Lord Sin's Loinfire Club reads.... Cupid's Melody

Cupid's Melody, by Karen Fox

Faery Nic Stone had no idea he was about to make the mistake of his eternal life when he asked the Queen of the Fae to grant immortality to his beautiful bride, Anna. To become immortal, he discovered only too late, Anna first had to die and then be reborn...
It has taken twenty-five years for Nic to re-enter the mortal world to search for his lost love, but he is convinced that he has finally found her. After all, Dianna Fielding is the spitting image of his wife. Masquerading as her gardener, he vows to seduce her heart all over again. But why is it her sister Stacy, who makes him ache with that all-too-familiar longing? Either someone has cast a spell on him, or Nic is falling in love with the wrong woman. If he follows the stirrings of his heart, will he find true love--or will his beloved be lost to him forever?



Allow me to set the scene: among the book-strewn (roleplay books, Seven Basic Plots, any number of history books, far too many on Beowulf, Left Behind, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, both novels of the Romantic Period and romance novels...) living room, a group of students gather, the remains of a very satisfying dinner settling in their stomachs. They are scattered about the room, perched on various bits of furniture (which is all from Ikea) and the large sheepskin rug.

There is a huddle of drinks on the coffeetable: Tolstoy (Spirit drink: a clear light Spirit distilled from Molasses, which has been likened to paint stripper, nail varnish remover and wood alcohol); Vladivar Vodka (made in Glasgow, also known as the Vivamort); Shlœr... (which is non-alcoholic and very pleasant); Kick (the Tesco equivalent of Red Bull); Apple Juice (far, far too much of it); Château Montner (for the cultured people, to be drank out of pint glasses and coffee mugs.)

Notable fixtures to the room include an inflatable Christmas tree (which eventually gets groped by the drunken Dwarf), an enormous bronze plate on the mantlepiece (which has seen too many demonic sacrifices.)

And so we commence:


The rules of the game are discussed and the new members are inducted into the ways of the Club. There is a discussion of what to read and blurbs are read. Azrael complains that blurbs are all too long and there is much snatching and general rowdiness. The pink and yellow cover of Cupid’s Melody finally catches our collective eyes and...


Big L picks up the volume begins reading. He clears his throat: “Nic Stone, with no ‘h’...”

(You see, dear reader, among the proposed books were volumes from The Black Dagger Brotherhood series...)

Hero, Nic Stone, is stalking is reborn wife. He teleports himself into her room, whilst she's alseep, after recognising her scent from outside the masion.

The smells confirmed that this room belonged to a female: floral yet definitely female.

Sordan: "He’s already realised she doesn’t smell quite like her, right?"

By the Blessed stones...

Azrael: "We have to drink for that, but what category does it fall under..."

Discussion ensues, and left Nic Stone to his stalking of his dead wife as a new category is added: 'tard faeries.

Big L: "Now, right, he’s just teleported right into her room and is stroking her lips..."

Azrael realises: "Wait, his name is Nic Stone..."
Cathed: "That’s the rubbishest name for a faerie ever!"
Azrael: "His just swearing by himself now, isn't he?"

Loinfire Club concedes that whilst it might be his ancestors and his family name, it still seems a tad narcissistic. That and the inescapable euphemism.

Desire, longing, love returned...

Cathed: "I like the fact that desire comes first. Desire. Longing... and love! I love this girl."

Big L points out that he'd "already sworn on his own 'nads", so there really isn't anything that could possibly be beneath him.

Nic Stone continues to generally and rather creepily fondle and kiss the sleeping woman, whom he believes is his dead wife reborn with no memory of him.

Nic Stone realises that his "girlfriend" doesn't have the straight hair he remembers.


Sordan: "She’s had a perm! I no longer love her!"


Who was she?


Sordan: "Who have I been tricked into molesting here?"

The woman had awakened... with a vengeance.

Balance: "So she kicks him in the fork and he shouts, 'Stones!'"

The Chronicler is further convinced it's just a euphemism for Bollocks!


"My apologies..."

Cathed: "You smell just like someone I knew..."
Azrael: "Obviously this happens everyday, it's a sort of trial and error process..."

...for she was busy lifting the lamp from beside the bed...


Sordan: "Is she going to lamp him?"

...As she rocketed it toward him with the force of a Pro Bowl...


Azrael: "What is Pro Bowl?"


The Original Recipe Anthropologist arrives "just in time" and a short digression about the quality of the film, The Golden Compass ensues. Consensus seems to be that the tampering with the storyline and the shifting of the conclusion of the first book to the beginning of the next film is a bit silly.

There is another digression about milk and biro reviews on Amazon.com, which seems to have spurred various people to feats of near creative genius.


The plot is summarised for the Anthropologist: "He fell in love with a girl in a greenhouse..."


The Anthropologist: "In terms of treatment of stalkerish behaviour it isn't as bad as the Native American one we read the other time, where the guy breaks into his not-yet-girlfriend’s house to leave her some shoes, and the first thought which she has when she sees it, her first thought is "oh, that guy left me some shoes.'"

The Anthropologist: "Which was after he's gone through her underwear, of course, marvelling at how it's different from Native American underwear..."
Big L: "Because native American underwear has tassels and beads."
The Anthropologist: "Because it’s not made of buckskin. Because everything worn by the Native Americans is made of buckskin."


Sordan protests about this digression into Native American underwear and states that stupid fae are superior.


Azrael: "Which book was this?"

The Anthropologist: "The Savage Noun saga."
The Balance: "No, it's Noun-animal."

Sordan's enthusiasm quells us all to continue.


The heroine is introduced. She is the woman that Nic Stone was trying to sexually assault the night before. She is rather too impressed by the fae's one kiss.


Had he been a dream?

The Anthropologist: "It's the kind of dream that Freudians are very interested in. You're sexually assaulted by a faerie, you say..."

But what a dream...

The Chronicler: "Being sexually assaulted in your sleep is sensuous?!"
Azrael: "In that it involves senses, yes."

Every hormone in her body snapped awake to beg for more.

Everyone with any background in biology shudder.

The Anthropologist: "That has to be uncomfortable... OMG my daylight but not but yes..."
Azrael: "Whilst she experiences several periods every minute."
The Balance: "So she was having a heart attack... Also if your hormones snap it must mean they've congealed somehow. Maybe the protein chains are breaking."
Azrael (who works at a biochemical lab by day): "Peptides! Peptides rule!"


The Balance accuses Azrael of being "Captain Peptide!" Clearly the alcohol is getting to everyone at this point.
Big L: "Take is glasses off, he will become Captain Peptide!"


Various hands snatch away Azrael's glasses.


Azrael: "Oh no! I’m discovered! Does anyone want to buy some oxytocin?"
The Anthropologist: "Now he needs to zap us with his protein-chain-snapping gun to destroy our memories."


The company summarily forget the past few minutes of the conversation and all return to normal as Big L continues to read from Cupid's Melody...

She padded into the kitchen to pour a super-size mug of coffee, then took it into the office. Staring at her desk littered with papers, the schedule tacked to the bulletin board, the overflowing in box [sic], she closed her eyes.


She hadn't intended it to be like this. She'd had dreams of her own once, before Diana had sung that first fateful song and climbed the beginning steps to stardom.

The Anthropologist: "Anyone above the age of 12 say supersize, except for McDonalds employees, of course..."
Sordan: "I was wondering about the padding into kitchen. It happens in so many romance novels."
The Dwarf sniggers over "overflowing inbox."

The Chronicler is appalled.

Here occurs some more talk of pseudonyms and which ones are more guessable than others. The Anthropologist complains as there are only about twelve of her kind in the world and there is only one, herself, that attends this society.


She pushed the intercom button. "Who is it?"

"I'm here to repair your harpsichord," quips Sordan.


In a surprisingly short time, the doorbell played the beginning notes of Diana's first hit...

Cathed: "How tacky is that? Having a doorbell in your house be of your own song?"

Blessed with Hollywood appeal, he had dark brown hair, the colour of melted chocolate and equally chocolate eyes - eyes that stared at her so intently she feared he could see into her soul.


The Anthropologist: I won’t be able to picture him without that an oil spill for hair."


"You said Brad sent you?" she asked again. She trusted her accountant. He'd screened employees for her before.

Cathed: "Brad is a really bad name for an accountant."
Big L: "It's because it's a porn name."
Cathed: "Would you like me to check your figures?"
The Anthropologist: "It’s rebel instinct. His parents named him Brad and instead of running off to become a porn star, or joining the circus, he goes into accountancy."


Brad is fast becoming everyone's favourite character. We picture him ridding off into the sunset, because everyone misunderstands him, thinking that he's just an accountant. We imagine him being desperately in love with Stacy (the heroine). We think of him drinking Jack Daniels and smoking by a desert, his troubled past haunting him. We picture him starring in a spin-off book, The Rebel Accountant's Secret Bride.

Azrael: "Found with the rebel alliance of Leicester."

His smile equalled the power of a full orchestra.


The Chronicler feels that sentence simply snarks itself.


"The grounds are extensive, and you'll be caring for everything: the trees, the shrubbery, but especially the flowers. Have you had much experience with alpine gardens?"

He nodded. "I have experience with all areas of gardening."

The Anthropologist: "You just missed the perfect opportunity to say 'caring for your bush.'"

