Jul 16 2011
Harlequin Treasury Purchases
![Gibson's Girl (Harlequin Presents) [Kindle Edition] Anne Mcallister (Author)](http://dearauthor.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screen-shot-2011-07-16-at-12.54.16-PM-226x300.png "Gibson's Girl (Harlequin Presents) [Kindle Edition] Anne Mcallister (Author)")
On Friday, Harlequin released the first batch of out of print backlist titles that have been recently digitized. These are called Harlequin Treasury (link to AMZN search page for HT) books and are easy to spot by the red surrounding the old covers. I’ve read three since their release and I have to say that while it’s fun that they are being released, they do have some scanning errors in each one. But, it’s nice that I can buy these book instead of purchasing the yellowed, smoke smelling ones that I usually have to hunt down. Right now there are 2500+ titles which means we need to help each other find the gems, right?
I’d like to solicit reviews of these books and I’ll set up a special page for them. The reviews don’t need to be very long. We would need to the know the plot and then your thoughts. Spoilers are always welcome for these books.
My list of purchases includes the following. I’ve only made it through the “F’s”.
- Baby by Design (Harlequin Intimate Moments) by Riggs, Paula Detmer (reviewed here by long time category reader Saly)
- The Bridal Bed (Harlequin Presents) by Bianchin, Helen
- Dark Oasis by Brooks, Helen
- The Bad-Girl Bride (Silhouette Yours Truly) by Drew, Jennifer
- Lovestruck (Harlequin Presents) by Lamb, Charlotte
- Gold Ring of Betrayal by Reid, Michelle (recommended & reviewed here)
- A Child for Christmas (Harlequin Special Edition) by Leigh, Allison
- The Boss’s Baby by Lee, Miranda
- Christmas Nights (Harlequin Presents) by Wentworth, Sally
- Haunted Dreams by Lamb, Charlotte
- Bitter Memories by Mayo, Margaret
- Ben’s Wife by Douglas, Charlotte
- Fire Beneath the Ice by Brooks, Helen
- Marriage on the Rebound by Reid, Michelle
- The Cop and Calamity Jane (Silhouette Intimate Moments) by Osborn, Elane
- The Cowboy and the Centerfold (Harlequin American Romance) by Rawlins, Debbi
- Hot Blood by Lamb, Charlotte (recommended. features hot 52 year old grandmother pursued by two men)
- Hot Surrender (Harlequin Presents) by Lamb, Charlotte (recommended. one of the AMZN reviewers calls the heroine a bitch and, well, yes she is and that is why I like her so much!)
- Eight Men and a Lady (Harlequin Romance) by Sinclair, Elizabeth
- The Baby Secret (Harlequin Presents) by Brooks, Helen
- Cold Fire by Brooks, Helen
- Beauty & The Beasts (Harlequin Super Romance) by Johnson, Janice Kay
- Fletcher’s Baby! (Harlequin Presents) by Mcallister, Anne
- The Price of a Bride (Harlequin Presents) by Reid, Michelle
- The Outlaw’s Wife by Gerard, Cindy
- For His Eyes Only by Irvin, Candace
- The Bride’s Secret (Harlequin Presents) by Brooks, Helen
- The Mistress Bride (Harlequin Presents) by Reid, Michelle
- Baby in a Basket by Myers, Helen R.
- Gibson’s Girl (Harlequin Presents) by Mcallister, Anne
Send to Kindle
Jul 16, 2011 @ 13:06:59
How bad have you found the errors to be?
Does Harlequin have a specified method for submitting these errors in the hopes that they might get fixed at some future date that you know of?
Jul 16, 2011 @ 13:08:51
@Brian: In the books that I read, the errors were about 5-7 and mostly word errors. I’ll ask them about submitting these errors for future fixes. I know I would submit screencaps. I was tempted to fix them myself. Because I’m anal like that.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 13:36:41
Are you interested in reviews for the HT books in their earlier paper editions? I can’t access the electronic versions in the UK but I do have some of these titles in hard copy that I’d be happy to review. Obviously I couldn’t comment on scanning/formatting issues.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 13:38:23
@Ros: Would love that Ros, particularly from you as you have such a history reading category books.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 13:59:24
By “the first batch”, does that mean Harlequin plans to make more out-of-print titles available in digital format? I ask because there are 2 particular Emma Darcy books (The Wrong Mirror and The Unpredictable Man, both published in the 1980s) that I would really, really love to get as ebooks but I don’t see them in the set you linked to.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 14:31:32
I wish Fay Robinson’s A Man Like Mac were in this batch. That’s a great OOP Superromance. I’m sure her passing on has something to do with her books’ absence.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 15:02:06
I don’t read a lot of series romance, but I am very interested in reading the reviews you gather. I think it will be fascinating to discuss romances from the 80s and 90s through the filter of 2011.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 15:13:55
I mentioned this one in an earlier thread, but Amanda Carpenter’s Perfect Chance was released with these, and I love that book. I like her books, period, but this was my favorite. The hero is just perfect. (She’s Thea Harrison now.) I’m a terrible reviewer myself (one of the reasons I love what you do on this site so much), but I do highly recommend it.
