The rules for Author Promo Night Open Thread are as follows:

The book has to be released in that month (i.e., anything released during the last week of February would be a March release)
You can post for yourself or you can have a friend post for you if the idea of posting about your book paralyzes you .
No self published authors unless you write romance. No, I am not a POD hater, I am just thinking about the manageability of the thread.
Think about the readership. I.e., does your non fiction book about psoriasis really fit?
This one is more of a guideline than a rule, but be smart about your comment because if it is just a link to your website and the title of your book, I doubt you are going to get any interest.
DA reserves the right to delete the post if it promotes objectionable content (i.e., no daddy/daughter incest recommends are going to be allowed. Sorry.)
That’s it. Post away.

No related posts.

Related posts:

1. Open Thread for Readers for June 2011
2. Open Thread for Readers for May 2012
3. Open Thread for Readers for March 2012

Author: Danielle W
Comment: permalink
I am so ready for this to be released already! I need to read about the chocoholics :)

Author: AnnaPiranha
Website: http://www.dyedinthewoolbluestocking.blogspot.com
Comment: permalink
Oh! Pick me! Of course, if you don’t I’ll just download it anyhow.

Author: JL
Comment: permalink
I would love to win a copy of this! Such a great series.

Author: Rebe

Website: http://reflectionsonreadingromance.blogspot.com
Comment: permalink
This is such a great contemporary romance series – thanks for the giveaway!

Author: BethP

Comment: permalink
I love me some Jill Shalvis ;-)

Author: leslie
Comment: permalink
Great! Shalvis is a lot a fun! I loved the Idaho books.

Author: Tabs

Comment: permalink
I would love to win this. Jill Shalvis is great.

Author: Lana
Comment: permalink
What a lovely Thursday morning surprise! (Ok, free books are good any day)

Author: Katie
Website: http://theworldasmeditation.wordpress.com/
Comment: permalink
I’ve been trying to read more contemporaries (historicals are feeling a little stale); pick me!

Author: Amy J
Website: http://myoverstuffedbookshelf.blogspot.com/
Comment: permalink
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Jill Shalvis! Thank you so much for the contest!!!!

Grand Central has offered us 10 copies of Jill Shalvis’ Lucky in Love. This is the fourth book in the Lucky Harbor series and features nice girl Mallory Quinn who decides to liven up her sedate lifestyle by encouraging the attention of Ty Garrison, a guy who is just passing through Lucky Harbor.  Ty feels a bit guilty about pursuing good girl Mallory but she is adamant that a no strings affair is all that she is looking for at the moment.  Lucky Harbor is a recommended read by Dabney and releases on May 22 (next Tuesday).  We can’t ship it to you before it comes out in the stores, but we can provide a free copy.  Drop a comment if you are interested.  We’ll close the contest results on Sunday, May 20th at noon CST.

Related posts:

1. 10 Winners of the Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis Giveaway
2. WINNER: Jill Shalvis’ Viraly Goodness Contest
3. My First Sale by Jill Shalvis

****

JF: To celebrate this month’s release of the first book, MIDNIGHT RESCUE, Elle and I are thrilled to be here answering questions about the book’s journey to publication. It’s been almost exactly a year since I acquired three books in a new romantic suspense series by Elle Kennedy for Signet Eclipse (part of Penguin).

Editors say this all the time, but I devoured this submission in one sitting. The heroine’s strength, emotionally and physically, hooked me within ten pages (in revisions, we dropped the prologue to emphasize her strength even more). This was not a romantic suspense where an alpha male swoops in to rescue the heroine; this was a book where the hero and heroine rescue each other.

Although I was excited about the potential of this series and author, the practical side of my brain knew this could be an uphill fight to acquisition. We were seeing very little romantic suspense published at the time—the popularity of sweet, small town contemporaries was really on the rise. MIDNIGHT RESCUE was actually almost the complete opposite of what I thought I was looking to acquire. But I fell in love with the manuscript’s darkness – and also how the romance and banter and friendships balance it out beautifully.

EK: For me, I knew the series would be a tough sell, but my agent and I thought it was worth it to put MIDNIGHT RESCUE in front of some editors to see what the response would be.  We received a several passes on the submission, most editors admitting they loved the book, but it was too dark for their list.  Either that, or the market for romantic suspense wasn’t as “in demand” as paranormal or sweet contemporaries. 

 So I was absolutely thrilled when Jesse acquired the book because of that darkness, and took a chance on a RS manuscript.

JF: Elle’s agent set up a phone call between us. I was hoping to get a sense of how well we could work together on revisions (whether my suggestions resonated with her), how eager Elle was to promote herself, and how active she was online (I’d also investigated this before the call – prepare to be googled, authors. Have a presence online already).

EK: I loved that initial call with Jesse.  Her enthusiasm about the story got me even more enthusiastic about it.  And her thoughts about promotion were eye opening.  At that point, I had somewhat of an online presence, but I realized I needed to do a lot more in terms of putting myself out there.

JF: Elle and I had a great talk, I loved the submission, and everyone who second read in my department agreed. Then we ran numbers and I made an offer for three books in the series.

EK: Best day ever? My agent calling with the news that Signet Eclipse made an offer.  I’m pretty sure I let out a girlish shriek—and people who know me well know that I’m super subdued and rarely girlishly shriek.

I’ve been asked why I chose to go the traditional route rather than self publish digitally or go with a strictly digital publisher, which a lot of authors are doing these days.  It all boils down to that childhood dream of wanting to see my name on the cover of a book, hold that book in my hands, flip through the pages, see it on actual shelves in an actual bookstore.  Bookstores are my favourite places on earth.  I read a lot of ebooks, of course, but for me, I just love having that hard copy of a story in my hands.  So I was so thrilled when Jesse called saying she wanted to publish MIDNIGHT RESCUE.

JF: Now the real fun began: edits! I read the manuscript several times before shooting an editorial letter and line edited manuscript off to Elle. We had a phone call a few days later. Elle jumped right into revisions with enthusiasm. I remember getting emails throughout the month like, “What if I add a dog?” (Authors: there’s ALWAYS room for a dog.)

I sent Elle four pages of notes, as well as a marked up manuscript file, for the first round of broad revisions. This is pretty average length of notes for me, plus or minus a few pages. As I mentioned above, we reworked the structure of the book a little bit, incorporating the prologue more into the story and streamlining character POVs. I also discussed with Elle how the hero and heroine weren’t as active in the climactic suspense plot as I’d hoped they would be. Both characters are strong and capable, but originally they were kept out of planning the rescue mission that is the focus of the book. During a brainstorming session on the phone, Elle came up with a twist that really pulls everything together at the end.

Elle and I had a lot of conversations about how to really be sure that Abby is completely empowered and active throughout the story, even as she learns that she needs to trust her teammates and the hero. This carries over to her sex scenes with the hero, where Elle really amped up Abby taking control of her sexuality, which I love and is an important part of her character’s growth. We also talked through different scenarios for ending the book that allowed Abby to not sacrifice any of her values (or skill set) in order to be with the hero romantically.

EK: I have a love/hate relationship with revisions.  It’s so incredibly difficult cutting or changing parts of a book that you worked on for so long and which has become a part of you.  But I’m lucky to have some wonderful editors who are able to look at that book objectively and tell me what it’ll take to make it even better.  Jesse is no exception.  Every single one of her suggestions made perfect sense to me, so making certain changes was no hardship.

Oh, and fun fact: I added my dog into the book.  Bear, the German shepherd mutt who belongs to one of my mercenaries, is actually my super awesome mutt.

JF: We also started brainstorming series names and cover concepts around this time. We look at what’s popular right now, and think about how to make the book stand out on shelves. This is Abby’s story, so we decided to take a little departure from traditional romantic suspense covers by depicting her alone on the cover. The difficulty was not making her seem like an urban fantasy heroine. As you can see, the designer did an amazing job.

EK:  I love, love, love this cover! When it showed up in my inbox, I was actually speechless (again, not characteristic—sadly, I am a babbler).  I couldn’t believe how fierce the heroine looked, and the colors were absolutely stunning.  After seeing the cover for MIDNIGHT RESCUE, I had no idea how the art department could possibly top it for Book 2.

JF: The art department actually is working on the cover for book #2, MIDNIGHT ALIAS, now. Sometimes photos of potential male cover models appear in my inbox. Designing covers is fun.

EK: Once the book had a cover, it felt even more “real” to me.  And around this time, Jesse had read the revisions and approved them, so the book was moving along on its journey to publication.

JF: We had done two rounds of revisions before turning it over to managing editorial for copyediting. When you’ve read something five or six times and it still resonates with you emotionally, you know it’s a gem!

EK: For me, once the book has been copy-edited, I start to freak out.  Because at this point, I can’t really make any more changes—and what if I suddenly decide that something needs to change?!  Standing by and letting the book get immortalized in print/digital form is like waving goodbye to your kids when they go to college.  You’ve got to let them stand on their own now, no matter how scary that is.

JF: Elle turned in revisions for book #2 in the series (out next Feb) and the outline for book #3 this month. And this whole cycle begins again!

We’re giving away 5 copies of MIDNIGHT RESCUE: A Killer Instincts Novel to randomly selected comments below. Leave a question or comment for Elle or myself—do you have a question about the editorial process we didn’t cover? We’ll try to reply and maybe you’ll win a book!

Visit Elle’s website for more information on MIDNIGHT RESCUE.

Related posts:

1. Hoo Rah: A Giveway for the Troops
2. Book Pimp Post #3
3. Book Pimp Post #4

Months later, after participating in a DA community vote involving a DA blogger bundle and category romances, Jane contacted me in regards to being a reviewer for DA.  It was a thrill for me as a blogger who had just been starting to try and make his mark in the young-adult blogosphere.  Romance had become a second love; a second passion that my reading showed.  DA was a place for me to let out the romance reader.

Since then, I’ve had a wonderful experience reviewing for DA.  I’ve gotten to share opinions on some romances – sometimes to little fanfare, other times to an excessive amount that took me by surprise – and opinions on young adult novels.  Young adult reviewing was a better choice at the time due to my age, and DA readers were extremely supportive of that shift.  I’ve since shared some books that I’ve loved and some that I’ve loathed – and some that just fell smack-dab in between.

Life moves on.  It’s been over two years since I’ve started reviewing for Dear Author, and every minute has been fabulous – but things change.  Dear Author is primarily a romance-focused community, and my contributions have mainly involved a genre that isn’t a major crossover for romance readers.  School has become a maddening affair as well, and this year alone has been more along the lines of self-discovery than exemplary scholarship.  Sure, I’ve had great luck with SAT scores and self-improvement, but people do not lie when they say that the junior year of one’s high school career is the hardest.

