About Us


We are a group of women from all over the world who came together through our love of a book series we no longer discuss. And it just took off from there (our perspective), or it all went downhill (our significant others' perspectives)! Now we share our love of great books, movies, television shows, and fine men, on a daily basis. We are so glad you've joined us and would like to introduce ourselves....


About the team


The admins

Barbara Bones
**************

  I’ve been a reader for as long as I can remember. And I was usually reading age-inappropriate material. In middle school I loved Fear Street and Sweet Valley High. In high school, my uncle introduced me to Dean Koontz, and I was addicted to his wonderfully disturbing tales throughout college, and beyond. In between, I also enjoyed biographies, histories, romances, horror stories, and humorous mysteries, among many others. In fact, I’ve rarely met a book I didn’t like. I was always drawn to paranormal stories, particularly vampire tales.
  For several years I primarily read children’s novels, because of my work. I adore Harry Potter, Holes, and Ella Enchanted.But when work changed, I jumped back into adult books, like The Help, The Girl Who… books, the history of The Tudor Family, and my beloved Dean Koontz horror stories. Then in January of 2011, I bought myself an eReader as a gift for completing grad school, and I haven’t been the same since (much to my husband’s constant dismay)!
  Shortly after purchasing my eReader, a friend recommended the Sookie Stackhouse Novels, which I devoured at a clip of one per day. Those books led me to the amazing Sookieverseblog, which led me to the amazing Wenches you meet here, which led me to the some of the most wonderful, fantastic book series of my life, and my book addiction was fully bloomed.
  My most recent favorite series is Chicagoland Vampires, and when impatiently awaiting the release on Biting Cold, I participated in Chloe Neill’s blog scavenger hunt, visiting several new book blogs. While having fun with that, I realized that the Saucy Wenches and I had been having wonderful discussions about our collective book obsessions, and that it was time to share our fun and insights with others. Hence, the Saucy Wenches Book Club was born.
  We hope you have as much fun reading about our adventures, literary and otherwise, as we have creating them. Thank you for visiting us!



Beta JZB Sullivan
*****************

 Hi, and thank you for stopping by, I hope you'll stick around! First I freely confess that I love to talk but I'm the worst when it comes to talking about me but let's see what I can come up with...
Who am I? I'm Beta and I'm from the land of fire and ice so I'm just one of those typical viking women ;) I'm married to my best friend who I love to bits and we have 3 amazing kids. I love to crochet, knit and do all kinds of crafts, listen to music, watch good movies/shows and it goes without saying that I luuve to read.
  What are my favorite book genres? Some non-fiction but mostly fiction, like; Fantasies, PNR/UF, mysteries, crimes, thrillers, classics, literary/contemporary, romance, etc. The last couple of years I've mostly been reading PNR/UF after my brilliant sis introduced me to Charlaine Harris's books about Sookie.
  How did little old me end up here amongst these awesomesauce wenches from all over the world? Well, to cut a long story short it was through Sookieverse blog I met a group of, funtastic, women who shared my interest in books and through them I've gotten to know a whole new world of wonderful books that were waiting for me to jump into and devour them. These ladies have become a big part of my daily life and I feel privileged to be one of the wenches. We love to talk about men, love and life and gush over our favorite books, movies/shows and our book-boyfriends (yes in plural... because one is not enough and usually it's impossible to choose one over another).
My first book-boyfriend is Eric Northman, from when I started reading SVM, so he'll always have a special place in my heart but he has since then been forced to make space for several others and I have a feeling there will be more.
Yes you guessed it, I'm a fictional-character slut and if that's wrong I don't want to be right.
  Why The Saucy Wenches Book Club? Short and simple, because our lovely Barbara came up with this brilliant idea of spreading our love of books, amongst other things, and invited me to join! So now here I am with these very funny, clever and talented group of women, starting this adventure and I hope you'll enjoy the ride with us!


