Dear Author » Carolyn Jewel

What Janine is Reading – Late 2011/Early 2012

Janine — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:00:20 +0000

It’s been over three months (!) since my last “What Janine is Reading” post. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to do one of these – the holidays got in the way, but it’s been six weeks since they ended and for that I don’t have a great excuse.

Here’s what I read between mid November and early February:

The Danger of Desire by Elizabeth Essex – This sensual regency era historical had its share of historical inaccuracies but the endearing heroine and hot love scenes made it worth reading. Review here. B-

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke – My husband and I tried to read this historical fantasy novel set during the Napoleonic Wars. The book is deliberately written in the style of a regency era book, for example using “shewed” in place of “showed.” The writing style is lovely, and the narration filled with wry asides like “They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they never harmed any one by magic—nor ever done any one the slightest good.”

I was initially charmed and thought I was going to love this book, but the problem was that very little happened in the section we read. For a fantasy novel, there isn’t very much magic (not usually a complaint for me), and not much eventfulness of plot to make up for it. Nor is Norrell, the main character, sympathetic or likable. The book is over eight hundred kindle pages long, and since it takes more than 130 of these for Jonathan Strange, one of the two title characters, to appear, by that point I didn’t have the patience to wait for the much hinted at conflict between Strange and Norrell to materialize. 155 pages in, we quit. DNF.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

The Plumed Bonnet by Mary Balogh – I’ve been reading a lot of Balogh’s older traditional regencies and this is one of the better ones. It had a terrific beginning, a pretty good but less compelling middle and a wonderful ending. I loved the hero, and while I had a doubt or two about the heroine, I thought it was so interesting that her resentfulness stemmed from having been done a kindness she could not possibly repay. Review here. B+

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

How the Marquess was Won by Julie Anne Long – I had high hopes for this one since I’ve loved some of Long’s books but the hero and heroine’s feelings deepened so much so soon after one meeting in which some repartee was exchanged and I couldn’t buy into that level of emotion. Before someone pipes up to say they fell in love at first sight, I will say I know that love at first sight exists, and I have bought intense, immediate feelings in books before. But I didn’t find it convincing here, and as a result I didn’t feel invested in the relationship and the couple. There were more minor flaws, too, as well as strengths like Long’s lovely writing style and amusing humor, but ultimately, I felt this was one of her weaker books. Review here. C/C+

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Ghost in the Machine by Barbara J. Hancock – This 88 page post apocalyptic romance novella was a wonderful surprise – different from most romances I read, eerie, haunting and romantic. I don’t have much negative to say about it aside from mentioning that it wasn’t always clear what was going on in the world, technology wise, and the ending was a touch too happy to match the story. Review here. High B+

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey – My husband and I read this together and we came close to quitting in the first third due to myriad issues detailed in my review. Good thing we didn’t, though, because the story improved considerably after the one third point. I can’t say I adored this book like so many readers but neither did I dislike it intensely like others. I am the rare reader who averages out the disappointing first third with the strong latter two thirds to come up with a C+/B- (I gave it a B- when I reviewed it, but in hindsight I think the grade should have been a touch lower).

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Graceling by Kristin Cashore — What a suspenseful, breathtaking, emotional read. This was another one I read with my husband. Jia reviewed this YA fantasy back in 2008. While I agree with her criticism of the villain’s one-dimensional nature and the resulting lack of complexity to the external conflict, I disagree with regard to the heroine. Where Jia felt that her killing Grace (power) was the only thing that made Katsa interesting, I was actually touched by the sense of isolation Katsa experienced as a result of being feared.

I also thought that Katsa began the book so out of touch with her own emotions as to almost be stunted (one reason she read younger than 18) and while this annoyed me at first, her growth in this area over the story’s course ultimately made me really root for her. Like Jia, I loved the romance between Katsa and Po, which hung on the issues of independence/interdependence/dependence. But in my case I also adored the survival story in the middle of the book which involves a secondary character. This was a wonderful book. B+/A-

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Not Wicked Enough by Carolyn Jewel– I recently reviewed this Regency set historical. My main criticism was that I didn’t feel there was much conflict to the story (either internal or external). The heroine’s protestations that she couldn’t fall in love again and the hero’s intention to eventually get engaged to someone else felt like mere lip service. The story was less than fully compelling, but whenever I picked up the book I enjoyed it because the characters were so endearing and the writing was beautiful. Review here. B-

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Angelfall by Susan Ee – What a disappointment this was, though on the bright side, I only paid 99 cents for it. This book has been selling well and earning raves so I thought it would be a good one to read with my husband. It started out quite promising but both of us were ultimately disappointed. Angelfall is certainly competently written, with a fair amount of action, so that even though we were tempted to quit reading partway, we kept reading to see what would happen next.

The biggest problem IMO is that the characters had such a limited emotional range. Raffe in particular was almost a one note character but even Penryn did not display a wide range of feelings. They both felt relatively flat to me as a result. You know it’s bad when a small secondary human character like Dee Dum is more intriguing than the supernatural hero of the story.

The worldbuilding was more interesting than the people, but as Jane notes in her review it didn’t always make sense. There were other things that didn’t make sense, for example, it was strongly implied that Penryn’s mentally ill mother had harmed Penryn’s little sister Paige, which is why Paige was wheelchair bound. If that was so, why wasn’t the mother ever arrested and locked up? These events took place before the angel attacks.

To make matters worse I also felt that Penryn lacked agency, since she spent much of the book following Raffe’s orders. I thought it was ironically symbolic when, in a crucial scene, she is literally paralyzed. Also the book, which starts out dark enough, turns into a full-fledged horror novel at the end, and the disturbing scenes late in the book left me in need of a palate cleanser.

I couldn’t help comparing this book to Ghost in the Machine which has a similar setup (both books have dystopian settings, heroines attempting a hopeless rescue her kidnapped younger sibling, and heroes who aid the rescue, have special powers and may be on the opposite side), but Ghost had a lot more heart. Despite the compelling plot, I can’t grade Angelfall higher than a C-.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

Have you guys read these books, and if so, what did you think of them? And do you ever find yourself more critical of books that many others love, as I did with Angelfall and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell?

Jane’s Reading List Ending October 31, 2011

Jane — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:00:35 +0000

Dear Readers,

It’s been three weeks since my last confession. In that time, I’ve read two historicals, six paranormals (5 being about werewolves, the entire backlist of Meg Benjamin, and a couple of erotic romances.

Not Wicked Enough by Carolyn Jewel (ARC, release date Feb 7, 2012). Enjoyed this different historical story of a wealthy woman who fell in love with a soldier. She gave up her virginity to him and then he died before they could marry. She’s single out of choice because she never believed she could love again. The hero is a former farmer found to be the male heir of a dukedom that was to revert to a crown. He needs to marry to gain respectability for his title. Full review near release date.

How the Marquess Was Won by Julie Anne Long (ARC, release date Dec 27, 2011). I liked this one, but not as much as the previous release. I thought it was really well plotted, however, with the villains being truly awful but without being caricatures. Essentially, a few of the young members of the ton decide to make a school teacher “popular” just to see if they can. The hero, a Marquess, falls in love with the school teacher, but he’s supposed to be courting Isaiah Redmond’s niece. If the Marquess marries the niece, he’ll get his mother’s dowry property back. Full review near release date.

Hot for Santa by Lacey Alexander (ARC, release date Dec. 13, 2011). It was, well, Lacey Alexander without much of any emotional conflict or real plot.

True Colors by Thea Harrison (ARC, release date December 13, 2011). Harrison can write in the short story format and I think that fans of the Wyr series will enjoy this story featuring Riehl, who has spent ninety-six roaming years as a captain in the Wyr lord Dragos Cuelebre’s army and is ready to settle down and Alice, a different kind of Wyr.

The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper. In my quest for a good werewolf book, I thought I would give this a try. The heroine is the Alpha of her pack and she’s smart mouthed and competent. The hero is a researcher who believes in werewolves. I liked this book while reading it, but when I put it down, I felt no compulsion to finish. I may go back. I may not.

Fifty Shades of Grey and Fifty Shades of Darker by E.L. James. These two books are purportedly edited by some publishing house but I don’t believe it. They are also supposedly Bella and Edward fan fiction. I did not see the resemblance to the Bella and Edward storyline. What I do see is that readers long for a full length emotionally charged erotic romance in a publishing field largely populated by novellas and shorts. I believe that is why readers are responding to this series. It’s expensive (and I paid for both $7.99 for one and $9.99 for the other) and you have to buy both to get the entire story as book 1 ends with a cliffhanger. Book 2 starts up like a week after the two have separated. Essentially it is a story about a young woman who is just graduating from college and a control freak young billionaire businessman. (He’s 27 and reads like he’s about 37. She reads like she’s about 17) Grey, the businessman, is into hardcore BDSM because of his scarred and unhappy childhood. Anastasia isn’t buying into his hardcore activities and ultimately Grey’s redemption is his finding pleasure without the bonds.

I may review these two books but I haven’t finished them yet. They are each about 100K words and it’s about 100K words too many. The middle of Book 1 really dragged for me and I skipped to the end and then read the beginning to about the middle and end of Book 2.

Fifty Shades of Grey | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Fifty Shades of Darker | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

Konisburg series by Meg Benjamin. I started out with Brand New Me and liked it so much I had to read the entire series. Jayne has reviewed: Be My Baby, and Wedding Bell Blues. Venus in Blue Jeans is my other fave of the series:

Venus in Blue Jeans| Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Wedding Bell Blues | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Be My Baby | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Long Time Gone | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Brand New Me | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

After re-reading Beauty Dates the Beast, I asked Jill Myles to recommend another werewolf book and she said that I should read the Darkest Powers series by Kelley Armstrong. It’s a YA series but the heroine, Chloe, is very strong and the hero, Derek, is like Clay Jr. (Clay is the male lead in Bitten, my favorite werewolf story). I did enjoy the series quite a bit. Chloe’s powers of necromancy are very strong, she doesn’t know how to harness them, she’s inadvertently raising the dead (even in her sleep), and she’s on the run with three other teens from a powerful research group. The romance between Derek and Chloe developed slowly over the three books in a very charming manner. The stories all end in a cliffhanger so I am glad that I was able to buy and read one after the other. I don’t think that these three can be read on their own:

The Summoning | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
The Awakening | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
The Reckoning | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

Ready to Run by Kinsey W. Holley. Again, with the werewolves, right? This is the third book in Holley’s werewolf series and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think it can be read alone because while it features cameos from her first book, reviewed here, it’s plot doesn’t have much to do with the previous two books. In fact, that’s one criticism I have about this book. It references a lot of different people and I wondered at the coherency of the worlds that she is developing in the books. However, I loved the heroine in this book who was meek in the beginning and then grew a backbone and literally kicked the ass of the bad guy. I’ll do a full review.

