About Janine

http://dearauthor.com

Janine Ballard loves well-paced, character-driven books. Examples include novels by Shana Abe, Loretta Chase, Patricia Gaffney, Cecilia Grant, Judith Ivory, Carolyn Jewel, Laura Kinsale, Julie Anne Long, Alison Richardson, Nalini Singh and Pam Rosenthal. Janine also writes fiction. Her critique partners are Sherry Thomas, Meredith Duran and Bettie Sharpe. Her erotic short story, "Kiss of Life", appears in the Berkley anthology AGONY/ECSTASY under the pen name Lily Daniels. You can email Janine at janineballard at gmail dot com. or find her on Twitter @janine_ballard.

Posts by Janine :

REVIEW: The Edge of Night by Jill Sorenson

REVIEW: The Edge of Night by Jill Sorenson

Readers of this review should know that Jill Sorenson contributes f/f and f/f/m reviews to this blog on a once-a-month basis. Dear Ms. Sorenson, Contemporary romantic suspense is a genre I can enjoy a lot when a book is well-executed, but most of the time, I don't find myself drawn to reading books in this(…)

REVIEW: The Trysting Place by Mary Balogh

REVIEW: The Trysting Place by Mary Balogh

Dear Ms. Balogh, For two whole weeks everything that happened in the Maynard household revolved around one fact: Felicity was coming home. So begins The Trysting Place, one of your early, out-of-print trad regencies (and a prequel to The Notorious Rake). I loved the opening of this story, in which we see eighteen year old(…)

REVIEW: The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day One by Patrick Rothfuss

REVIEW: The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day One by Patrick Rothfuss

Dear Mr. Rothfuss, By February I had heard enough people mention how eagerly they were awaiting the sequel to your first novel, 2007's The Name of the Wind, that I was intrigued and decided to pick up the first book in the series. The Name of the Wind begins this way: "It was night again.(…)

REVIEW: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

REVIEW: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

Dear Readers, I don't know if it was Jayne's recent review of the Merchant-Ivory film adaptation of this novel, or a discussion of Forster's works that some of us on Twitter got into a while back. There's also the fact that every time I see Jennie do one of her classics reviews, I think to(…)

REVIEW: Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves

REVIEW: Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves

Dear Ms. Reeves, Your debut YA novel, Bleeding Violet, was one of my favorite books of last year, so when you emailed me with an offer to review an ARC of your second book, Slice of Cherry, I jumped at the chance. Slice of Cherry is written in third person omniscient narration, but the only(…)

REVIEW: The Dangerous Viscount by Miranda Neville

REVIEW: The Dangerous Viscount by Miranda Neville

Dear Ms. Neville, Here’s a testament to the fact that Twitter can sell books. I’ve enjoyed your personable tweets so much that when I saw on SonomaLass’s website that she enjoyed your newest novel, The Dangerous Viscount, I decided to get my hands on a copy. This was back in October, before I bought my(…)

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas

Dear Ms. Kleypas, There's been some discussion online about the pricing of your newest contemporary, Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor. The book is a hardcover priced at $16.99 (though I myself paid $9.99 for the e-book version at the Sony Store and have recently seen the hardcover on sale at Amazon for as little as(…)

Janine’s Best of 2010 List

In alphabetical order by author: Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews (also on Shuzluva’s best of list, reviews by Janine and Shuzluva ) "Here There Be Monsters" by Meljean Brook, in the anthology Burning Up (review by Janine, also on the best list by Jill Sorenson and the entire anthology is on Shuzluva’s best of list)(…)

JOINT REVIEW: A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh

JOINT REVIEW: A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh

Janine: It's been roughly four years since the first time I read Mary Balogh's A Christmas Promise. At the time, I loved the book, so when I heard it was being reissued, I thought this would be a great time to review it. I felt a little trepidation though, because sometimes books I used to(…)

REVIEW: A Masked Deception by Mary Balogh

REVIEW: A Masked Deception by Mary Balogh

Dear Ms. Balogh, Lately, after enjoying A Chance Encounter very much and The Wood Nymph to a lesser degree, I've been spending some time reading more of your older traditional regencies. A Masked Deception is your first book. Here is a description of the novel taken from your website: Margaret, the new Countess of Brampton,(…)

REVIEW: Selfish is the Heart by Megan Hart

REVIEW: Selfish is the Heart by Megan Hart

Dear Ms. Hart, Selfish is the Heart is the third book in your Order of Solace series, and I was not sure what to expect of it given how widely my responses to your two earlier works in this series differed. I gave Pleasure and Purpose an A- review, and No Greater Pleasure a DNF(…)

REVIEW: The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook

REVIEW: The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook

Dear Ms. Brook, The Iron Duke is a steampunk romance and it is very different in setting and genre from most of the romances I've read. It’s not really paranormal, but rather science fiction set in a partly-historical setting. A kind of "what if" world. What if nanotechnology had been invented by the Asian nation(…)

REVIEW: Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews

REVIEW: Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews

Dear Mr. & Ms. Andrews, The changeling William Wolf was introduced to readers in your earlier book, On the Edge. On your website, Mr. Andrews states in that book, William "lost Rose to Declan and did not save the day. This book [Bayou Moon] was his chance to be a hero, to get the girl.(…)

REVIEW: The First Snowdrop by Mary Balogh

REVIEW: The First Snowdrop by Mary Balogh

Dear Ms. Balogh, Your traditional regencies are books I often find interesting even when though they are not always necessarily romantic or sexy to me. That's because the characters have human flaws and weaknesses not often seen in many of today's books. Such is the case with Alex, Viscount Merrick, the hero of The First(…)

REVIEW: Red Rose by Mary Balogh

REVIEW: Red Rose by Mary Balogh

Dear Ms. Balogh, I've been reading your earlier traditional regencies lately, with varying degrees of enjoyment. So far Dark Angel and A Chance Encounter are the two I have enjoyed most of the ones I've read this year. I lucked into a copy of Red Rose, one of your out of print books, through Paperbackswap.com.(…)