Kathi Alexandra Malcontent MacKenzie Fraser
******************************************

  I grew up an introvert living outside a small town, who compensated for my lack of social skills and neighbors by acquiring a wide circle of book friends — on the printed page. My family read aloud to me a lot, and when I was 3 I grabbed the book out of their hands and read it back to them. That’s just because I had memorized every page, but I had them scratching their heads for a while. It was a free copy of Madeline and the Gypsies that arrived in McCall’s magazine, and was the earliest book I remember, starting me down my path as an incurable bibliophile who still mangles French pronunciations.
   I grew up enthralled by television shows like Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Dark Shadows, and Night Gallery. In junior high, A Wrinkle in Time and Out of the Silent Planet cemented my reading preferences firmly in realms of fantasy and science fiction. In high school I devoured books by Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, and Robert Heinlein, along with coming-of-age authors like Herman Hesse. I loved The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. My official favorite book was Dune. And I loved everything Stephen King wrote.
   Since I naturally enjoyed my reading classes in college, I followed the path of least resistance to a literature degree. I particularly liked the romantic and transcendentalist authors (like Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe). After I graduated, I spent a year having a knee-jerk reaction to all that culture by reading nothing but bodice-ripping historical romances, then never touched a single one again.
   I spent some years reading snarky hipsters like Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues) and Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), and many more years reading only nonfiction on current issues and personal interests, like The Shock Doctrine and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, interspersed with a smattering of “quality” fiction, like Angela’s Ashes and The Kite Runner, and vacation books by the likes of Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, and Carl Hiaasen. Then my daughter began raiding my bookshelves for the things I read when I was her age, which caused me to pick up some of those old favorites again and look around for something new in a similar vein. *wink*
   And then True Blood happened. And I found out it was based on some books. (Well, it was supposed to be. They lied.) And I was so excited about the show and the Southern Vampire Mysteries that I went googling around the internets and stumbled across the SookieVerse blog. Where I met the most delightful group of wenches to gab and laugh and vent with, and share our journey of discovery through this exciting, new (for me) genre.
   And so began my current affair with kick-ass heroines, moody alpha males, and the realms of paranormal fantasy. And I have now come full circle, to being an introvert living outside town, who compensates for her lack of social skills and neighbors with a wide circle of book friends — those on my printed pages, ebook screen, and mp3 player, and the real, live Saucy Wenches.



Zee the Terrible
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Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love..

  Ok, they really don't. But how cool would it be if they did? Zee, gangster of love.

  Enough of that, before I get carried away (and yes, I tend to get carried away a lot). I'm a cinephile, music buff and I am passionate about reading. Have been since I was a little girl and my mom used to buy us literary classics by the dozen. I love almost ALL genres. My favorites are definitely fantasy, horror, thrillers, and your classics of English Literature. But a genre that is quickly growing on me and fast becoming a favorite is Urban Fantasy.
  It all started with the Sookie Stackhouse Books, not the shit show that borrowed character names from them. I did check out said shit show though, which wasn't all that shitty back when it started. That led me to first some facebook groups where people discussed the show and books,and via one of those (amazing) people to Sookieverseblog.
  That is when I got to know this rare and exceptional group of Saucy Wenches. Their reading suggestions, from the phenomenal Fever series to the addicting world of the Chicagoland Vampire series, have always been spot on. Books I didn't even realize I was desperate to read till they were pointed out to me. It has been a long, beautiful, unforgettable journey. These ladies are special to me, the books they recommend icing on the cake. Discussing the books, sharing the angst and heartache, the rocky journey, going through the highest highs and the sometimes murky lows, has been one of the greatest pleasures in life I look forward to since I met them. They are an integral part of my day to day life, whether it be talking about our current or constant male obsessions, life, love, books, hell...pretty much anything.
  THIS to me is the magic of a good book/book series. Bringing so many people together in an intimate, personal way that not much else can. And this is why, when asked if I was interested in sharing just a fraction of this with the world, I leaped at the chance. I may be all over the place, I may gush, at times I may be incoherent when excited and/or angry, but I will try, so be kind.

xoxo Zee.



