Sep 27 2009
Dear Ms. Roux. I opened this file when I got it because it wasn’t paranormal (no world building…I’m so sick of world building) and because you wrote it and I adore your Caught Running with Madeleine Urban. That said…meh. So many holes, such annoying characters, unbelievable timeline, so much potential angst wasted, wasted I tell(…)
Sep 19 2009
Dear Authors: I opened THIS anthology because I liked Sindustry I. But this volume is so obviously all the leftover stories from the Sindustry I anthology that didn't quite make it into the first volume. And most of these stories should NOT have been included. This anthology had very few redeeming stories and some that(…)
Sep 16 2009
Dear Authors: I only opened this volume when Dreamspinner sent it to us because Madeleine Urban had a co-written story in it. I adore her longer co-written stories with Abigail Roux, and the volume started off with “Reluctant,” so I thought I’d have a great little story and then skim through the rest. Instead, “Reluctant”(…)
Sep 10 2009
Dear Mr. Lane: As I immediately emailed to you when you sent met his book, “Good God, the fairy godmother of cover images likes YOU, doesn’t she?!” I adore this cover, as I did the cover of the first Amaranth novel. (Anne Cain did the art. One might almost say “Of course, Anne Cain did(…)
Sep 2 2009
Dear Ms. Rossetti: This book recently won a Passionate Plume Award from Passionate Ink, the erotic SIG for RWA. I’ve long been intrigued by the blurb on EC, so thought I’d check it out. I’m very glad I did. It’s part of a series, but completely stands alone-’I haven’t read the rest of the series,(…)
Aug 24 2009
Dear Ms. Somerville: Remastering Jerna is a remarkable book that harkens back to the beginnings of the novel in the eighteenth century. It is a spiritual autobiography, a travel narrative, a psychological exploration of extreme stress, a prison story, the memoirs of a whore — all the stuff of the novel’s infancy and growth. Although(…)
Jul 25 2009
Dear Mr. Lane: I reviewed your Dark Heart in February (the book of the gorgeous cover), which I very much enjoyed. So when you sent me White Flag, I was thrilled to have it, short though it is (only 68 pages). And it was an enjoyable, if predictable, little read. But I’m really writing about(…)
Jul 16 2009
Dear Ms. Burkhart: As a college professor, I had to overcome very many squicks and ethics twitches when reading about a professor who not only starts a sexual relationship with a current student but ends up spanking her over his desk as a “Final Exam.” I also don’t do well with male dominant/female submissive stories,(…)
Jul 10 2009
The new academic organization, International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, is up and running and doing some exciting things: 1. The Members’ Forum on the IASPR website is a standing messageboard where IASPR members (and non-members) can interact, sharing news of and discussions about popular romance studies. Anyone can register as a member(…)
Jun 23 2009
Evangeline Anderson’s books are my dirty little secret, my secret shame, my love that dare not speak its name. I don’t know WHY her writing makes me feel oh so fulfilled but in such a wonderful dirty way, but it does. They’re so full of *angst* and *melodrama* and *gay for you* and all the(…)
Jun 8 2009
Dear Ms. Mitchell. This book reads like what I imagine being inside a guy’s head must be like. Lots of stonewalling, lots of mixed motivations, lots of confused emotions. This ability you have to get emotions perfectly right and to show how they are so very wrong-headed is both the beauty and the problem with(…)
Jun 2 2009
Dear Ms. Dahl: Anyone who has read your contemporary Romance, Talk Me Down, knows that its heroine, Molly, writes erotic fiction under the name Holly Summers, including a little work called The Wicked West, an homage to her very own hero, Ben. So what a clever promotion to actually publish this story under the pen(…)
May 6 2009
The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance is open for membership! Go to the website and click on the “Join Today!” link. Or just go straight to the membership page! (Through the power of PayPal, they take all comers and all our various currencies all over the world. It is, after all, the(…)
Apr 30 2009
POPULAR ROMANCE STUDIES An International Conference August 13-14, 2009 Brisbane, Australia Sponsored by The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) University of Queensland Queensland University of Technology Romance Writers of America For decades, scholars have studied popular romance, whether in romance novels, films, comics, or other media. They have studied its sexual(…)
Apr 21 2009
Dear James: This was such a great book as I was reading it that I couldn’t put it down. Although there have been a few things niggling at my brain in retrospect, the actual reading experience was almost perfect. That pleasure came mostly from Joe: Deputy Joe Paterson, devout Mormon, Sheriff’s deputy in a small(…)
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