Because of all of this, Jane and I mutually agreed that it was time for me to bid a fond farewell to DA as a reviewer.  I’ll always be a reader – how could I not be? – but it seems time to move on a bit and explore other things.  I’ll still be exploring my voice as a reviewer outside of the young-adult genre, but it may be suited to other venues that are more in need of a struggling new reader’s perspectives.  On top of that, there is a want to focus on applying for scholarships, getting a job to prepare for college, and finding time to do other things such as creative writing.

DA has taught me so much.  I’m not the common romance reader – gay, teenage, male – but the community has welcomed me with open arms.  I have made so many friends from this experience and have learned from them every day.  My writing has gotten stronger.  I’ve become a better person.  There’s just nothing that can top that kind of experience.

I’ll miss this all so much, but I can’t wait for what the future beholds as well.  There’s the promise of college; another still of writing and become a part of the publishing world.  Using all of this experience, I hope to become an author and an editor someday.  It’s been a dream for as long as I can remember, and I hope that someday I can give back to the community and share my voice.  The future is scary but exciting.

I have to thank everyone for all that this has given me.  The DA crew – Jane and all of the other fabulous reviewers -for taking me in, becoming my teachers and mentors, showing me the ropes, and giving me the chance to share my voice with new readers.  The authors, romance and non, for providing me with stories that I can get lost in and learn from as a wannabee writer.  And, most of all, the readers of DA.  You all have given me a chance to show my voice in a new light.  You are vastly different from the young adult blogging community, and that’s not a bad thing.  Getting to know you and how supportive you are has been an immense pleasure.  I look forward to continuing my role as a romance reader and participant in the community, and I hope that, someday in the future, I can share my voice with you in entirely new ways.  This has been amazing.  I’m eternally thankful for all that it’s given me.

Related posts:

1. A Farewell From Sarah F
2. REVIEW: The Dark Farewell by Josh Lanyon
3. PRIDE WEEK: YA Recommendations by John

Author: Sirius Comment: permalink
I actually love well done time travel a lot, would love to win this one :)

Author: Ruth (CO)
Comment: permalink
I am not a fan of time travel so interested in finding out what made this one different.

Author: azteclady
Website: http://www.HerHandsMyHands.etsy.com
Comment: permalink
Considering how miserable The Time Traveler’s Wife made me, I would love to know how this book meets the romance reader expectations of a HEA

Author: becca
Comment: permalink
Usually mainstream novels try to stay as far away from the genre label as they can get. The publicist’s encouraging romance readers to try this is delightful. I’d love to read a copy of this book.

Author: Carolyn Website: http://www.twooldfartstalkingromance.blogspot.com/
Comment: permalink
I have a sister who loves time travel books. I don’t mind them myself, so if I won, so would she. Thank you for the chance to read it. :-)

Author: Lindsay
Comment: permalink
Sounds like a fun book! Thanks for organizing a giveaway!
Author: Tina
Comment: permalink
I noted on the earlier thread that this sounded interesting. Good to see the giveaway offering a chance to read it.

Author: Jeannie S. Comment: permalink
I love a great book and a contest combined….I liked The Time Traveler’s Wife, but it did get a bit confusing at times. And I did not consider it a romance.

A few months ago, Lydia H, a Putnam publicist/marketing individual, emailed me about a book called “Overseas”. Putnam is a hardcover imprint for Penguin and I confess that I was a little apprehensive about a mainstream book being billed as romantic. Romance can mean many things to non romance readers. Plus there was time travel and while I’ve read a few time travel and enjoyed them, I’ve also read many time travels that dealt with the concept poorly and left me despondent (Hello, Knight in Shining Armor). But Miss Lydia was persistent and I promised myself that I would only read the first chapter. As I said in my review, by the end of the first chapter, I was hooked.

I’ve been encouraging others to read this book and Elyssa Papa arranged for us to have a Twitter chat for the book on May 31. All the chatter and excitement prompted Lydia H to email me and offer up 5 books to giveaway. Dear Author will sponsor 3 digital books as well for a total of 8.

In summary, we are going to giveaway 8 copies to US/Canada residents. To enter, just drop a comment below. (The reason that this is a US/Canada giveaway only is because the book is only available in digital to those regions so I wouldn’t be able to buy it and gift it to someone outside of US/Canada). You can also enter a giveaway at Goodreads.

Related posts:

1. Kindle 3G (with Special Offers) Giveaway
2. Caroline Linden Giveaway Winners
3. Winner of the Dear Author Winter Kindle Giveaway & Berkley Giveaway

Reading for and writing the reviews have kept me sane and made me utterly crazy. They’ve helped my academic work and kept me from it by keeping me up all night reading. I’ve discovered authors whose work I adore (K.A. Mitchell, Heidi Cullinan, A.M. Riley) and books that made me want to scream in anger and frustration — thankfully more of the former than the latter.

As much as I adore reviewing for DA, though, things have shifted in my life. For various convoluted reasons, I’ve started a business, Alphabet Editing, doing freelance fiction editing and BDSM consultation for authors. I’ll be working with self-publishing authors on their upcoming novels, and in the last two days, I’ve contracted with Riptide Publishing to work as an editor for them. As such, Jane and I came to a completely mutual decision that this presents too much of a conflict of interest for me to continue as a DA reviewer.

This step in my life would not be possible without my time at DA. Reviewing for DA helped me recognize wooden dialogue and dubious motivation at thirty paces. But I’m now transferred my reviewing skills to editing, hoping to catch those problems before the books are published, rather than after.

I will not be leaving the DA community — spending time with you guys is too much a part of my regular daytime procrastination — but I’ll be participating in it as a reader, just like the rest of you. And I might still be sharing with you some brilliant books (NOT ones I’ve worked on!) through some more Guest Reviews, bringing my time here full circle.

I want to thank Jane and the rest of the DA crew. I want to thank all you authors out there for sharing your characters and their journeys with us. But most of all I want to thank the DA readership. You guys are the best. I’ll still be sharing books with you, I promise. Just in slightly different ways.

-Sarah
Twitter: @sarahfrantz
Email: alphabetediting at gmail dot com

Related posts:

1. Best of 2008 List: Reviewer Joan/Sarah F
2. REVIEW: The Dark Farewell by Josh Lanyon
3. Borders True Romance + SB Sarah & DA Jane = Hijinks

The Scholomance by R. Lee Smith.
Since lots of people were talking about Smith, I decided to give one of her books a try. While I definitely agree her work isn’t for everyone, I really enjoyed my first foray into her works. It had an intensity to it that I feel has been lacking in other books, and I liked that the demons read and acted like aliens. They were pretty inhuman for the most part. After I finished this one, I remember not reading anything else for a week because everything seemed so bland by comparison. I’ll probably give Heat a try at some point later this year.

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A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink.
Such a frustrating read! It was vague on every front that mattered and there were quite a few logic fails. Full review here.

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The Kingdom by Amanda Stevens.
I have no idea what happened. I really enjoyed the first book in this trilogy and I did like the first part of this installment. But then things started getting weird and nonsensical and I wanted off the ride. I had the final book in the trilogy in my TBR pile but after reading the first chapter, I decided it was time for me to get off the bus permanently. Sad when that happens. Full review here.

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The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman.
What an odd book. There were parts of it I really enjoyed, and parts of it that I wished had been done differently. Maybe I was expecting more of a breakneck thriller pace than what I got. Full review here.

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Doubletake by Rob Thurman.
The Leandros boys never fail to cheer me up. This book covers all sorts of (awkward) family reunions. We learn why there are only male pucks (and what that means when it comes to procreation), and we finally meet Niko’s dad. There’s a development regarding the auphe that tells me we’re launching into the next thematic arc for the series. If the previous book was sort of a breather, this one is a preview of what’s to come. I’m really intrigued by what we glimpsed. (And for those readers like me who’ve missed her, Georgie makes a brief cameo.)

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The Girl in the Park by Mariah Fredericks.
A YA mystery thriller about a girl looking into the death of her former best friend. Nice interweaving of social media and outward appearances versus secret lives. Full review here.

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Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin.
So disappointing! I was so thrilled to read a book that references Edgar Allan Poe. Unfortunately the reality doesn’t live up to the promise. The heroine makes some ridiculous choices. The love triangle makes it painfully obvious who the ultimate choice will be, and of course that choice is the asshole. Honestly, it read like someone trying to be edgy but had no actual experience with the topics at hand. Review to come.

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Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris.
I enjoyed this one a lot. I’m hoping books like this one means we’re moving away from the YA dystopian trend and more towards YA thrillers. The heroine reminded me of Veronica Mars in many respects. Actually, the book itself is something like a cross between Veronica Mars, 24, and X-Files. It is a big book, I suppose, but it reads extremely fast. Loved that the insta-love romance plot here made sense to me. Review here.

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Shadows of the Moon by Zoe Marriott.
Kind of like a Cinderella story set in a fantasy world loosely based on (what I think is) Heian era Japan. The heroine, Suzume, survived the slaughter of her family, and I thought it was a pretty realistic depiction of that sort of trauma. Her mother also survived (she was away when the attack came) and eventually remarries, taking Suzume with her. But then Suzume discovers that her new stepfather is the one responsible for the murder of her family and soon embarks on a quest for revenge. I liked how the book interwove all the different guises and lives Suzume adopts for herself, and blended the original Cinderella story with the culture and Suzume’s revenge tale. Review to come.

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What about you guys? Read any of these? What did you think? What are you reading now? I’m currently reading Spirit’s Princess by Esther Friesner, which portrays the story of the Japanese shaman-queen, Himiko.

Related posts:

1. What Sunita was reading in March and April
2. Reading/Watching/Baking List by Jayne for March and early April
3. Dear Author Recommends for March

This is a dystopian story set in the near past (1960) in New York. A new type of genetically engineered food, Manna, has ended starvation by providing basic nutrition to people all over the world. But something has gone wrong, leading to riots in Manhattan and implicating the company that makes the food. A handful of people who were attending the company’s job fair join forces to stay alive and to try to figure out what is going on. This is an m/m/m romance, which I don’t usually read, but Price makes it work for me. The three protagonists are all different from each other, all interesting, the polyamorous relationship makes sense in terms of their personalities and desires, and the sex scenes further the relationships nicely. As usual, the setting is excellently portrayed and the supporting characters are as well drawn as the leads. As a student of collective violence, I found the riot scenes gripping and authentic. The book began as a serialized novel whose course was determined by reader voting. I think this makes the storyline a little choppier, but it was fun to read about the way Price responded to the reader choices. I’m definitely picking up her latest (unrelated) serialized-novel-turned-book, Magic Mansion. Grade: B+. Recommended.

