Sadly, not literally...but alas. I am. Spoilers for the Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning ahead so if you are reading, plan to read, or just don't want to know...stop now.

So you know the adage "stuck between a rock and a hard place" which is pretty much a reference to the scene in The Odyssey where they find they have to sail between Scylla, a monster on a rock, and Chribdys (too lazy to look up the spelling of that right now), a whirlpool aka a hard place. Well...I find myself in a similar situation. Between Cruce and V'lane. Which is absolutely silly considering they are one in the same. At least, the V'lane we met and knew is. The real V'lane we never knew and cannot judge him as we have no grounds to know what he was like.

You're probably wondering...okay, if they are the same why is she finding herself stuck between the two? Well, I've accepted the fact that what happened happened and all that jazz. I guess the most upsetting to me was that I believed in his goodness so much and then could have dealt with what happened better if it wasn't for his tone change. Once he became Cruce he was so mean and spitting venom and practically twirling an invisible mustache as he carried on. It still shellshocks me to think on it. *sigh*

Anyway, I was in the KMM Zazzle store looking for a new shirt to buy and found myself looking at the Evil Boyfriend designs. There's a V'lane one which is a pretty gold and a Cruce one which is blood red. And that is when I finally had to admit to myself I am torn between them. Either way, I love the character. Despite his tone in the end, who we knew from the very beginning of the story was the same guy. It drives me insane when people say they like him more now than before (mainly because his hair is a different color WTF? Okay, so I have a soft spot for blonds and was a bit thrown when that was taken from him as well, but I can deal. Hair color is hair color. It's the character I fell in love with, not his hair...though that was a plus LOL)

After flipping back and forth between the two designs I eventually picked the Cruce one. I have the V'lane one as a mousepad, got it before Shadowfever came out, joking that I was going to take a sharpie and write nonabove the evil boyfriend part. Guess the joke was on me there... But in the end I realized, that I need to embrace the character that is over the one that was. Despite the fact that it still feels slightly wrong to choose anything over something that has "V'lane" on it.  I feel like I am cheating on my literary crush and he's the same freaking character. This is so weird!

But somehow I find it a little strange. I wonder sometimes if I believed he was so completely good because I have the tendency to fall for the villain in a lot of stories. I am almost appalled at how many "villains" I prefer over other characters.

To name a few:
Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Lothaire - Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series
Layel - Gena Showalter's Atlantis series
Snape - Harry Potter
Julian - LJ Smith's The Forbidden Game
The Phantom - The Phantom of the Opera
Stephen Bonnet - Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series
Jarreth, the Goblin King - Labyrinth
Guy of Gisborne - BBC's Robin Hood

Just to name a few. All of the above had shades of gray despite the bad things they'd done, they had done some good (Bonnet probably being the blackest of the bunch, he did have some good moments..few that they were. He amused the hell out of me though)

And it just occurred to me that at one point I said Julian was a prerequisite for V'lane. LMAO! That statement is soooo ironic right now. Julian was the master of games. Heartbreakingly beautiful, in love with the heroine of the story, and no concept of right and wrong.

Going to bring this post to a close. I felt I needed to write about it, though, as I still feel a bit weird not buying the V'lane merch and going for the Cruce stuff. Let's just hope we get to see more of him (uniced) in the future and get to learn more about him as him. And if most of the characters mentioned above can be so beloved despite the bad deeds they did, I am sure KMM can redeem Cruce. If anyone can, she can.

Added 4 new BP covers. It's really hard to pic a fave out of this batch. LOL

S.E. Holden, one of the authors I have done several covers for at Breathless Press, invited me to an all BP blog talk. I agreed, even though I thought it was just a blog. I didn't realize I'd be calling in and talking in a 2 hour radio show! It's all good, but boy, was I surprsied. The details in the link below. I know it will be airing live tomorrow at 6 PM EST, but I am not sure if you can listen on that link. Once I know the link to the archived file of it I will post it. :)

The info link is here.

Bagheera doesn't seem to be aware that she is a cat. She thinks she is a person most of the time, and if she had thumbs....we'd be in trouble.  She picks things up in those little paws of hers all the time. She's a klepto of jewelry, coins, pens, or anything small and easily batted around.

Recently, her favorite game is "make mommy carry me to bed like a little baby." And she succeeds every time in making me do it. She knows I can't deny cuteness, and she plays on it.

But we'll get to that momentarily. Let's start with how the day begins, shall we?

When Bagheera is awake, everyone must be awake. She doesn't like being alone unless she decides to wander off. So some mornings she plays with the miniblinds. Other days she brings in a toy with a bell in it and rolls around the bed with it, and some morning she just crawls on my back (I sleep on my tummy mostly) and purrs loudly into my ear.  This morning......my fingers were sticking out from under the pillow...so they had to die.

After I am up she herds me into the living room to open the blinds (the queen must be able to watch her royal subjects, the squirrels, and know they do as she wishes). Then she herds me to the kitchen to feed her. After she is fed, she allows me to do my human stuff for a little while and then, as soon as I get busy on the computer doing something important....she hops on the desk and streeeeeeetches out in front of the monitor. Then she stands there. Sits there. Yawns there. Starts washing herself. Or rolls on her back in front of me and does every cute thing she can think of to distract me...which works just fine until she kicks the speaker behind the desk again and scares her into a panic.