NerdCon!

What’s up K-Fans!

I’ve got something super fun to share with you! As you know by now, our first K-drama inspired novel, K-Love will be hitting shelves very soon, but what you probably didn’t know is HOW soon.

On April 29th, we will introduce K-Love for the first time at NerdCon! 

Now, granted, this is a very local, small NerdCon, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to introduce our book with a table and bookmark hand outs. If you’re in the area of Chester County, PA, then please stop by the library and visit us!

What this means for the general opening of K-Love, is that we had to get the book totally finished and ready to go by NerdCon…so that means you can have it, too!

We will officially release K-Love on May 4th! 

So in honor of that, I will be posting character introductions, quotes from the book, and all kinds of K-Love tidbits leading up to that date!

Isn’t it fun that we can put together a crazy awesome book and use our own timetable? I love it!

Also, it was great that we could release this book on “May the fourth be with you” nerdy nerd day. It’s kind of perfect.

We look forward to your support, and of course your reviews on our book very soon!

-Devon-

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GIF Review Beauty and the Beast

Quick consensus: A thrilling Fantasy with perfectly cast characters and charming songs to tie the story together.

This one is for all my non-K-fans, since I know pretty much everyone has gone to see this movie, and if they haven’t, they’ll likely get roped into it by well-meaning, but rabid family and friends anyway.

Okay, here we go! My expectations for this movie:

Which were quickly met with that AMAZING beginning sequence with the dancers, and the dresses, and the singing, and the glam:

Emma Watson’s endearing, but so very autotuned first musical number:

Gaston and LeFou as perfect cartoon incarnations:

The Beast’s CGI:

EVERY musical number:

How they made the Beast charming, intelligent, witty, and 100% worthy of Belle’s love:

All the added songs, backstory, and character building they put in to flesh out the original:

That moment when the Beast got all hot at the end:

And basically every moment of this movie, which was tastefully recreated to compliment the wonder of the original, while still adding depth and creativity to stand on its own:

Thank you, Disney, for bringing my favorite story to life! I left that theater grinning like the crazed fan that I am, and I look forward to watching it again when it is released on DVD!

What did you think of the movie?

Hope you have a magical week!

-Devon-

P.S. But for real, if they were going to autotune Emma that hard…why not just get a dub voice for the singing parts?

GIF Review Something About 1%

I watched this one last month, but I’m just now getting around to reviewing it. With GIFs of course.

So here we go. The official Dev and Corn (omg I can never use that again. Don’t let me use that) review of Something About 1%:

How I felt about the general premise of a hot CEO being forced to date an innocent school teacher:

And when I quickly realized that this was going to be ALL romance and OTP moments, and NO filler or pretenses with subplots no one cares about:

But seriously like…every scene. They were ALL adorable like this:

And this:

And this:

And all this fluffy, sweet goodness had me so happy I was on a sugar rush:

Because episode after episode, I just felt happy. The whole time. Every bit was just too cute for words. And I like words. I use them a lot.

So, in conclusion…I have nothing bad to say about this drama.

If you want something light, and short, and purely romantic in all the most adorable ways possible, then you MUST add this drama to your watch list! It was what Noble, My Love should have been.

This will be on my re-watch list! Especially when I’m in the mood to lose myself in something fun! Go watch it!

Kdrama Beginner’s Tour: Action!

Stop 3

Welcome back to our tour for those just entering the world of Korean Dramas! Our first two stops featured gateway dramas and young love dramas to really get you into the spirit of Korean romance TV shows! We hope you enjoyed those, and if you haven’t read them yet, go on back and start at the beginning! This is a process, after all.

For today’s stop, we are going to take a look at possibly my favorite sub-genre:

Action Dramas

I love some good tension when it comes to romance. Not just internal conflict, which you might find in melodramas (something you might note I did not include in my tour. Not my fav), but external, scary, fast-paced AWESOME tension. There are so many of these that it was hard for me to choose, but I did my best for you! And fair warning…three of them have the same actor. I don’t know how that happened, but he just picks the best dramas. Lee Jong Suk for the win!