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Moving In Rhythm by Dev Bentham

This is a debut contemporary m/m novel that has received quite a few favorable reviews. I wish it had worked better for me. The main protagonist is a math professor with acute social anxiety; his condition is bad enough that he teaches online courses rather than being in the classroom. It also means that he is unable to sustain any long-term relationship and settles for quickie sex that makes him feel bad; his closest and most rewarding relationship is with his dog. When he goes to stay with his pregnant sister-in-law while his brother is deployed overseas, he meets a dance instructor to whom he is instantly attracted. It’s a leisurely story, as much about the narrator’s journey as about the romance. The dance instructor is unbelievably patient and sensitive and pretty much perfect, and we never really get to see what they are attracted to in each other. Given the level of social anxiety described, I found it hard to believe that falling in love and coming out of the closet was enough to make it manageable. The writing is quite competent, but the mood shifts (from melancholy to sunny to erotic, explicit sex) are sometimes quite jarring. Grade: C

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Harm Reduction by Heidi Belleau and Violetta Vane

This is a short story, almost a vignette. It alternates between 2012 and 1992 Manhattan. In the present day, Julio tries to keep his foster son on the straight and narrow. In the past, he negotiates a relationship with a troubled youth named Linley, trying to reach out to him, keep his own attraction in check, and convince Linley that Julio’s rejection of Linley’s advances isn’t a rejection of Linley. Linley disappears, and Julio is unable to find him or forget him. The sense of time and place in this short story is amazingly authentic, and the writing is very good. I badly wanted the story to be longer, because I didn’t want to let these characters go. No stereotypes, no trope abuse, just a moving, compelling slice of life. The ending gives me hope that just maybe, there will be more to come. Go read it and come back and tell me what you think, because it’s FREE. Grade: A-. Recommended.

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The Rebuilding Year by Kaje Harper

This m/m romance covers a year in the life of two initially straight men who meet and find they are kindred spirits, go Gay4U, start a relationship, fall in love, co-parent the children of one of them, and end up in an HEA. It’s smoothly written and the scenes with the teenage children are well done. The rest was much less effective. Both the men start out unhappy and/or frustrated in their lives, and to believe that they would quickly and unproblematically fall in lust and then love required a huge suspension of disbelief on my part. The ex-wife is mostly evil, until near the end, and there is an evil new husband who seems to exist primarily to make the ex-wife look better. There is also a suspense storyline that comes and goes until the end, when it sails completely over the believability horizon. This was an exercise in frustration for me, because the writing and the family-drama part of the plot kept me reading but I kept having “oh no you didn’t” moments about almost everything else. After two books and similar reactions to both, I’m pretty sure this author is not for me. Grade: C.

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First You Fall by Scott Sherman

This is a gay mystery with a romantic subplot, but it is in no way a genre m/m romance. For one thing, our narrator is a gay prostitute and the reader is shown that he is quite happy in his job. For another, the romantic storyline is up and down, with no HEA in sight (this is the first of a series, so I’m assuming the romantic arc spans the novels). But the author’s voice is a lot of fun, it is impossible to dislike Kevin Conner, and his relationship with his mother is the gay version of many a white male New York writer’s story. Yes, she’s a stereotype, but she’s also a lot more than that. Sherman does an excellent job with her, and he briefly but skilfully captures the mood of a long-married couple in late middle age. The tone is light but not superficial, the mystery is interesting, although it takes a few too many turns toward the end, and the supporting characters are deftly drawn. I grew a little tired of the voice toward the end of the novel, so I’ll probably take a break before the next installment. But I’ll definitely read it. Grade: B-.

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Related posts:

1. Reading/Watching/Baking List by Jayne for March and early April
2. What Sunita was reading in February
3. What Janine is Reading in February and March 2012

On Sunday, April 22, I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Part 1 of my report on the festival

Part 2 of my festival recap

And now for Part 3:

Fiction: Love, Actually

My friend Bettie and I left the Anne Rice panel while Anne Rice was taking questions from the audience and snuck into the only romance genre panel at the festival, “Fiction: Love, Actually.” The moderator was Dee J. Adams and the panelists were Tessa Dare, Jill Sorenson and Deanna Cameron. For those among our readers who may not have heard of them, here are their festival guide bios:

Cameron writes romantic historical fiction. Before turning to fiction, she worked as a journalist, writing and editing for several Southern California newspapers and magazines. Her novels include “The Belly Dancer” and “Dancing at the Chance.”

Dare is a librarian, mother and writer. She is the author of “A Night to Surrender,” “Once Upon a Winter’s Eve,” and most recently, “A Week to be Wicked.” She lives in Southern California.

Sorenson writes sexy romantic suspense for Harlequin and Bantam dell. Two of her novels, “Crash Into Me” and “Set the Dark on Fire,” have been excerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine. Her most recent title is “Caught in the Act.”

Born and raised in Texas, Adams is the author of “Danger Zone,” “Danger Races” and the upcoming “Dangerously Close,” which will be published in July. She is a former actor.

After introducing the panelists, Adams kicked off the questions with one for Cameron, asking what drew her to write a book set in turn of the century New York when vaudeville was losing its luster.

Cameron replied that her previous book, “The Belly Dancer” had been set during the 1893 World’s Fair. She wanted to follow one of the characters from that book in her next book, and the historical fact was that most of those dancers went to vaudeville. Cameron said her research revealed that there were class tensions in this time period, and that interested her. Because of the rise of the movie industry, vaudeville, which had previously appealed to the middle class, began sliding.

Adams then asked Dare a question about Minerva Highwood, the nerdy heroine of her most recent book, A Week to Be Wicked, and whether it was a challenge to make readers believe that the hero would find a nerdy heroine attractive. Dare said that Minerva was based on her own nerdiness and then joked that she didn’t worry about how the hero would find her attractive because everyone knows librarians are hot. The audience laughed.

Adams asked Sorenson about her plots and Sorenson said she is a bigger plotter now than she used to be – her editor has made her into one. She mentioned that she had to rewrite the ending of her last book.

This brought up the topic of plotting vs. pantsing and Adams asked the others which they were. Dare said she was halfway in between being a plotter and being a pantser and Cameron said she was a plotter.

Adams asked about the changes in the romance industry in the years since Dare was first published and Dare said there had been a lot of changes due to digital publishing.

Sorenson added that her Harlequin categories only stay on brick and mortar bookstore shelves for one month while her single titles stay on shelves anywhere from a couple of months to maybe six months or more. But now, thanks to digital publishing, the books are always available. The problem is (said jokingly) that everyone else’s books are also always available. So there is so much to choose from.

Cameron said that publishers are looking more toward niche books and unusual settings like those of her books due to digital publishing.

Adams then asked Cameron about her writing influences. Cameron said she was influenced by Anne Rice’s historical novel The Feast of All Saints and the historical details in that book made her want to write in a historical setting.

Sorenson was asked when she knew she wanted to write. She replied that she started reading romance at age eleven – category romances which she loved – and also read a lot of Stephen King. She knew early on that she wanted to write but not what she wanted to write. While briefly working as an English teacher she read a book by Lori Foster which made her realize that romantic suspense was the genre she wanted to write in.

Adams asked all three panelists what was the hardest part of writing.

Cameron said “Knowing when to stop revising.” Dare said “Sitting with the blank page.” Sorenson said “Twitter and the internet,” and added that she wastes a lot of time lurking on the internet. Cameron said she thinks social media is so exciting and so much fun.

Dare said that if it isn’t social media, there are times when cleaning the keyboard is the most exciting thing in the world. So if it wasn’t social media, it would be something else.

Sorenson said she is a stay at home mom and writing can be isolating so she loves meeting readers.

Adams’ next question was about writer’s block and what they do to counter it. Sorenson said she doesn’t get writer’s block but she went to a workshop with Christie Ridgeway and got a technique she uses, called a “character read.” She reads all the scenes from just one character’s POV and she believes that helps keep her from getting stuck.

Cameron said that when she’s stuck, she’ll figure out what to write next when away from the computer, “in the shower or something.” What blocks her is a problem with character motivation.

Dare said writer’s block means she has to go back a few scenes and fix the problem that is causing the block.

Adams asked the other authors about their tools for writing and mentioned three tools that help her, “discipline, drive and desire.”

Sorenson said the question had made her think of actual physical tools, like the notebook and pen she takes everywhere with her to jot down ideas, and her laptop.

Dare said that her tools were her support network, writers who can celebrate her successes or commiserate with her.

The next question was about the authors’ typical writing day. Dare said that the mystique of being a writer is that the writing “all comes in this pretty package” (she held up her novel as she said it) “and you don’t see the pajamas and dust bunnies.”

Sorenson said “Wasting time” was her typical writing day and Dare countered that, saying: “It’s not wasting time. Sometimes you have to go on walk or do the dishes and that gets your imagination going so it’s not wasted time.”

Sorenson added that she loves 4:00 AM. She is a morning writer and gets up early and writes for as many hours as she can.

Cameron said she gets up at 4:30 AM since it’s the only time her baby isn’t up to distract her. She writes in the morning for two hours and also during naptime. She can do research and other writing related activities during the rest of the day, but not writing.

Adams asked Sorenson if any true stories were the basis of her work and Sorenson replied that she has recently been working on a book called Aftershock, about a group of people trapped in a subway collapse, which was inspired by a subway collapse that happened in California.

When asked what advice she would give to writers who are starting out, Sorenson said she wrote six books before she got her first publishing offer. Finishing a book is a great accomplishment but you need to be able to start the next one.

Dare said that was good advice and that she would also advise joining a writer’s group. Cameron said “Definitely stick with it – if you stick with it, it will happen.”

Constantly trying to improve also came up, and then Sorenson said she still gets projects rejected by her editor. Getting rejected is such an important lesson and unfortunately lost with self-publishing. You can learn a lot from the feedback you get after self-publishing too, but there is a lot to be learned from the rejection process.

The next question was, “What is the strangest thing you’ve done in the name of research?”

Dare shared a hilarious story about a time she visited England for research, took a country path on foot, and ended up walking through a barley field (it turns out “country path” means something different in England than what it means in the US). The barley made snake-like hissing sounds with every step she took, and then, after a long time she finally arrived at sheep pastures. She then got to a field in which a sign was posted, “Caution, bull in field.” She was faced with a choice of either walking all the way back or walking through the field with the bull, and ended up choosing the bull over the long walk back.

Sorenson talked about going on a ride with a gang unit in San Diego as research for The Edge of Night. For Crash Into Me she interviewed surfers and one male surfer started changing out of his wet suit during an interview. He kept a towel around his waist as he changed, but it was still a little uncomfortable.

Cameron said she had a lot of belly dancing in The Belly Dancer but since she has been belly dancing for years herself she didn’t need to do a lot of research on that. Because she dances in a troupe but her character danced solo, she interviewed solo dancers to learn more about what that was like. In addition, she has also visited Northern Louisiana to do research on a French colony there.

The next question was “How old were you when you read your first romance?”

Cameron said that in seventh grade she read V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic which was passed around at her school. The book is based on a romantic relationship between brother and sister. She wouldn’t want her daughter to read it at that age, “But look how well I turned out.”

Dare said she can’t say that her books are appropriate for teens but she knows she read much worse as a teenager.

Sorenson said she was contacted by a young girl who wanted to read her books. Sorenson suggested to the girl that she have her parents read the book first and decide if it was appropriate for their daughter to read it.

