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Happy March, y’all! I hope February, the month of love, was good to you all! Tell me, do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? I used to be ALL ABOUT IT, mainly because I worked in public education and I would get all excited about the thought of getting flowers at work and getting to strut through the school hallways after picking up my flowers at the front desk. And one day, it happened! It was in the middle of 2nd period on Valentine’s Day and I got the email from the school receptionist that I had a delivery (!) at the front desk. I was BESIDE MYSELF, y’all! I had to wait until the end of 3rd period before I could go down there, so naturally, I spent the next 90 minutes dreaming of how awesome I was going to look walking back to my office with my big Valentine’s Day bouquet of flowers. Once 3rd period ended, I hightailed it to the front office and immediately saw the row of flower arrangements on the front desk counter. Walking in Super Casual, but Super Smug, I told the receptionist I was there to pick up a delivery. She nodded and pointed to the back, where most deliveries are stored until they can get picked up. I thought, my god, my flowers must be HUGE if they have to go back there! Y’all. My delivery was a box of sample textbooks that a publisher sent me to evaluate for the next school year. It was just a coincidence that they arrived on Valentine’s Day. I was MORTIFIED but grateful I hadn’t told anyone I was getting flowers. And that my friends was the end of my Valentine’s Day Obsession*. Do you have a good Valentine’s Day story? Let me know!

Now, onto Volume 2 of the Which Was Better Newsletter! February was another super busy month:

• Two book reviews were posted

• Three “Quickie Reviews” were posted

• Three podcast episodes were released

• And, a new printable was added to the library (see below)

You can read the reviews, find links to the podcast episodes, and more over on my full February Wrap-Up:

*I did tell my husband later that day and he felt SO BAD for me that he got me flowers for like 3 years straight after that. I finally told him that it was all good and to get me chocolate instead, lol.

February Bookish News

The Good: HarperCollins Union and HarperCollins came to an agreement and everyone is returning to work! Excited to shout about HarperCollins and Harlequin Books again!

The Bad: TOR, most known for its Science Fiction and Fantasy titles, has launched a new Romance Imprint called, Bramble. This isn’t necessarily bad, I’m just…nervous. Their press release notes “Whether the last page holds happily ever after, to be continued, or an ending that isn’t so simple, Bramble books will take you on an extraordinary journey of love.” I’m a hardcore believer in the HEA/HFN requirement for romance. Without it, it’s just fiction. What do you think?

The Ugly: The Spoutible Dumpster Fire. This was…a mess. If you’re not familiar with Spoutible, it’s a new social media platform, almost identical to the look and feel of Twitter and many were excited about its possibilities as a Twitter Replacement, especially Romance Authors. There were some concerns from the Romance Community about Spoutible’s Terms of Service concerning p0rn and the promotion of p0rn and how it would affect them as they sometimes have to defend their books and their marketing of them. It became a pile-on, with things evolving into racially charged attacks. This is a pretty good, comprehensive post detailing what went down. Have you signed up for a Spoutible account?

And that’s a wrap on Volume 2 of the Which Was Better Newsletter! Thank you to everyone who has subscribed so far and for the kind replies you have sent me! This is only the second one, but I’m already loving this so much. Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions on how I can make this even more useful to you. :)