A few years ago, I watched a Hindi language, historical epic film called Jodhaa Akbar, starring Bollywood superstars Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.  As a librarian with a graduate degree in European history, I was intrigued by the 16th century historical detail in the film.  And I completely swooned over the beauty and charisma of the lead actors.  Being a film geek, I began to explore the Bollywood film genre.  I was, admittedly, drawn first to the beautiful costumes and song picturizations, but I soon found myself just as interested in the cultures of India.  I began to read non-fiction on modern India and watch Indian films (in Hindi and other regional languages) that went beyond the typical Bollywood masala formula.  Still, my favorite Indian films (and the ones I watch over and over) will always be Bollywood romances.  As a lifelong romance reader, I think this makes perfect sense.  There’s nothing as wonderful or satisfying as a delightful, fluffy romantic comedy or an angst-ridden, passionate romantic drama whether in print or on the screen.

My reading interests have paralleled my interests in Indian films and I’ve read several non-fiction titles on India and literary fiction by South Asian authors.  However, I’ve had to be very creative in locating mainstream romances with South Asian settings and/or South Asian characters, especially contemporary titles.  I’ve also received many recommendations from members of the romance reading community.  The following are titles that I’ve enjoyed with a strong romantic element and they represent a variety of genres including chick-lit, historical fiction, literary fiction, and traditional romances (category, paranormal, historical, etc.).

The Zoya Factor by Anjua Chauhan

Published by Harper Collins in India, this is the sweet and hilarious story of an advertising executive who becomes the “lucky charm” for India’s cricket team during the ICC World Cup.  She finds romance with the captain of the team.  There are several untranslated Hindi phrases in this book and some very specific cultural references that will be lost to most Western readers, but I still highly recommend it, especially if you’re interested in how an Indian author takes on the chick-lit format.  I also enjoyed Advaita Kala’s Almost Single, another chick-lit title by an Indian author, reviewed here at DA.

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Saris and the City by Rekha Waheed

This Little Black Dress UK title written by a British author of Bangladeshi descent is a traditional chick lit story of a career-minded woman dealing with her conservative Bengali family’s demands and her attraction to the typical rich and gorgeous hero.

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The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan

In this first in a historical trilogy about Mughal India, the love story of protagonist Mehrunnisa and Prince Salim is a blend of historical fact and romantic fiction.  This book piqued my interest in historical romance written by Indian authors and I recently stumbled upon a series of historical romances called Kama Kahani published by Random House India and written by Indian authors. The series, including titles like Kiran Kohl’s Passion in the Punjab, can be found through Amazon.co.uk.  They have beautiful covers and I particularly love the series’ taglines printed above the back cover blurb: “Are you a spirited beauty, your fire contained – buy only just – by the clinging brocade of your lehnga’s choli? A delicious Kama Kahani is sure to strike your fancy.”

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The Stolen Bride by Abby Green

Several years ago, Mills & Boon began to increase their presence in India and to search for promising Indian authors for their lines.  To date, two Mills & Boon titles by Indian authors have been published but they’re hard to find outside of India.  So, in the meantime, we’ve had some other interesting developments in the M&B/Harlequin Presents line, such as the late Penny Jordan’s 2008 title featuring an Indian hero and several more titles by other authors featuring characters of South Asian descent.  As a sometimes reader of the Presents line, I have enjoyed Abby Green’s The Stolen Bride and its Bollywood actress heroine and cringed at other lazier titles that simply shift the overplayed “sheikh romance” formula to the Indian setting.  I’ve also been inspired to collect vintage Harlequins and other category titles that are set in India (I’ve only found a couple that actually feature heroes or heroines of South Asian descent).  A pleasant older Harlequin Presents title set in India is Jayne Bauling’s Sophisticated Seduction (#25), published in 1996.