Adams asked which was each author’s favorite book from among the ones they had written. For Dare it was A Week to be Wicked. “It was a joy to write the characters.” She added that her favorite is always the one that is on sale at the time. For Sorenson, it is “The one I just finished” and at this time that is Aftershock. Cameron also likes the one she finished writing most recently best.

The next question was about changes anticipated in the industry in the future. Sorenson suggested that in romance digital would continue to grow and books for a small audience might come out in digital first.

After that came a question, “If you could do something differently, what would it be?”

Sorenson said she had one book that didn’t work and that she had a feeling couldn’t be made to work, but she tried to rewrite it to show her editor she could turn it into gold. She rewrote it and it still didn’t work, so if she had to do it over again she would trust her gut instinct that the book wasn’t going to work. She needed to move on sooner than she had.

Somewhere in here (I’m not exactly sure where since my notes don’t say) the questions were opened up to the audience. Someone asked Sorenson if any of the five books she wrote before her sixth book was published were eventually published later and the answer was yes.

A woman got up to point out that this was the only panel on romance at the festival and ask why it was so hard to get legitimacy for the romance genre.

Dare said that it is often said that the genre is written for women by women and that’s the reason why, but she also thinks it’s also because the genre deals with female sexuality which some people like to make into a joke and some people feel uncomfortable with.

Cameron said that the 1970s bodice ripper image persists and for this reason, some people haven’t tried the modern romance.

Dare said “I’m over apologizing for that,” and added that romance readers aren’t ashamed, it is just others who like to embarrass or shame them.

Cameron said that chick lit was denigrated because it was for young women and by young women as well, and it is a shame that that persists.

The next question was about the covers and Cameron shared a story of how the original cover for her first book was of a woman looking into a mirror. She was happy with it until her husband looked at it and said “Why are there two women kissing on the cover of your book?” She waited until 5 AM in the morning – 8 AM in New York – to call her editor and luckily, the cover was changed.

Dare said that the original cover for Goddess of the Hunt used curvy typography that made the H look like a C. Needless to say, the font was changed.

Sorenson said that her latest Harlequin has a Latina heroine who looks light skinned. She spoke to Harlequin about it and they apologized to her but the cover remained the same and it’s the only one of her covers that she feels she should apologize to readers for.

I didn’t record what the next question was but it must have been something about classic literature because Cameron said her favorite literary classics were books by Lily Bart, Kate Chopin, The House of Mirth and other books by Victorian women, but she felt there were a lot of tragic endings to Victorian women’s lives in classic books.

Sorenson mentioned a French Lit class she took and how in every book, the female characters died. She said she loves that the romance genre celebrates romance and female sexuality and we get a happy ending.

Dare said she loves Jane Austen, where Regency society views and manners work against the characters. The historical genre is influenced by Austen and a great fit for her because there aren’t many kidnappers and killers which she is not good at writing.

Another reader said she read a lot of bodice rippers and missed those sweeping sagas but they were not PC. She asked if the authors felt constrained by having to be more feminist in today’s books. Dare said she got into the romance genre with Julie Garwood’s books, which came after the bodice rippers and so she doesn’t feel constrained. Sorenson said she’s all for bodice rippers and a variety of books but does not feel constrained by writing the books she writes.

At this point my notes on this panel ran out. When we tried to take a picture of the panelists for this post, we were told the room was needed for the next event, so we followed them outside to their signings and Bettie snapped a photo there.

Young Adult: Future Tense

Then it was off to the YA stage for a panel called Young Adult: Future Tense. This panel was comprised of three authors of dystopian or futuristic YA, Marie Lu, Lissa Price and Cecil Castellucci. The YA stage emcee was Aaron Hartzler. Here are their bios from the festival guide.

Castellucci is a writer, filmmaker, actress and singer-songwriter and engages in many other creative pursuits. She is the author of many young adult novels. Castellucci’s latest titles are “First Day on Earth” and the forthcoming “The Year of the Beasts.”

Lu writes young adult novels and has a special love for dystopian books. She was born near Shanghai and attended college at USC. Lu is the author of “Legend.”

Price’s debut novel is “Starters.” She is a member of the Apocalypsies, a group of 2012 debut young adult and middle-grade authors. Price resides in the Southern California foothills with her husband.

Hartzler, formerly the creative director of the Society of Children’s Books Writers & Illustrators, redesigned the look and feel of the SCBWI presence in all print, online, and mobile media platforms. He is currently working on several books that will be published in the near future.

It took us a little while to locate the YA Stage and as we arrived there, Marie Lu was talking about high school being “kind of dystopic” and saying that was why the dystopian genre was a good fit for teens. Price mentioned that her novel Starters was about “starters” vs. “enders.” She said she had thought the theme would work because “teens have a lot to carry on their shoulders.” Castellucci said that her book was about alien abduction, which serves as a good metaphor for the teen years when “You feel like your body is being taken over.”

Lu mentioned that she was really stressed about the SATs as a teen and so when she wrote Legend she invented “The Trial,” a test ten year olds are required to take. She also talked about living in China at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests and said that even though she was only five years old at the time, she was affected by that.

Castellucci said that her novel, First Day on Earth deals with psychic trauma and originally had a female narrator, but when she was a few pages into writing it, she realized her character was actually a boy.

Lu said that of the two first person narrators in Legend, the boy’s character and narration came to her more easily because that character had been with her since high school and “feels like an old friend.”

Price said that flu shot restrictions had made her hypothesize what the world would be like if everyone who hadn’t been given a flu shot died and only the very young and the elderly survived. That’s when she came up with the idea of teens renting out their bodies to seniors who wanted to experience what it was like to be young again.

Hartzler asked the authors about some of their favorite books. Lu said she was a fan of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow, Lois Lowery’s The Giver and fantasy masters like Tolkien and Robert Jordan. Price mentioned The Hobbit and Castellucci gave another mention to Ender’s Game as well as listing John Christopher’s The Tripods Trilogy and SF authors Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury among her favorites.

Lu was asked how she came up with the dystopian, futuristic downtown Los Angeles in Legend and said that LA was a little dystopic to begin with, but added that she saw an online map simulation of what the world would like if the water rose 100 meters. In the map, California had “a ginormous lake from LA to San Francisco” and Lu incorporated that into her book.

Lu also said that one of the challenges with Legend was to make the voices distinct enough because the book is written in alternating first person POVs. To help with that, she made the girl a Sherlock Holmesian kind of character who notices small details while the boy is more emotional and casual.

Castellucci said her new book coming out this May will be her first in third person. She usually writes in first person.

Hartzler asked Castellucci to talk about her experience writing for comic books and she said that she had art directed her first one, but now she just does loose scripts with dialogue and collaborates with the artist on the art direction, and that’s much better. She said that what’s great about writing for comic books is that you don’t have to describe everything, you can just throw out words. “It’s fun.”

The next question from Hartzler was about whether the books they write are targeted to teens or whether they write for all ages.

Price said that she loved the way The Hunger Games doesn’t talk down to readers. Instead the story is told straight out and the character just happens to be sixteen. Lu said she wrote YA for years without realizing that it was YA, and Castellucci said that before there was a YA genre, teens turned to science fiction and fantasy because their bodies had become alien to them.

Lu said that her agent had taught her that YA was defined by the characters’ coming of age while Castellucci said that in YA the characters don’t nostalgically look back on events of the story with greater knowledge but that instead there is much more immediacy.

Hartzler opened up the discussion to audience questions and I got up and asked one. My question was “Why are so many adults reading YA?” Price replied that she has a theory that the most creative writing is allowable in YA. Castellucci said “It’s really exciting because it’s the Wild West now.” Price concurred, saying, “They’re allowing us to do what we want,” and Lu added that in the YA section of the bookstore all genres are shelved together and therefore genre-benders are easier to sell and market.

Price said that her own book was originally marketed not as SF but as a “futuristic thriller” because the dystopian genre was thought to be going away, but now, with the success of the Hunger Games movie, the SF label had become trendy again and the book was being marketed as SF.

The authors were asked if they read while writing and Lu said she doesn’t read anything similar to her writing when she is writing. Price said that her publication schedule was so tight right now that she had no time to read, and Castellucci replied that she does read while writing, but chooses different genres from the one she is writes in.

The stress of writing on deadline came up next and Lu quipped that “Baths, chocolate and alcohol all help.” Castellucci said it was kind of ironic that she hated homework all through high school but now she’s in a profession where she constantly has to do homework.

The next question was about naming characters. Lu said she named the male protagonist of her book Day because it reflected his philosophy that every day everything is possible. Price said she chose the name Callie for her protagonist by combining the names of Katniss from The Hunger Games and Tally from The Uglies. Castellucci said the narrator of her book started out with the name Molly but when she realized the voice belonged to a boy, Molly became Mal.

One of the audience member asked what the authors do to get into the world of their books. Castellucci said she had a playlist that she listened to which helped her access that world. Price said she was working on the book nonstop and therefore constantly felt immersed in that world. Lu said she had used sketches of the world in which Legend was set to help her envision it.

Castelluci, Price and Lu were then asked about how long it took them to get published. Castellucci said she had heard a theory that it takes ten years to get from when you get serious about writing to get published and that’s how long it took her. Price said it had taken her nine years, and she had had an agent who didn’t believe in Starters and didn’t want to sell it, so she emphasized the importance of getting a good agent. Lu said she started writing seriously at age fifteen and sold twelve years later.

The next topic was revisions, and Lu said Legend had had three major revisions with her agent before her editor got it, while after it sold, only one round of fairly minor revision was needed. Her second book, which was just an idea in her head at that time, had required a lot more revision after selling than the first.

Price said that Starters was very close to being ready to publish when her editor got it. The second book in the series was much more difficult to write because she had to write it from scratch on deadline while promoting the first book.

Castellucci said that she was writing her first series now and that she planned to write the second book before the first book came out in order to avoid the problem of having to write while promoting book one. “That way madness could lie.”

Related posts:

1. My Sunday at the 2012 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Part 1
2. My Sunday at the 2012 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Part 2
3. My Saturday at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, April 22. The first part of my report on the festival can be found at this link.

And now onto Part 2.

Anne Rice in Conversation with Scott Timberg

After the mornings panels described in part 1 of my report, we stopped at the food trucks for lunch, which took longer than we expected due to long lines. We ended up hoofing it to the darkened Bovard Auditorium where Anne Rice and Scott Timberg sat on stage discussing various aspects of her writing and her career.

Rice needs no introduction but I will include her festival guide bio anyway:

Anne Rice is the author of 31 books, including “Interview with the Vampire” “The Witching Hour” and “The Wolf Gift,” her latest. She lives in Palm Desert.

As for Scott Timberg:

Timberg is a former L.A. Times arts and culture writer, sometime New York Times and GQ contributor, the coeditor of “The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles” and an enthusiast of film, wine, indie rock, retro culture, arctop guitars and California history.