What Jaclyn Is Reading, September 2011

Jaclyn — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:00:56 +0000

I read a lot in September, like holy-guacamole a lot. There is a letterpress broad side on the wall of my office with a quote from Erasmus that reads, “When I get a little money I buy BOOKS; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” I think Erasmus and I would have understood one another. I wonder if he would have enjoyed reading romances?

Curio by Cara McKenna. Over in Twitter-land Ms. McKenna’s story, Willing Victim, was much discussed earlier in the year. Since I read it last December I’ve gone on to read about two-thirds of Ms. McKenna’s backlist. There’s something that I find so compelling about her books, even when I don’t really like the stories themselves. When I read Skin Game, which I did not like—it read like a series of character sketches set amidst a weird Survivor-like game—I finally understood that Ms. McKenna writes her characters with so much compassion and clarity; she treats them with respect and they shine regardless of what’s going on in the story. Back to Curio. Didier is a former model turned prostitute who is patronized by Caroly, a 29-year-old virgin who wishes to finally have sex. The story is told over five encounters as they begin to form a friendship and become lovers. Ms. McKenna is masterful at using the sexual encounters of her characters to further the emotional drama she’s woven and I continue to be utterly compelled by her books. Curio has a hope filled HEA and I was charmed.

Summons: A Goblin King Prequel by Shona Husk. The pissy reviews on Amazon made me want to read this. A couple readers were bugged that this is essentially a short lead in—more like a prologue—to the book, Goblin King. I find these little shorts are a great way to sample if I like the characters and the author’s writing style. I’m glad I read this before reading Goblin King because the start of that book made more sense for having read this.

Goblin King by Shona Husk. A retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Goblin King features and heiress trying to escape her abusive, black-mailing, cheating boyfriend and some sort of Celtic warrior cursed by a Druid. I generally like these stories where the heroine grows a pair and tells her abusive boyfriend where to stick it before finding love with a decent guy. The story wanders in places which led me to skim read from time to time and the police were very sympathetic to the heroine despite the evidence that has been used to blackmail her for a couple of years. Basically some of the plot points are too convenient. But the love story is sweet and the angst lasts until the final five pages.

Taken by the Cowboy by Julianne MacLean. Oh time travel, you offer so many opportunities for wacky stories. Heroine is in car accident, flung back in time, mistaken for a gun-slinging badass, meets a fellow time-traveler, falls for the Sherriff (and vice versa), is accused of murder, and wants to find a way to get back home. Some of the events are too convenient; for instance, she meets a fellow time-traveler who just happens to be the attorney she demands after being jailed? Really? Uh-huh. At times I just wasn’t compelled to keep reading and I picked up a couple other books while meandering through this one, but I did finish it and found the ending bittersweet. I’d be curious if others who’ve read this also read Jude Deveraux’s Knight in Shining Armor and what you thought of the endings in comparison to one another. I hate with stabby-eye-rays-of-death the ending of KISA; Taken by the Cowboy doesn’t evoke that sort of strong hateration but like KISA, it’s tinged with sadness.

Bound to the Prince by Deborah Court. Ms. Court emailed Dear Author asking if anyone wanted to review her book. I like fae stories so I bought a copy and started reading. I’m about 2/3 of the way through this book and just not sure if I’m going to continue. The heroine is a doormat and the story is bloated. I kept thinking it needed a ruthless substantive edit to remove extraneous scenes that probably don’t feel extraneous to the author but bogged down the pace and caused my attention to wander. There’s something not bad buried in here, but I’m just not sure it’s worth the time of skimming through the bloat to find it. DNF for now.

Future Tense by Carolyn Jewel. I’m a glom reader for the My Immortals series. I like that demons are the “good” guys, it fits my philosophy that in life there’s often no clear demarcation between good and bad, we’re all constantly moving on the gray spectrum; sometimes we’re better or worse than others. One of the things about paranormals in general that I like (and in sf and fantasy, too) is the mythology that comes with the world-building. What these people believe in fascinates me. I hope Lys, the heroine, shows up in future books, I’d like to see what happens with her witchy power of connecting to the future—the ending of this short story left me with a lot of questions.

Good Girls Don’t by Victoria Dahl. Ms. Dahl shatters my heart with pretty much every book, and she does it while delivering humor, insight, drama, and love. Tessa and Luke both have Issues. Their lives collide when Tessa’s family business is vandalized and police detective Luke is sent to investigate. Tessa’s manic drive to keep her family together was emotionally wrenching. I felt her fear and despair when she thought it was all unraveling around her.

Bad Boys Do by Victoria Dahl. I often hear women say ‘it’s the quiet ones you need to watch out for’, but Jamie Donovan proves that the smooth, easy-going, laughing ones might have hidden depths, too, if you bother to look. Olivia is a woman finally breaking out of the mold created by her parents, and then her controlling husband. Watching a shy/repressed/timid lady evolve into a woman of confidence (whether it’s quiet or brash confidence) is something I like best about romance novels.

To Tempt a Scotsman by Victoria Dahl Yeah, so I maybe glommed on Ms. Dahl’s books in September. Lucky me. J I hated the hero for a good part of this book. What a dumbass. The heroine is a woman of intelligence and courage and she deserves better than she got from all the men in her life; it all worked out in the end and as long as the hero doesn’t revert to his dumbassery then I’m happy for the heroine to get her HEA with her hero. But by God he had better spend the rest of their lives proving he’s worthy of her. Humph.

I froth at the mouth waiting for the next time I can have my heart smashed to pieces and put back together by Victoria Dahl. I’m already getting a little manic for Real Men Will. Only a couple weeks to go. Alas.

Trouble in Paradise by Susan Connell. I came across this book while scrolling through page after page of books online. It’s a breezy, entertaining, sexy story set in a Central American rainforest. I enjoyed it but I never became wrapped up or emotionally invested in the characters.

Silver Shark (Kinsmen Series) by Ilona Andrews. I’m fascinated with this world Ms. Andrews has imagined. The characters are part of a rare group of humans known as psychers—they live as much in a mental world (accessed through technology, I imagine sort of like in the Matrix) as they do in the physical world. Claire, the heroine, is hiding her true identity and enormous power in the wake of a war that her side lost. When she’s transported to another planet she continues to hide for fear that she’d be deported or executed if discovered. She’s hired by Venturo as his secretary and events conspire to reveal Claire’s true identity leaving Venturo with a dilemma about what to do with Claire. I hope there are more Kinsmen books coming.

When in Rio by Delphine Dryden. Jack and Katie work together, in fact, he’s her boss. And on a business trip to Rio he becomes her Dom, though Jack is mostly into the D/s thing for the spanking. If we set aside the problem of doing the horizontal mambo with your boss, then this is a satisfying emotional story about two people who’ve grown to respect and admire one another over two years of close association and have decided to add sex and emotional intimacy to their relationship. At the end, when their fledgling couple hood is tested by Jack’s past I found myself irritated by the assumptions Katie made and the very easy resolution to the misunderstanding. But overall this was a good story about friends becoming (kinky) lovers. (Reviewed by Jane here)

Archangel’s Blade by Nalini Singh. Janine has already reviewed this for Dear Author. I bring it up only because the more time passes since I’ve read this book the more dissatisfied I become with the truth about Honor’s identity and Dmitri’s evolution through the story. The violence is staggering and I just don’t see how the woman Honor is today and the woman she once was meld into a unified whole. At the same time I don’t know if I believe that Dmitri loves Honor—that is, the woman she is today. I might need to read this again; certainly I can’t stop thinking about it.

Angels of Darkness by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Meljean Brook, and Sharon Shinn. I’m writing a review of this for Dear Author.

Believe it or not, dear readers, there are more, but this is probably more than enough for this post, yes? Have you read any of these? Did you like/dislike them? I hope someone has read Curio and will tell me if they found Didier and Caroly as compelling as I did.

Happy reading,

Jaclyn

GUEST REVIEW: Fault Line by Barry Eisler

Guest Reviewer — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:00:10 +0000

Dear Mr. Eisler:

Fault Line was the first book of yours that I’d read. I’ve since read more, by the way. In the past, I have worked at Intellectual Property law firms as well as in the legal department of a Bio-Tech firm, so I am intimate with the portion of Fault Line that deals with patent prosecution and the highly educated and degreed men and women who do this kind of work. I am also currently employed in the technology sector and while I do not work directly in the security end of IT, my job daily involves many of the issues involved with the security software that is at the heart of the plot of Fault Line. Lastly, I live in the Bay Area and have been to most of the Northern California areas where Fault Line takes place. I found Fault Line to be quite accurate in those respects and I say this with the painful experience of having read books in which authors did not do any research worthy of the noun into the technology they decided to write about. So thank you, Mr. Eisler, for getting it right.

Alex Treven is an intellectual property attorney who’s brought on a client of his own to the firm where he hopes to make partner. The client’s product, a computer security software application, has the potential for immense profits. His hopes unravel when his client is murdered. When the murders continue, it’s clear someone is eliminating everyone assoiciated with the software. Alex and Sarah Hossieni, a beautiful junior associate of Iranian heritage assigned to work with him on the patent application, are the obvious next targets. Correctly afraid he’s in over his head, Alex is left with no choice but to ask his estranged military-operative brother for help.

I confess I was a bit put off by the opening of Fault Lines. A great deal of backstory gets laid down in the first twenty to thirty pages (an estimate, since I was reading on my iPhone) and I started feeling anxious for things to get started.

Two main backstory lines are important to Fault Line; the security software program for which people are being killed on page one and throughout the book, and the family history between the two male protagonists, brothers Alex and Ben Treven.

Initially I was puzzled by Alex who I mistook for the protagonist and found to be oddly beta for the hero of a political thriller. Alex is quickly in physical peril, and for a bit I wasn’t at all sure how this guy was going to survive his story. Patent attorneys do not typically learn the skills required to survive attempted assassinations.