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The Mango Season by Amulya Malladi

In this literary fiction title, Indian born-Denmark based author Malladi writes a moving depiction of a young Indian woman’s struggles with her parents’ demand for an arranged marriage and her love of an American man.

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Finally, the following titles, which have been recommended here and elsewhere numerous times, should also be mentioned:

The Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran

Historical romance partially set in India, with Anglo-Indian hero.

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Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas

The 1890s northern Indian setting of this much-praised historical is superbly drawn.

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Demon Moon by Meljean Brook

A paranormal with a heroine of Indian descent, this is one of many examples of the culturally diverse heroes and heroines that have become happily commonplace in paranormals over the last several years.

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Sexy as Hell by Susan Johnson

The Bruxton Street Bookstore series has been a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.  This title features Osmond, Baron Lennox, a hero of Anglo-Indian descent who grew up in Hyderabad and now owns India’s largest bank.  Johnson excels at interesting and unusual historical detail, but it’s often overshadowed by her steamy content.

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These are just a few titles that have stood out for one reason or another in my search for romance with a South Asian flair.  I hope that these recommendations will lead to even more recommendations from other Dear Author readers.  Happy reading!

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I can’t recall whose blog I was reading when this book was mentioned but I’m glad I found out about it. A Negro heroine and a Chinese hero in 1865? Sign me up.

“In 1865, the hope for gold has spurred many to seek their fortunes in California, the place the Chinese call Gum San or “Gold Mountain.” Amidst this backdrop, Quiang, a new Chinese immigrant, works the dangerous rails hoping to save enough money to send home to his parents. In town, Leah and Clara, two enterprising women from New York, have plans of their own to grow a restaurant and laundry business. However, both plans go awry when Quiang and Leah meet one fateful day. What starts as a budding attraction soon grows into tumultuous desire despite the cultural and language barriers between them.

Initially resistant, Leah succumbs to passion following a tragic loss that leaves her vulnerable and alone. With hopes for a future that now includes Leah, Quiang embarks on a perilous path as he leaves the railroad behind for a more profitable position as a courier for The Tong, henchmen for the dangerous Triad. Quiang soon finds that navigating the secretive life of a courier brings more danger than he has ever faced on the railroad, dangers that not only threaten to tear him and Leah apart, but may cost them their lives as well.”

The book begins in media res with a scene showing the dangerous job Quiang and the other Chinese workers do. It also makes clear how little they were valued and how much less they were paid. Leah and Clara are also outside the mainstream. They have more say in what they do but the work is also hard plus they’re women alone in a town mainly populated by men and have learned to keep a shotgun handy. Though you avoid info dumps about them and flesh out Leah and Quiang slowly over the course of the book, I would still have enjoyed just a little bit more about before they each reached the mining town. As well, the book moves quickly past their escape from the villain and jumps far into their marriage. It’s nice to know how well they’re doing, that the family has grown and to be left with a positive feeling about their future but I would like to have seen just a touch more – their wedding, their initial time in Colorado…a little bit more.

The detailing is nicely done and makes it easy to imagine the rough and tumble town. I like how you didn’t attempt to shoehorn foreign words and phrases into the dialog but instead used plain English for Quiang and the other Chinese characters leaving the reader to assume that they’d be speaking fluently in their own language. Neither Leah nor Quaing are looking for a romance or even merely a friendship with the other. Thank goodness there’s no “one night of love to last a lifetime” jump into the fire used to justify bringing them together too soon. As their relationship progresses though, both Leah and Quaing are also well aware of the societal views and challenges they could face as a couple.