As we walked in, Rice was finishing up talking about her latest novel, The Wolf Gift. We missed much of that topic but came in time to hear Timberg ask her about why she was drawn to writing about the supernatural.

Rice replied that she was not interested in characters unless they have a conscience and moral concerns. She said she tried to write realism and it was only when she started writing about vampires that she was able to connect with that mattered to her. Themes like the Catholic Church and fear of death were subjects she could approach with vampire characters. A lot of genre and speculative writers say they had a similar experience, Rice said.

Timberg asked Rice if she had a difficult time with selling or marketing Interview with a Vampire due to its supernatural aspect. Rice said that Knopf put a lot of stock in originality and a fresh voice so Interview sold for publication easily but the bigger problem was going against the bias of reviewers. The book got bad reviews in the major media outlets and good reviews in other places.

Interview with a Vampire was originally a flop as a hardcover and what saved it was the commitment on the part of its paperback publisher to print many copies. The number of copies printed kept it alive and it became an underground hit. The good reviews in smaller outlets helped save it as well, and so did the gay community, who saw the book as a gay allegory.

Rice said she was stunned when Interview with a Vampire didn’t get taken seriously. Now it’s easier to get original fiction with fantasy elements taken seriously than it was back then.

Timberg asked about Rice’s childhood in New Orleans and Rice said her mother would make up stories when she was a child (she described an eerie, imaginative story her mother told her as a child). Her mother was also familiar with the life stories of real people which she told to Rice, and she would tell her the plots of movies like The Count of Monte Cristo blow by blow. She told her the stories of the Bronte sisters, and they had books by Dickens at their house.

She also grew up listening to the radio and in those days, the radio was full of stories and soap operas, as well as radio shows like The Lone Ranger, Superman, and storytelling shows. There was so much on the radio.

Rice said that in New Orleans you couldn’t grow up without meeting people who were Catholic and/or had gone to Catholic school. Catholicism and its rituals, music, and art such as stained glass windows had a profound effect on her.

Her love of history also came from church, from stories about saints from earlier centuries, and there were priests and nuns at her church who came from Europe, so she learned about other times and places and became fascinated with them in this way.

Timberg asked why Rice’s erotica had to be written under a different name, and Rice replied that “Putting a fake name on it just freed me to write total pornography.” This got some laughs from the audience.

“I saw myself as writing authentic pornography,” Rice said. She was tired of flipping through books to find the sexy parts and wanted a book where these were on every page. “I thought people wanted to read stories of dominance and submission and if I could just write the Disneyland of S&M they’d be happy.”

Rice’s editor at Knopf was not interested in the project and her agent also thought it would not sell well and tried to encourage her to write something else. But her editor recommended the editor at another publishing house who was interested and did publish it.

Rice eventually claimed the Sleeping Beauty books but first, she told her father she had written them so that he wouldn’t hear about it from someone else, and asked him not to read her erotica.

Timberg asked her about her Facebook page and her contact with readers. Rice said that contact with readers is very good for her – she loves hearing from readers even if their responses to the books are mixed.

As the signings for her books got bigger and bigger, she got to meet a lot of her readers in person and she enjoyed it. For a while she had a phone line readers could call to leave messages for her. She would reply to those messages on her website. She had a website early on thanks to her tech savvy cousins.

Her current Facebook page has 600,000 people on it and she asks her fans for recommendations of movies, books, television and music. When something is troubling her, she asks them about it and gets a thousand comments within a few days which she prints out and reads, or sometimes reads on the screen.

Timberg asked Rice about her political views which she frequently discusses on her Facebook page. “What is going on in the world of politics that interests you or troubles you?” Rice said that she posts links to Nick Kristof’s columns at The New York Times — he is a hero of hers because he goes into famine stricken countries to report. She also likes Maureen Dowd and Fareed Zakaria.

Rice said she wants to see health care reform happen in this country. Early on she worked as a health insurance examiner and she never forgot the way insurance works – how they try to get out of paying people for claims. It troubles her.

She said sometimes people try to shut down her Facebook page because they don’t agree with her political views.

Timberg then said, “You’re interested in women’s issues like reproductive rights and human trafficking, I don’t know what you call that–” and Rice said, “Social justice.” The audience applauded.

Rice then said that she understands the passion on both sides of the abortion issue but she is very disturbed by the attacks on those she sees as the most vulnerable people in the debate – pregnant women. There has recently been a lot of low level legislation that makes it hard for women to get information about contraception, and she feels the attacks on Planned Parenthood are “unconscionable.”

She added that she hasn’t been able to write about this in her novels so she posts about it a lot on her Facebook page. Another issue that worries her is the kids who are abused in religious camps.

Timberg asked Rice about the sense of place in her novels and she said that she thrives on change, moving and trying new places – things like flowers, yards, and trees mean a lot to her. She finds Palm Desert, where she now lives, very beautiful.

Where she is always creeps into her fiction. Interview with a Vampire started in San Francisco where she was living at the time. The opening scene is set on Divisadero Street and she still remembers how she got the idea for the book. She had just been to a radio interview – her husband had been interviewed – and she saw an old Victorian house on Divisadero Street and started thinking “What if a radio interviewer was interviewing a vampire here?”

She added that she loves writing lush books where place is almost a character.

Timberg said that unlike the era of writing realism in which Rice was first published, today’s era is the era of Harry Potter, Twilight, Young Adult fantasy and dystopian novels, and Deborah Harkness. He asked Rice if she feels she played a role in bringing about this change.

“I don’t know if I played a role,” Rice said. “I think a time came when people were just hungry for it.” She related her first experience of seeing Star Wars at a convention in the seventies before the movie came out, and how wonderful the movie was. She said that Star Wars had been turned down by every studio but the people who worked on it made the movie they wanted to see and people loved it.

Superman with Christopher Reeve was made soon afterward and it got into Superman’s backstory. People wanted that, and they wanted the vampire’s backstory.

Rice: “I don’t know how much of a role I played. I think I was responding like everyone else.”

Timberg: “You had the same hunger readers had?”

Rice: “Yes.”

Timberg asked “What’s next for Anne Rice?” and Rice replied “I want to write more supernatural monsters and write more classic horror. I keep coming back to classic horror.”

She added that she wants to develop The Wolf Gift into a series. She loved writing the vampires but the problem is that she’s writing in a world she developed twenty years ago. She wants a new playground now.

Next up in Part 3 of my report on the festival, “Fiction: Love, Actually” (a romance panel!) and “Young Adult: Future Tense” (dystopian and futuristic YA).

No related posts.

Last year on I attended the Los Angeles Festival of Books and reported on the event for DA. My biggest negative takeaway that year was that the romance genre was not represented at the festival. This year (Halleluja!) they actually had a panel devoted to romance. A single, lonely panel mind you, but it was still a huge improvement to my mind. Here’s hoping for more next year!

I spent the day taking so many notes for my report on the festival (which is long enough to run in three pieces) that I lost one pen, got another bleeding, and finally had to borrow a third from a friend. My wrist was aching by the end of the day, but my notebook had been filled with notes. I did the best I could to capture what the speakers said but they talked fast so in many cases these notes aren’t exact quotes but rather paraphrases. I also missed some of the things that were said. My apologies to anyone I may have misquoted.

And now, onto the festival report:

Sunday, April 22, the second day of the festival and the only one we attended, dawned cloudy, so we didn’t slather on sunblock or even bring hats – something we lived to regret when the sun came out in the afternoon. Still, the USC campus, where the festival was held, was not an inferno like last year. We met up with our friends (Bettie Sharpe and her husband) and headed into our first panel of the day.

Fiction: World Building

The speakers on this panel were authors Frank Beddor, Lev Grossman, and John Scalzi. The moderator was Charles Yu. I will be quoting the bios of the speakers from the festival guide throughout this series of articles, and here are theirs:

Frank Beddor is a film producer whose credits include “There’s Something About Mary.” He’s also a screenwriter, professional skier, online gamer and novelist. He is the creator of the bestselling “The Looking Glass Wars” among many other books and graphic novels.

Grossman, an international best-selling author, began his writing career as a freelance journalist. In 2002 he became Time magazine’s book critic as well as one of its lead technology writers. Grossman has written four novels, including “The Magician King.”

Scalzi’s debut novel, “Old Man’s War,” was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. His other novels include “Agent to the Stars,” “The Android’s Dream” and the “Ghost Brigades.” In 2006 he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. His most recent book is “The Last Colony.”

Yu is the author of “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe” and received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award for his story collection “Third Class Superhero.” His work has been published in the Harvard Review and the Gettysburg Review, among other journals.

We snuck into this panel a couple of minutes late and missed the introductions, but Yu began the discussion by posing the question “Worldbuilding – what is it?”

Lev Grossman replied that a world is not exactly a static thing but it is not a story. He said that in his youth, he played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons and practiced worldbuilding. To him this was not the same as storytelling and he cautioned writers that worlbuilding can overwhelm your fiction by keeping the story from moving forward.

Scalzi disagreed with Grossman and said that worldbuilding is a form of fiction because it comes from the imagination. He did agree, however that Grossman was right, “You can spend all your time building a world without creating a story.”

Scalzi also added his “heretical view” that the Lord of the Rings movies were superior to the books. He said that was because Tolkien created a detailed world and was deeply involved with the worldbuilding whereas Peter Jackson was more involved with the storytelling.

He contrasted this with “The C.S. Lewis approach” and this led to a discussion of how some authors create the world first while others start telling the story and then build the world according to the needs of the story. It was a question of “Are you writing from the inside out or from the outside in?”

The C.S. Lewis approach was to create what the story needed – even Lewis scholars can’t make a continuity out of the world of the Narnia books because that wasn’t what Lewis was trying to do. Scalzi said his approach was similar and that he doesn’t describe things (for example, aliens) that are part of his world unless a description is needed.

Frank Beddor said he uses concept artists to draw some things so that he can describe it in his writing and the image draws readers in.

Beddor also said that he outlined his first book and spent too much time describing the rules of the world. With the following books he had more confidence and wrote more fluidly.

Yu then asked the authors to describe their books. Beddor shared an elevator pitch for The Looking Glass Wars, a reverse-Lewis Carrol world. I didn’t get all of it in my notes but it went something like this: Princess Alyss of Wonderlandia is enjoying her seventh birthday when it is interrupted by a coup. Alyss escapes to our own world through pools in Wonderlandia and ends up in Victorian England, begging an Oxford don to writer her story (he gets it all wrong and writes Alice in Wonderland) while Hatter, her bodyguard, ends up in Paris.

Scalzi described Old Man’s War as “Starship Troopers with old guys” and Grossman, who declined to pitch or describe his books, instead read an excerpt from The Magicians.

Yu brought up an Amazon review that said that Grossman’s book was not a fantasy, and speculated that this may be because his worldbuilding pokes a hole in the fantasy world.