To an experienced reader of Romance (which I am) Alex’s brother Ben is immediately identifiable as Hero Material. In fact, Ben was so precisely the kind of man who is the protagonist of a military Romance that I briefly floundered a bit as I tried to figure out what kind of book I was reading. A traditional political military thriller or a Romance? Or was Fault Line going to be a book that attempted a fusion? Oh, how I have been dying for someone to do this!

Ben Treven is a shooter for US government-sponsored Black Ops, and we meet him as he is carrying out the assassination of two Iranian nuclear scientists. He’s emotionally isolated and (to a romance reader) desperately in need of the love of a good woman. But wait! Isn’t Alex in love with Sarah, the only possible Heroine of any romance that might take place? Why, yes, he is! Very interesting, Mr. Eisler. Gotta keep turning pages to find out how that works out.

Fortunately, I got myself properly oriented to the story -’ that is, open minded about where Alex and Ben were headed as dual protagonists and absorbed in the many fascinating dynamics laid out on the pages. Alex and Sarah have the smarts and knowledge required to solve the mystery surrounding the security software while Ben has what it takes to keep them alive and investiate just who is behind the killings while the software mystery is being solved. The various story lines bend back around, intertwine and intersect in intriguing and chilling ways up to and including the ending.

Ben eventually takes over as the protagonist of the story, but Alex remains a strong second protagonist who is vital to the resolution. Ben thinks he’s safe in his tightly controlled world only to gradually suspect betrayal of the worst and potentially fatal sort. Alex and Ben have a truckload of childhood issues to either resolve or figure out how to keep from igniting before the past ends up getting them killed in the present. Alex wants Sarah. Ben wants Sarah and wishes he didn’t. Sarah knows her own mind but really, what woman can resist the likes of Ben after he proves there’s a softer side under that damaged exterior? It’s this portion of the book that is most strongly a Romance. With a capital R.

Most female readers of military thrillers (we are legion, just ask Lee Child) are familiar with the traditional fate of the woman unfortunate enough to fall for the hero. At best, she’s doomed to be dumped while the hero moves on with hardly a regret. Often, however, she’s doomed to die. Fault Line breaks with this tradition. Sarah has scenes in her point of view, which means readers get a direct line to her doubts about Ben and her eventual resolution of most of them. These scenes make Sarah a more fully realized female character than is usual for a thriller.

The romance element of this story is wonderfully done and done without sacrificing the unraveling mystery and resolution as the disparate plot lines come together. Unlike Alex and Ben, however, Sarah is not in a situation that requires her personal or emotional transformation in order to survive. Ultimately, the story is not about the relationship between her and Ben. For this reason, Fault Line is not a romance. That isn’t a criticism, by the way. It’s merely an observation.

I suspect that for readers of military thrillers the deeper focus on Sarah and the relationship between Sarah and Ben must seem novel. Ben is challenged and transformed (in part) by his relationship with Sarah. And yet, she’s not there just so Ben gets to have sex. In fact, I’d even say that in at least one key scene, Ben is there so Sarah gets to have sex. The focus given to the sex scenes and their unusal flip from the male-centric to the female-centric is refreshing. For readers familiar with romance, of course, this is nothing new.

Fault Line is a gripping political/military thriller that moves quickly and features one of the more fully dimensional female characters I’ve seen in the genre. I thoroughly enjoyed Fault Line for all the reasons I enjoy military thrillers and for many of the reasons I enjoy romance.

A-

~Carolyn Jewel

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Top Romances of 2009 by Jane

Jane — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:09:07 +0000

Picking out the ten best reads of 2009 was hard. It was hard because I had 6 A rated books but then I had to delve into the B+s and determine from that strong group who ranked in my top 10. I based my decision on re-readability. I’ve re-read portions of all of these books at one point or another. There are other books which I loved this year that are outside the genre so I intentionally excluded them.

Always a Scoundrel by Suzanne Enoch
Beloved Vampire by Joey Hill
Bound by Your Touch by Meredith Duran
Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight
Damned by Blood by Evie Byrne
Magnate’s Make-Believe Mistress by Bronwyn Jameson
Never Love a Lawman by Jo Goodman
Scandal by Carolyn Jewel
Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas
Wicked All Day by Liz Carlyle

I noticed that I loved the scoundrel redeemed story which is pretty much the dominant theme in my best loved historicals of the year. I’ve read into the first quarter of 2010 and I have to say we romance readers have a good year ahead of us.

Top Romances of 2009 by Janet

Janet — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:53:20 +0000

We will be posting our Top 10 of 2009 this entire week. Today’s list is from Janet (aka Robin). The list is unranked. You can find more of her reviews here.

****

I hesitated about making a list this year, since my reading was largely dictated by what I volunteered to review. Consequently, there are many, many wonderful books I haven’t yet read and some books I did love that I didn’t put on this list, either because they were not straight Romance (Sinful Life of Lucy Burns, Dead and Gone), because they just didn’t stick with me with way other books did, or because I wanted to make room for a book that I think might be otherwise overlooked. So rather than my “Top Romances of 2009,” this list is more “10 Memorable Romances I Read in 2009″ — and they’re books I heartily recommend to the DA readership.

Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley
Demon Forged by Meljean Brook
Courtesan’s Wager by Claudia Dain
Bound By Your Touch by Meredith Duran (review by Jane)
Never Love A Lawman by Jo Goodman
Highland Rebel by Judith James
Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel
Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas (haiku review!)
Double Play by Jill Shalvis (no review)
Hunt Her Down by Roxanne St. Claire

Top Ten Romances of 2009 by Janine

Janine — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:00:49 +0000

We will be posting our Top 10 of 2009 this entire week. Today’s list is from Janine. The list is unranked. You can find more of her reviews here.

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews
Bound by Your Touch by Meredith Duran* (review by Jennie)
Written on Your Skin by Meredith Duran* (review by Jennie)
Stillness by Megan Hart, in the anthology Pleasure and Purpose
Determinata by Megan Hart, in the anthology Pleasure and Purpose
Scandal by Carolyn Jewel
The Birthday Present by Alison Richardson (#3 in The Countess Trilogy)
Blood by Sharon Shinn, in anthology Quatrain
Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh
Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas* (review by Jennie)

*Full disclosure from Janine: Meredith Duran and Sherry Thomas are my crit partners and good friends, but since I enjoyed their 2009 books tremendously, I felt it would be a glaring omission not to include those books on my list of favorites.

Top Romance Books of 2009 by Jennie

Jennie — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:13:36 +0000

We will be posting our Top 10 of 2009 this entire week. Today’s list is from Jennie. The list is unranked. You can find more of her reviews here.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (review by Jia)
Bound By Your Touch by Meredith Duran
Written On Your Skin by Meredith Duran
Pleasure And Purpose by Megan Hart (review by Janine)
Scandal by Carolyn Jewel (review by Janine)
Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel
Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas (review by Joonigrrl or read the haiku review)
Since The Surrender byJulie Anne Long (review by Jane
Not Quite A Husband by Sherry Thomas

CONVERSATIONAL REVIEW: Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel

Jennie — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:00:00 +0000

PLEASE NOTE: this conversational review does contain some spoilers.

Jennie: I was one of many readers mightily impressed with Carolyn Jewel’s previous historical romance Scandal, which I read in January and graded an A-.

Janine: Totally with you on that. Scandal was one of the most impressive books I’ve read this year, and it’s stuck with me so much that I recently went back to my own review and raised the grade from an A- to an A-/A.

Jennie: I was very much looking forward to Indiscreet. While I had some problems with the second half of the story, overall, it did not disappoint.

Janine: Agreed again, although, as readers will see our opinions about what works in this book differ a bit more than they usually do.

Jennie: The book begins:

How everything started.

This incident took place at about two o’clock the morning of September 3, 1809. The location was the back parlor of a town house owned by the Duke of Buckingham but lived in by the Earl of Crosshaven on a ninety-nine-year lease, presently in its twenty-third year. It should be remarked that Lord Edward Marrack, the younger brother of the Marquess of Foye, was in attendance that night. Lord Edward had been something of a rake until his engagement to the daughter of a longtime family friend. The Earl of Crosshaven currently was a rake.

Several chapters start with this unconventional stage-setting device, and while it startled me at first, I found I rather liked it.

Janine: Although I liked the book very much, this device was one of the few things in it that did not work well for me. I was fine with it for the first chapter, but after that I often found these omniscient narration chapter openings distracting because I would get caught up in the action of the story and then would come a chapter break and this type of description and everything would come to a standstill. And often the information being given would be something I already knew, so it was frustrating — though not enough to seriously mar my enjoyment of the book.

Jennie: Hmm. Well, I think it worked for me for an unusual reason: it did take me out of the story (which is something I also don’t like, usually), but in a way that I found slyly amusing, a sort of wink and nod acknowledgement that it was just a story, after all.

I also liked the scene that follows this introduction, in part because I really wasn’t sure who the hero was or where the story was headed. The Earl of Crosshaven proceeds to boast that he has seduced Miss Sabine Goddard, a young lady recently come to town and one whose reputation had so far been spotless. Lord Marrack disapproves of his friend bandying the young woman’s name around; he doesn’t know her, but he does know that the boast will be all over town by the next day and that she is effectively ruined. His last thought is that her uncle, an eminent scholar who has recently been knighted (the reason for the Goddards’ presence in London), and Sabine’s guardian, will probably put her out on the street when he hears the story.

Janine: Yes, this was a very good scene and it intrigued me on multiple levels.

Jennie: Cut to a year and a half later, where the action has switched to Turkey. Lord Marrack has become the Marquess of Foye with the untimely death of his brother, and has fled England following the breaking-off of his engagement. He encounters the infamous Miss Goddard and her uncle at a party, and immediately finds himself drawn to her.

The scandal that Crosshaven’s lie produced has forced Sabine and her uncle, Sir Henry Goddard, to withdraw from English society, and they are traveling for a book Sir Henry is writing. Sabine acts as an assistant and to some degree a caretaker to her uncle, who is in poor health.

Contrary to Foye’s earlier speculation, Sir Henry Goddard did not turn his back on his niece after the scandal with Crosshaven erupted. However, Sabine is convinced that he does not believe her protestations of innocence, and indeed he does treat her interactions with men with suspicion. The affair has obviously strained their close relationship (Sabine’s parents died when she was very young; Sir Henry is the only real parent she has ever known).

Foye has been made cynical by the way his engagement ended. He is determined to marry an older, experienced woman if he marries at all; he’ll have no love match. His attraction to the young Miss Goddard (23 to his 38) is inconvenient for him, and he tries to fight it.