At the halfway point, I was wondering how you’d manage to get these two together in the face of the odds against them. The story is well plotted and the events flow together in a way to lead Leah and Quaing to their destiny together. And yet, I still wanted more. It appears you’ve done plenty of research about life in the mining towns and the challenges which faced Negros and Coolies (your choice of descriptions) but even though these are slipped quietly into the threads of the story, they felt more like a stone skipping across the surface. Sort of a “Here’s something interesting about life then” but these will only briefly be mentioned then little more is said about them or how they affects the main characters again. Generally there are at least a few scenes in any book which seem like merely page padders to me but this is a book which I would have loved to have seen expanded. B-

~Jayne

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Our reviewer John is the one who urged me to see this film. A weepy with a wardrobe for the principal star that is to die for. Though I’m not a fan of melodrama, especially the grand 1950s ones, the clothes aspect drew me in, shallow creature that I am. Considering that I thought the movie was nothing but overwrought angst, I was surprised to find that I like it as much as I do. I doubt I’ll ever become a true devotee but there is much more here than might initially meet the eye.

Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) and her daughter Susie meet Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) and her daughter Sarah Jane in 1948. Both Lora and Annie are single mothers struggling to survive in NYC. Annie is seeking employment in a place that will allow her to keep her daughter with her and despite Lora being unable to pay her much, black Annie and her much lighter skinned daughter move in with pale blonde Lora and her equally blonde daughter. Lora is an aspiring actress and we see her dejected, returning from days of hounding casting agents. Meanwhile Annie works her fingers off and comforts her daughter who bitterly resents not being the white girl she can “pass” for. Steve Archer (John Gavin), a photographer who met them all the day they all met each other, begins to date Lora who finally gets her big break when she impresses a NY playwright with her insight into his latest creation. The film is filled with these improbable moments which simply must be accepted. Soon Lora is the new, rising star of the NYC theater world, though she casts Steve aside in her quest for fame.

Flash ahead ten years and all the women now live in a lavish country house paid for by Lora’s wealth. Annie is still happy to “do” for Lora, Susie (Sandra Dee), who longs for her mother’s attention, is off at boarding school while her mother continues to single mindedly pursue her career, and Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner) increasingly hates who she is and how her skin color limits her future prospects in life. Steve moves in and out of their lives which are shown to be darker than initially they would appear. Annie is heartbroken when Sarah Jane rejects her and denies who she is in order to pass for white, Susie is still hurt by her mother’s lack of attention to her and Lora continues to swan through life being a star. It takes a “full box of tissues” tragedy to bring the women together again and the movie to a close.

If, like me, you aren’t a fan of gushy melodrama, there are other things to see in this film. Producer Ross Hunter wanted his usual “women’s” picture filled with beautiful people, wearing beautiful things and living in beautiful places – a glossy soap opera with sets deserving of a full color spread in Ladies Home Journal. Director Douglas Sirk gave him that but also made the kind of picture he wanted to make which was a critique of a Ross Hunter film plus a biting look at stardom and, more importantly, race in America. This version of the story differs significantly from the book upon which it’s based as well as the 1934 film of the same name. Here the white woman is seeking fame as an actress rather than success as a business woman while the black woman is content to remain a servant. Not having seen the earlier film nor read the book, I can’t say how the character of Susie differs but here, Annie and Sarah Jane provide the storyline which interested me most. And believe me, at times it’s hard to watch.

IoL is gorgeous to look at with lush colors for the clothes and carefully color coordinated backgrounds that emphasize or de emphasize certain aspects of the film. The house is lovely though Sirk’s camera angles and the shadows make it seem as if it’s closing in on the characters as the film progresses. Lana Turner’s wardrobe is amazing but in a deliberately OTT way. She dresses and struts like a Movie Star – as she herself had been taught by the studio in real life. The bling is also stunning. Lora could signal her location to overhead search planes if she were ever stuck on a desert island. Sandra Dee is given a perky, teenage wardrobe plus a pink, froo froo bedroom – all of which emphasizes how privileged, yet juvenile, her life is. In contrast Moore is almost always dressed plainly in navy, gray or black. Her dresses might get better as time goes on but she always dresses like a servant. Sarah Jane, though only a year or two older than Susie is years ahead of her in the more adult clothes she has and the way her room is decorated which suits the problems she faces, many of which she brings on herself.