Grossman explained that as a child he was disturbed by C.S. Lewis’ Narnia world because of the way Narnia ends. In The Last Battle (the final Narnia book) Narnia collapses and the kids go to Aslan’s land. When Grossman read this he thought, what if Aslan’s land collapses too? What happens to the children then? And so when he began writing he wanted to explore a situation where worlds keep collapsing.

Yu brought up the subject of social media and connecting with readers. He asked Scalzi about his blog and Scalzi went on about it at length (I didn’t get good notes here). He said that some of his readers are politically conservative and when they arrive at his blog they are surprised to learn that he espouses liberal views like support of same sex marriage. He also added that he withholds a lot of personal information on his blog and so his blogging also creates a fictional construct, a John Scalzi author persona that isn’t the same as the real Scalzi.

Frank Beddor mentioned that he created a game space for the readers where they could play the characters in his books in order to create a community for readers. Readers write fanfiction set on his world and one thirteen year old boy even created a claymation video book trailer for his book on YouTube.

Fanfiction then came up and Scalzi said he views fanfiction favorably — it’s a sign that readers are really addicted to the world and can’t wait for the next book.

A fascinating discussion emerged about how J.K. Rowling announced that Dumbeldore was gay and some fans reacted negatively, with cries of “Dumbeldore can’t be gay!”

Scalzi said he believed that if Rowling says her character is gay, he is gay. Grossman disagreed with Scalzi on this point and argued “The world is what is in the book, not outside of it.” To which Scalzi replied “There’s the torah and there’s the commentaries.” Grossman said, “I don’t know what that means.”

Scalzi explained that there was evidence, in Rowling’s advice to a screenwriter on one of the Harry Potter movies not to make Dumbeldore a womanizer, that she knew all along that Dumbeldore was gay. Because it’s not inconsistent with the world Rowling created and “Everything that Rowling says about Dumbeldore being gay checks out,” Dumbledore is gay.

Lev Grossman still disagreed, saying: “The book has a beginning and an end.” He added that “No one reads the same book – that’s what’s great about reading.”

Scalzi agreed with that but still insisted that Rowling was the authority on Dumbeldore.

Grossman said: “I don’t think writers are the only ones who do worldbuilding. Readers worldbuild too.”

Yu, the moderator mentioned that now people want worldbuilders rather than fiction writers or storytellers. Paramount is making a movie of Scalzi’s book, Old Man’s War, and there’s a television show in the works for Lev Grossman’s book. Beddor, a producer of Something About Mary is planning to produce The Looking Glass Wars into a movie as well.

Scalzi responded to this by saying that readers of science fiction and fantasy select for immersive experiences but added that readers don’t always want worldbuilding. Sometimes what they want is a consistent reading experience which is why authors like James Patterson and Nora Roberts are so popular.

The authors discussed the temptation of continuing to write in the same world of their most popular series. Scalzi said he could write more books in the same world as Old Man’s War and readers would buy those books but indicated that he could get bored doing that so it’s a double edged sword.

Yu asked the authors about their next projects and Grossman said he is working on another book set in the same world as The Magicians as well as on another book set in a different world. Beddor said he wrote a murder mystery set in a high school but his publisher said it was out of his demographic. Scalzi said he was working on a book called Red Shirts and had two more projects in the works in addition to his work on the movie.

The discussion was opened up to an audience Q& A. The first of the audience questions was “How do the novels interact with real life for readers?”

Grossman replied that literature is not realism and that traditionally (in earlier centuries) literature was fantasies like Hamlet and The Faerie Queene and “Fantasy was all there was.” He explained that Fantasy is “a way for you to encounter the problems of the real world but in a transformed way.” He said that made the experience of reading about those problems easier for readers than it otherwise would be.

The next question was whether fan fiction was hijacking. Scalzi replied to this by saying there will always be people who feel proprietary about worlds but fan fiction is purely for the joy of it.

Grossman said that this idea that fiction should be original is relatively new – an eighteenth century attitude and a “bizarre literary singularity.” He said that “The Iliad is Aeneid fanfiction” and that “Story is not the property of the author.” The author is only the caretaker of the story.

I got to ask a question and asked if the authors’ story conceptions began with the worldbuilding or with the characters and also, whether they discover new things about their worlds during the writing process.

Scalzi said “I make shit up as I go along.” He explained that upon request for a sequel to Old Man’s War, he had to explain the conception of the earth he’d created out of laziness, and the reason why the earth was the way it was in his world.

Beddor stated that he starts with the characters rather than the world and that the stuff to solve, the problems, begins with the characters. Grossman nodded along with Beddor’s comment.

Fiction & Fantasy: Otherworldly Adventures

The next panel we attended was also on a science fiction and fantasy topic. This panel’s participants were authors Greg Bear, Raymond E. Feist and Boyd Morrison. The moderator was Rob Latham. Here are their bios, taken from the festival guide:

Bear is the author of more than 30 books, which include thrillers, science fiction and fantasy. Some titles include “Blood Music,” “Eon,” “The Forge of God” and “Hull Zero Three.” “Halo: Primordium: Book Two of the Forerunner Saga” is his newest book.

Feist is the author of the best-selling Serpentwar Saga: “The Shadow of a Dark Queen,” “Rise of a Merchant Prince,” “Rage of a Demon King” and “Shards of a Broken Crown.” His latest book is “A Crown Imperiled: Book Two of the Chaoswar Saga.”

Morrison has worked as a mechanical engineer, Microsoft video game usability manager and professional actor and writer. In 2003, he became a “Jeopardy!” champion. “The Catalyst,” “The Ark,” “Rogue Wave” and “The Vault” are his novels.

Latham teaches contemporary American and British literature, cultural studies and science fiction at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of “Consuming Youth: Vampires Cyborgs and the Culture of Consumption.”

Once again, we walked in a little late (this happened to us with every single panel, because they overlapped with each other or with lunch), this time in the midst of a discussion of writing in other people’s worlds.

Greg Bear was talking about writing books in other people’s universes including Star Wars books and books set in Isaac Asimov’s world. He said he’d written about Darth Vader as a teenager and along the way he created a planet that has appeared in nineteen other Star Wars books.

Feist then said that he feels he writes historical novels about a place that doesn’t exist. He mentioned that he played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. Three years after that he started writing bad books set in the same universe to amuse other kids, and in the process of doing so he started stretching storytelling muscle and realized he wanted to write.

Because he and his friends had already created the world during their games, he didn’t have to do much worldbuilding but did have to create the politics and other aspects. He said that you have to be consistent with what had already been established when you write in someone else’s world. Because the world reflected the personalities of Feist’s friends who had been involved in its creation, the story also reflects them.

Latham mentioned that Morrison has engineering training and writes books that read as though they require a tremendous amount of research. Morrison said that for a lot of writers research is the most fun part of writing. He has stories he wants to write and he just does the research those stories require.

Morrison added that he started researching Rogue Wave one and half years before the Asian tsunami and researched what could happen in such an event. The Ark involved archeology which is not his background, but he made his character an engineer so that he could use his engineering knowledge. His Tyler Locke books present an alternative, science fictional explanation for ancient mysteries.

Latham asked to what extent genre categories are an important concern to the panelists when they decide what to write.

Bear replied “Marketing strategies don’t mean a hill of beans.” He added that through most of history writing didn’t fit into these categories. Homer was half fantasy and half real.

Feist said that the sales of categories like romance, fantasy, science fiction and horror dwarf the sales of the mainstream writing that is reviewed in the New York Times and considered highbrow. He said “There has to be a fundamental understanding of what you’re trying to write” and that he writes what he likes to read.

He said he’d written a series of magical books where the trope is “There is no magic.” He loves Grimm and once upon a time – “Great examples of Urban Fantasy” and added that “If you’re writing a western there better be a gunslinger in it.”

Morrison said he loves thrillers and it doesn’t matter where they are set. He considers The Hunger Games a thriller. He added that in genre you know the experience you’re going to get and mainstream is anything that doesn’t fit into the genre categories.

Feist then said that fiction is otherworldly and that when Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby he wrote about a world – Long Island – that was alien to people in the Midwest.

Bear talked about scientific discoveries and said “Reality beats us out there.” He said this was grist for the mill and that “Anyone who says you should write what you know doesn’t realize English majors don’t know a hell of a lot. You have to research.”

Feist added “If you want to be a writer, don’t study English—study philosophy, history, or political science, because you’ll have to write about something.”

Latham threw in “I’m an English professor” and got some laughs.

Morrison said that he doesn’t include anything supernatural in his books – no gods or demons that affect the plot — but he does give an alternative explanation for things. One of his books was set in Naples and while researching it, he discovered the Greeks dug tunnels under Naples. He went to Naples to explore these tunnels and while there, he realized they were the perfect setting for his book, which takes place in those tunnels.

Latham talked about reading fantasy and science fiction when he grew up. He doesn’t remember these genres getting as much attention back then, but when Star Wars came along it brought along an explosion of media tie-ins. He asked the panelists if fiction has changed as a result of media attention.

Bear replied that writers have always reflected other writers so the media had always been there.

Feist said that the old days were no different from today, it’s just bigger now – the media is saturated. He gets on the internet after waking up and his son has the Xbox in the middle of the living room. There are tons of cable channels, Hulu, and other media outlets. It’s overwhelming. It’s the same but there’s a hell of a lot more of it. When he and Greg Bear were first published, self publishing was vanity publishing – now it’s a real, attractive, potentially viable option.

Bear said he was fascinated by how, as the media ages it gets very jealous of new media and there is not a lot of cross-marketing.

Feist gave an example from a time he talked to people who worked at Time Warner about video games. Every movie at Time Warner had to be self-sustaining. Around this time “Batman” came out, and because of that policy, rather than giving “Batman” to Time Warner’s video game platform, Activision got it. Eventually Time Warner stopped producing video games.

Morrison said that nowadays there is more cross-marketing. If something is popular, they want to put it into every media.

Feist said his original agent sold The Winds of War to CBS for what was the most successful television miniseries at the time. That was as big as a book could get back then but nowadays big stars, HBO, etc. are looking for content.

Latham asked a question (I’m guessing this was because the panelists on this panel were all male) about writing female characters.

Bear said he’s always had strong female characters in his books, scientists and mathematicians.

Feist said that historically women have been better writers of male characters than men are of female characters for reasons that have to do with what has been published in literature.

His first three books were written from the male POV and it was easy for him to portray women through the male POV, but he had a much harder time when writing from the female POV after that. He co-wrote the following three books with Janny Wurts to learn how to do it and since then he has gotten better with practice. He added that his female characters think more globally while his male characters are more linear.

Morrison said that his wife is his first reader and his agent and editor are both women so he actually has to worry more about his male characters and how they are portrayed.

Bear added that if you try to portray women as more intuitive than men or some such stereotype, “You’re going to lose definition on your characters and they will fight back.”