Errors: Not specifically for Perfect Chance, which I have in original so didn’t get, but for the others I’ve downloaded, the errors are extensive. I would say I’m seeing several per page and the are big enough ones that they can be confusing. It’s a pity, but it is nevertheless really nice to have them releasing all these old books. I can’t wait for more.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 15:33:49
@Gwen Hayes:
Interesting comment, Gwen, because just this morning I started looking for digital editions from some of the authors I used to read in the 80s and 90s. Like you i’m not and never was much into category and/or contemporary romance in general, so my search has mainly been for the midlist historical authors and books that have been re-issused in digital editions either by the original publisher or by the authors themselves. I haven’t found very many. :-(
Jul 16, 2011 @ 16:47:46
Last I read they were shooting for 10,000 titles this year, or something like that.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 16:50:40
Me too. I can put up with errors occasionally, but most of the time it kicks me right out of the story.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 17:38:33
@Brian:
Maybe that’s why there are so many errors.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 17:53:21
@Jayne: I read one of the samples –Jennifer Greene’s “Nobody’s Princess” — and saw only one error, an extra “-” in the middle of kinda nowhere. Other than that, it looked very clean.
One-half of the sample, however, was taken up with front matter, all scanned from the original, and I did see an error or two in that (12 pages out of 25). I think it’s cheap, though, to include two copies of the cover, a linked ToC, and irrelevant promo to books print published the same month as this but with no clue as to links to e-versions. But then, that’s Hqn. Oh, and I didn’t see an original publication date (or copyright page) on this anywhere.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 19:31:26
@Brian: Thanks Brian; hopefully my 2 Emma Darcys will be in there
Jul 16, 2011 @ 20:20:30
Any word if HQ will be releasing these at B&N or is this offer exclusive to Kindle devices? (Or have my search skillz failed me once again?)
Jul 16, 2011 @ 20:55:24
Ah, I was wondering if there were errors. Gah. Thanks for the heads up. Anyway, I bought several but not as many as you did. One of the ones I have been waiting for like forever was Compromising Positions by Beverly Bird. I usually like her contemporary romances. There’s something a bit different about them to me TRR gave it a five star rating when I first read it years ago. I bought a boatload of Justine Davis category books as I love her early series stuff because she’s really good with angst as well.
Jul 16, 2011 @ 21:48:25
@Mary: I didn’t check Jane’s entire list, but the ones I did check were all available at B&N. B&N lacks a way to simply search for “Harlequin Treasury” and get a list of everything, at least not that I found. I guess you could pull up the list at Amazon (see Jane’s link above) and then make the actual purchase at B&N when you find what you want.
I also checked Harlequin’s eBook site and didn’t see anything about these at all, no special section or list. Searching for “Treasury” found 24 of the Treasury releases, but that’s it. You’d think they’d want to highlight these a little bit since they’re going to the trouble of producing them, but then I don’t think they’ve really gone out of their way to promo the other backlist stuff they’ve released (I’ve seen some ads for the recent Nora Roberts re-releases, but that’s all I recall). Their “Backlist Bookshelf” area only lists 19 backlist titles, but I know they’ve done hundreds (if not more) before the Treasury thing. I guess it’s not a priority for them?
Jul 16, 2011 @ 21:53:51
@Jayne:
Very likely.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 01:03:51
Arggh! Kill me! I’m in Australia. Kindle says no Harlequin Treasury for me. It’s enough to make a romance reader cry …
Jul 17, 2011 @ 01:10:28
I’ve read so many Presents early on and intend to enjoy the revisit of my favorites, esp. Helen Bianchin and Michelle Reid, plus some ones I haven’t read. Your idea of reviews is great. It’s difficult to get our old reviews. I’ve written category and I enjoy the shorter, good reads. I’ll buy the authors above every time they’re out. I didn’t see Stephanie James there at a glance, but love Jayne Ann Krentz’s stuff, too. Maybe in the reviews, a cross ref to other pseudonyms?