Big L: "Flowers might be worth doing a category for since he's a gardener who's a fairy."
Discussion ensues and the category added.


Brave daffodils trumpeted their bold faces into the capricious mountain springtime...


The Anthropologist: "All this talk of flowers is just foreshadowing that this one weakness is robots. Like the Monkey film but not."
Azrael: "Anyone getting the feeling that she's going to get tentacle-raped by a rhododendron bush soon?"

The Balance: "Like in the Evil Dead?"


Well, Brad would only send the best.


The Club approves of Brad, too.

Smiles like that should be illegal.

Azrael: "So by extension, orchestras should also be illegal."

It is to be noted that as the plot progresses, and Stacy, the heroine, takes Nic, the hero, around the garden, Nic is increasingly convinced that Diana, Stacy's sister and popstar extraordinaire, is his dead wife reborn.

Selling Diana's underwear on the I-net...

Sordan: "Honestly, the I-net?"
The Anthropologist: "Clearly it's because this is a futuristic setting in which Microsoft and Google have fallen and Apple has taken up the internet and renamed it the iNet."

Azrhael: "Why is he getting shifty every time they mention the garden?"

Now he owuld be here daily, able to see his Anna... Diana.

The Chronicler questions his logic.
The Anthropologist: "Maybe he's going through a phonebook: Annabella. Joanna. The number of people called something related to Anna in the world is large, but not infinite, so it should be doable, if you're immortal and have lots of free time, which all fae clearly do.”


With a grin, Nic sprinted into the vast gardens, inhaling the crisp spring air, unable to keep the joy from his step...


Sordan breaks out into The hills are alive...


A fairy named Columbine is summoned by Nic and is told to do all the gardening. There is much disapproval of his slacking off and the exploitation of the underclasses of fae. Exposition abound as Nic tells the

Magic would take care of most of it, but he could use some pillywiggings' help on the flowers...
Screams of pain result. The Watcher speculates on an allusion to Midsummer Night's Dream, but the pain is thus all the more accute.


It is revealed that Titania made his lover, Anna, immortal for the painting her portrait.


The Anthropologist: "That's the stupidest crazy fairy fantasy price ever!"


Columbine acts as a sort of yes-man throughout the conversation, You are an acclaimed artist! and I bet you knew her on first sight!


He paused, waiting for the constriction in his throat to ease.

Everyone drinks for Medical Complications, Asthma, in fact, as Azrael pointed out.


The Anthropologist: "The mental image I have now of him is of a man with petals surrounding his face, melting chocolate oil-spil hair and a red, sniffly blocked nose.... when your reader gets that mental image you should really stop writing."
Big L: "Or breathing."


There are more groans of pain over Diana's popstar career.


"You're Fae. No mortal woman can resist you if you so decide."


We all note that the word used is resist, not say "can resist falling in love with you." After all, no one can resist when gagged and bound.

He hadn't used magic to win her the first time, and he didn't intend to use it now. Magic was for more concrete things... like tending a garden.


Azrael: "Like a concrete garden?"

Cathed: "Is this equivalent to the part in a Disney film when all the birds and animals are helping the pretty princess?"

Off to a good start, I am.

The Anthropologist adds Yoda ears to her mental image.
"Everything green is similar: Yoda, the Irish, gardens."


Big L suggests we should just record this and ensues there is a slight discussion on how long it would take to transcribe this properly.


And he'd found definite, hot passion... and a foot in the gut.

Azrael: "Anna was a lot like a foot in the gut?"

She would me more attractive if she smiled...


Cathed: "Just buy her some hair strengtheners and watch her smile at them."
The Chronicler is somewhat confused about the metaphysics of reincarnation and how much personality and appearance of one person is preserved between lifetimes.


With magic, nothing is impossible...


There is talk of wizards and what they do, such as creating owl bears (in D&D) and the creeping suspicion of a deus ex machinas from magic appearing in this book.

The Chronicle continues... in chapter two...

Cupid's Melody, continues, part four...

Once in the Anthropologist's hands, she uses her l33t speedreading skills: Stacy agrees to help Nic and distract Kevin soOnce in the Anthropologist's hands, she uses her l33t speedreading skills: Stacy agrees to help Nic and distract Kevin so that Nic can have time with Diana.

Almost Jesus only now realises that Nic is spellt without a "k"

The Anthropologist: "Fae must ration their uses of the letter 'k's so that they can add them to the end of words like 'magick' to make them seem more esoteric"

Nic has time with Diana. He magically prepares her a bizarre combination of fried chicken, German potato salad and rich chocolate torte, which should be Diana/Anna's favourite foods. He further tries to chat her up with talk about his dead girlfriend.

They dance. She fits against him perfectly, but she stumbles...

He would lead her... now and always.
Sordan: "Creepiness!"

But it failed to rise.

The Limp moment! Everyone downs their drinks, as Nic tries to get it on with Diana but fails. The rest of the gathering becomes decidedly more tipsy as everyone's drinking out of pint glasses which are not good for downing...

Stacy spends time with Kevin and recieves a call about Pepsi Centre having problems and that the concert might not happen. She gets stressed. It is revealed that Diana thinks that Stacy is trying to jump Kevin, and that Nic is just trying to distract her. (Another stunning leap of logic!) Thus Diana was not as passionate as she wanted to be.

Stacy is stressed about the concert falling apart, so Nic takes Stacy out to dinner and teleports her to Paris. She materialised wearing clothes he's made for her.

He'd created a sleek gown of a rich jade that accented the subtle red highlights in her honey-blond hair...

The Anthropologist: "Wait... does this mean he has to make what she's wearing vanish first?"

The Club marvels at the physics of Stacy's gown, being both backless, low-dipping in front and possessing spaghetti straps.

Nic's throat went dry while the lower part of him went completely stiff.

Nic suddenly remembered that he proposed to Anna at the same place.

The Anthropologist: "It's not the sort of thing you forget..."
The Dwarf: "The wheels are so fucking slow..."

She bitches about the Pepsi Centre. So Nic magically rebuilds the damn thing.

But that really isn't much since he's just fucked up the world economy by giving someone infinite money (Steve, if you remember, in Bahamas).

He takes her around Paris by teleportation.

"The Magical mystery tour." Snarks Big L.

Stacy bitches about the Louvre being shut at night. And so he teleports them inside.

"But the security-" protests Stacy.

The Anthropologist: "She doesn't seem to grasp that there are no consequences to this magic."
Sordan screams in pain.

"Leonardo did good work [...] He always tried to paint the soul rather than the body."
Which is why he had such a deep interest in physiognomy, anatomy (and dissection) and the way in which human expression and gesture, clearly.

"But you're as good as he is." She'd seen his amazing portraits of Anna and Titania.
The Anthropologist: "Clearly the author has just run out of creative compliments or ways to describe how great Nic is."

And then the Security arrive, but they're invisible. This is really getting very annoying. The magic is just beyond belief. There is no concept of consequences, not metaphysical balance, not explanation as to how Nic accomplishes all this through a wave of his hand. There isn't even any expenditure of strength on Nic's part.

Except for the fact that he has to hold Stacy to go invisible.

Anthropologist: "My magic has no limitations, expect sometimes I need to touch your breasts when I cast it."

They do more sightseeing. He promises to take her to England to see London and Stonehenge (two random things that are in England.) He takes her to dance. She follows (instead of stumbling like Diana.) He gets a hard on, she tries to draw back, he refuses to release her...

Sordan: "This starts out as a pity dinner. But now..."

As the music changed, grew richer, deeper, aching with lost love and passion. [...] But still he kissed her, seducing her mouth with such expertise her legs went numb...

Sexually transmitted Fae polio is discussed as a possibility for the cause of her numb legs.

If ever a man could kiss a woman to orgasm, it would be Nic...

The room erupts into laughter. We're still not giving up the possibility that it may be rohypnol. Her lips are again mysteriously and inexplicably anthromorphized. There is further discussion about how much of the heroine the dress the hero chose for her is covering.

The Anthropologist marvels at Stacy's breasts and their ability to constantly swell. Is a medical condition?

The Chronicler: "Why haven't the world been torn apart by fae and their crazy, unlimited magic?"
Sordan: "Because they have no imagination"

He brushed his lips over hers. "Anna."

Cries of "You fucker!" come from all quarters of the room.
The Balance: "Pst! I'm thinking of my dead wife reincarnated as your sister."

Nic is blaming Titania, again. Even though he'd called her by his dead wife's name Stacy still wanted him.

Big L suggests that the writer of this clearly has some sort of mouth and tongue fetish due to the overwhelming frequency of those mentions.

Sordan screams in outrage and frustration.
Big L: "He can't really get it on with her until he knows which is his dead wife..."
Almost Jesus: "He can as long as he keeps his mouth shut and not say he loves her."
Cathed: "I like you lots and lots..."
Big L: "He should have kept his mouth on her tits."

Stacy is back home again and in agony about her emotions.

She knew... knew the man was destined for her sister, yet he only hat to kiss her, and she acted like a love-starved teenager. No, worse than that: a love-starved, oversexed teenager.

Big L: "Not just kiss her. He needed to take her to Paris, eat at the place where he proposed to his wife, magic her into the Louvre, show off his flange powers, dance a lot, magically rebuilt an arena, etc... only after that..."

The Chronicler questions the use of the word "destined" in this book since it seems to mean "Nic wanted it to happen" as opposed to any real supernatural force of inevitability.