The authors

Amanda Garrett-Grady
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  I am a married mother of four with a reading addiction.  I was an avid reader when I was young. Stephen King and Dean Koontz were my favorites. At some point, I switched to mostly reading magazines.  My life changed in January 2010, when I read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I loved the supernatural aspect, and that started a paranormal addiction. My next series was the Sookie Stackhouse Novels by Charlaine Harris.
  I call Twilight and SSN the “Gateway Books” that led me to darker, sexier, more intense books. I am still reading mostly paranormal romance and urban fantasy, with some M/M romances thrown in there for fun. My biggest strength and weakness is that I tend to fall in love with my books, and I can’t rest until I’ve spread the word on how awesome they are!
  How I met my fellow Saucy Wenches: I was totally hooked on the SSN and looking for my fix. That’s when I discovered Sookieverse Blog, and from there a FB group was formed. A bunch of us fell in love with the Fever series around the same time, so we formed another fabulous FB group and called ourselves The Saucy Wenches. These ladies mean more to me than they will ever know, I look forward to spending time with them every day, and I am so excited to be embarking on this new adventure with them!



Angela Lannister
****************

  Currently I am blazing a trail through as much m/m as I can in a short space of time. Look I know it is an addiction and I need a twelve step program to wean myself off, but I can’t get enough of hot alpha on alpha sex, um sorry that should say deep and meaningful reading.
  How did I end up here you ask? By meeting a group of very like-minded women who had all started out watching a TV series called True Blood and reading the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. We cry, laugh, love and obsess together over our favourite books and TV shows. (Curse you all though for not living closer to New Zealand). When not wishing I could be stalking Alexander Skarsgard, Jeremy Renner, Ryan Reynolds and lately for some strange reason Joe Manganiello, I try to keep my baser impulses in check and live a “normal” life. This, combined with firmly believing that Jaime Lannister, Jericho Barrons and Eric Northman are real means I am perfect fit for hopefully spreading the love I have for some of my favourite books.
  My lifelong love affair with reading really started with reading the great mysteries series Nancy Drew. I loved Nancy Drew and many an hour was used imagining I was really her and I had my own secret agent name for solving crime. Encase you are really interested it was Austin Kincaid and she was badass. She had cool gadgets, an awesome tool bag and a great secret agent jacket (although at this time I was also in love with MacGyver as well).
  Some of the more influential reading for my later life was The Hobbit and the Lord of Rings which I read when I was meant to be studying for school exams. After reading the Lord of the Rings there was no holding me back and I became a full on fantasy nut.
  I read anything by David Eddings, Raymond E. Feist, Terry Goodkind, Robin Hobb, Sara Douglass to name a few. Then in the 90s I fell in love with at the time, a little known series called A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R Martin. For the last 16 or so years he has kept me on tender hooks (and at his beck and call). Don’t be surprised if in the future there is some kind of rant on this subject. This is my favorite series of all time and I hope that my future will involve converting a few people to this wonderful series and of course spreading the love for my book husband Jaime Lannister. So excuse me now if I am a little possessive of the series.



Anne Kenzie
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  Hey Everyone! I'm a late 20s married lady, who's OBSESSED with reading and Joe Manganiello. I've been a voracious reader ever since I could learn to read.
  I started out reading age appropriate books, then when I was in 5th grade, my dad gave me a John Grisham book, The Rainmaker.
  After that, mysteries, thrillers, historical fiction, I'd read it all, age appropriate or not, much to my mother's chagrin (especially since my dad was the one giving me the books!).
  One day, a few years ago, my husband decided he wanted to check out this HBO show called True Blood. I LOVED the show, then I noticed the show was based on books. I had to have them. So, I went out and got the whole series to date, and so began my foray into Urban Fantasy.
  While searching for TB spoilers and SSN trivia, I stumbled upon this awesome blog call the Sookieverse Blog. It was there that I met an amazing group of ladies.  Fast forward a year or two and here we are starting our own blog! Since I read a little bit of everything, my contributions will probably be all over the map, and I'm always open to recommendations!!



