Jan 24 2012
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a lot of bluster in the YA community over what reviews “should be” and how they should be written and defined and what they should and should not contain. It’s a conversation that was very common in the online Romance community not so many years ago, and the(…)
Jan 17 2012
Dear Ms. Guhrke: In a way I wish I had read Trouble at the Wedding before the first two books in the Abandoned at the Altar series. The Edwardian setting, pairing of the bourgeois heroine from the American South and the titled but impoverished English duke, and mixed cocktail of the marriage for money and(…)
Jan 11 2012
Dear Ms. Kleypas: I may be in the minority of readers in this, but I really prefer your contemporary books to your historicals. I find your contemporary voice more confident, fluent, and engaging, and, more specifically, I find Travis series books reliable comfort reads. Since we already had reviews of Sugar Daddy and Smooth Talking(…)
Dec 27 2011
Although I’m not exactly a devoted reader of John Scalzi’s Whatever blog, a Twitter retweet last week drew my attention to a recent post, in which he announces that readers protesting ebook prices on his “Big Idea” posts will have their comment deleted: Why? Primarily because here at the tail end of 2011, I(…)
Dec 7 2011
Dear Ms. Chambers: It’s always exciting to read a debut book by a fellow blogger, although it can be a bit daunting, too. What if I don’t like it? Will that affect the way I read your blog? Fortunately, I enjoyed The Lady’s Secret, a book that mixes old and new genre conventions in interesting(…)
Nov 29 2011
Anyone who’s spend any length of time on Twitter likely knows about #fridayreads, the hashtag started by Bethanne Patrick, aka The Book Maven, who created, among other things, NPR’s The Book Studio. In fact, I know some people who have actually unfollowed Patrick because of the FridayReads cheerleading, which, admittedly, can get a little intense(…)
Nov 22 2011
Dear Ms. Shalvis: When I first started the Lucky Harbor series, I wasn’t sure I would like it. I have a visceral aversion to books with cute titles set in cutely named small towns, with covers colored in pastels and adorned with cute dogs or food. But my strong appreciation for your Sierra Nevada-set series(…)
Nov 8 2011
Who doesn’t love a small town Romance? Given Jane’s observation in her 2011 RWA wrap-up that small towns remain very popular, apparently a lot of readers do. Given the comments to that post and various lamentations from readers online, there are many readers who absolutely despise the small town Romance. While all genre devices have(…)
Oct 31 2011
Dear Ms. Weir: I have been slowly working my way through your backlist titles, so when I came across the re-released, reasonably-priced digital edition of Bad Karma at the Kindle store, it shot to the top of my TBR list. I have to admit that I’m not the biggest fan of the “psychic heroine” trope,(…)
Oct 25 2011
Dear Ms. Dahl: I had been planning to review Good Girls Don’t, but by the time I got to it, Bad Boys Do was out and Real Men Will was imminent. So I figured I might as well review all three, since the trilogy’s release dates are so close together. I’m not a stickler for(…)
Oct 21 2011
Dear Ms. Napier: When someone on Twitter mentioned that your older book, The Mistress Deception, features a virgin widower, I bolted right over to Amazon to purchase a digital copy, excited at the idea of a Harlequin Presents playing against type in this way. That was not the only pleasant surprise of the book, and(…)
Sep 21 2011
Dear Ms. Weir: A while back you posted on Twitter a couple of drawings that your late husband had done, explaining that while he was an accomplished artist, he never felt comfortable thinking of himself that way or having his art made public. At the time I thought it was sad that someone who so(…)
Sep 6 2011
First I want to formally introduce our newest tag at Dear Author: mistorical. Now tags don’t generally get such an officious welcome, but this one, in particular, might be a wee bit controversial, as it means, quite literally, “mistaken historical.” In other words, it’s the tag we’re now going to be using to describe(…)
Aug 30 2011
Dear Ms James: I think I have been waiting for you to write a book like The King’s Courtesan since I read Broken Wing. This book has a confidence and maturity, a depth, in fact, that impressed me, despite the numerous well-used genre tropes and devices it employs and the predictability of the overall story(…)
Aug 23 2011
Dear Ms. Lee: I have talked with you on Twitter for several years now, and I even purchased another of your books from Amazon, but Carnal Secrets is the first of your books I sat down to read all the way through. For those people suspicious of self-published books, I am happy to report that(…)
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