She's angsting about how pretty the dress is. One wonders what happened to her original clothes and the Club believes it is materializing on top of Steve (in the Bahamas), who is probably becoming increasingly confused. Is Steve now wearing her clothes? Does Steve have her bra?

The inquisitive mind wants to know.

The Anthropologist is urged to skim faster: Pixies go evil; Nic takes Diana to the fairy kingdom; there's a cursed figurine or something; No idea what's gong on but not one cares enough to read more carefully.

Nic steps out of the bathroom naked, whilst Stacy is there, as the author is bored of the whole plot business (as are we, in truth) and wants her characters to get it on. In the ensuing conversation we discover that Kevin has been cursed by Nic (how does this make him the good guy?)

Stacy's feeling morally conflicted about Kevin's plight. Argument ensue. Nic gets a hard on.

The Dwarf: "I'm worked out the secret plot twist: Kevin's the reincarnation of his dead wife. That's what Titania would do to screw him over."

Moving with a speed that startled her, Nic rounded the table and seized Stacy's shoulders...

Actual rape! The brutal kiss....

We've figured out that the figurine is Kevin, so when it shatters on the floor, and smoke appears, the Club is worried. It turns out to be the only think holding Kevin, so as Kevin returns and Nic is snogging Stacy, he worries about himself being unable to get with Diana, who he still believes to be his dead wife.

Stacy reminds him that he's naked.

"I can produce clothes." He ran his hand over her side, lingering along the side of her breasts. "Or I can remove yours."

The Dwarf: "The author has truly given up with any semblance of plot..."

Diana has just found Kevin and is screaming. The pixies are still evil. Stacy is still overworked and underappreciated. Things aren't really going anywhere. They're in Fairyland again. Titania is sending a replica of Nic to seduce Stacy. No one can figure out why...

Almost Jesus: "To get the two of them together so that this story would bloody end."
Big L: "Just to fuck with them."
The Chronicler: "It's it Oberon who's the manipulative cunt?"
The Anthropologist: "Clearly she's learnt since trying to fuck a donkey."

Diana is having a breakdown, as her boyfriend has magically disappeared, come back and then now her sister is gone.

The suggestion of lesbian transsexual sex came up, since the possibility is open that Titania may being doing the whole seducing of Stacy herself.

Big L: "This is the most chaste romance novel ever!"
Sordan: "No, but the other ones aren't as interesting."
The Chronicler wonders if they should read a Inspirational Romance next time.

The Anthropologist: "No, it's not Titania, not lesbian, since it's Leno, one of her manwhores."

Stacy kisses Nic to tell whether or not its him.
Angst. Angst. Angst.
Some dude named Mathew showed up, but we really, really, reall don't care.

"Why haven't they gotten it on yet?" complains Sordan.

Nic sneaks into her room, wakes her up, makes out with her. He's all wangsty. Titania is clearly screwing with him, so he's just fucking with Stacy's self esteem. There's more random crap about Diana's career. Diana is really confused. Not the only one at this point, but this may be our own fault.

He has no intention of waiting for his wife, or so he says. He feels conflicted about Diana being happy with Kevin. Diana is being driven slowly insane.

Pixies are still being evil and have cut the brakes to their car and are trying to kill Stacy and Nic.

The Dwarf: "You would name one of them Colombine."

The unsurprisingly survive, Nic praises Stacy that she has a very strong immune system... which apparently is a good compliment.
The Balance: "It's like mandrills."

"Oh God! Where is this plot going?"

Some dude named Xander appears.
Xander Morrow... like Xander Morris... notes the Dwarf

Now he can do more flange or not or something... Magical date rape drug is made out of pollen. Like Midsummer Night's Dream. Someone called Ginger has shown up as well, who is assumed to be a girl.

Sordan: "It's clearly Titania in disguise, because that's a slut name."

Who is fucking Anthony? He's still not mentioned anywhere in the bits scanned so far.

Someone's turned on the Jacuzzi.

The Anthropologist: "Damn those pixies. No sense of scale. One minute they're trying to kill you and the next they're trying to wreck your upstairs carpets."

Nic is given a pixie by Stacy. They spend far too long worrying about plumbing whilst some dinner party goes on. They're all blaming Titania for everything.

Nic offers to transport her to a tropical island; she wakes up in his cottage in the Bahamas.

Immediate question for all concerned: "Is Steve there?"
To which the answer is, unsurprisingly, no. After all, he's not the main character.

Stacy is wearing a jade bikini (which Nic created for her) and he's forged a note in her handwriting so that Diana won't worry.

She's far too grateful for this since it takes him no effort. And is far too unworried about his about his absolute power over all things.

And in case you've forgotten, he's still trying to get it on with her sister because he still thinks she's his wife reborn.

He's leaving her on the island and asks her to wish for things. She asks him not to leave. There is making out.

No one is caring.

"By the stones, I need you, Stacy!"
The Chronicler finds no evidence to contradict her assumption that these stones concerned are his bollocks.

She craved him like an addict...
The Balance: "Yes, a bit like that rohypnol, eh?"

He left her mouth and blazed a trail along her throat...
The Anthropologist: "Can't shake off the image of a blowtorch!"

She clawed at his shirt, wanting it gone, wanting her hands on his bare flesh - and just like that, it vanished, along with the rest of their clothing.
Sordan groans further at this consequence-free magic.
The Balance notes that he wouldn't say no to this sort of power even if it was powered by the souls of babies.

the heat radiating from their bodies almost palpable.
The Anthropologist: "Either the heat is palpable or not, dammit!"

The Anthropologist: "I think she's having some sort of seizure."

Lord, she was going to die.
The Chronicler: "This is getting quite morbid."
Big L: "Everything's going fine, but she's going to die during sex. That's her death ban."
Almost Jesus: "Titania shows up and adds, ‘By the way, don't fuck.'"

No one woman could endure such exquisite pleasure...
The Anthropologist: "So why not get your sister?"

"Aura of passion, I like that." She smoothed his hair away from his face.
The Chronicler: "But I don't!"

"Does making love to a faery make me your love slave now?"
Sordan: "Love-slave?!"

then claimed a kiss from her lips that reeked of passion...
The Dwarf: "Eeeewwwwww...."

Stacy complains about the sand. They splash around in the sea, magical towels appear when Nic summons them. Undescribed sex happens.

Much, much later...
The Chronicler notes the emphacis on Nic's inhuman stamina.

The standard paragraph about how he's more experienced than her and how he can't imagine being any other woman happens...

He'd shared his body with women throughout his centuries among the mortals and pleasured them well, but few...
The Balance: "When I fucked Mrs Cuthulu..."
The Dwarf: "Now, Noah's wife..."

He still thinks Diana's his reborn wife. I'm not sure we can say this enough. And he's still not feeling guilty about Diana finding out that he's been shagging his sister.

Nic and Stacy are dancing. He makes magical music as Stacy complains there isn't any. And everything is ...
Big L (refering to his namesake): "If Big L gets this guy, he's going down..."
(Big L is, after all, the god of not abusing your magical and spiritual powers.)
Sordan: "But not for evil..."
Big L: "Rape quite evil."

Her breasts swelled, straining the confines of her bikini top...
The Anthropologist: "Does this woman have any real experience with breasts?"
The Dwarf: "Clearly Nic's just meddling with his magic."

There's more sex, lots more sex.

"You are definitely the stud. That's seven times in one day."
The Anthropologist: "One really doesn't need to add anything to that."

"Shall we go for an even dozen then?"
No! Not more sex!
The Chronicler is repenting for wanting sex to happen in this book.

They fall asleep on the beach.

Big L & the Dwarf: "Nothing good happens after 2am."

They need to go back so that he can be with Diana, Stacy says. Stacy sings a song, a ballad. With her "adequate" voice. We're probably expected to get emotional.

Sordan: "I will love this book if Diana is actually his soulmate."
The Anthropologist: "I hope he's materialised some clothes for Stacy at this point."

Stacy is back and is burying herself in her book. He's magicing new lilacs every day. Xander is dumped.
Cue: Buffy jokes

She goes to Titania's portrait. Says that she knows Xander is seducing her and asks Titania to stop. In a shock move, the Queen says: "Very well."

Almost Jesus: "The author is clearly as sick of this as we are."
The Chronicler: "But not sick enough. Since she's still writing."

This messing with magic was no fun.
Sordan rages further about the lack of consequences for magic.
Speculations about what would happen if she was pregnant from all shenanigans in the Bahamas and the possibilites of Nic magicing that away: the fetus in a jar, in Bahamas.

Nic starts hitting on Diana. Diana asks about what happened with him and Stacy. He's studiously avoiding Stacy.

Almost Jesus: "He wasn't sure about the first six times, but now he's sure."
The Chronicler could but add that it's actually twelve.

Stacy tells him to tell Diana about his magic powers.... and the Backdrop of the set is about to crush Stacy to death!

Sordan: "Just when we didn't think it couldn't get any more stupid! His painting is trying to kill her!"

He gazes at Diana again. Diana doesn't care about Stacy. Reminiscent of Anna... he kisses Diana, in the sight of...

"I was married once before to a woman named Anna who looked exactly like you. I loved her totally. But she died. Only now she's been reborn. As you"...
Big L: "It's like a monster brief.
Sordan: "It's simple... there's that..."
The Dwarf: "She's really rushing it at now."