Care Blackstone Grady
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  I learned to read early, somewhere in the arena of age four. At that point, I was unstoppable. If it held still long enough, I would read it. Didn't matter the genre, didn't matter the age level, if it had words, I read it. I had more than a few books confiscated and tossed in the garbage due to "inappropriate content" for my age. For a long time, my favorite author was Dean Koontz, and then I moved into other things - just as my peers were starting to enjoy Koontz's work!
  I moved over into things like Weis & Hickman's DragonLance, Stephen Brust's Jhereg series, Raymond Feist's Magician series, and eventually Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Through all this, I kept an undercurrent of parenting books, and several other kinds of non-fiction. I read to learn, I read to relax, I read. These days, I'll often be found reading the Cut & Run series by Abigail Roux, Chicagoland Vampires by Chloe Neill, The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, Giftedness 101 by Linda Silverman, and The ADHD Book by Dr William Sears. Each of these titles is special to me in its own way, and putting them together says more about me as a person than I care to think about, probably including the fact that "if it held still long enough, I would read it" still holds true!



Donna WFS
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  Who am I and how did I get here? I've always had a voracious appetite for reading. When I was a young girl, I would walk to the library about five blocks from my home. I got to know the librarian well enough to know we shared the same birthday - I thought it was kismit! I would check out the maximum five books and be right back the next day to get five more. When I was a little older, I would raid my mother's and older sisters' bookcases on the sly because I knew without being told a grounding would be in my future if I got caught. Of course, nowadays kids are exposed to a lot more risque material, and at a much younger age, but at the time I thought I was very naughty.
  Many of the books I've read lately have been recommended by my fellow wenches. One notable exception is the brilliant Outlander series by the equally brilliant Diana Gabaldon. I discovered these books all by myself, and have been enthusiastically recommending them to friends and family ever since. I've even gotten my father in law hooked on them. (!)
  Besides Ms. Gabaldon, other favorite authors include Karen Marie Moning, Jeaniene Frost, Charlaine Harris, J. K. Rowling, Nalini Singh, Nicole Peeler, and J. R. Ward. Honestly, I could keep going on and on, but I think you get the picture.
  I have a loving and supportive husband who understands that sometimes reading does come before housework, and it's not completely crazy to stay up all night (and yes, he laughed and rolled his eyes when he read that bit). My children also seem to have inherited my love of reading and some of my bad habits: staying up late reading, obsessing over books, you know how it is. My son has a talent I'm envious of. I wish I could write like he does. It would help me with this new path I'm on. He was quite interested when I told him we were starting a book blog. When I told him we were calling it "Saucy Wenches" he was not.surprised.at.all.
Cheers!



Merit MacFraser
****************

  Once upon a time there was a little girl, she lived (and still living) in a far away tiny but troublesome country. For her 6th birthday she received a beautiful book called "Iliad and odyssey for children".
  That's when my obsession with books in general and fantasy & Sci-Fi in particular, started. A few years later my cousin came back from the Ithaca N.Y (His father has been a history professor in Cornell university for a few years), he brought with him a lot of books, most of them Sci-Fi, thus I met Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg and Arthur C. Clark. I was captivated, read all I could find. I read Larry Niven, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Douglas Adams, Stanislav Lem, J. R. R. Tolkien to name a few. I'm an avid reader; I read almost everything except biography and horror which I don't like. I love Jane Austen, Gustave Flaubert, Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Karl May, Margaret Atwood and oh so many more…
  A few years ago, I think it was 2008 or 2009 a friend gave me a book called "Twilight", this is your kind of stuff, she said, it wasn't exactly "my stuff" but I was intrigued, So I read Twilight and loved it, yes I did. I also read romance books (The Thorn birds anyone?) but laughed at the notion of sparkling vamps. I started a small research digging in the internet and read somewhere about an interesting T.V show, going on air here, called "True Blood". I watched S1 & 2 and as usual for me, I dived inside the net researching the show, found the SSN books, read them all (they were 8 then), dug some more and stumbled upon the awesome SVB! A new world opened for me. So this is "how I met the awesome Saucy Wenches" and I love every minute of it!!!
  When I read a book I love, the world is dead for me, I know it's not easy to run a household that way but I am lucky that my family bears with me so I can go on reading …
  When I read a good book I can go sleepless the whole night. I live inside the story and it goes with me for some time after the end, some books never leave me at all! I could live inside them forever.