Re: Scanning errors. I’ve noticed that on some newer books, too.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 03:29:30
A search by author at Nookbooks will bring up the Treasury books. Worth checking for your favourite authors.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 03:29:56
Some of these titles bring back memories! I never seem to completely forget a good book! I normally don’t review much but would love to review somebof these and relive happy book memories!
Jul 17, 2011 @ 04:47:45
@eggs – maybe they are planning to release them on M&B aus, at double the price, or in more expensive 2in1s.
Sorry still bitter I can’t get the bloomin Donna Alward in e.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 05:14:56
I hope they release their Harlequin Historicals backlist from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Based on Gemma’s website, there were a lot of interesting settings and plots published during that time.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 06:17:54
While I’m happy that these older books are available as ebook at last (I collect older Harlequin Presents), I’m angry that they choose to sell them at those prices. You can find second-hand copies for a couple of cents and these ebooks go for almost $7 and with errors in them too apparently. This would have been a great operation had they sold them for $1.99/2.99.
There is no way I’ll be buying any of them. I prefer to continue hunting down paper copies.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 06:29:12
@Brian – Funny you should mention the Harlequin site. I emailed their customer service about these, as I was hoping for a simple list of the HT releases. I don’t have the patience to flip through pages and pages at Amazon. This is the response I received:
“Thank you for your inquiry.
There are over 2,500 Treasury titles that should be available soon on http://www.eBooks.eHarlequin.com. Unfortunately, we do not have a listing at this time. Please check our eBook website from time to time for the Treasury collection.
If further assistance is needed, please contact us.”
Disappointing. So, I guess I have to flip through pages and pages at Amazon.
@Laura Florand – I downloaded the sample of Perfect Chance and liked it enough to purchase the book. Thanks for the rec! BTW – I didn’t notice any scanning errors in the sample.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 08:06:59
@Manga Maniac: Am I the only one shaking my head that these Harlequin rereleases aren’t already available from the eHarlequin website?
Jul 17, 2011 @ 09:10:50
Two things.
1) I believe that only post 1995 books are being digitized at this time due to rights issues. Back when we were asked to recommend titles for HQN Bundles, they had to be 1998 or newer titles.
2) I asked about the lack of Harlequin Treasury titles on Harlequin’s website and was told that
“There will be one – the back-end provider of our site needs to ingest and load all the books before it goes live”
Jul 17, 2011 @ 09:22:05
@Evangeline Holland: If you go to the Kindle store and put “harlequin treasury historical” in the search box you’ll have a lot to look through and many of them appear to be from the 90s. It will be interesting to see if they go further back and add the Masquerade Historicals. The Masquerades tackled just about every setting and time period; the only thing missing was probably Ancient Egypt.
@Jayne:
No, you’re not the only one. It makes me wonder if Amazon and Barnes & Noble have a hand in helping with the conversion process in exchange for first dibs?
Jul 17, 2011 @ 09:22:31
I’m hoping that they will eventually release some of my early favourites: Anne Mather’s Beware the Beast, Margaret Pargeter’s Substitute Bride, Margaret Way’s King Country, Helen Bianchin’s Stormy Possession and Carole Mortimer’s Engaged to Jarrod Stone and Brand of Possession
Jul 17, 2011 @ 09:27:18
@Lynn S.: I would LOVE to see the Masquerade Historicals titles released. It’s almost impossible to find used copies of many of the older 80s ones.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 11:17:21
@Manga Maniac: Let me know if you like it! It’s not angsty at all, I should warn the people looking for angst. Just very sweet. There’s something about the hero that is just so perfect.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 11:43:41
@Jayne:
While I knew, after searching, that the titles weren’t on their site yet, I was hoping that they could at least point me somewhere with a listing of the books that will be available. It’s not like it’s a big mystery or secret to them!
@Laura Florand:
So far I am enjoying it. I like that it’s not full of angst, and that it had me chuckling a few times.
Jul 17, 2011 @ 12:28:39
@ Brian
Thank you for the heads up re B&N website search. I was trying to search for the books via Harlequin Treasury, thus the fail. Shame. I am uninterested in searching 2500 books to find the few Harlequin I’ve been looking for all these years that might have released in this drop. Perhaps an email to HQ to gently suggest a feature to search by lines might be in order.
Thanks again!
Jul 17, 2011 @ 16:45:27
@Lynn S.: Thanks Lynn!