The Balance is good at bird noises and he demonstrates, stealing the limelight momentarily.
The Anthropologist: "Never do that in a forest, you'll get shot."

Almost Jesus: "We could have just jumped to this point, you know... and just missed all that..."

He could be kissing his sister...
The Balance: "Is that Titania's cunning plan? To reincarnate Nic's sister as Anna's..."

Kevin walks in on Diana and Nic kissing...

Almost Jesus: "I feel really sorry for Kevin."
Big L: "It's okay, I'm just kissing her to see if she's my dead wife."
Sordan: "So he's destroyed her marriage for no point."
The Dwarf: "Nic, you fucker..."

There is a general concensus that Kevin should have punched Nic.

"She's at her most vulnerable now, Nic. Go to her. You'll win her for sure."
She's loosing Nic onto her sister like that? Has she no conscience?

Nic remained in the cener of the junction, then looked in the direction Dianna had taken.
He's standing in a crossroads... This is SYMBOLOISM, you know. As subtle as an anvil...

Through her rebirth, his Annahad changed into a person who no longer filled him with passion, whose beauty remained, but little else. Dianna was ont the Anna he'd once loved...
The Loinfire Club: "YOU FUCKTARD!"
The Anthropologist: "He's just exploring every single possibility but little else!"

He turned to face Nic, a single tear tract on his cheek...
Groans all around.

The room erupts in cheers and applause as Kevin punches Nic.

He brought his hand up to his jaw in surprise. That hurt.
Sordan: "Since the beginning of time no one has hit him?!"
Big L: "But he has been hit! It's the beginning of this book!"

Their love was real - like he'd once shared with Anna, like he felt for Stacy.
Sordan: "You're a tard!"

He loved her. He could continue denying it, but that wouldn't make it any less real. Only she stirred his passion, made him live. And she deserved to know that [...] The longer he delayed saying the words, the more time he had with her.

Nic spotted the name on the contract and raised one eyebrow. "Anastasia Fielding."
The Dwarf: "Suddenly it's all clear!"
The Anthropologist: "But it's not! He still doesn't realise!"
Sordan: "1 + 1... 2! Not 97!"

"Diana may be my Anna reborn, but you're the one I love; you're the one I want."
Sordan begins beating things on the floor and screaming: "You're an idiot!"

"I love you," he murmured, his voice husky.
Though her eyes watered, she gave him a brave smile. "I love you more..."
Everyone groans again...

Titania screams and appears.

"How did you know?" Titania screamed the words.
The Balance: "How did you spot the overwhelmingly foreshadowed plot?"

"Know what?"
Sordan: "This is unbelievable!"
The Dwarf: "He still doesn't know!"
Sordan: "This is beyond retarded! He was just born without a brain."

There is mush, mush agony as Nic puzzles over why Titania allows him to stay in the mortal realm.

Stacy turned to him, her expression as stunned as he felt. "What was that? Why didn't she take you?"
The Anthropologist: "Why indeed!"

Lots and lots of pain is inflicted by these words. The Dwarf groans, loudly, sounding remarkably like a wookie.
Sordan is choking in rage and laughter, "I can't breathe! I have a medical complication..."
Balance is hiting his head with a nearby copy of Jade Lee's Hungry Tigress, which can't be healthy.

More words as Nic and Stacy are bewildered. He finally picks up her contract.

"Antastaisa means reborn..."
The Anthropologist: "He does have to chose the obscure logic, doesn't he?"

"By the Stones, I've been ten times a fool."
Big L: "A million fucking times!"

"Are you sure?"
The Chronicler notes how sure we were since the first page of this book.

"Marry me? Be with me for all of eternity?"
The Anthropologist: "While my sister dies and everyone and everything I know fades away..."

Stacy nipped at his chin...
Miriam: "Has he married a small terrior"
Sordan: "That is so retarded! So retarded!"

"Anna... Stacy, I love you. Now and forever."
Stacy grinned at him, her eyes twinkling. "I love you more."
Miriam: "Find this author's house and..."

Thankfully the book's over, but as a special, the Dwarf picks up the book and reads out the letter written by Karen Fox to the reader:

I'm sure you'll figure out who Anna really is long before Nic does, but hey, sometimes men have very one-track minds.
Jah;fldkjgjsfds

The Balance: "Unlike romance novel authors, clearly..."
The Chronicler: "It's still the fucking his reborn wife's sister that did it for me whilst still intending to seduce and marry Diana..."
Almost Jesus: "7 times!"

Rose takes her magic for granted, much to Brand's chargin. He's always wanted magic. He's even become a renowned magician, and to see Rose abuse her power angers him...
Almost Jesus: "I like how the next book is about abuse of power, but in this one, he sends Steve to the Bahamas with infinite money just to keep his job as a gardner."
The Chronicler: "I'm not sure you can top that for abuse."
The Anthropologist: "Not really, he sent Steve away to make the conversation easier. Maybe no one in the Bahamas will pay attention to his story. And they'll be scared to take his money so it won't affect the world economy..."

And so ends the Loinfire Club's reading of Cupid's Melody...
that Nic can have time with Diana.

Almost Jesus only now realises that Nic is spellt without a "k"

The Anthropologist: "Fae must ration their uses of the letter 'k's so that they can add them to the end of words like 'magick' to make them seem more esoteric"

Nic has time with Diana. He magically prepares her a bizarre combination of fried chicken, German potato salad and rich choclate torte, which should be Diana/Anna's favourite foods. He further tries to chat her up with talk about his dead girlfriend.

They dance. She fits against him perfectly, but she stumbles...

He would lead her... now and always.
Sordan: "Creepiness!"

But it failed to rise.

The Limp moment! Everyone downs their drinks, as Nic tries to get it on with Diana but fails. The rest of the gathering becomes decidedly more tipsy as everyone's drinking out of pint glasses which are not good for downing...

Stacy spends time with Kevin and recieves a call about Pepsi Centre having problems and that the concert might not happen. She gets stressed. It is revealed that Diana thinks that Stacy is trying to jump Kevin, and that Nic is just trying to distract her. (Another stunning leap of logic!) Thus Diana was not as passionate as she wanted to be.

Stacy is stressed about the concert falling apart, so Nic takes Stacy out to dinner and teleports her to Paris. She materialised wearing clothes he's made for her.

He'd created a sleek gown of a rich jade that accented the subtle red highlights in her honey-blond hair...

The Anthropologist: "Wait... does this mean he has to make what she's wearing vanish first?"

The Club marvells at the physics of Stacy's gown, being both backless, low-dipping in front and possessing spaghetti straps.

Nic's throat went dry while the lower part of him went completely stiff.

Nic suddenly remembered that he proposed to Anna at the same place.

The Anthropologist: "It's not the sort of thing you forget..."
The Dwarf: "The wheels are so fucking slow..."

She bitches about the Pepsi Centre. So Nic magically rebuilds the damn thing.

But that really isn't much since he's just fucked up the world economy by giving someone infinite money (Steve, if you remember, in Bahamas).

He takes her around Paris by teleportation.

"The Magical mystery tour." Snarks Big L.

Stacy bitches about the Louvre being shut at night. And so he teleports them inside.

"But the security-" protests Stacy.

The Anthropologist: "She doesn't seem to grasp that there are no consequences to this magic."
Sordan screams in pain.

"Leonardo did good work [...] He always tried to paint the soul rather than the body."
Which is why he had such a deep interest in physiognomy, anatomy (and dissection) and the way in which human expression and gesture, clearly.

"But you're as good as he is." She'd seen his amazing portraits of Anna and Titania.
The Anthropologist: "Clearly the author has just run out of creative compliments or ways to describe how great Nic is."

And then the Security arrive, but they're invisible. This is really getting very annoying. The magic is just beyond belief. There is no conept of consequences, not metaphysical balance, not explaination as to how Nic accomplishes all this through a wave of his hand. There isn't even any expenditure of strength on Nic's part.

Except for the fact that he has to hold Stacy to go invisible.

Anthropologist: "My magic has no limitations, expect sometimes I need to touch your breasts when I cast it."

They do more sightseeing. He promises to take her to England to see London and Stonehenge (two random things that are in England.) He takes her to dance. She follows (instead of stumbling like Diana.) He gets a hard on, she tries to draw back, he refuses to release her...

Sordan: "This starts out as a pity dinner. But now..."

As the music changed, grew richer, deeper, aching with lost love and passion. [...] But still he kissed her, seducing her mouth with such expertise her legs went numb...

Sexually transmitted Fae polio is discussed as a possibility for the cause of her numb legs.

If ever a man could kiss a woman to orgasm, it would be Nic...

The room erupts into laughter. We're still not giving up the possibility that it may be rohypnol. Her lips are again mysteriously and inexplicably anthromorphized. There is further discussion about how much of the heroine the dress the hero chose for her is covering.

The Anthropologist marvels at Stacy's breasts and their ability to constantly swell. Is a medical condition?

The Chronicler: "Why haven't the world been torn apart by fae and their crazy, unlimited magic?"
Sordan: "Because they have no imagination"

He brushed his lips over hers. "Anna."

Cries of "You fucker!" come from all quarters of the room.
The Balance: "Pst! I'm thinking of my dead wife reincarnated as your sister."

Nic is blaming Titania, again. Even though he'd called her by his dead wife's name Stacy still wanted him.