While the beauty of Lora and Susie’s lives might catch the eye at first, I soon found myself far more interested in Annie and Sarah Jane. Lora emotes and overacts, Susie is so sugary sweet and bubbly she makes my teeth hurt but they can both whine and be totally self absorbed in their troubles which in the end are seen for the superficial issues they are. This side of the film does serve as Sirk’s commentary on ambition and Hollywood. While part of me cheered Lora’s determination to succeed and her refusal to give into Steve’s demands that she give up her ambitions as an actress, some of me cringed at the cold, bitchiness she displays and her willingness to give up or put on the back burner almost every relationship in her life for it. Lana Turner is lovely to look at but for most of the film, she looks as if she’s acting. It’s a very staged performance but it still works since the character of Lora is an actress as well. Dee is the epitome of the Grease song “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee.” I’m not sure if she was like this in real life or just forced into that role for the public but in all the movies I’ve seen her in, she plays the same – cute, bouncy and perky. Could she have played better roles had Hollywood been willing to put her in them?

In contrast, what comes between Annie and Sarah Jane is real, painful and not something easy to put aside. This isn’t the first Hollywood film to feature racial issues but since it was made in 1959 it served to show something of what had gone on for years and also emphasized the racial tensions sweeping the nation. Some of the stunts Sarah Jane pulls do prove the saying “more sharper than a serpent’s tooth.” Is SJ annoying? Yes. Does she have a reason for what she thinks and how she acts? Maybe yes. She’s seen her mother work as a domestic, seen that other blacks are limited in what they can do, where they can go, how society views them. She’s also seen – first hand – the opportunities Lora has and that Susie will have. She tells her mother that she’s tired of “living in the back” and doesn’t want to be limited to chauffeurs, cooks and other servants as potential husbands. She’s seen the black butler at the house. She doesn’t want her children limited and scorned. Is that reason to hurt and reject her mother? No but SJ is up against the ingrained racism of the time that was only just then being changed – little by little though. Susan Kohner, herself a mixed race child though of Mexican/European Jewish parents, does a fantastic job here. All the anger, the bitterness, the envy and, yes, the love for her mother is there in Kohner’s acting. Though I do wonder why a light skinned black woman wasn’t cast in the role as had been done in 1934. Still Kohner deserves her nomination that year for Best Supporting Actress.

Juanita Moore got the opportunity to play a large role, something few, if any, black women got a chance at then. She also deserved the Oscar nomination she shared with Kohner (though neither woman won). Still a lot of the lines she’s given make me cringe. She volunteers to do Lora’s laundry because she “likes taking care of pretty things.” She’s always there with a pat, down home truism to ease the white characters’ worries. It’s she who basically supports their little family during the lean times by cleaning their apartment steps and taking in laundry in addition to keeping the apartment they live in. Then once the money begins to roll in, she still keeps the lovely home they move to even though she puts aside money for SJ and for a lavish funeral for herself. But it’s in the scenes where she tries to soothe her child’s hurt feelings and get SJ to accept who she is rather than lie that get me. The heartbreak on Annie’s face when she realizes just how far SJ will go to achieve her goals, breaks my heart as well. Moore might have to play the saint but she does it with dignity and quiet grace. And when she gets her lavish funeral, she goes out like the Saint she is. I maintained dry eyes for most of the film but Mahalia Jackson’s powerful singing had me reaching for a hankie.

Oh, the men in the movie? Steve is basically a handsome Ken doll for most of the film – nice to look at but asexual to the point where we might be forgiven for wondering if he’s anatomically correct. Robert Alda – Alan’s father – is the slightly sleazy agent. But since this is a women’s picture and focuses on them, the lack of strong men is actually not a problem.