Jul 17, 2011 @ 17:23:34
@mary They are all on the BN website and they were released July 15. If you do the search for recently released nookbooks, 100 to a page you will find them all by title on July 15.
As this release gets further back in time use this
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?sort=DD&store=ALL&dref=2207&page=results&keyword=&startat=101&domain=search&action=productsearch&box=&aref=1540&pos=&size=100
And you can paste the above into your search box and change the “startat” to be whatever increment of 100 plus 1 eg:
If you want to get back 1100 books make it startat=1101
My purchases so far are all the Ruth Wind books, all the Modean Moon books, all the Cheryl Reavis books, all the Judith Duncan books, I’m working my way through those.
Jul 18, 2011 @ 10:24:17
I emailed Harlequin and Harlequin suggests you report these errors to the retailer who collates them and sends them to Harlequin (because the errors can be vendor specific) or you can send me
screenshots, title of book, and place of purchase and I’ll forward them to Harlequin (jane at dearauthor dot com)
Jul 18, 2011 @ 13:15:26
@ romsfuulynn
Thank you. Much better. While this still brings up books not in the Treasury release and not by line, it does help some. I appreciate your help with this.
Jul 19, 2011 @ 14:31:04
I’m happy to see these old HPs available as well. I should mention that the one Margaret Way book listed–which I bought because the plot seemed so unusual for a Way book) turned out to be by Margaret Mayo instead. All the information listed turned out to be incorrect. Only the photo of the book was accurate but alas, I didn’t notice it in time book in time to see the mistake.
Jul 19, 2011 @ 15:47:45
Somebody at either HQN or Amazon did a really good job of making these easy to search for. The publisher information includes “Harlequin Treasury” and the category line. So you can search for Harlequin Treasury American, Harlequin Treasury Presents, Harlequin Treasury “Harlequin Romance”, etc., in order to browse through a specific line. Very nice planning on someone’s part.
In browsing through the Treasury books, I noticed an amazing number of baby, kid, teenager(!) plot devices. And I’ve been reminded of how generic and samey blurbs can make category books seem. It’s overwhelming.
@Em: I came across that “Margaret Way” book, too, but fortunately noticed the error in time. I reported it to Amazon so maybe it’ll get fixed.
Jul 20, 2011 @ 11:21:13
I have what I think is a complete single page list of these new releases, sorted by author, on my new ebook release website.
The links go to Amazon for the kindle version but it might be easier to scan even for nook owners than the short searches on the websites.
http://www.newebookreleases.com/2011/07/romance-7132011-7192011.html
Sunita’s 2011 TBR Challenge: Hot Blood by Charlotte Lamb - Dear Author
Jul 20, 2011 @ 15:25:30
[...] Lamb has just been released as part of the HarlequinTreasury series, which Jane discussed in a recent post. I’m a huge Charlotte Lamb fangirl, and when Jane said on Twitter that Hot Blood featured a [...]
“Treasury” Chest « Roaming through Romance
Jul 22, 2011 @ 11:35:42
[...] more about Harlequin Treasury and its back-list books, check out this short ‘n’ sweet writeup on the Dear Author site. Interested in requesting a galley from the new imprint (or any other [...]
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Jul 22, 2011 @ 11:39:15
[...] more about Harlequin Treasury and its back-list books, check out this short ‘n’ sweet writeup on the Dear Author site. Interested in requesting a galley from the new imprint (or any other [...]
Jul 23, 2011 @ 11:07:29
@Edie: Which book are you looking for, Edie? All of my books are available in digital…and if there’s a distribution problem I’d like to stay on top of it. Drop me a line (I think you should be able to click on my name to access my site etc.) and I’ll see if I can get things sorted. :-)
Donna
Jul 28, 2011 @ 01:56:00
This is awesome – I can now get rid of 25+ paperbacks by Michelle Reid, Margaret Way, Lynne Graham and Helen Bianchin having just replaced them with the eBook versions. A little more room now available of on by bookcase!
Sunita’s 2011 TBR Challenge: Hot Blood by Charlotte Lamb
Mar 18, 2012 @ 10:37:19
[...] Lamb has just been released as part of the HarlequinTreasury series, which Jane discussed in a recent post. I’m a huge Charlotte Lamb fangirl, and when Jane said on Twitter that Hot Blood featured a [...]
Harlequin “Treasury” Chest | Roaming through Romance
Jan 04, 2013 @ 10:42:09
[...] more about Harlequin Treasury and its back-list books, check out this short ‘n’ sweet writeup on the Dear Author site. Interested in requesting a galley from the new imprint (or any other [...]