Big L suggests that the writer of this clearly has some sort of mouth and tongue fetish due to the overwhelming frequency of those mentions.

Sordan screams in outrage and frustration.
Big L: "He can't really get it on with her until he knows which is his dead wife..."
Almost Jesus: "He can as long as he keeps his mouth shut and not say he loves her."
Cathed: "I like you lots and lots..."
Big L: "He should have kept his mouth on her tits."

Stacy is back home again and in agony about her emotions.

She knew... knew the man was destined for her sister, yet he only hat to kiss her, and she acted like a love-starved teenager. No, worse than that: a love-starved, oversexed teenager.

Big L: "Not just kiss her. He needed to take her to Paris, eat at the place where he proposed to his wife, magic her into the Louvre, show off his flange powers, dance a lot, magically rebuilt an arena, etc... only after that..."

The Chronicler questions the use of the word "destined" in this book since it seems to mean "Nic wanted it to happen" as opposed to any real supernatural force of inevitablity.

She's angsting about how pretty the dress is. One wonders what happened to her original clothes and the Club believes it is materializing on top of Steve (in the Bahamas), who is probably becoming increasingly confused. Is Steve now wearing her clothes? Does Steve have her bra?

The inquisitive mind wants to know.

The Anthropologist is urged to skimm faster: Pixies go evil; Nic takes Diana to the fairy kingdom; there's a cursed figurine or something; No idea what's gong on but not one cares enough to read more carefully.

Nic steps out of the bathroom naked, whilst Stacy is there, as the author is bored of the whole plot business (as are we, in truth) and wants her characters to get it on. In the ensuing conversation we discover that Kevin has been cursed by Nic (how does this make him the good guy?)

Stacy's feeling morally conflicted about Kevin's plight. Argument ensue. Nic gets a hard on.

The Dwarf: "I'm worked out the secret plot twist: Kevin's the reincarnation of his dead wife. That's what Titania would do to screw him over."

Moving with a speed that startled her, Nic rounded the table and seized Stacy's shoulders...

Actual rape! The brutal kiss....

We've figured out that the figurine is Kevin, so when it shatters on the floor, and smoke appears, the Club is worried. It turns out to be the only think holding Kevin, so as Kevin returns and Nic is snogging Stacy, he worries about himself being unable to get with Diana, who he still believes to be his dead wife.

Stacy reminds him that he's naked.

"I can produce clothes." He ran his hand over her side, lingering along the side of her breasts. "Or I can remove yours."

The Dwarf: "The author has truly given up with any semblance of plot..."

Diana has just found Kevin and is screaming. The pixies are still evil. Stacy is still overworked and underappreciated. Things aren't really going anywhere. They're in Fairyland again. Titania is sending a replica of Nic to seduce Stacy. No one can figure out why...

Almost Jesus: "To get the two of them together so that this story would bloody end."
Big L: "Just to fuck with them."
The Chronicler: "It's it Oberon who's the manipulative cunt?"
The Anthropologist: "Clearly she's learnt since trying to fuck a donkey."

Diana is having a breakdown, as her boyfriend has magically disappeared, come back and then now her sister is gone.

The suggestion of lesbian transsexual sex came up, since the possibility is open that Titania may being doing the whole seducing of Stacy herself.

Big L: "This is the most chaste romance novel ever!"
Sordan: "No, but the other ones aren't as interesting."
The Chronicler wonders if they should read a Inspirational Romance next time.

The Anthropologist: "No, it's not Titania, not lesbian, since it's Leno, one of her manwhores."

Stacy kisses Nic to tell whether or not its him.
Angst. Angst. Angst.
Some dude named Mathew showed up, but we really, really, reall don't care.

"Why haven't they gotten it on yet?" complains Sordan.

Nic sneaks into her room, wakes her up, makes out with her. He's all wangsty. Titania is clearly screwing with him, so he's just fucking with Stacy's self esteem. There's more random crap about Diana's career. Diana is really confused. Not the only one at this point, but this may be our own fault.

He has no intention of waiting for his wife, or so he says. He feels conflicted about Diana being happy with Kevin. Diana is being driven slowly insane.

Pixies are still being evil and have cut the brakes to their car and are trying to kill Stacy and Nic.

The Dwarf: "You would name one of them Colombine."

The unsurprisingly survive, Nic praises Stacy that she has a very strong immune system... which apparently is a good compliment.
The Balance: "It's like mandrills."

"Oh God! Where is this plot going?"

Some dude named Xander appears.
Xander Morrow... like Xander Morris... notes the Dwarf

Now he can do more flange or not or something... Magical date rape drug is made out of pollen. Like Midsummer Night's Dream. Someone called Ginger has shown up as well, who is assumed to be a girl.

Sordan: "It's clearly Titania in disguise, because that's a slut name."

Who is fucking Anthony? He's still not mentioned anywhere in the bits scanned so far.

Someone's turned on the Jacuzzi.

The Anthropologist: "Damn those pixies. No sense of scale. One minute they're trying to kill you and the next they're trying to wreck your upstairs carpets."

Nic is given a pixie by Stacy. They spend far too long worrying about plumbing whilst some dinner party goes on. They're all blaming Titania for everything.

Nic offers to transport her to a tropical island, she wakes up in his cottage in the Bahamas.

Immediate question for all concerned: "Is Steve there?"
To which the answer is, unsurprisingly, no. After all, he's not the main character.

Stacy is wearing a jade bikini (which Nic created for her) and he's forged a note in her handwriting so that Diana won't worry.

She's far too grateful for this since it takes him no effort. And is far too unworried about his about his absolute power over all things.

And in case you've forgotten, he's still trying to get it on with her sister because he still thinks she's his wife reborn.

He's leaving her on the island and asks her to wish for things. She asks him not to leave. There is making out.

No one is caring.

"By the stones, I need you, Stacy!"
The Chronicler finds no evidence to contradict her assumption that these stones concerned are his bollocks.

She craved him like an addict...
The Balance: "Yes, a bit like that rohypnol, eh?"

He left her mouth and blazed a trail along her throat...
The Anthropologist: "Can't shake off the image of a blowtorch!"

She clawed at his shirt, wanting it gone, wanting her hands on his bare flesh - and just like that, it vanished, along with the rest of their clothing.
Sordan groans further at this consequence-free magic.
The Balance notes that he wouldn't say no to this sort of power even if it was powered by the souls of babies.

the heat radiating from their bodies almost palpable.
The Anthropologist: "Either the heat is palpable or not, dammit!"

The Anthropologist: "I think she's having some sort of seizure."

Lord, she was going to die.
The Chronicler: "This is getting quite morbid."
Big L: "Everything's going fine, but she's going to die during sex. That's her death ban."
Almost Jesus: "Titania shows up and adds, ‘By the way, don't fuck.'"

No one woman could endure such exquisite pleasure...
The Anthropologist: "So why not get your sister?"

"Aura of passion, I like that." She smoothed his hair away from his face.
The Chronicler: "But I don't!"

"Does making love to a faery make me your love slave now?"
Sordan: "Love-slave?!"

then claimed a kiss from her lips that reeked of passion...
The Dwarf: "Eeeewwwwww...."

Stacy complains about the sand. They splash around in the sea, magical towels appear when Nic summons them. Undescribed sex happens.

Much, much later...
The Chronicler notes the emphacis on Nic's inhuman stamina.

The standard paragraph about how he's more experienced than her and how he can't imagine being any other woman happens...

He'd shared his body with women throughout his centuries among the mortals and pleasured them well, but few...
The Balance: "When I fucked Mrs Cuthulu..."
The Dwarf: "Now, Noah's wife..."

He still thinks Diana's his reborn wife. I'm not sure we can say this enough. And he's still not feeling guilty about Diana finding out that he's been shagging his sister.

Nic and Stacy are dancing. He makes magical music as Stacy complains there isn't any. And everything is ...
Big L (refering to his namesake): "If Big L gets this guy, he's going down..."
(Big L is, after all, the god of not abusing your magical and spiritual powers.)
Sordan: "But not for evil..."
Big L: "Rape quite evil."

Her breasts swelled, straining the confines of her bikini top...
The Anthropologist: "Does this woman have any real experience with breasts?"
The Dwarf: "Clearly Nic's just meddling with his magic."

There's more sex, lots more sex.

"You are definitely the stud. That's seven times in one day."
The Anthropologist: "One really doesn't need to add anything to that."

"Shall we go for an even dozen then?"
No! Not more sex!
The Chronicler is repenting for wanting sex to happen in this book.

They fall asleep on the beach.

Big L & the Dwarf: "Nothing good happens after 2am."

They need to go back so that he can be with Diana, Stacy says. Stacy sings a song, a ballad. With her "adequate" voice. We're probably expected to get emotional.

Sordan: "I will love this book if Diana is actually his soulmate."
The Anthropologist: "I hope he's materialised some clothes for Stacy at this point."

Stacy is back and is burying herself in her book. He's magicing new lilacs every day. Xander is dumped.
Cue: Buffy jokes

She goes to Titania's portrait. Says that she knows Xander is seducing her and asks Titania to stop. In a shock move, the Queen says: "Very well."

Almost Jesus: "The author is clearly as sick of this as we are."
The Chronicler: "But not sick enough. Since she's still writing."