I know a lot of readers aren’t crazy about huge h/h age differences; honestly, in the past I’ve never been much bothered by them, and just as I began to get old enough to perhaps view them differently, they became a lot less common in romances. The age difference between Foye and Sabine in Indiscreet didn’t bother me, but the agonizing Foye does over it did annoy me. To be fair, I suppose that a hero that recognizes the potential problems and is concerned about them isn’t a bad thing. It’s just annoying because it’s not really a "problem" for which there is any resolution. He’s not going to get any younger, and she’s going to age at the same rate that he does. So the only resolution is for him to get over it, and the reader is aware of that from the start. Which makes any time spent on the issue feel like a bit too much.

Janine: I understand your perspective, but this didn’t bother me. I think I would have had a harder time with the fifteen-year age difference had it been presented as no problem whatsoever for either of the characters. As it was, the fact that Foye agonized over it made me like him better than I think I would have if he had been excited to have found himself a much younger woman.

Jennie: Yes, I’m not sure what sort of acknowledgement I would’ve preferred, because I think an acknowledgement was necessary. I just find that sometimes the more characters agonize over something that I know can’t really be overcome, the more annoyed I get. So I guess I prefer to have such agonizing be as succint as possible.

More interesting is Foye’s insecurity over his looks. He is not your typical breathtakingly handsome romance hero – his features are often described as "irregular", and he’s a big hulk of a man. He’s somewhat self-conscious about his lack of beauty, and tends to be vain about his dress, which I found a touching detail.

Janine: I liked that very much too. Just in general I loved Foye — more on that later.

Jennie: Sabine, of course, has also been burned (and has her own set of insecurities, chiefly about being very well educated; when she first came to London she discovered just how unusual her interests made her). The fact that Foye was a friend of Crosshaven’s does not make her at all inclined to think well of him. In fact, when they first meet, she is afraid that he intends to expose her to the circle of expatriates and British military officers she and her uncle socialize with, or that he may proposition her. Thus, she’s extremely wary about the interest Foye shows in her.

Janine: I loved the tension that resulted from that. Foye and Sabine both had this heightened awareness of one another that was delicious to read about.

Jennie: Yes, and I loved the fact that as a result, Sabine’s awareness wasn’t based on attraction, at first. I find it so rare in a romance that either the hero or the heroine isn’t immediately attracted, that every instance thrills me a bit.

Through a series of meetings Foye and Sabine do come to a wary sort of understanding, and eventually, love. Nevertheless, there remain some significant barriers to their HEA. This all occurs in the first half of the book. The ease with which those barriers were swept away made me realize how flimsy they were to start with. (Which is often the case in a romance, if you think about it. I see it as an author’s job to make me not think about it.)

The second half of the book shifts from the interpersonal conflict between Sabine and Foye to a conflict that is almost entirely external and action-based. I liked this section less. I do sometimes like action, especially when it’s well written. But the lack of hero/heroine conflict in this section and the abrupt shift from small and internal to large and external left the book feeling unbalanced. I think it may have worked better if the sections were switched – at times the story was vaguely reminiscent of Laura Kinsale’s The Dream Hunter – a book I love. That book has the big action-adventure part first, and then the story shifted to a smaller, more character-driven tale. Somehow this works better for me.

That’s not to say that there is no interpersonal conflict in the latter half of the book, but it’s mostly beneath the surface and focused on the hero and heroine’s doubts and insecurities. I think it’s tricky to write "does s/he really want and love me?" hand-wringing in such a way that it’s not tiresome, and I did occasionally find it tiresome in Indiscreet.

Janine: Thanks for the shout out to Kinsale’s fabulous The Dream Hunter. I do agree that the two books were a bit similar. As for the internal conflict in the second half, I loved the subtlety and complexity of it.

As mentioned before I loved Foye. I loved the way he transformed, or rather, showed another facet of his personality, in the second half of the book. Where he had been a thoughtful, even sensitive man, he also showed that when it was necessary for him to have a harder edge and do what was necessary to ensure his and Sabine’s survival, he could do that as well.

I felt that Sabine’s response to that was fascinating. While she was grateful, she also wasn’t sure she recognized him as the man she’d fallen in love with, and this made her uncertain of her feelings for him and his for her. Foye sensed her reaction, and what’s more, he was also torn between his desire for her and his need to protect her good name. I thought that all this added layers of complexity to the story and I enjoyed it very much.

Jennie: You make a good point, and it reminds me of something I’d forgotten that I did want to mention. I thought that Sabine’s reaction to being disguised as a boy was very interesting and well-done. Her observations about the freedoms her disguise allowed her, in spite of the fact that her male persona was in a much lower social position, were really compelling and thought-provoking.

Janine: Agreed. It also highlighted Sabine’s vulnerability and added tension to the story. So overall, I liked the contrast between the first half of the book and the second, after I got used to it. My main issue with the second half was that it made me think of a friend of mine. She is Lebanese-American as well as a romance reader, and she often finds it difficult to read romances set in the Middle East due to negative stereotypes. As much as I enjoyed Indiscreet myself, I would feel leery about recommending this book to her, because none of the Turkish characters were fleshed out, including the villain.

Jennie: Hmm. Well, I did not feel that most of the Turkish characters conformed to any negative Middle Eastern stereotypes that I’m aware of. That said, I agree that they were not fleshed out at all. The story (and most of the characterization) focused on Foye and Sabine, so it wasn’t quite so noticeable to me that there weren’t any fully realized native characters. Though I was a bit uneasy at the “white slaver” aspect of the villain’s character, because that does conform to some stereotypes in my mind. So I can understand you having qualms about recommending it to your friend.

To get back to my complaints about the second half of the book, I want to be clear that I’m not saying it’s bad by any means; it’s really not. I have a lamentable tendency when reviewing to expound at length on the negative, and I don’t want to ignore the positives of what was overall a very good book. Indiscreet features excellent prose, sympathetic and well-drawn characters (even the villainous Crosshaven is allowed a small measure of redemption in the end), and an unusual setting. It’s really only the pacing and arrangement of the plot that I have any real issue with (minor complaints about hand-wringing aside).

Janine: I didn’t have a problem with the arrangement of the plot at all. There were a couple of happenings in the last chapter of the book that raised questions in my mind but to go into them would involve revealing some big spoilers, so I’ll refrain. Suffice to say that I thought the ending felt a bit rushed.

I want to take a moment to appreciate Jewel’s prose. Few authors do a better job of conveying a character’s interior thoughts and emotional responses. Take for example this excerpt, from Foye and Sabine’s first conversation, when Sabine is telling Foye’s fortune based on a reading of what remains in his teacup.

“Lady Foye, perhaps?” she said in a sweet voice.

“No,” he said after too long a silence. “There is no Lady Foye.”

She looked up, interested more by his flat tone of voice than by his declaration of bachelorhood. He wasn’t looking at her. His attention was interior, on some deep and private pain. She hadn’t expected to see anguish, yet that was what she saw in his eyes, and her heart pinched a little on his behalf.

“Another woman, then,” she said. Looking at Lord Foye, with his irregularly put together face, was suddenly too intimate an experience. His eyes were too raw with loss. Had she inadvertently reminded him of a lost love? “Someone who will love you, my lord. Exactly as you deserve.”

Without thinking, she leaned forward, peering into his face. Foye’s gaze came back to the present. Their eyes locked, and with no warning, her breath caught in her throat. Her skin prickled up and down her body, all in pointed awareness of the man sitting across from her. He wasn’t handsome. He wasn’t at all. But Sabine’s heart beat hard against her ribs as if he were.

She leaned away, still struggling to get enough air into her lungs. She felt she had not moved soon enough, that she had unwittingly allowed an intimacy she would never permit in actual fact. A spark of fear settled in her chest because even with the distance between them, she remained lost in his eyes. Lost.

It was Foye who broke their gaze. “What else do the tea leaves predict?” he softly asked.

I think that’s just marvelous writing, the kind that makes me want to savor every word. There is such a smoothness to the language here and yet it doesn’t call attention to itself because it directs all of our attention to the characters and what they are feeling. The result is some powerful emotion in the reader. This is a writer at the top of her craft, which is why, caveats aside, I highly recommend this book.

Jennie:I agree with you about the gorgeousness of the prose (and about the rushed ending, alas). My grade for Indiscreet is a B+.

Janine: Mine is a B+/A-.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

This book was provided to the reviewer by either the author or publisher. The reviewer did not pay for this book but received it free. The Amazon Affiliate link earns us a 6-7% affiliate fee if you purchase a book through the link (or anything for that matter) and the Sony link is in conjunction with the sponsorship deal we made for the year of 2009. We do not earn an affiliate fee from Sony through the book link.

ETA by Janine (in the way of FTC disclosure): I met Carolyn Jewel at RWA this past July and had the opportunity to tell her that I enjoyed Scandal.

REVIEW: Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel

Janet — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:00:09 +0000

Dear Ms. Jewel:

When I met you recently, I had to sheepishly admit that I had not yet read any of your books. So I volunteered to review your new release Indiscreet, relishing the added bonus that it was a Regency set in Turkey. Despite all of the stereotypical sheikh novels and the often fetishized relationship genre Romance has with Middle Eastern settings, I have a very soft spot for these fictionalized locales, and Indiscreet did not disappoint in that respect. In fact, there were very few disappointments for me along the way, and while Indiscreet might be the first Carolyn Jewel book I read, it certainly won’t be the last.

When the Marquess of Foye was merely Lord Edward Marrack, he had the displeasure of overhearing a terribly indiscreet boast from his then-friend, the Earl of Crosshaven. It seemed that Miss Sabine Godard was, as Crosshaven put it, "’no better than she ought to be’" in submitting to Crosshaven’s seduction. And Lord Edwards knows that "’Tomorrow…Miss Godard will not find the world so pleasant a place. That is a fate you ought to have avoided for the girl,’" because "’the consequences of an indiscretion always fall hardest on the woman.’" Edward, soon to be Foye, does not understand at the time why his friend would be so selfish and careless with Miss Godard’s reputation, but he does know that true or false, the charge will likely ruin the young woman, and for that he is disgusted and sorry.