I Hear Your Voice

This drama wins the award for creepiest bad guy. He had me on edge! But the romance that develops through all the intrigue and danger is what makes I Hear Your Voice really shine. This drama is about a young man with the ability to hear what other people are thinking. He is on a mission to save a lawyer from a murderer she put into jail as a child with her testimony. She happened to save his life when they were younger, and he won’t stop until he knows she’s safe.

As a warning, if you haven’t experienced it yet, this might be your first “noona romance!” “Noona” or, in hangeul (Korean writing) “누나”, is a term that means “older sister.” I have a Korean friend who is maybe four years younger than I am, and he calls me 누나, so it doesn’t mean you have to be related. A noona romance refers to the female character being older than the male character. It’s strangely rare in American romance, but is definitely a thing for Korean dramas! It weirded me out at first, but I soon got used to it. They are a fantastic pair!

City Hunter

Oh the feels! Finally, I get to add an Lee Min Ho drama onto these lists. He was the first actor I got totally addicted to, and I watched every drama he’s made! City Hunter was his first foray into action, and I thought it paid off pretty well.

It’s been a while since I saw this one, but it is an action/romance about an undercover assassin working at the Blue House (Korea’s White House), and is on a mission to get revenge for the death of his father. While at the Blue House, he meets fellow body guard, Kim Na-Na, a spunky young woman who happens to have ties to his past. Our sexy assassin uncovers numerous political plots, and in his quest to avenge his father, he finds purpose and love.

If you ask me honestly, I will tell you that I liked Healer more than the very similar City Hunter, but they are both really fun to watch, and will get you hooked immediately!

W

Here he is again! That Lee Jung Suk really knows how to pick the dashing hero role.

You guys, this drama was AMAZING. It totally blew my mind when I watched it, and from beginning to end, it kept the intrigue high. W features a leading lady whose father is the artist of a world-famous manhwa (Korean manga/graphic novel). Our girl Oh Yeon Joo accidentally gets pulled into the manhwa world, and comes face-to-face with its hero, Kang Chul. The lines of reality and fantasy become blurred when Kang Chul begins to make his own decisions in the story, and Yeon Joo often gets pulled into the manhwa at the most unlikely times.

And that plot summary really just scratches the surface of the first episode…there is so much in this drama. And it really does have it all–the romance is perfect, the action is gripping, and the plot will keep you guessing until the last episode.

You’re All Surrounded

If you’re feeling like a little touch of levity makes your action-packed romance sweeter, then You’re All Surrounded is for you! It tells the story of a group of rookie detectives doing their best to protect the city they love, and survive some highly suspicious crimes that might be related to main character Eun Dae Gu (Lee Seung Gi), and his mysterious past. The comedy in this one had me belly laughing pretty much every episode, but then they knew how to reel it back in and get us focused on a thrilling plot I just had to resolve.

If you liked Lee Seung Gi in My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, then feast your eyes on him here, because he is scrumptious as a police officer! It took me a few episodes to get into this (their set up is a little slow-moving), so give it a solid three episodes!

Pinocchio

Recognize him? Yes, our darling Lee Jung Suk sneaks in for the third time, and caps off our action drama list!

To be fair, this one was really quite similar in feel to I Hear Your Voice, so it can be easy to get the two of them mixed up. But Pinocchio has a little more quirk, and a young coming-into-your-own kind of vibe. It is the story of a boy who washes up on the shore of a poor community, having hit his head and lost all his memories. He grows up with a girl his age, and they both end up entering the same internship for a news station. But his past begins snaking its way into his present, and both of them must work together to find answers to the questions that will affect their futures.

My synopsis doesn’t remotely tap into what this drama is really about, but it’s a rather complicated plot, and all you really need to know is the leads have great chemistry, the plot had me sucked in every single episode, and the characters are well-constructed for every role. It was a fantastic action drama! I rate it right on par with I Hear Your Voice.

And there you have it!

Those are my top 5 action dramas for beginners getting into Kdramas. Obviously I’m more into shows that are romance-centered but action driven. The action is all for the romance, in other words. And if you kind of like that too, then I know you will love these Kdramas!