This messing with magic was no fun.
Sordan rages further about the lack of consequences for magic.
Speculations about what would happen if she was pregnant from all shenanigans in the Bahamas and the possibilites of Nic magicing that away: the fetus in a jar, in Bahamas.

Nic starts hitting on Diana. Diana asks about what happened with him and Stacy. He's studiously avoiding Stacy.

Almost Jesus: "He wasn't sure about the first six times, but now he's sure."
The Chronicler could but add that it's actually twelve.

Stacy tells him to tell Diana about his magic powers.... and the Backdrop of the set is about to crush Stacy to death!

Sordan: "Just when we didn't think it couldn't get any more stupid! His painting is trying to kill her!"

He gazes at Diana again. Diana doesn't care about Stacy. Reminiscent of Anna... he kisses Diana, in the sight of...

"I was married once before to a woman named Anna who looked exactly like you. I loved her totally. But she died. Only now she's been reborn. As you"...
Big L: "It's like a monster brief.
Sordan: "It's simple... there's that..."
The Dwarf: "She's really rushing it at now."

The Balance is good at bird noises and he demonstrates, stealing the limelight momentarily.
The Anthropologist: "Never do that in a forest, you'll get shot."

Almost Jesus: "We could have just jumped to this point, you know... and just missed all that..."

He could be kissing his sister...
The Balance: "Is that Titania's cunning plan? To reincarnate Nic's sister as Anna's..."

Kevin walks in on Diana and Nic kissing...

Almost Jesus: "I feel really sorry for Kevin."
Big L: "It's okay, I'm just kissing her to see if she's my dead wife."
Sordan: "So he's destroyed her marriage for no point."
The Dwarf: "Nic, you fucker..."

There is a general concensus that Kevin should have punched Nic.

"She's at her most vulnerable now, Nic. Go to her. You'll win her for sure."
She's loosing Nic onto her sister like that? Has she no conscience?

Nic remained in the cener of the junction, then looked in the direction Dianna had taken.
He's standing in a crossroads... This is SYMBOLOISM, you know. As subtle as an anvil...

Through her rebirth, his Annahad changed into a person who no longer filled him with passion, whose beauty remained, but little else. Dianna was ont the Anna he'd once loved...
The Loinfire Club: "YOU FUCKTARD!"
The Anthropologist: "He's just exploring every single possibility but little else!"

He turned to face Nic, a single tear tract on his cheek...
Groans all around.

The room erupts in cheers and applause as Kevin punches Nic.

He brought his hand up to his jaw in surprise. That hurt.
Sordan: "Since the beginning of time no one has hit him?!"
Big L: "But he has been hit! It's the beginning of this book!"

Their love was real - like he'd once shared with Anna, like he felt for Stacy.
Sordan: "You're a tard!"

He loved her. He could continue denying it, but that wouldn't make it any less real. Only she stirred his passion, made him live. And she deserved to know that [...] The longer he delayed saying the words, the more time he had with her.

Nic spotted the name on the contract and raised one eyebrow. "Anastasia Fielding."
The Dwarf: "Suddenly it's all clear!"
The Anthropologist: "But it's not! He still doesn't realise!"
Sordan: "1 + 1... 2! Not 97!"

"Diana may be my Anna reborn, but you're the one I love; you're the one I want."
Sordan begins beating things on the floor and screaming: "You're an idiot!"

"I love you," he murmured, his voice husky.
Though her eyes watered, she gave him a brave smile. "I love you more..."
Everyone groans again...

Titania screams and appears.

"How did you know?" Titania screamed the words.
The Balance: "How did you spot the overwhelmingly foreshadowed plot?"

"Know what?"
Sordan: "This is unbelievable!"
The Dwarf: "He still doesn't know!"
Sordan: "This is beyond retarded! He was just born without a brain."

There is mush, mush agony as Nic puzzles over why Titania allows him to stay in the mortal realm.

Stacy turned to him, her expression as stunned as he felt. "What was that? Why didn't she take you?"
The Anthropologist: "Why indeed!"

Lots and lots of pain is inflicted by these words. The Dwarf groans, loudly, sounding remarkably like a wookie.
Sordan is choking in rage and laughter, "I can't breathe! I have a medical complication..."
Balance is hiting his head with a nearby copy of Jade Lee's Hungry Tigress, which can't be healthy.

More words as Nic and Stacy are bewildered. He finally picks up her contract.

"Antastaisa means reborn..."
The Anthropologist: "He does have to chose the obscure logic, doesn't he?"

"By the Stones, I've been ten times a fool."
Big L: "A million fucking times!"

"Are you sure?"
The Chronicler notes how sure we were since the first page of this book.

"Marry me? Be with me for all of eternity?"
The Anthropologist: "While my sister dies and everyone and everything I know fades away..."

Stacy nipped at his chin...
Miriam: "Has he married a small terrior"
Sordan: "That is so retarded! So retarded!"

"Anna... Stacy, I love you. Now and forever."
Stacy grinned at him, her eyes twinkling. "I love you more."
Miriam: "Find this author's house and..."

Thankfully the book's over, but as a special, the Dwarf picks up the book and reads out the letter written by Karen Fox to the reader:

I'm sure you'll figure out who Anna really is long before Nic does, but hey, sometimes men have very one-track minds.
Jah;fldkjgjsfds

The Balance: "Unlike romance novel authors, clearly..."
The Chronicler: "It's still the fucking his reborn wife's sister that did it for me whilst still intending to seduce and marry Diana..."
Almost Jesus: "7 times!"

Rose takes her magic for granted, much to Brand's chargin. He's always wanted magic. He's even become a renowned magician, and to see Rose abuse her power angers him...
Almost Jesus: "I like how the next book is about abuse of power, but in this one, he sends Steve to the Bahamas with infinite money just to keep his job as a gardner."
The Chronicler: "I'm not sure you can top that for abuse."
The Anthropologist: "Not really, he sent Steve away to make the conversation easier. Maybe no one in the Bahamas will pay attention to his story. And they'll be scared to take his money so it won't affect the world economy..."

And so ends the Loinfire Club's reading of Cupid's Melody...

Cupid's Melody, continues, part three...

The Chronicler returns to find everyone in pain over the stupidity of Nic, who still hasn't figure it out yet. Or felt correctly guilty about cheating on his wife and potentially hurting her feelings. Or guilty about separating her from Kevin.

And Antony made sure she'd known she never would be [the right one]...

Sordan: "Who the fuck is Antony! And what horrible thing did he do to her?"

Azrael hypothesises that the author is subconsciously sprinkling the name Anthony in because she's just broke up with someone with that name and that it's not part of the plot at all.

The Dwarf: "Maybe Antony is Brad in a Jeckyl and Hyde sort of way."

Nic kisses her again, against her will as she accuses him of being after her sister:

Now, this was what the songs were about, even then the music could only begin to capture the sensation. Lyrics were inadequate.

Almost Jesus: "We've already covered that Kevin's songs are deeper than hers."
Azrael: "Clearly it's just shallow rape she's been writing songs about."
Big L: "And Kevin's songs are about deep penetrating rape."

There are many assurances that Stacy is not a slut and that her lack of inhibition surprised her.

Almost Jesus: "It's those cannibalism overtones again."

"You're not Anna."

The Loinfire Club is appalled.
The Dwarf: "You fucker! Just like Antony!"

She brought her hand to the forehead...
The Anthropologist: "I've never heard that literally before."

Kissed her with enough passion to make oceans boil.
Again, it snarks itself.

Stacy isn't morally appalled about Nic being married. She considers firing him.

But her garden... [...] never looked so vibrant, so alive this early in the season...
Sordan: "How could she do this to her rhododendrons?!"

We swap to Nic's point of view and he's full of the same angst. Exactly the same angst.

Diana was his future, his soul mate, but he was male enough to be tempted by Stacy...

Almost Jesus: "It's a measure of maleness now to be attracted to Stacy."
The Chronicler can't help but add that the book has been peddling the idea that Diana is the attractive, sexy one and that Stacy was the dowdy one, so in theory that statement makes little sense.

The Dwarf: "In my mind, this book can end in the next ten pages... what is the rest of the book about?"
Clearly the Dwarf knows little about the Big Misunderstandings that ravage romance novels.

Nic's insistence about knowing both the women is annoying, especially since one is a stranger and the other was reborn and has been living a different life with a new personality.

she let mischief dancing in her eyes...

Azrael: "Clearly Mischief is one of those flower fairies that serve Nick and it's dancing on her eyeballs."

He hardened, recalling the many hours he and Anna had spent making love...

The Anthropologist: "The first actual hard cock appearing on p.58 is a record!"

In the most stupid leap of logic on earth, Nic disobeys his dayderam which tells him that Stacy is Anna, he decides that Stacy was trouble and that trouble meant Titania...

Almost Jesus: "He has failed the woodlouse test!"
Azrael: "Thus Stacy is Titania! I see it all now!"

Hero in a fit of cleverness decides to pair Stacy with Kevin, Diana's fiancé: He would match Stacy up with Kevin...

"What! You fucktard?!" Sordan says.

Stacy spends more pages feeling sorry for herself, feeling conflicted about Nic (who has a wife.)The real gardener appears.

Brad Tarrington sent me.

Almost Jesus: "I'm liking Brad more every minute."

After her remarkable ease (gullibility, even) with Nic in the opening sequence, Stacy is very suspicious of her gardener, this Steve, who even has a letter from Brad. Stacy calls Brad.