So nearly two years later, when he runs across the lovely Miss Godard and her uncle (and guardian) Henry Godard in, of all places, Turkey, he is grateful to see that Sabine’s uncle did not turn her out on the street, even if they had to flee England in the wake of her ruined reputation. Sabine, who is helping her uncle with his book on the East, amuses herself by reading tea leaves for other English travelers, mostly men who are taken with the lovely young woman. The amusement hardly satisfies, however, the mind of a woman who is more intellectually capable as many men far above her station, although her gratitude for her uncle’s public loyalty makes her loathe to leave him. And she is not at all pleased to see Crosshaven’s good friend Foye among the coterie of English travelers. She has no idea that his sympathies lie with her and not Crosshaven, and is merely waiting for him to act as so many other men have around her – with the ultimate proposition for indiscretion.

Foye and Sabine are, at first, as mysterious to each other as the Eastern cultures are to so many of these Western travelers. Foye is, as Sabine notes, not a handsome man: "[h]is nose was hooked, and the remainder of his features were set irregularly in his face, as if someone had put the parts together and then given them a hard shake before everything had quite settled into place." He appears aloof, but, Sabine realizes, instead he is just "reserved," because "[h]is consequence fit him like his clothes: exquisitely and without ostentation, but underneath there ran a river too deep to sound." Still, Sabine finds Foye arresting, even as she fears what he will say or attempt to do to her. While Foye is trying to adjust to a shift in his own expectations, from "a sweet young woman, weeping for her lost reputation" to a sensually-featured woman with "dark honey" eyes, a surfeit of personal dignity, and an unexpected measure of wit and insightful intelligence. Not a victim, by any measure, despite Crosshaven’s careless sacrifice of her reputation.

One of the things that is most amazing about Indiscreet is the way the unfamiliar setting of Turkey (which was and still is one of the most popular vacation spots for Europeans) sets off the personal dynamics between Sabine and Foye. On one level, any interest they have in each other – however reluctant, on both parts – is less forbidden. But on another level, Sabine’s reputation is even more fragile outside England, because her status and safety as a female is doubly dependent on male protection. And then there are the more mundane considerations, such as the fifteen-year age difference (Sabine is 23 and Foye is 38), Foye’s self-perception as a beastly man (he is 6’6" for one thing), who is beyond the desire of a beautiful young woman like Sabine, and Sabine’s loyalty to her uncle, a man who stood behind her even though he most certainly believed Crosshaven’s story. Henry Godard, in fact, would rather think of Sabine as having a man’s mind and disposition in an inconveniently female body, and he thinks nothing of taking her through politically unstable, geographically remote regions, oblivious to or unconcerned with the potentially unhealthy interest of Nazim Pasha, whom Henry Godard is intent on visiting.

Before they can leave, however, Sabine and Foye become acutely aware of their attraction to each other, buoyed by the unexpected pleasure of it and yet firmly convinced that it cannot end in marriage and happy domesticity:

He reached up and took her hand in his. She’d never put on her gloves, so her ï¬ngers were bare. Slowly, he brought her ï¬ngers to his mouth and kissed the back of her hand. His lips touched her bare skin. "Sabine," he whispered, "what am I to do with you?"

"What is it you want to do?"

He did not step away, and, God help her, she trembled with anticipation. He tipped his head to one side. "To make up my mind about you." The skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. "Am I too beastly for you, Sabine? Or is that something you can overlook?"

She was aware that the future of her relationship with him, whatever that was to be, hung in the balance now. Her whole life was about to change, and this time the choice was hers. Her chest felt tight. She could hardly breathe. "You and I will continue to disagree on that, I think.

So when the Godards leave for Northern Syria and the pashalik of Nazim Pasha, Foye tries to believe that Sabine will be safe in the company of one infirm old man and a pasha who is known for selling women or making them part of his seraglio, beyond the protection of the British consulate. And when he arrives at the pasha’s compound, he is informed by the pasha that Henry Godard has died and Sabine is grieving, inconsolable but safe. Which he does not believe for a minute. So one daring rescue and a bit of costuming later, Foye and Sabine escape the pashalik for a treacherous journey to the relative safety of the consulate, many anxious days and treacherous miles away.

At this point in the review I need to say that no summary I could offer of Indiscreet is likely to do the book justice, because so much of its depth, like Sabine and Foye’s relationship, is revealed in the experience. Foye is a man who knows he is not handsome, and who is almost freakishly tall for his time, but who has enough social position to secure a desirable wife one day. However, he has a sad history with the one woman he loved before Sabine, and so he is convinced that he will never be happy in love, and therefore convinced that no woman as lovely and intelligent as Sabine would ever be suitable for him. Sabine, while traditionally beautiful, must disguise her acute intelligence and broad education, and is forever hampered by the consequences of her tarnished reputation, whether she actually earned that reputation or not.

To complicate matters, just as the two seem to be working through these initial barriers to happiness, the nature of their relationship changes when Sabine goes undercover as a young male, native dragoman to the powerful Lord Foye. Now the woman who never noticed how much the world deferred to her sex must live the physical life of a man and a servant. This life is foreign to her, and as a result, she becomes estranged from herself in a way:

While she understood and wholeheartedly agreed with Foye’s decision to disguise her as a boy-’a brilliant ruse, she thought-’she was profoundly unsettled by everything to do with it. The experience made her a foreigner in her own body; riding astride, the way her clothes ï¬t, and perhaps most of all, the way others reacted to her. . . .

As it was now, she was being shaped inside and out by the sort of person she was and by the expectations of those around her.

And she becomes aware of Foye in a new way, as well:

They were safe enough speaking English, so long as she was appropriately deferential to Foye. That wasn’t difï¬cult. He was a nobleman after all, and just now he intimidated her. The gentleness of his manners from BÃ¼yÃ¼kdere had disappeared somewhere between then and now. She wondered if he was aware that he behaved differently. He must be; he was too intelligent not to be. A line between them had been erased, and she wasn’t sure where, if anywhere, a new one might be drawn. She was a boy and not a boy. His servant and not his servant. Female and not female. And when she looked at him, her stomach leaped off the end of the world.

So many Romance novels treat the road trip as a whim, the costumed heroine as a farce, and the East as exotic backdrop, but Indiscreet challenges each of those stereotypes and brings each device back into fresh use. The road trip is fraught with dangers both physical and emotional, the costume functions to reveal the depths of both protagonists, and the Eastern setting a means to explore the nature of foreignness, customs, and social structures. I don’t think I can emphasize the extent to which I was completely caught up in reading Indiscreet, at least until the final handful of chapters, that is.

For at least two-thirds of the novel, the emotional tension is taughtly maintained, and it was a profound pleasure watching these two characters transform, inside and out, to themselves and each other. Like Sabine, I saw the sharp angles in Foye’s face as "beautiful" rather than "beastly," as the face of "[a] man who tried to see the world as it was rather than what it was said to be, and still retained his hope." Like Foye I was impressed with Sabine’s dignity and proud of her studious dedication to saving her own life. She is no silly ninny, no helpless naif, even if she is vulnerable in a number of ways.

However, because there is so much tension in the novel around securing Sabine and Foye’s safety from the pasha and other dangers, once safety is secured, the novel, like Sabine’s stomach, seems to "leap off the end of the world." The final chapters, in fact, started to read like a summary of a novel more than the novel itself, and while this is not the sort of book where we are in doubt up to the last page as to how things will turn out, there are a number of twists in those final chapters that beg for more opportunity for emotional catharsis than what is allowed in the somewhat abrupt resolutions. Had the pace of these chapters been slowed, Indiscreet would have easily been an A read for me. Even with the sometimes tiring repetition of Foye’s insistence that he was too beastly for Sabine to love, even with the sometimes awkward introductory paragraphs at the beginning of chapters (the book had a sense of scripted scene changing that was both interestingly effective and self-consciously artificial). There is just so much to admire about Indiscreet, from the restrained but lyrical prose to the depth of the protagonists’ characterizations, to the lovely surprises placed throughout the novel that challenged and shifted my expectations subtly but effectively.

For the reader who wants fresh settings, for the reader who likes traditional Regencies, for the reader who likes character-driven stories, and for the reader who likes adventure and a larger scope in Romance, Indiscreet is a wonderfully satisfying read. B+

~ Janet

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Author Talk: Feat. Carolyn Jewel & Comic Books

Jane — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:04:36 +0000

Carolyn Jewel, one of my fave new historical romance authors, interviewed by the Author Talk women/ladies/girls, Gena Showalter and Jill Monroe. (Gena is the camera hog for those unfamiliar with this series)

Link Roundup: BN thinks Pub Domain Books Are Subject to Copyright & Other Nonsense

Jane — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:12:02 +0000

It’s International Blog Against Racism Week.

Barnes and Noble is proclaiming it is giving away 6 free books when you download its special ebook reader on the iphone or laptop. The special ebook reader is merely a BN wrapped version of eReader. The six books are ones in the public domain and when one reader complained that these books were subject to DRM, BN replied with the following:

We selected public domain titles as our free eBooks because these books are traditionally among our customers’ favorite works of literature.

As an alternative, we also offer free samples of every commercial title available on our website so that you can discover for yourself how easy it is to read our eBooks on your iPhone, Blackberry or personal computer…Also, for copyright protection purposes, these files are encrypted and cannot be converted or printed.

Oh, BN, you are not inspiring confidence in your knowledge of books and technology. Just saying.

In contrast, Quartet Press is shaping up to be a very exciting entrant into the publishing world. Today, Mr X’s identity has been revealed and Publishers Weekly has a nice summary although I was told that the number units of books that need to be sold in order to make a title profitable is far less than 3,000 as was reported. And, apparently Kirk Biglione will be doing videos and podcasts to help readers understand digital book reading and how to get the digital books onto digital devices. If you are wondering why I think this is exciting, it’s not because I actually am interested in the videos or podcasts, but rather I could listen to Kirk’s voice all day long. Perhaps Quartet could do audio books…

Lori Perkins, the agent whose house submits books to her own publishing company, Ravenous Romance, has put out the call for YA and middle grade books to be looked at by a junior agent named EK. Yes, EK. I didn’t realize that agenting was held in such disrepute that the agents had to be anonymous.

Author Donn-with-two-nns-Cortez loses his cool online against a reviewer who a) put up the review really early and b) admits that she didn’t read the entire book by suggesting the reviewer has some personal vendetta. Other readers try to give him some friendly advice (including one who gave Cortez a super detailed favorable rating) but he doesn’t really want to listen which then provides obsevers (like me) some minor amusement.

My favorite part of this story is that the reader who emailed me the link also directed me to Mr. Cortez webpage wherein he confesses to being addicted to nude beaches. That, for me, falls under TMI because now that I know that I can’t help but wonder why he is writing about a female protagonist and god, I hope she never has a beach scene.