Next up in Part 2 of my report on the festival: “Anne Rice in Conversation with Scott Timberg”

Related posts:

1. My Saturday at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
2. Los Angeles Times Book Review Section Is Folding
3. Sunday News Roundup: Free Books from All Romance eBooks

Reading

Lessons in Laughing Out Loud by Rowan Coleman

I’m not sure what the author was aiming for here. I started this thinking it would be a Chick Lit book with a heroine who is plus sized. The heroine is overweight but it’s because she eats too much, not because she’s large boned. I was getting the feeling that by the end of the book, she would slim down. I have no problems with that but this seemed like it would be the weight version of those books with an unattractive woman who merely needs to get contacts, let her hair loose and get a clothes makeover in order to dazzle. Also, by the 100 page mark the hero (yes, I skipped to the end and peeked) had appeared only once. I debated continuing – the heroine’s boss was a delightful bitch who stole every scene she was in – but it was just too depressing at this point what with the heroine whinging on about her weight and her problems and getting dumped on by everyone. DNF

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The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich

This is a book which Jane sent me unsolicited so I had no expectations going into it. For me historical fiction is usually either spectacular or a clunking bomb. This one turned out to be a winner. The period details seemed correct, interesting and dropped into the narrative with a delicate touch. The characters are intriguing and I quickly came to care about them and their fates. This is a book I didn’t want to end. Full review posted this morning.

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The Return of Jonah Gray by Heather Cochran

Jonah Gray doesn’t actually go anywhere in this book. His “return” is his tax return as investigated by IRS agent Sasha Gardner. There’s a lot more to the book besides tax codes and deductions as Sasha has a lot going on in her life besides waiting to audit Jonah. Some is funny, some is bittersweet but I found myself riveted to the book and the bold chances Cochran takes with the plot. Full review to follow.

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Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

I’m only one chapter into this one and already I can tell it’s going to be very different from the usual Moore offering. Before I go any further, I think I need to brush up on my late 19th century artists especially Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec so that I can catch more of the subtle jokes that Moore has supposedly included.

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Master and God by Lindsey Davis

Davis is a long time favorite author of mine who’s written the wonderful Falco historical mysteries set during the Flavian dynasty in ancient Rome. With this book, she’s doing something slightly different from those and – I believe – more like her book “Course of Honour.” The story follows the lives of two people during the reigns of Titus and then Domitian – the second and third Emperors of a dynasty of only three. Gaius is a Praetorian Guard while Lucilla is a hairdresser to the powerful at court. Between them, they manage to be in on most of the important happenings going on and perhaps might find a romance at the end of it all. I’m only a third of the way in but so far it’s fascinating.

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Watching

Gavin and Stacey – a UK comedy about a young Englishman who corresponds with a young Welsh woman for 6 months before they finally meet and begin a romance in person. They hit it off so well, that by the end of the first season they’re already married. I watched this first season while it was still streamable from Netflix and now need to move the next seasons up in the queue. A surprise delight is Alison Steadman in the role of Gavin’s mum. New to me are Ruth Jones as Nessa and James Corden as Smithy – Gavin’s and Stacey’s BFFs who say they hate each other yet end up hot smexing each other every time they’re in the same city.

Burke and Hare – It has Simon Pegg plus Andie Serkis and is directed by John Landis. How could it go wrong? That’s what I’m asking. How on earth could this have been as bad as it was during the 30 minutes I suffered through? Not only was it not funny, it was unfunny meaning for me it tried and painfully failed.

Nurse Jackie – a dramedy about a NYC nurse played by Edie Falco. Jackie is a wisecracking old battle axe of a nurse who’s seen it all and isn’t impressed by hotshot young doctors. She’s a great mentor to new nurse Zoey, a loving mother to her two daughters, a true friend to Dr. O’Hara of the Jimmy Choos, a loving wife to her husband Kevin and has been sleeping with Eddie the ER pharmacist while popping pills on the side. Jackie’s got issues. Season three just became available at Netflix and I can’t wait to see how the intervention goes.

Chariots of Fire – I can’t believe I’d never watched this one either but honestly I hadn’t. And after finally seeing it, all I can say is that tastes certainly differ. This won an Oscar? Really? Because it about put me to sleep. File it under “would probably have enjoyed it more if I’d seen it back in the day.”

Baking

What else have I been up to? Making biscuits, that’s what. I’m a Southerner born and bred yet I blush to admit that I’d never once attempted making biscuits from scratch. That’s what older female relatives, church homecomings and Biscuitville are for. Nevertheless, after our post on Australianisms I decided to give it a go. Armed with a bag of White Lily all purpose flour and Alton Brown’s recipe I finally made my first batch of biscuits. They might not be the prettiest biscuits ever baked but mah Gawd they are good.

Related posts:

1. What Jayne has been reading and watching in early October
2. What Jayne is reading/watching in early September
3. What Jayne is Reading and Watching in late December and early January

The rules for Author Promo Night Open Thread are as follows:

The book has to be released in that month (i.e., anything released during the last week of February would be a March release)
You can post for yourself or you can have a friend post for you if the idea of posting about your book paralyzes you .
No self published authors unless you write romance. No, I am not a POD hater, I am just thinking about the manageability of the thread.
Think about the readership. I.e., does your non fiction book about psoriasis really fit?
This one is more of a guideline than a rule, but be smart about your comment because if it is just a link to your website and the title of your book, I doubt you are going to get any interest.
DA reserves the right to delete the post if it promotes objectionable content (i.e., no daddy/daughter incest recommends are going to be allowed. Sorry.)
That’s it. Post away.

Related posts:

1. Open Thread for Authors (Author Promo) for January 2012
2. Open Thread for Authors (Author Promo) for February 2012
3. Open Thread for Authors (Author Promo) for March 2012

Related posts:

1. Open Thread for Readers for March 2012
2. Open Thread for Readers for February 2012
3. Open Thread for Readers for May 2010

I had such high hopes for this book, the last in a series of three. I liked the first book, The Year of Living Scandalously, and I loved The Revenge of Lord Eberlin. I hated this book. It was unrelentingly sad, the heroine is abused and raped by her alcoholic husband, she loves a man she just can’t have. Furthermore, the series has revolved around the fate of a set of missing rubies and the resolution of that plot is little more than a disappointing afterthought. The book, plot and tone, really did not work for me.

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Willing Victim by Cara McKenna

Janine recommended this book to me after a long Twitter discussion about the role of forced seduction in romance novels. It was interesting. I liked how regular the hero and heroine were and I enjoyed the writing. Ms. Mckenna has a great way with dialogue–the way her characters speak makes both them and the novel stand apart from run of the mill erotica. I didn’t mind the very open ending–I believed good things would happen for Laurel and Flynn, both together and apart in the future. The sex in the book was grittier and rougher than what I usually encounter, but, it fit the characters and ended up, for me, being interesting but not hot.

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The Edge of Impropriety by Pam Rosenthal

I read this book when it came out in 2008 and forgot about it. Then Jane asked for books with older protagonists and I thought of this book. The heroine is in her late 30′s; the hero, in his mid 40′s. I liked this book a lot when I read it this go round. The relationship between the two main characters has a very different feel than in most in historical romance. This is also almost the only historical romance I’ve ever read that has low-key “backdoor” sex scene. Perhaps my favorite thing about this book is how independent, in every way, the heroine is. In a genre awash with women whose lives are defined by men, it was refreshing to read about a happy, financially secure, self-directed grownup woman.

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Not Quite a Husband, Private Arrangements, His at Night, Delicious, Beguiling the Beauty by Sherry Thomas

After reading Ms. Thomas latest, Beguiling the Beauty, I was so entranced by her fabulous writing, I went back and read all her earlier novels. The experience left me more in awe of Ms. Thomas than I already was which is saying something. (She is one of my top five favorite romance novelists.) Before I reread all her books, I would have said my favorite of hers is Private Arrangements. I like the plot, the hero and heroine, and, the wonderful subplot involving the heroine’s mother and her flirtation with the Duke next door. Now, however, while I still love Private Arrangements, I’ve decided my favorite is His at Night. Ms. Thomas writes heartbreak in a completely non-sentimental way. Both Vere and Elissande are living lives of quiet desperation when they meet. Both are achingly lonely. Their love story is so well-done and the plot moves along with nary an unnecessary device. His at Night is Sherry Thomas at her best.

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Crazy on You by Rachel Gibson

I like Ms. Gibson–she’s one of those authors I almost always enjoy. Her books are comfort reads for me–easy to take, usually funny, and filled with good sex scenes. This novella, however, did little for me. The heroine and the hero were cardboard characters and their connection never came across as much more than lust. The book is set in a small town in the Texas panhandle and every stereotype I’ve ever heard about Texas is included in this tale. I felt like Ms. Gibson was trying for cute and, instead, ended up at tacky. The heroine’s voice was annoying as well. She says things like,

“No self-respecting Southern lady leaves the house without her hair in place, her makeup done, and her panties on.”

Ugh. It’s safe to say I wasn’t the least bit crazy about Crazy on You.

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The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne by Madeline Hunter

I also usually like Ms. Hunter but this book bored me to tears. The characters and the plot is so hazily presented, I kept forgetting what I’d just read. The pace of the book is glacial and the motivations of the hero and the heroine odd. The heroine of the book runs an auction house in London and there’s lots of information about how the auction houses of the 1790′s functioned. I wasn’t drawn into the story or the context–I just kept getting sleepy every time I picked up the book.

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Related posts:

1. What Jia’s Been Reading in February
2. What Jennie’s Been Reading
3. Dear Author Recommends for March

The Temporary Wife by Mary Balogh

This is one of Balogh’s most beloved traditional regencies, up there with The Notorious Rake as far as being many Balogh readers’ favorite Balogh. It was recently reissued in a 2-in-1 edition with A Promise of Spring and I took the time to reread and review it. I found that it was even more enjoyable the second time around. What I love about it is the transformation of the hero (and his relatives) from joylessness to joy. Grade: B+/A-

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A Promise of Spring by Mary Balogh

This one, on the other hand, was a disappointment. It started out wonderfully, as a sweet and tender older woman/younger man romance. The heroine had lost a child who happened to be illegitimate in her youth, and the hero’s total acceptance of her was so romantic. If only the book hadn’t gone downhill from there, with kitchen sink plotting, rushed resolutions, and contrivances that made both characters (but especially the hero) seem stupid or inconsistent. Review here. Grade: C-

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Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

I’m so glad this urban fantasy/police procedural was recommended to me. Its hero, Peter Grant, is a new London Metropolitan Police constable who discovers that he has some paranormal abilities. Under the tutelage of an older (who knows how much older?) police inspector/wizard, Peter learns to cast spells and pursues a dangerous supernatural villain who threatens those close to him. Witty, snarky, and immensely entertaining. Review here. Grade: B+

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Fair Game by Patricia Briggs

What a blast I had reading this book. It wasn’t perfect by any means but I was grateful to discover that even three books and one novella into the Alpha and Omega series, my love for Charles and Anna has not faded. I especially loved seeing how strong Anna has grown. Her cleverness shines in this book. I didn’t love the way Charles’ conflict was resolved, but there is something so tender about their relationship, especially considering they are up against violence their own monstrous nature, and I find that so touching. Here’s Josephine’s review. My grade: B+/A-

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

My husband and I recently finished reading this YA fantasy which Jia reviewed a while back (the book was also in DABWAHA). A mystery wrapped in a roller coaster ride, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is poetic and romantic. The more time goes on, the more the book stays with me. I think it’s the kind of novel that can be reread as soon as one finishes it because once the secret at its center is uncovered, it casts the whole book in a new light. I love books that do that. Oh, what the heck. I think I’ll grade this one A-.