Sordan: "Squee! Brad's going to have some screentime!"
Cathed: "Brad has a private number!"

There is more speculation about Brad. And his Jack Daniels. And his shotgun. And his scorpions. And his repression. And he kills a cobra, because he's that hardcore, with his teeth. (He imports the cobras there specially to be killed by him.)

The truth comes out about Nic. Some more boring things happen.

Sordan: "Reccap: Nic thinks that Stacy is working for Titania trying to get him raped by Titania. Stacy thinks Nic is trying to rape Diana or has already raped her...."

Nic confronts Steve, the gardener, whose fashion choices, we incidentally condemn.

Nic hesitated, then focused on Steve. "Are you single?"

Almost Jesus: "He's worked out that he'll have to share the cottage. So now he knows if he..."

"Close to your family?"

Big L: "So no one will notice if he gets killed..."

Nic magically transports Steve to the Bahamas with his pockets full of infinate cash, seemingly to keep his job as a gardener for Diana. Stacy witnesses all of this and confronts him

Azrael: "By my power over the element of plot, Bahamas!"

Reality had become unreal...

The Dwarf: "This book just jumped the shark..."

"Are you an alien?"

Sordan screams in pain. Pain that she doesn't enjoy.

The Anthropologist: "Now, you have to look at this from the Marxist persective. He's not the little fairies, but the sort that exploit the labour of the little fairies, who are downtrodden and must revolt..."

Stacy is teleported with Nic to Palmyra Peak.

"Teleportation always stops people running away," observes the Balance.

[Nic] lifted his eyebrows. "I can. With magic, nothing is impossible."
Big L: "Except for thinking, clearly..."

The long, protracted revelations to Stacy that Nic is a fae and has been alive since the dawn of time takes far too long. Stacy doesn't seem to get it.

"But that was painted over twenty-five years ago."

Sordan: "Dawn of time includes 25 years ago..."

Her mind refused to grasp this concept.

Lkjgdkasljgakldjgjlkdsafkdsakjg;lgdk (The Chronicler loses the will to live.)

More fucking exposition. Lots and lots of annoyance. There are some wisecracks about how Nic jammed his fingers into his hair. Screeches of "Idiot?!" fill the room. The entire plot is recounted to Stacy, including how Anna died.

The pieces of the puzzle slid together. The portrait of his wife looked identical to... "You think Diana is your reborn wife."

There is a round of applause for Stacy figuring this out.

Luca declares this the first evidence of a brain cell in this book.

Lots of angst erupts left right and center in Stacy and really really..lkdsakhfkhr;lkjsgfed6hjdsflh (The Chronicler is getting really sick of this.)

If you resort to [magic] to make Diana love you, then it's not really love...
Almost Jesus: "Because it's rape."

Nic further proves he's a cunt by asking Stacy (who is obviously attracted to him and has problems about self worth) to help him woo her sister.

The Club wonders why being an immortal Nic can't just wait, say, eighty years or so and see which sister is still alive.

Nic toys with the idea of trappying Stacy in the magical realm. (There is clearly no limit to his power.) He talks to Titania's portrait, resolves again to woo Diana, not Stacy. Stacy sees him, decides Diana deserves to have someone like him love her for eternity and agrees to help him. He tells her about Titania's supersecretplot to make him her boytoy.

Sordan: "You fucker! He is such a cunt! Suck a cunt!"
The Dwarf: "Nic is legendary."
The Anthropologist: "She's repressing the fact that Kevin is actually a really awful guy and is trying to kill Diana because she secretly wants this to happen."

The technicality of Tolstoy not being Vodka is brought up again, which contains a tiny shard of Tolstoy's soul, literary genius and all. Who is not appearing in this book and the only literary genius in this blogpost.

Everyone urges Almost Jesus not to taste the Tolstoy. He rather unwisely decides to and declares it nailpolish remover. The Club is impatient for the book to get more interesting, as we've not even had a glimmer of sex and the repetition of the angst is getting to us.

And Cupid's Melody is passed onto the Anthropologist.

Cupid's Melody, continues, part two...

The Chronicle continues as the Loinfire Club turns to chapter two:

having a labour dispute threaten the completion of the scenery...

The Anthropologist objects to having labour disputes in her romance novels. The Watcher points out that if Charlotte Bronte did it in Shirley, her Serious Novel, then so can anyone else.

Stacy is sitting in her office, doing things, angsting, worrying about her attraction to Nic, gazing at her garden...

The Anthropologist: "I think there was supposed to be dramatic music here, but she forgot we can't hear it."

Stacy has many man-rejecting thoughts to assure the gentle reader that she is, indeed, not a slut and is rightly deserving of love.

The Balance: "She's a repetitive not a slut."

After this many years, she should be used to it, yet remembering Anthony's betrayal...

Cathed: "I'm sure Brad is very sad about the fact he's forgotten."
Further speculation about how he has a biker past and when he rides into the sunset on his motorcycle. He's just going to buy some Jack Daniels and a shotgun, due to his tormented feelings over Stacy constantly forgetting the fact that he.

What happened to the other gardener?

The Dwarf: "Clearly Brad couldn't find one that looks normal and wasn't not a hunk. This is Romance Land, you know."
Azrael: "You have to know where to look for ugly people. The villain, rapists and uncles...."

The theory is brought back around to the frequency of rape, otherwise known as "forced seduction" in romance novels. The Anthropologist explains, "There are two sorts of rape: ugly rape is bad and good rape by pretty people. It must really speed up court cases if you can't rape anyone who's uglier than you."
Big L: "It's clearly just surprise pity sex."
Azrael: "In other words, charity."

Stacy angsts about how her life revolves around her sister, how she wants flowers to draw energy from...

Sordan speculates that Nic will be giving Stacy some flowers for her office soon.

The Anthropologist: "So wait, we're going to take a character who has massive issues about the fact that she likes singing but her sister can sing better than her and her only consolation is her gardening... Then pair her up with a guy who can garden better than anyone else in the world..."

The Club marvels at the lack of sex in the book, as it would have long surfaced were this a Connie Mason. Big L guesses that something hot and steamy will happen on p.32. The rest of the Club demands that there is no spoiling. Sordan puts her hands on her ears and starts singing Lalalalalala...

Anthropologist: "We must experience this book exactly as she intended it."

Sordan: "We have to get to page 32! Keep going!"

"They keep me going through the Chaos."
He arched one eyebrow. "Chaos?"

The mention of the word Chaos triggers a call from all the secret cultists among us.
The Balance: "The natural enemies of Chaos are the daffodils!"

Stacy says some deep and meaningful things about irises and roses, showing that she's beautiful and unique.

Sordan: "Who the hell talks like this?!"
The rest of the Club finds Nic's behaviour overwhelmingly patronising.

Stacy invites Nic to eat Chinese takeaway with her.

Oh, jeez.
The remarkable choice of swear word triggers the Club to cry out their own choice favourites (mostly from previous romance novels):
"God's Nightgown!" (Connie Mason's The Dragon Lord
"Stones!" (Cupid's Melody, itself)
"Jupiter's mighty rod!" (Joy Nash's Celtic Fire)

The Anthropologist: "She obviously lives in some sort of rich community. Would anyone be really that surprised that she's boning the gardener? Isn't that partly what she's paying him for?"

"I'm ordering Chinese, and they won't deliver if I only order enough for myself."

Big L: "What's the place going to do? Ask how many are eating and just refuse to deliver?"
Sordan: "Single woman don't deserve to eat!"
Azrael: "Clearly single woman assault the delivery boy because they're too lonely."

The Anthropologist demands vodka very desperately to keep her going as the book is getting to her. From across the room she is passed the Tolstoy, it is horrible. Balance confuses Leo Tolstoy (great Russian novelist: War and Peace, Anna Karenina) with Leon Trotsky (Bolshevik revolutionary, Stalin's arch nemesis, killed by ice pick) much to the amusement of all.

He didn't look all that dirty to her.
Porn soundtrack kicks in.

She'd never done anything like this before.
Sordan: "What? She's never ordered a Chinese takeaway for two before?"

Nic stumbles into Stacy and holds her "accidentally."

Azrael: "How hard was he trying to knock?!"
The Anthropologist: "I'm sorry, I tripped and fell and ended up in her vagina somewhere."

A short diversion happens as the Balance threatens to eat the chocolate map which Azrael needs to choose a chocolate. Chaos ensues.

How could something so wrong feel so right?

The Anthropologist: "She's writing songs about her rape fantasies, for her sister to sing?!"

The I'm not a slut moment gets out of hand.

"What should I order for you?"
"I like it all." His voice was quiet, the hint of an accent teasing her sense. "Something spicy, perhaps?"
Yes, that fit him. Definitely spicy.

Azrael laments that he'll never be able to read a Chinese menu innocently again.

Something about this man, about his touch, affected her like a perfectly played sonata.

The Anthropologist: "Is this going to be repeated for every sense? He smelled like a symphony..."

Nic and Stacy's conversation drifts towards interior decoration. He says to her:
"I bet I can tell you which of the rooms you decorated."

The Anthropologist: "Why is does she not find this creepy? She's only just met him!"
Sordan: "Clearly she can't actually remember: I can't remember which rooms I decorated! Please tell me! It's been driving me crazy."