Some enterprising person found Sony 300 and 600 sales material online. And there were pictures. Pictures of ugly Sony Readers with no wifi which totally contradicts what is reported in Bookseller.com. I could not be more underwhelmed. Dear Sony, your new ereaders are going to die before their release. Love, your own Jane.

Harlequin is doing okay but Torstar, the parent company, not so much. Digital products for Torstar are thestar.com and other web entities, not digital book sales.

Quarterly revenues fell to $373.7 million, about 6.3 per cent lower than the $398.8 million last year. The Toronto-based company, which also owns the Harlequin Enterprises book publisher, was hit hard by the slump in advertising caused by the recession. In the quarter, Torstar benefited from a $19.2 million foreign exchange gain, but also booked a charge of $29.9 million, or 38 cents a share, related to a valuation allowance against future income tax assets of CTVglobemedia. a broadcaster and newspaper publisher in which it has a minority stake. …
“Results continue to be mixed with the decline in newspapers and digital more than offsetting the growth at Harlequin and lower corporate costs,” said David Holland, interim president and chief executive, said in a release before stock markets opened.

Author Carolyn Jewel defends the pantser:

Let me repeat the really important statement: During the period I was doing all the things plotters do, I was and remained unpublished.

Finally, I reached a point where I had to decide whether to give up writing — because eleven years is a long time to fail at something. But I didn’t want to stop writing. I wonder what would have happened to me if I’d heard that anti-pantsing statement at this point in my writing life? Because you know what I did?

I thought long and hard about the difference between what I was doing all that long and unpublished time and what I had been doing when I wrote two published books. And the difference between the two was that before, I followed my instincts. I looked at what was happening on the pages and went with that instead of what I’d plotted in advance.

Midweek News Links: Free Wifi at BN, Bloggers, and Writing

Jane — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:34:42 +0000

Barnes and Noble will offer free ATT wifi access in all its retail stores. Once on the wifi access, you’ll be able to get access to instore promotions and the ability to buy your ebooks.

Wendy, the SuperLibrarian, wonders if bloggers can actually make a book. Wendy says that publicists can’t expect this of a reader and reader bloggers shouldn’t play into that mentality (hear, hear).

My response to this was that if Avon was waiting for the day when a blogger was going to be solely responsible for “making” a book, they’d be waiting a long time. Listen, I’m a librarian. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that there are two ways to “make” a book. 1) The publisher’s PR department puts in a lot of long hours and 2) Oprah picks it for her book club.

…

The minute reader bloggers begin losing sight of what their purpose is, and why they got into the game to begin with, is when they start feeding a corporate machine. Most of us started blogging for one reason, and one reason only. We wanted to connect with other readers who loved the romance genre as much as we do.

Even Jeff Bezos thinks that there are things on sale at Amazon that aren’t worth buying. Gawker takes a look at Jeff’s Amazon reviews and uncovers a one star review.

Sorry if this seems harsh, but I just don’t want anyone to buy it unknowingly.

Publishing is notorious for its lack of market research. Bowker’s is trying to fill in this gap by offering it’s first Consumer Focused Research Report for the Book Industry. The report costs $1,000 but the press release in the previous link includes some data points:

– 57% of book buyers are women yet women purchase 65% of the books sold
in the U.S.
– Mystery books are the most popular genre for book club sales, with 17%
of all purchases of mystery books coming directly from book clubs
– Generation X consumers buy more books online than any other
demographic group, with 30% of them buying their books through the Internet
– 21% of book buyers said they became aware of a book through some sort
of online promotion or ad
– Women made the majority of the purchases in the paperback, hardcover
and audio-book segments, but men accounted for 55% of e-book purchases

Book Depository has opened its US store front online at http://bookdepository.com/. Book Depository has free shipping (no need for Amazon Prime membership) and the prices are very competitive.

Christina Dodd tweeted a link to a post about writing that she called “the best article about writing [she had] ever seen”. The blogger writes that authors are not vessels:

The most pernicious thing about this myth is it implies the author does not own what he or she creates. The muse did it. The author just took dictation. Authorial intent is all but dead in critical circles anyway. This effacing of the authorial self is bizarre and laughable on its face–of course the author did it. They planned it all out. Miss Eat, Pray, Love planned it all out, however she wants to talk about her vessel-ness. An author is not empty, they are not driven by embodied characters to write things they would not otherwise write. These are metaphors for brain processes–but talking about them as literal realities makes us all look a little flighty and a little crazy. And indirectly leads to the awesome I’m-an-artist-and-I-can-drink-all-day-and-fuck-whoever-I-like-because-I’m-an-artist-and-I-need-to-court-my-muse. Vomit.

Pimp My Novel was a link tweeted by Carolyn Jewel. Pimp My Novel is a blog run by a marketer at a major publisher. The blogger provides some fascinating insight into the business of selling books. This blog is so interesting that I added to my blogroll.

Dear Author Recommends for June

Jane — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:38:18 +0000

Here is our recommended read list for June. It’s light so feel free to make a recommendation in the comments:

How to Score by Robin Wells. This contemporary romance book is recommended by Jane. It’s a fun, sexy read with mistaken identities, a bit of deceit, and a crazy dog. (Warner Forever)
The Wild West by Victoria Dahl This hot historical novella is recommended by Joan F, Janet (aka Robin), and Jane. It’s a very hot read that is just the right touch for those who wonder what BDSM is all about. Cowboys and sheriffs have never been so hot. (Harlequin Spice Bites, ebook only)
My Forbidden Desire by Carolyn Jewel. This paranormal is recommended by Janine whose recommendations are few and far between. (Warner)
Crescent City Courtship by Elizabeth White. This sweet historical is recommended by Jayne who reads across the breadth and scope of the Harlequin categories. Review of this book to come. (Harlequin Love Inspired)
Chasing Smoke by KA Mitchell. This m/m romantic suspense novel is a recommendation for Joan F. (review of this ebook from Samhain publishing to come).
Sweet Persuasion by Maya Banks. This erotic romance novel from Berkley Heat makes you think about people’s desires. Come with an open heart and mind. Recommended by Jane, but read the review to make sure this book is fo you. (Berkley Heat, trade paperback)
The Surgeon’s Lady by Carla Kelly. This Harlequin Historical book is the second in her trilogy. Those who like her military men will want to check it out. Review to come. Recommended by Jayne. (Harlequin Historical)
Fair Game by Jasmine Haynes. This erotic romance from Berkley Heat shows off a strong business woman against an equally strong businessman as the two vie for sexual control. It’s hot. Recommended by Jane. (Berkley Heat, trade paperback)

REVIEW: My Forbidden Desire by Carolyn Jewel

Janine — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:00:51 +0000

Dear Ms. Jewel,

It isn’t easy to summarize the plot of your newest book, the paranormal My Forbidden Desire, and doing so necessitates giving away some spoilers for the first book in the series, My Wicked Enemy. That’s because the series is set against a backdrop of a complex battle between paranormal beings known as demons or fiends and humans who possess magic, called mages or witches.

It’s established in both books that centuries ago, fiends sometimes took advantage of normal, “vanilla” humans using their powers, whereupon some humans developed magical abilities that they used to keep the fiends in check. By the time the series begins, though, mages and witches have long been abusing their power over the fiends by killing some of them to increase their own lifespans, and taking others “mageheld,” a practice which allows a powerful mage to control nearly every action of the fiend in his possession.

In the first book in this series, My Wicked Enemy, Xia was one such mageheld fiend. He was controlled by the mage Rasmus Kessler, who commanded him to commit terrible crimes, up to and including murder. Xia could do nothing about that, but now he is free, and wants nothing more than to kill mages and witches in revenge, starting with Rasmus if at all possible.

Alexandrine Marit is Rasmus’s biological daughter, though she was raised by adoptive parents, along with her brother Harsh, who as it turns out (unbeknownst to Alexandrine) is a fiend. Alexandrine possesses some of the magic that her biological father passed on to her, but her magic is mostly stunted and inept, and she is far from powerful.

Alexandrine’s brother Harsh disappeared for years and was presumed dead, and while he was missing, Alexandrine went looking for her biological father and found out his identity at the same time she came into possession of an amulet. She sent off an email to Rasmus, who is an expert on such artifacts, partly hoping for information on the object and partly hoping to rekindle a father-daughter relationship with him.

Not long after that Harsh reappears in Alexandrine’s life, with a warning that she is in danger. Her biological father could care less about her, but he wants the amulet and is willing to kill her for it.

This is where the story begins. Harsh is insistent that Alexandrine needs protection, and he has brought Xia along to act as her bodyguard since he himself must accompany Nikodemus, the warlord he has sworn fealty to, and Carson, Nikodemus’s mate, on an important mission in Paris.

To say that Xia is less than thrilled to learn that he will be protecting a witch, and Rasmus Kessler’s biological daughter at that, is quite an understatement. It was a witch who entrapped Xia and turned him over to Rasmus. But even loathing witches as he does, Xia is determined to protect Alexandrine since he too is sworn to Nikodemus. That’s not to say that he keeps his prejudices against all witches to himself — and of course, Alexandrine doesn’t appreciate his attitude.

Fortunately, Xia and Alexandrine stop sniping at each other long enough to defend their lives when Rasmus’s mageheld fiends attack them, and they begin to see each other with new eyes. Complicating things is the powerful attraction between them, and Alexandrine’s attachment to her amulet, which she compares to Gollum’s attachment to the ring in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Despite the initial animosity between them, Xia and Alexandrine want badly to jump each other’s bones. But Xia isn’t willing to put himself at risk of being taken mageheld ever again, and will only do the deed if Alexandrine agrees to give him total control over her magic while they have sex. Alexandrine thinks Xia is beyond gorgeous, and sympathizes with his needs, but that doesn’t make her willing to be that vulnerable with him.

Eventually, Xia and Alexandrine have to make a getaway, and when they find a safe place, they decide it is time to try to separate Alexandrine from her talisman, which holds the spirit of a murdered fiend within it. That’s when things get even more complicated….

My Forbidden Desire is a sexy, engrossing read, one that I really enjoyed. The action is fast at times but not so fast that there aren’t also some wonderful slower moments in which Xia and Alexandrine become intimate, and I don’t mean just physically.