A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. ~William Styron

Shau Bennet
*************

  Hi everyone! So, a few word about yours truly. My friendship with the lovely ladies of this blog began one beautiful evening while surfing the net for Charlaine Harris' Sookie lovers – and the rest is history.
  Me as a reader was born when I fell in love with fairytales. I know, what a cliche! But, I wasn't like all the „normal“ kids, I read the real Grimm and Andersen fairytales – blood, incest, death, gore and all. I was still in elementary school at the time, mind you. And then I became the permanent fixture in the library.
  My personal taste goes toward mostly the classics (Dostoyevsky, Zola, Dickens, Thackeray, Fielding, Austen, Bronte, Hemingway, Stoker, Poe, Irving, Kafka, Camus...), and a few contemporary (Marquez, Kostova, King, Koonz, Cook...) – many of these are historical novels, social novels, humorous novels, adventurous novels, SF novels, horror, thrillers, psychological novels, etc. The list is pretty nerdy but I can't help it, there are so many of them I just don't have enough space to write all of them :)
  My favorite book of all time is 'Crime and Punishment'. I remember when I started reading it I just couldn't put it down, I finished it in two days - mesmerized. And to this day the only books I truly LOVE are those that made me feel like that – mesmeriz.
  My interest in supernatural romances began with Sookie. I can't say that this style is my favorite but I read it often because it's easy and fun, and sometimes my brain just needs a break. Here I'm partial to Chloe Neill, Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris, Kresley Cole, Ilona Andrews, Nalini Singh and Gena Showalter.
  I'm a big reader and I go through a lot of books if real life permits it. I'm open-minded but honest in my opinions. I try to be civil if I like or dislike something but, sometimes I just get carried away with emotion and I can't stop myself. So be warned LOL.>



Comments

  1. This is just awesome. I've already felt for a long time now...that you were my internet friends/family, but now I feel like I know you guys even better. :)

    I loved reading through all your personal journeys that brought you to here and finding even more things I have in common with all you lovely wenches!

    Barb- I read Fear Street and Sweet Valley High when I was in middle school too!

    Kat, I was also reading historical romances around that time myself. For the Roses by Julie Garwood was one of my favorites. I don't read them much anymore, but I still have boxes and boxes of Harlequin Historical books in storage.

    And Donna, like you, I would pilfer my mom's books (those historical romances mostly) when I was too young to read them. I'd hide them under my mattress and read under the covers with a flashlight at night so I didn't get caught with them and thought I was a REBEL by doing that, lol.

    Angela...I used to love to read Terry Goodkind books! I knew we both shared a love for the LOTR and ASOIAF books, but I'm pleased to know that we both can classify ourselves as fantasy nuts. Have you ever read any R.A. Salvatore novels? He's another good fantasy author that I enjoy.

    It just amazes me how many of you took the same Twilight-True Blood-Southern Vampire Mysteries route as I did to get to SVB's site and then eventually to here.

    Love you all!

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  2. Aw, thanks Lisa! I think we all found each other because of our shared interests in books. It's like literary e-Harmony! There are lots of great books and series out there, and I look forward to finding new ones to discuss with everyone.

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  3. Katherine Z. Barrons,OMG,a tiny journey through memory lane.
    Black Beauty,one of my most cherished books as a child,I am going to look for it and read it again.
    Thank you so much.

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  5. Lisa, I haven't read R.A Salvadore. I will add it to my never ending list :)

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