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Confessions from an Arranged Marriage by Miranda Neville

This book took a while to really grab me, but once it took off, it became a very emotional story. We recently had a guest post on heroines and shame, but in this book, it’s the hero who carries a shameful secret, one that causes him to pretend an indifference that he does not feel. The journey Blake and his new bride, Minerva, undergo, is bumpy to say the least, but it leads them both to grow into people who can understand and accept one another, and that’s a big part of what love is about. Review here. Grade: B+

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Thunder and Roses by Mary Jo Putney

I saw that Putney’s classic Fallen Angels series has been reissued electronically and since once upon a time it was a favorite series of mine, I decided to revisit it. I’m currently rereading this, book one in the series, and so far, it’s not holding up to my memories of it. It’s never been one of my most favorite Putneys but now I find I have mixed feelings about both the hero and the heroine, as well as their central values conflict over whether sex outside marriage is wrong (her view) or natural and desirable (his) . I still love the strip billiards scene but it isn’t enough to make up for the other problems. Review here. Grade: D

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A Monster Calls: Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd by Patrick Ness

This was another one I read with my husband. It’s a fantasy about a thirteen year old boy whose mother has cancer. One night a monster comes to visit Conor, and as these visitations continue, the monster tells him stories and insists Conor will have to repay in kind, by telling the true story that terrifies him. The book was inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, who died of cancer herself before she could write it. This made me feel Scrooge-like for being underwhelmed. My review can be found here. Grade: C+

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Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh

Book #11 in the Psy/Changeling series won’t be out until May 29 but I read the ARC in March in preparation for a joint review Jennie and I have in the works. There are developments on several fronts here, but the central romance is that of Adria (Indigo’s young aunt) and Riaz, both wounded souls. Their relationship is complicated by the fact that Riaz’s wolf has already recognized its mate, and it isn’t Adria. While this wasn’t one of my top favorites in the series, I did very much appreciate that it dared to explore some tough questions about the nature of the mating bond. Joint review with Jennie to come.

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What about you? What have you been reading lately? Have you read any of the books I mention above and if so, what did you think of them? And are you on a hot streak or in a reading slump?

Related posts:

1. What Jia’s Been Reading in February
2. Dear Author Recommends for March
3. What Janine is Reading – Late 2011/Early 2012

As Darkness Falls by Bronwyn Perry A | BN | K | S
Dark Country by Bronwyn Perry A | BN | K | S
Saint’s Gate by Carla Neggers A | BN | K | S
Riptide by Cherry Adair A | BN | K | S
Amber Beach by Elizabeth Lowell A | BN | K | S
Jade Island by Elizabeth Lowell A | BN | K | S
Midnight in Ruby Bayou by Elizabeth Lowell A | BN | K | S
Pearl Cove by Elizabeth Lowell A | BN | K | S
Beg for Mercy by Jami Alden A | BN | K | S
Absolutely Positively by Jayne Anne Krentz A | BN | K | S
All Night Long by Jayne Anne Krentz A | BN | K | S
Deep Waters by Jayne Anne Krentz A | BN | K | S
A Lot Like Love by Julie James A | BN | K | S
Something About You by Julie James A | BN | K | S
Darkling I Listen by Katherine Sutcliffe A | BN | K | S
Thread of Fear by Laura Griffin A | BN | K | S
Death Angel by Linda Howard A | BN | K | S
Cry No More by Linda Howard A | BN | K | S
Mr Perfect by Linda Howard A | BN | K | S
Open Season by Linda Howard A | BN | K | S
Shades of Twilight by Linda Howard A | BN | K | S
Son of Morning by Linda Howard A | BN | K | S
Wild Midnight by Maggie Davis A | BN | K | S
Madam, Will You Talk by Mary Stewart A | BN | K | S
Line of Duty by Merline Lovelace A | BN | K | S
Line of Duty by Merline Lovelace A | BN | K | S
The Middle Sin by Merline Lovelace A | BN | K | S
Bad Girl by Michelle Jaffe A | BN | K | S
Carnal Innocence by Nora Roberts A | BN | K | S
Tropical Getaway by Roxanne St Claire A | BN | K | S
Slow Heat in Heaven by Sandra Brown A | BN | K | S
Where There’s Smoke by Sandra Brown A | BN | K | S
Play Dirty by Sandra Brown A | BN | K | S
Nine Lives by Sharon Sala A | BN | K | S
Fabulous Beast by Stephanie James A | BN | K | S

Related posts:

1. My Top Ten List by Sammy, Romantic Suspense
2. bad guys, good sex, true love: my top fifteen romantic suspense novels
3. 2008 RITA WINNER for Romantic Suspense

This year’s Romantic Times convention was my fourth in a row. Since my first visit, RT has underwent a dramatic change and much of it has to do with moving the focus away from cover models and toward the readers. In 2012, RT did not have a Cover Model pageant and while there were cover models roaming the halls, the overt sexuality of past conferences was not present.

This is not to say that all readers are happy with this change. Some vocal readers expressed unhappiness at the lack of eye candy and the disappearance of the Mangeant, as it is fondly referred to by some of us. (I think Heather Osborn may have named it) I overheard one reader exclaim to a friend after having her picture taken with a cover model that “it made her conference.”

You can’t really have an increased YA celebration and mantitty all over the place and thus I believe that in choosing to foster young readers, RT is making the absolute right decision as to the direction of their conference.

During the immense signing, RT set up Teen Alley. It was mobbed during the signing. There were groups of girls, some who came with their mothers and others who came with library groups. One library group had printed “Author Prom” t shirts for their readers. The readers wore the shirts and had the authors sign the t shirts. What a marvelous idea.

Even though the conference price is high, the hotels they choose are reasonably priced, some meals are provided, and a ton of swag (books and other items like bookmarks, chapstick, pens). However, I believe the most valuable thing that the readers get from this is the opportunity to meet with authors. The authors will sit in the bar and the lobby and are very receptive to readers coming up to them and engaging in them. Authors, I’ve learned, get a thrill from being recognized and acknowledged by readers. Some authors, like Beth Kery aka Bethany Kane, were anxious to meet other authors like Anne Rice. (I’m not sure if Beth ever got her Anne Rice meeting but I did hear that Anne Rice was in the elevator at some point!)

The Hyatt was really a great conference hotel. The staff was super nice and they put out signs that celebrated romance readers and had no snark! (At least none that I saw). Whether it was Hyatt or RT, there was a big dry erase board where a new question was posted every day and people were invited to write in their answers.

I attended a couple of sessions. One was the reader roundtable that Sarah and I facilitated. It ended up being a lot of authors wanting to hear from readers (dear readers, we want to hear from you!!) but listening to authors talk about their favorite books was really fun. MaryJanice Davidson confessed that she just started reading George RR Martin’s series and that she was totally hooked.

There were some RT scandals. What would RT be without scandals? J.R. Ward instigated #peegate. Apparently she twice used the restroom on Friday and both times had her bodyguards prevent any one from entering. Dear everyone there, no one but the hotel staff has the right to bar you from the restroom, particulary if you were a paying customer. Of other interest to Ward readers, she intimated in her panel that Butch and Vishous are regularly having sex. I guess that is okay for Jane, after all, she is just a ghost but what about poor Marissa? (Edited to add a link to someone who took more copious notes)

Q: We haven’t seen much of Butch and V lately–
JR: interrupts They’ve been seeing plenty of each other!
Q: — will we ever see any of that on the page?
JR: No.. [paraphrased]... I will give hints about it and talk about it verbally, but it won’t be on the page… because too many people would hate it.  sotto voce Butch is getting it regularly.

I tried to pump Nalini Singh for details about the ghost but she refused to give it up. Actually, she seemed close to being broken on Friday night (I had worked her over good for three days) and admitted that she wanted to tell but was afraid that if she spilled the beans to even one person that the floodgates would be breached and she couldn’t keep it a secret anymore. I told her that I knew it was Kaleb and in the event that she choose someone else to be the ghost, I would need a legal brief justifying her alternative choice. Someone is going to have to write a lot of fan fiction for me if the ghost ends up being someone else. Nalini is a very good sport. She had dinner with Angela James and Sarah Wendell and I. I think Angie and I spent about a good hour complaining about certain aspects of Nalini’s books. (Angie and I are not fans of reincarnation stories) Nalini took everything with really good humor. Perhaps it helps that Angie and I are real fans of both series but as I look back at that dinner, I am pretty amazed at how gracious Nalini was with Angie and I.

One of my highlights and more embarassing moments came right before the booksigning. I had slipped in to take photos which I have uploaded to the new Dear Author flickr account. Loretta Chase was there. I told her that when I was in Korea, I went to a bookstore and there was Lord of Scoundrels in Korean. I wished I had brought it with me. I shared with her repeatedly, in a rush of garbled words, how much I appreciated her books and loved her writing. I also told her that no matter what grade we gave her on the blog, we still appreciated her contribution to the genre. I think I may have said that three or four times. It was embarassing. I’m glad few people were there to see me.

RT has made Saturday into a reader event. There are four or five sessions going on at one time so that there is always something that will fit a readers’ particular interest. I’m not certain what readers want out of conferences but if it is to meet with other readers and authors in an informal but engaging setting, then RT is likely to satisfy.

Related posts:

1. Dear Author’s RWA Report: Jolie, the Intrepid Bookseller
2. New Report Says Author Presence Online Is Important
3. Thursday Midday Links: New Blog & State of the Day EBook Report

Thank you for being part of DA.  On to the 9 winners are, according to Random.Org: Commenters 17, 116, 156, 174, 262, 272, 306, 370, 400

• Jason -Kindle Fire
• Christine M. - Kobo Touch (or ebook reader of equal value)
• Jessica- $25 GC
• TrishJ - Kindle Fire
• Ducky – Nook Simple Touch (or ebook reader of equal value)
• emmad - $25 GC
• Anne Fescharek - Kindle Touch (or ebook reader of equal value)
• eta_o - $25 GC
• Amy - $25 GC

The winner of the Sourcebooks giveaway:

• ArkieRN

Related posts:

1. More Information on Sourcebooks “Discover New Love” Subscriptions and Store
2. Georgette Heyer’s 109th birthday celebration: 46 ebooks for $1.99
3. Ebook Reader + Subscription Rental Model Poll