I could find nits to pick in this book, such as that we are never shown Alexandrine’s reaction to realizing that her brother Harsh is a demon, or that Xia’s past actions in the previous book, which include murder that Rasmus coerced him to commit, are never really dealt with head on. Some of the magical stuff involving Xia and Alexandrine’s abilities is a bit confusing, too. I could also wish for less slang in this book, and in many other paranormals. I don’t find it believable that so many immortal or millennia-old beings speak like eighteen year olds.

But the truth is that I was thoroughly entertained by My Forbidden Desire nonetheless. Xia is an immensely appealing hero, dangerous yet vulnerable at the same time. His “I don’t give a fuck” attitude makes his slow awakening to his feelings of admiration for Alexandrine and ultimately, caring for her, both touching and deliciously sexy.

Alexandrine took a little longer to win me over, since she started the book feeling sorry for herself and trying to lie to Harsh and Xia about her amulet, but I later came to see her through Xia’s eyes and admire all that she had overcome in her past. She undervalued herself more than she should have, in my opinion, and took a little too long to acknowledge Xia’s feelings for her and believe in them, but that made the moment when she realized just how much she meant to Xia wonderfully romantic.

The secondary characters also intrigued me, especially the fiend Kynan and Alexandrine’s friend Maddy, a witch who knows how to use her magic. If there is a book in the works about Maddy, I will definitely look for it when it comes out.

My Forbidden Desire reminded me a bit of the earlier books in J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, those in which there was a strong focus on the main couple’s romance. Whereas the first book in your paranormal series, My Wicked Enemy, felt like it was midway between paranormal romance and urban fantasy, this one feels more firmly in the paranormal romance terrain to me. I like the greater focus on the hero and heroine’s relationship. I like a lot of things about this book, and Xia especially. B+.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased in mass market from an independent bookstore. No ebook format.

REVIEW: Scandal by Carolyn Jewel

Janine — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:34:09 +0000

Dear Ms. Jewel,

Scandal is the first book of yours I have read, but it won’t be the last.

The book begins when Gwilym, Earl of Banallt, arrives at Havenwood in autumn of 1814. Banallt is a guest of John Mercer, who does not realize that his widowed sister Sophie has a previous acquaintance with Banallt.

When she was only seventeen, Sophie ran off with a fortune hunter and married him over the anvil at Gretna Green. It created a scandal, and Sophie was cut off by her family. It was during the years of her marriage that Sophie became acquainted with Banallt.

It is clear from the very beginning that although he has not seen her in two years, Banallt had strong feelings for Sophie. He hopes that seeing her will confirm his hopes that those feelings are now dead and gone. Banallt, who was also married when he first met Sophie, is now widowed and needs to marry again soon in order to continue his line.

But when he sees Sophie, Banallt realizes that his feelings for her are still alive and acute. Acting on a powerful instinct, Banallt asks Sophie to marry him. But Sophie refuses.

Sophie’s marriage was an unhappy one. Her husband cheated on her constantly, drank and caroused and wasted her dowry. Sophie lived separately from her husband in the country, and took refuge in the novels that she secretly wrote and sold in order to supplement her meager income.

Banallt was a friend of Sophie’s late husband, and despite the fact that he was married at the time, he was also a rake. Sophie and Banallt met when Sophie’s husband brought his friend to his country home. After his first attempt to proposition Sophie failed, Banallt became her friend. Their platonic relationship was a comfort to Sophie, until the day Banallt did something (what it was isn’t revealed until the end of the book) that brought an end to their friendship.

Now Banallt knows he should forget about Sophie, but he simply cannot. When they meet again in London, they are pulled toward one another. Banallt wants to prove to Sophie that he is no longer a rake. Sophie tells herself that she doesn’t want anything to do with Banallt, but the truth is more complicated than that. She is afraid to trust again, afraid that she will be as devastated as she was in her marriage to her husband.

In London, Sophie is pursued by two other gentlemen. Her brother’s mentor, the older Duke of Vedaelin, and Reginald Tallboys, a younger man. I appreciated that neither of these man was portrayed as a villain simply because he was competition for Banallt. Instead, they were both good men who simply didn’t engender the same feelings in Sophie that Banallt did.

There are two interesting subplots. One is about Miss Fidelia Llewellyn, Banallt’s goddaughter, and Sophie’s brother John, who love each other but face the obstacles of Fidelia’s disapproving father and the fact that their marrying would make Sophie and Banallt relatives. The second involves the young Miss George who is pursued by a fortune hunter who reminds Sophie of her late husband Tommy.

A bit past halfway through the book, there was a major plot twist that I didn’t see coming at all. I won’t reveal what it was, but I liked how bold and unexpected it was.

The characterization in this book was also quite good. Banallt’s love for Sophie and his need to prove himself to her was very compelling, as were Sophie’s conflicted feelings for Banallt and her fear that if she gave him the opportunity to do so, he would break her heart.

The story reminded me a bit of some of Mary Balogh’s earlier works, because like those, it was an emotional tale that sometimes put the characters through painful situations, and as in those books, readers are given a window into the characters’ thought process.

When Sophie and Banallt finally made love, those scenes were loaded with emotion and very erotic. In a comment on her review here, Jennie said:

Really, if I were to compare this book to food, it would be a classic dish, well-executed. The sort of dish that makes you realize how it got to be a classic in the first place.

I couldn’t agree more. I loved the smoothness and elegant simplicity of your writing. There was a seamless quality to it that, along with the emotional aspects of the story, made the book wholly absorbing, and I stayed up until 3 AM in the morning to finish reading it.

My only major reservation is that I would have liked to know more about Banallt’s first wife and his marriage to her. Had she loved him? Had his infidelities hurt her? Were they very young when they married? Did she remain faithful to him while he strayed? I may be wrong, but I don’t think it was even mentioned how she died, or what her name was.

Since there was so much information given about Sophie’s marriage to Tommy, the absence of information about Banallt’s marriage to his wife seemed odd by contrast. I would really have liked to know more about her, and about Banallt’s past.

Besides that I have a couple of very minor quibbles. I would have liked for it to be explained why the duke had sent Sophie flowers and seemed smitten with her before he ever met her, and I was jarred when Tallboys (toward the end of the book) tells Sophie that he had no idea about John and Fidelia’s feelings for one another, when, in an earlier scene, he was the one to tell her that the two were in love.

On the whole though, I felt that these were minor bumps in an otherwise smooth ride, and I found Scandal very rewarding. Thank you for writing such an absorbing, rich and emotional book. It was a journey well worth taking. A-/A.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

REVIEW: Lord Ruin by Carolyn Jewel

Jane — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:00:44 +0000

Dear Ms. Jewel:

I had Lord Ruin in my TBR pile for a long time but for some reason I never read it until I had finished with Scandal. In some ways, I saw this as a prelude to what would become Scandal as the themes in the two stories are quite similar. I feel asleep after reading the book with my eyes wet and my throat a bit scratchy thinking why haven’t I read you before.

The heroine, Anne Sinclair, is the oldest sister of four. Her three younger sisters are beyond beautiful so that Anne, who is not unattractive, is forgettable except to one person. Devon, who is now the Earl of Bracebridge, loved Anne four years ago and offered for her but her father turned him away given that he was without title and fortune. Four years later he has both and is ready to court and offer for her.

The situation is helped because his friend, Baron Aldreth has married one of Anne’s sisters. Devon invites Anne, her sisters, and his best friend, Ruan Bettancourt, the Duke of Cynssyr. Devon has the intention of declaring himself to Anne during this party. Anne realizes that Devon is paying special attention to her and the sparks between the two of them were not all one sided. She is glad. I say that intentionally because Anne is restrained in her emotions. She’s very internalized and she allows herself only small emotions.

Shortly after her arrival, Anne trips and falls. Because of the pain she is in, it is decided to drug her. Cynssyr hasn’t arrived so they put Anne in his room. Anyone can see what is coming next. Cynssyr arrives late at night. He’s a long time friend of Devon and so the retainers let him in and he proceeds to “his” room. When he sees Anne, he doesn’t realize that she is drugged, instead think that she is a whore gifted by Devon. Even when he encounters her maidenhead Cynssyr does not stop, but proceeds to find his own satisfaction. He is discovered with her at the tail end of their coupling.

What may be able to be swept under the rug or a scandal suffered and endured can not be in this case. Cynssyr has a very scandalous reputation and if Anne does not agree to marry him, he, his political ambitions, and his family will be totally ruined. Her family places it to her even though they want to kill him. Devon is crushed. He held a torch for Anne for four years.

In very short order Cynssyr realizes that he loves her but she doesn’t trust him, knowing that he has said that he loves others only to break their hearts. Complicating this is that Devon loves Anne and basically tells Cynssyr that its a good thing that Anne is morally upright because Cynssyr cannot depend on Devon to not betray him.

Anne wanted to marry Devon. She despise Cynssyr. She distrusts him. She does not like the reactions that his nearness, his attentions bring forth. Anne has been domineered by her father and cast in the shadow, albeit unintentionally, of her more brilliant sisters. Her personality has always been retiring and Cynssyr is anything but.

Ordinarily, I hate triangles. I become too emotionally attached to the third leg of the triangle and I am unable to extricate myself from the story to fully be happy for the remaining two. But because the triangle is resolved early on, I was able to appreciate Devon’s unrequited love and was moved by the way in which his feelings for Anne made the relationship between Cynssyr and Anne all the more fraught with suspense.

Cynssyr spends much of the time trying to atone for his sins in a very hamfisted way. While he is a notorious rake, his only skills are really flirtation and seduction; not wooing. He succumbs time and again to the physical expression of his feelings which only serves to reinforce Anne’s bad opinion of him. Sure, he can fuck but can he really love?

The external suspense plot regarding a serial killer targeting women with red hair and the weak treatment of the culmination of the love triangle led lowered my overall enjoyment of the book. This is a flawed story but original. B

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon. Your best luck will be with a Used Bookseller. I’m not sure the title is still in print. The publisher is Leisure and the ISBN is 0843951354.

Dear Bitches, Smart Authors Podcast with Carolyn Jewel

Jane — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:00:16 +0000

Welcome to another podcast Tuesday. It’s not every Tuesday, but every other Tuesday, but regardless, grab your nearest audio device and give a listen: it’s podcast time!

Jane and I discuss our favorite romance tropes, from the friends-to-lovers to the makeover plot, and all the tropes in between that we cannot resist. Then Carolyn Jewel is with us to talk about female empowerment, or the lack thereof, in historical times, and how the true history of the political, economic, and social status of women can make for some painfully fascinating characters.

Mp3 is available for download as well. PLEASE for the love of God right click and save, k? Esosoft and I will thank you.