Stacy joined him and led him into the formal dining area, where dark red curtains draped the tall windows, and a heavy wooden table filled the room. The decorations were sparse here: a burgundy table runner providing the only color to contrast with the white walls."

Azrael: "The all important question is left unanswered: does the carpet match the drapes?"

The Club finds this fixation with interior decoration and gardening distressing.

She relished every chance to make music.

The Chronicler: "Like babies."
The Anthropologist: "Babies are like music, a sort of noisy, loud, annoying, sticky music."

Stacy angsts about how she is forced to write popsongs and that her true calling is to write ballads which her sister would never sing. Nic gets confused since Anna would never play a popsong so therefore Stacy isn't Anna (but the same doesn't apply to Diana who sings them.)

Diana turns out to be a fan of Nic's paintings and has his portrait of Anna in one of her rooms. They look at it and much is made of how much the artist and model love each other.

The Chronicler: "Anyone find his obsession with Anna rather creepy?"
The Anthropologist: "It's the problem with reincarnation, it encourages necrophilia."

There is talk about Azrael's motions resemble that of a robotic arm when picking chocolate.
Azrael: "Well, where I work you can't get the robotic arms to mimic humans so the humans have to mimic the robotic arms."
There is speculations with over him possibly being brought up by robotic arms.

Nic recounts how his wife used to say "I love you more" to his declarations of love. Plot point, as we all know. He angsts about how he killed her.

There is discussion about the differences between the Vivamort and the Tolstoy as Big L turns to chapter three.

Further complications ensue as a mistake occurs concerning the scenery Stacy ordered for Diana's concert.

Brad is still everyone's favourite character, when he is mentioned.

Californian gardeners, as everyone know, are like manwhores. There is discussion about acceptable relationships. And how great Brad is, of course. And the possibility that if Brad turns up we may like him less is brought up, but if he fails to meet our exacting standards then clearly it's an imposter. We know Brad.

Accusations fly of the Anthropologist hogging the ice cream.

Did that mean he's a few notes shy of a song?
The Dwarf: "Not possible! His smile's the whole damn orchestra!"

Stacy talks to Nic, tells him about her problems then sits in her office. She calls herself Bad girl, and feels conflicted about her attraction to the gardener.

She had more important things to worry about than attracting a gardener.
The Anthropologist: "You don't need to attract gardeners! You just have to increase their pay slightly!"
Sordan is proved right as Nic brings Stacy lilacs.

There is much enthusiasm about page 32. And many objections as to where he got the oil paintings he's showing Stacy to prove that he can paint, and thus paint the set of Diana's concert.
It vibrated with colour, with life, with magic.

The Anthropologist: "Isn't it suspicious that he's painted that in about four minutes?"
It is revealed that Nic has been painting all along, but no one is convinced.

Nic is still confused about Diana/Anna/Stacy. One being his dead wife (he's very convinced, despite not having seen her in person) and the other he's just going ga-ga over.

Against all logic, he wanted a different kind of payment.

Many screams of "raype" and recoiling in disgust. There is talk of visual aid to help envision this scene. The Dwarf volunteers to re-enact this with Almost Jesus.

Just a taste. Surely that would be enough to ease this longing.

Arael: "Does she taste like an orchestra?"
The Dwarf: "Or a string quartet?"

The Anthropologist: "There's a remarkably low level of angst about the fact that he's committing adultery here. Or fear that Diana might find out."
Azrael: "I'm waiting for the plot twist where it's revealed that it's neither of them and it's all just Titania fucking with him all along..."
The Balance: "Then he needs to find another mortal."

He seduced her lips...
Lady Miriam: "What? He took them out to dinner?"

swallowing her soft moans as if he could swallow all of her...

Almost Jesus: "You see! Canabilism!"

to experience the shattering bliss he'd nearly forgotten...

The Anthroplogist: "If your bliss is shattering, you're doing it wrong."

The phone rings, the couple stop snogging. In the next scene, Diana comes home in a flurry of chaos:

"And guess what, SBJ Productions asked me to write the song for their new movie. Kev told them yes, of course. What a coup."

Cathed: "I don't think coup means what you think it means..."
Sordan concludes that Diana is a "Bitch!" as she asks Stacy to write her song for her.

Diana gives Stacy a gift that she doesn't like. Nic is watching from the shadows ("That's creepy!" squirmed the Anthropologist.) Diana then meets the gardener.

[Diana] drew her hand back, the look of a woman seeing something she liked.
And she hits on the gardener...

Cathed: "See, she understands how the world works!"

Plot complications ensue as Titania's portrait enters the "mortal realm," through Diana who has just bought it. Nic gets paranoid. There is wonderment at how the painting was identified as one of Nic Stone's considering that he's only painted one other portrait.

Big L: "She's fucking with you. Who'd have guessed?"

Her kiss provided enough electricity for a whole city.

The Dwarf: "She swallowed a small nuclear reactor."

There is a brief tangent into J. R. Ward's Lover Unbound and the gayness therein.
Almost Jesus: "No heterosexual man would ever allow those words to pass his lips."

Kevin shows up and jealousy flares within Nic. It is revealled that he's Stacy's manager and fiance. Nic remains unrepentant that he wants to get into his reborn wife's sister's pants. And there is much posturing and declaring of ownership.

Stacy liked Kevin and more importantly, trusted him. Few of the male species could fill that requirement. Especially after Anthony.
Sordan: "Then who the fuck is Anthony?!"
Cathed: "What about Brad?"

Some positioning later we realise that Kevin has been standing in a here-is-my-crotch pose.

Big L: "Clearly Kevin's after some threesome action."

Last time he and Dianna had shared a Jacuzzi, they had completely flooded the room.

Big L: "He's obviously pheararsome!"

Nic suffers much angst about Diana/Stacy/Anna, again. The Chronicler wonders if anyone hasn't figured out that Stacy is blatantly Anna reborn at this point.

Oh... my... God...
Stacy sees Nic's work on the backdrops. There are compliments and a confrontation about the previous kiss. There is wonderment at a pop concert having oil paintings as a backdrop.
There are many amusing imitations of what she does. Speculations about medical conditions fly.

But it was just canvas.
The Anthropologist: "Or rather, wet paint!"

Some of the hardness left his voice...
Big L: "But nowhere else."

His presence exuding masculinity.
Big L: "Oh my god! My masculinity is escaping!"

"You just kissed me because I like flowers."
Azrael: "Better that than being deflowered because you like kisses."

Titania materialises and talks to Nic. Her nearly translucent gown revealed as much of her voluptuous curves as it covered, but even naked she wouldn't appeal to him.

Sordan: "So the secret slut character is Titania."

The secret plot twist is revealed:

"If you tell the wrong woman you love her, then [...] you belong to me."

Nic decides that this gives him no choice and that he must ignore his attraction to Stacy and love Diana, since she's clearly his dead wife. And it was his freedom at stake here.

As we turn to the next chapter, Stacy is angsting. It's getting really annoying.

His slow smile added an extra grace note to her pulse...

In more musical metaphor fun, the musicians in the room speculate the possible rhythms her pulse could be playing.

Then the Chronicler leaves to the toilet, and some things must go unrecorded...

The Participants...

The Dwarph, Axe-wielding, at times; mostly bearded; usually rowdy and eventually, drunken.

The Big L, sometime smiter of all things heretical, misusers and abusers of magical and spiritual power, and bringer of the manly quiche.

Sohrdhan, sometimes thought to be the god of pain, which is probably why she's here. Also keeper of the tally.

Azrhael, who is secretly God, but we don't talk about that.

The Balhanhce, a philosopher with biological pretentions. One could but suppose he's here to keep the balance, but his credentials are dubious.

Cathed, classicist extraordinaire, connoisseur of MarySues and probably too fond of Stardust.

Luhcah, who is ninja, really.

The Wahtcher, who watches. Who knows what secret thoughts lurk beneath her quiet surface?

The Anthrohpolohgist, endlessly verbose and displeased about her nickname and convinced that everyone will soon find out who she is.

Lady Miriam, the Blessed Right Hand of Bast, who is lovely and not at all scary.

Alhmost Jehsus, who probably isn't, but close enough. The festive season is nigh and we're trying to rake in the ratings.

The Chrhoniclher, who is recording these events for your reading pleasure.

The Rules of Engagement

For the pedantic, this is inspired by the indomitable Mrs Giggles and The Regency Romance Drinking Game and The Paranormal Romance Drinking Game, as written by her.

The name of the club is, of course inspired by the ever charming, Lord Sin himself, more commonly known as St John Thornton, the Marquis of Derby, from A Taste of Sin by Connie Mason.

In terms of the specifics, we take one sip (of varying sizes) for an occurance of the following:

The word sensuous;

The word wild, or any synonym thereof;

The words fiery, flaming, or any reference to heat;

Descriptions of hair, eyes or skin;

Dodgy comments (inuuendo, intentional or otherwise);

I’m not a slut!!! moments from the heroine (such as displays of feminine reluctance or schizophrenic protestations);

Description boobs;

Mention of hard cocks;

Description of mucus membranes;

Medical complications (any description of love that taken out of context sounds like a serious medical problem);

Raypes! moments (notice the extra “y”, this refers to any moment which seems as though the hero, is about to rape or sexually harass someone);

The Limp moment (when the hero tries to get it on with some slut-bitch-whore and fails as he doesn't love her)