seduce her, get her secrets, marry her, etc. And the entire book has a reader wondering just who is playing who.

I LOVED this heroine. Vidia is a woman not ashamed of who she is, not afraid to go after what she wants, be it sex or money. She has survived a horrid past and rather than seek sympathy for it, she's kicking butt and taking names. The sex was tasteful. There wasn't page after page of it. It gives you just enough. It tells us what we need to know. I especially enjoyed the humorous bits of conversation between Vidia and her maid. These parts had me LOLing.

"It is time to being in the heavy artillery," she told Maisie, who was hovering in Vidia's room. "The man is being too polite."

"He does seem very kind," offered Maisie, bringing out Vidia's nightdress. "He probably just doesn't want to throw  ye about--not just yet."

"Bet that as it may, I am dying to throw him about, so please make yourself scarce."

At first, I was perturbed by something about this novel. Even the reader never knows what's going on. What is Vidia up to? What's she hiding? IS she a double agent? She drops hints that something big is happening, that she does do this and that..has spoken to this or that person, but I was sitting here not knowing myself. Normally, a reader knows the 411 and reads to the story merely to see if the plan is carried out and if the hero/heroine gets caught. This book doesn't even let us in on the secret...but this, in the end, totally worked in the story's favor.

I was riveted and I must say it takes a truly talented author to pull off that little trick. Anne Cleeland is it. If I were to list a single complaint about this book it would be that at times it refers to things in the heroine's past that we don't get to really experience.

Five bikes. I got this from netgalley.

"If push comes to shove, ye kin always poke an eye out wi' yer fan," her maid suggested helpfully. "Remember Barcelona."

"Unnecessary--I have a very fine dagger in my garter."

Because I Love To Make You Laugh...

I've been seeing these all over Facebook, and Pudgy Pug and I decided to make our own...

...it's 100% true, by the way.

My husband says he hears it step by step...step, poot, step, poot...

Have a nice evening, everyone.

Godiva by Nicole Galland

Blown away by this book. I was expecting a historical fiction about a woman who to repeal a tax, rode a horse naked through a town a very long time ago. I got that, but I also got an incredibly brave heroine, a nun with a scandal, glimpses into the early days of "Christianity" taking over "paganism" and becoming political and corrupt and fantastic bursts of humor.


At first, I was put off by the heroine. She uses her eyelashes and sexual promises she has no intention of delivering to get her way. She ends up rubbing the kind--a man not fond of women to begin with--the wrong way. And when you end up on the king's bad side, there's always repercussions  especially when it's a new king who needs desperately to exert some power and influence over someone. In Edward's case, it's Godiva.

First of all, her and her husband have the most charming and sweetest marriage. I'm going to say this is one of my favorite couples of all time. Her friendship with her abbess friend is not perfect, but is so real. I love the conflict they faced, how the are there for each other, even when one's meddling causes problems.

Most of all, I love how Godiva handles herself in the end, starting down men will ill intentions, standing up for her people, not showing shame or fear, turning their own bulliness around on them.

The novel is also really rich in historical detail. At times it was more than I needed, namely when it went on and on about towns or the history of some people. BUT I've heard of many of them before so some of it wasn't new to me. Some of it was though--such as the decorated eggs. I had no idea this is how that started.

The humor....Godiva has a terrific sense of humor--her husband too. I highlighted examples, but I fear the review will be too long. She's witty, sarcastic, and portrayed like a woman before her time, but it made for great reading.

"Edey, it is plain as wheat. There is a glow around the two of you. The spirits of the unborn babes who want you as their parents are shrieking at you to disrobe."

The plot: Lady Godiva disputes a very high and no longer necessary tax. King Edward--not fond of her--gives her a choice: he'll tax ONLY her town and not the rest of England, meaning she will pay everything she owns. OR she can give him the town, which he wants, putting her people directly under a tyrant's rule. OR she can ride naked through her town, losing respect, tarnishing her reputation, humiliating her husband, and being declared a heathen and excommunicated from the church--which has serious consequences.

How Lady Godiva manages to turn things around...is awesome and I'll say no more.

Bravo to Nicole Galland. Bravo. Five bikes. I received an egalley of this from the publisher.