You can subscribe to our feed at Feedburner or at iTunes If you have content suggestions, tips on how to do this whole thing better, or general wtf-ery comments, email us. It’s all welcome because a) we are new to this and b) we don’t really know what we are doing so the wtf comments are probably all valid. The email address for the podcast is sbj.podcast@gmail.com.

This podcast is brought to you by the letters E, J, and S, and by Morgan from Miss Media Productions. Thanks, Morgan!

My First Sale by Carolyn Jewel

Jane — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:00:32 +0000

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Carolyn Jewel writes historicals for Berkley and paranormals for Warner. Her latest, Scandal, is in stores now.

***

Way back in the dark ages, I decided to write a novel after spending too much time thinking about writing and no time actually writing. So, single and with no children, I wrote what I loved to read: a historical romance. Somehow I was clever enough to get a hold of a Writer’s Market from which I learned how to go about selling a novel. I decided I could only stand two rejections at once. Therefore, I prepared two queries and mailed them off. A bit of literary foreshadowing here: I am slightly dyslexic (I have siblings who are far more severely affected) and as it happens, I transposed some digits on one of the query packages. About six months later, that one came back to me as undeliverable. Yeah. One query made it to its destination.

About two weeks (I am not kidding about the two weeks) after I mailed off my queries I came home from work to find the following message on my answering machine: "Hi, there, I think we have an offer on your book. Can you call me to discuss?" There was more, but my brain kind of froze up. I had to go walk around the block until I was able to think coherently and listen to the voice mail again.

Long story short, an author had failed to timely deliver a book to St. Martin’s Press, and they desperately needed a book for that slot. The line was called "Americans Abroad" so would I mind very much changing my French heroine to an American one? Not at all I said. And could I do that in six weeks? Sure, I said. Which I did. This was February, I believe, and my historical romance, Passion’s Song, was in bookstores in November. Yes, I realize it’s not supposed to happen that way except in the minds of those massive idiots who think this business is easy; all you do is write a book and sell it two weeks later!

I wrote a second book pretty much the same way I wrote the first one, secured an agent and sold that book, too. My next book, I told myself, would be written deliberately. I would plan and mold and sculpt my story until it glittered like gold. Well, let me tell you, this approach was a monumental disaster. That book did not sell. It was beautifully written (everybody said so) and boring as all get out. I wrote another book, trying to plot and plan and logic my way to what I had done pretty much on instinct before and produced another epic failure. I also had a child so there are some fuzzy sleep-deprived years in there. But I wrote when I could.

Basically, I spent the next several years writing and rewriting and gathering blurry photocopied rejections. One publisher rejected me and, about six months later, rejected me again even though I hadn’t re-queried. At least the second one was on their stamp. I can just hear the intern saying, "I hated that query from Carolyn Jewel so much, I think I need to reject her again, just to make sure!" I started another book and it showed every sign of being just as bad as the other two clunkers. By then, however, there was the World Wide Web and I was a member of RWA and I could inflict my beautifully written yet incredibly boring stories on people who were obliged to tell me what they thought. I also studied what I was doing and what other writers were doing; I deconstructed every bit of knowledge to come into my head, and I made sure I owned it and took responsibility for what worked and what didn’t. I discovered I am a seat of the pants writer and that anything much beyond bare bones planning is fatal to my process-’I have the doorstops to prove it.

I ended up with a book that wasn’t boring and I queried about with it, gathering rejections (and doing more revisions) along the way. I eventually I got an agent who called me one day after two or three months and told me we had an offer. I was at work when that call came so I couldn’t jump up and pump my fist in the air or anything. But when I got off the phone, I did go out and take a walk around the building to privately reflect on a success I’d begun to think might never come again.

As far as I’m concerned, I had two first sales. Both taught me some Very Important Lessons. I won’t bore you with all of them, but feel free to suggest lessons learned in the comments, I’m always looking to learn. I’ll end with one that’s pretty obvious; Talent is required, but good timing sure helps.

February Recommended Reads

Jane — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:00:39 +0000

Got your credit card ready? Okay, then let’s go shopping. This month, we’ve got some hardcover and trade paperback books that we are recommending but given that we had slim recommendations in past months, we hope you won’t mind. If money’s tight, try the library or the used bookstore.

Courtesan’s Wager by Claudia Dain. I’m a big fan of this series because it’s a very female centric, female empowering. The latest showcases Lady Amelia Caversham, daughter of a duke, who would seemingly be a good prize except she’s made her desire to marry a duke obvious to the point of embarrassment. At her wit’s end, Amelia begs the favor of Lady Sophia Dalby, a former courtesan, to assist her in catching a duke. Amelia and Sophia concoct a fairly scandalous scheme. Be even more obvious about your desire to marry and let’s reel in the right one. Amelia’s plans to “interview” men of the ton incite their competitive spirit and they all begin vying for her hand, much to the chagrin of Lord Cranleigh. Not only will he not participate in this nonsense, but neither does he want his brother to make a fool of himself. Once caught in Sophia’s web, however, a man cannot escape, not even one such as Lord Cranleigh. B Recommended by Jane. (review to come)

This book can be purchased in trade paperback from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

Super in the City by Daphne Uviller. It was the back blurb of this book that caught my attention. The mob thinks the heroine is with the FBI. The FBI thinks she’s with the mob. And she’s dating an exterminator? After reading that I just knew I had to try this one.

Zephyr Zuckerman has a vivid imagination, four best friends from high school, a former asshole boyfriend she’s still not over and at age twenty-seven, still hasn’t made up her mind what she wants to do when she grows up. In the meantime, her parents have hit on something to occupy her time and save them some money. After the long time super of the small apartment building they own is arrested on charges of taking kickbacks from an oil company – and honestly how could that be a lot of money since there are so few tenants there? – they suggest that Zephyr take over his job.

Zephyr shares a lot with other Chick Lit heroines – mid twenties and drifting through life, sucky job, repugnant ex-boyfriend, close gal pals and a hero who baffles her before they finally work out their HEA – but she – and the book- are also genuinely funny unlike a lot of the pratfall filled Chick Lit books I’ve struggled through in an attempt to recapture the joy of the first ones I read years ago. This is a book I’m glad I got in my bimonthly care package from Jane and one I know I’ll probably read again. B+ Recommended by Jayne.

This book can be purchased in trade format from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

Scandal by Carolyn Jewel. The Earl of Banallt and the young widow Sophie Evans encounter each other when Sophie’s brother John brings Banallt home. John is unaware that the notorious earl and his sister have a history. Several years before, Sophie had first met Banallt when her philandering husband, Tommy, brought him home unexpectedly late one night. Both men were drunk, and they were accompanied by a woman of dubious reputation. From this inauspicious beginning, Sophie and Banallt formed an unlikely friendship. Banallt found himself strongly desiring Sophie, in spite of the fact that she’s no beauty. Sophie was unhappy, scarred by Tommy’s constant infidelity and the knowledge that he only married her (over the anvil in Scotland) for her inheritance – a circumstance that estranged her from her family for a time. She was drawn to Banallt but even more than any attraction she felt for him, she desperately needed a friend and confidante. Unfortunately, in a moment of anguish, Banallt destroyed the friendship. Sophie tells him she doesn’t want to see him again, and indeed they do not meet again for some time. A- Recommended by Jennie F and Jane.

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

Dark of Night by Suzanne Brockmann. The long-awaited culmination of the Sophia and Decker story arc. The controversy, of course, is that although they both get their HEA in this book, they get it with other people. Controversy aside, however, this book is Brockmann at her best. The plotting is satisfyingly tight, the suspense suitably suspenseful, and the romances (yes, multiple!) form the absolute heart and soul of the book. With Brockmann’s trademark humor and with appropriate-to-the-plot cameos from favorite characters, the book is funny, charming, and sexy. And at the end of the book, it is certainly possible to firmly believe that Sophia and Decker are 100% happy and 100% with the right person. A- Recommended by Joan/Dr. F

This book can be purchased in hardcover from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs. Bone Crossed begins almost immediately where Iron Kissed left off. Mercy Thompson, the narrator, is bruised, both in body and in spirit, by a rape. She must face up to survival which means coming to grips with her abuse, her love for Adam, her feelings regarding the Adam’s pack, and her own vulnerability.

The problem for Mercy is that she is so used to surviving on her own and that the people in her life that have professed to love her: her mother; Bran, a father figure; Samuel, her first love – have only loved her under certain conditions. To become part of the Pack means to necessarily rely on others for support, both emotional and physical. To allow herself to be fully embraced by Adam makes her vulnerable again. B+ Recommended by Jane.

This book can be purchased in hardcover from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley.
From behind, Terra is a stunningly beautiful: tall and blond with a knockout body. Unfortunately she has one minor “flaw:”

While my face couldn’t launch a thousand ships, it has the power to make any stranger whip around for a second look. Trust me, this mixture of curiosity and revulsion is nothing Helen of Troy would ever have encountered.

Terra has a port wine stain that covers her entire right cheek. In her small Washington town, it’s branded her a freak since she was little. And it’s not just the people in town who treat her as “flawed.” Terra also gets it from her family. The youngest of three children, Terra is the only one still living at home. Her oldest brother works halfway around the world in China, and the second oldest attends college but never comes home. The reason for their avoidance stems from their father whose determination to control everyone manifests itself via cruel, sniping criticisms.

If Girl Overboard was a novel with multiple intersecting external events, North of Beautiful is a novel with multiple intersecting internal (emotional) currents. The obvious one is that Terra’s been chasing after the Land of Beauty for her entire life, but it’s always been beauty as defined by other people — a father’s never-satisfied standards, a mother’s hopes that fixing Terra’s face will fix their home, a best friend who defends Terra but never really lets her shine either, and a boyfriend who loves her body but is ashamed to be seen with her in public. Everyone’s put her in a box and in one way or another, she’s trying to escape, to become the person she wants to be. A- Recommended by Jia.

This book can be purchased in hardcover from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

Mexican Heat by Laura Baumbach and Josh Lanyon tells the story of two gay cops, both separately undercover in the West Coast drug world, on two different sides of a drug deal, neither of whom realize the other is one of the good guys. They establish a relationship of sorts, but after the bust goes bad, they have to renegotiate who they are and how they fit together. Wonderfully drawn characters who come alive, a compelling plot, and hot hot action. Recommended by Joan/Dr. F. (review to come)

This book can be purchased in ebook format from BooksonBoard and other retailers.

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