Did I leave any out? Are you thinking of trying any of these? Let me know in the comments below! And stay tuned for the last two stops of our tour soon!

-Devon-

 

Kdrama Beginners Tour List

Gateway Dramas

Young Love Dramas

Action Dramas

Sageuk Dramas

Rest of the Best

Lee Jee Hoon’s WTF Faces

They did not disappoint. Tomorrow With You premiered last week, starring Lee Je Hoon and Shin Mina. LJH’s time traveling character gets more than a few brilliant WTF moments (and so varied!), and they just kept ’em coming.

via Lee Je Hoon’s Many WTF Faces On Tomorrow With You — melissa leaves the village

K-Love Cover Sneak Peek

Hey there K-Fans!

Well, things are really moving now. We think we have pegged down our editor, and will get the manuscript up to snuff for your reading pleasure soon. So for those of you who are on board with K-Love, it will be out THIS SPRING. We will have a more exact date once we get into editing the manuscript and find out how long that might take.

Something exciting I can share with you right now is part of our cover! We hired the best photographer we know, over at Kaye Studios, to whip up something incredible for us. And while I can’t share the full cover with you yet, I can give you a little sneak peek.

Behold!

I did my best to give you a tantalizing look, but not give away everything.

If you are pumped about the very first K-Rom, Kdrama inspired novel to hit shelves, then do us a favor and SHARE this with your friends! We know the Kdrama community is going to love this book.

Have a K-tastic week!

-Devon-

My Shy Boss/Introverted Boss First Impressions

I’m trying to like this one, you guys. I really am, but…

No, wait, I’m not. I’m just not. I don’t like it.

First of all, I don’t do synopsis reviews or what-have-you, so I’m sending you to a friend’s blog for all that good stuff. If you don’t know it’s about, let my buddy Sab over at The Cat that Watches TV give you the 411 on all that. Plus she has her own first impressions for you to look at, if you’re so inclined.

Here’s the thing with this drama:

No one. Is. Attractive.

I don’t mean that they aren’t physically appealing because dear glob, look at them:

They’re gorgeous human beings in real life. But the characters are some of the most unattractive people I think I could possibly imagine.

You’ve got the leading man, who is basically a ten-year-old child with anxiety issues, and he skulks around with a black hoodie on at all hours of the day. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s obnoxious, and occasionally it’s endearing, but never is it attractive. Even when he was running around without his shirt on, all I could think was, “Someone get that poor baby some fleece jammies.”

And then there’s our leading lady. She is loud, uncouth, nosy, and flat out stupid most of the time. Like how did you not recognize him and connect the dots for three episodes? That’s not her fault. That’s the writing. The confused, whiplash writing that doesn’t know if it wants to make this a rom-com or a corporate espionage thriller. Also not her fault is that fact that she really is just kind of a jerk. I suppose we’re supposed to think she’s spunky? She’s not. She’s rude.

I won’t even bother going over the side characters. Blah blah blah second lead is usurping power and probably made this woman’s sister kill herself. Et cetera. Snore.

I skipped a lot of the second episode by mistake, and didn’t feel like I missed anything. Never a good sign. But because I have faith in Kdramas as a whole, I’m going to keep watching this one to see if the writers are able to course-correct, or fix the glaring plot holes they unloaded in the first two episodes like Rick Grimes with a shot gun.

The good news about starting a drama with horrible imperfect characters, is that there’s room for development. Maybe they will change for the better, and Hwan Ki will go from emo Piglet to…anything else. And perhaps our leading lady will chill the freak out. Who knows?

I realize this review was harsh.

I regret nothing.

What did you think of the first few episodes? Let me know!

-Devon-

 

How K-Love Came to Be

Happy Monday friends!

Since not much has changed on the publishing front (other than sending out sample chapters to editors so we can get a feel for how they do their thing), I thought I’d just tell the story about how we even came up with this K-Rom genre, and its first novel, K-Love.

It started with a love of Korean dramas, obviously. My good friend, Dani, suggested them to me, and after binge watching Sungkyunkwan Scandal, I was forever hooked. The dreamy guys, the culturally unique and yet somehow still familiar plot lines, the tropes I began to anticipate and love. All of it was fantastic and awesome! 

And if you haven’t guess it yet, Cornwall is actually my mom, so if you had a sneaking suspicion that Devon and Cornwall were made up names, then ten points to your house! But even though Cornwall is my mom, she’s also my best friend, so of course I shared them with her. I think the first one I showed her was Secret Garden. And really, can anyone resist Hyun Bin’s jawline? Hello gorgeous!

I remember we were sitting there in my living room, still starry-eyed about the glorious perfection of Kdrama male leads, and Cornwall declared, “I want a Korean grandbaby!”

I was already happily married, but at the time, my sister was not. “We could always get Lindsay to marry a good Korean kid. Can you imagine how cute their babies would be?”

Cornwall gave a squeal of delight. “Yes! We need to find Korean men for her!”

“This is weird,” I hedged. Then we looked at each other and simultaneously drawled, “Nahhhh!”

“Maybe we can find cute Korean guys online or something,” I offered. 

“Maybe I should go to her campus and just start handing out her picture to all the Korean men I see,” Cornwall suggested.

I imagined her standing there, handing out a picture of my blond-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful sister, and the thought just made me giggle. “I guess that really would put us at ‘psycho level’ if we tried to make our Kdrama fantasies come to life via Lindsay.”

“Yeah,” Cornwall agreed. And then her eyes lit up. “But wouldn’t that make a hilarious book?”

I could just feel the wave of creative genius flow through me. “YES, omglob, yes! We could write a book about a mom and daughter who are nuts about Kdramas…”

“…and they try to set up their daughter/sister with random Korean men they meet…”

“…and we could put all our favorite parts of Kdramas in them!…”

“YES.”

“YAS!”

And that’s really, truly how that happened. Once we had the idea, we made it happen, and the result is our finished novel, K-Love. We enjoyed doing it so much, we have a whole series of them planned for you, and dare I say it, we maybe have found a fabulous niche for our writing talents. It took us a long time to complete because I have four kids, and Cornwall decided to go back to school, and all kinds of other insane life happenings. But now that we know what we’re doing, we feel pretty confident we can pop these books out there faster than Kim Bok Joo can eat chicken wings. 😉 

And there you have it. Just two crazy ahjummas taking fan girling to next level obsession. 

Hope you enjoyed this post, and have a great week! We’ve got fun posts coming your way soon. 

Cheers!

-Devon-

 

Legend of the Blue Sea Review with GIFS

I shall now attempt to do a full review of Legend of the Blue Sea using GIFS. Enjoy.

When I found out that Lee Min Ho and Jun Ji Hyun would be starring in a romantic drama about MERMAIDS!

After I saw the first few episodes, and it was cute and funny, and I thought it had some good potential

Watching Sim Cheong be a clueless mermaid, while Joon Jae humored her

Lee Min Ho as a sexy con man/magician/illusionist/whatevs he was

The time jump/past lives stuff, and wtfreak was all that for exactly?

When they introduced the “evil stepmother” plot line

Basically the entire, ensuing plot of the rest of the drama

But kept watching because Sim Cheong and Lee Min Ho together were not a bad OTP

When the writers made a bogus excuse about the mermaid needing to leave to heal or some sort of bull crap something or other, and Sim Cheong left for 3 years, and erased everyone’s memories, and the entire last episode was a TOTAL WASTE OF EVERYONE’S TIME.

Then came the kiss that looked like THIS. With tongue, people. TONGUE!

And I was like

So overall I’m left feeling like it was a solid 7.5/10.

And that really does pretty much sum it up. What did you think of Legend of the Blue Sea? Favorite parts? Least favorite parts? How much would you pay to have been Jun Ji Hyun in that kiss scene? XD

Thanks for stopping by!

-Devon-

Goblin LAST Episode Reaction!

We all know that I (Devon) have really loved Goblin from start to finish. But what did Cornwall think? Will there be opposing views? Check out what we had to say. 🙂