This movie makes me think. I’m not so much into weepy melodrama but I do like the thinking part and there’s a lot here to muse on. What should we pay for success, are material things worth it and most importantly, what possible difference should our skin tone or eye color/shape or any other physical features make in our opportunities in life? Watch it for the flash, listen to what should be called the Lush Lux Orchestra with their soaring violins, but think about the deeper message Sirk is trying to convey. B

~Jayne

If you want to watch it right now, someone has loaded it in 13 parts to youtube.

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“He rode a blazing saddle, he wore a shining star.
His job to offer battle to bad men near and far.
He conquered fear and he conquered hate.
He turned dark night into day.
He made his blazing saddle a torch to light the way.”

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a bromance so here goes with one of the funniest movies from Mel Brooks. Not only is it an homage/spoof of the great Western classics but it’s also a social commentary on race relations of the time. A comedy with layers. The first time I saw it was in its 1975 summer re release in theaters and, to be honest, most of it went right over my head. I still thought it was funny then but with age and movie watching experience, I can understand a bit better what Mel Brooks was trying to do with it.

Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman), the crooked Assistant to the crooked Territorial Governor William Lepetomane (Mel Brooks), wants some land to sell to the railroad. The only problem is it’s currently owned by the citizens of the peaceful town of Rock Ridge (all with the last name of Johnson). He schemes to send his hired thug Taggert (Slim Pickens) and his band on a No 6 – where they go tearing into town awhooping and ahollering and ashooting everything. When this fails to send the townsfolk fleeing, he maneuvers the Gov into appointing a black sheriff, Bart (Cleavon Little), to replace the one Taggert and the boys shot. But along with his deputy, Jim the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder), Bart settles into town and begins to slowly win the town over. Undeterred, Lamarr then sends Mongo – who is more of a what rather than a who – against the town but Bart soon tames Mongo thus earning his devotion. Well if the Beast didn’t work, maybe Beauty in the form of Lili Von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn) will be able to bring Bart to his knees. Bart, however, turns the tables on Lili after a night of hot lovin’. But Hedley is supremely greedy and keeps trying. Can the townspeople pull together, overcome their prejudices, give Bart the 24 hours he asks for to devise a brilliant plan to save the town – after all, they’d give it to Randolph Scott – and prevail?

The poster for the movie has the line “Never give a saga an even break” and this one doesn’t. Is it vulgar? Does it offend most ethnic/social/whatever groups? “You bet your ass!” The film gleefully skewers a lot about the Western genre – the cavalry escapes but little else. The references to bits and pieces of famous westerns come thick and fast but the film is still funny even if you don’t catch all this. It’s also chock full of anachronisms including Cole Porter songs, Count Basie and his Orchestra, Boris the medieval executioner, Hedy Lamarr jokes, mentions of Academy Award nominations, German storm troopers and a tollbooth with flashing electrical lights. It was un PC before PC even existed. It goes for shameless laughs and usually succeeds including more than once when the actors break the “fourth wall” to address the audience directly plus the ending which shows that the whole thing is just a movie. The not-to-be-missed campfire scene is movie making history.

Blazing Saddles is also a powerful commentary on race. Sort of like the original Star Trek of a few years prior, it uses a different setting – in this case the historic west of a hundred years ago instead of the far distant SF future – to shine a spotlight on current social situations. I think most people will already know that there are offensive racial slurs used in the film but they are words which would have been commonly used in the historic time period and I think Brooks deliberately employs them to make a point. Plus, it’s the white characters – the common clay of the new west, you know … morons – who are portrayed as racist while every other POC – including the Indians/NA – isn’t. Could the film be remade today? I have my doubts.

But beyond all this, the film is LOL funny. Bart is the dazzling urbanite in the sophisticated Gucci ensemble. Jim has “probably killed more men than Cecille B DeMille.” Hedley Lamarr uses his tongue “prettier than a $20 whore.” Mongo is “only pawn in game of life.” Lili the “Teutonic Titwillow” flatly announces that “everything below the waist is kaput.” Honestly I’ve never gotten tired of rewatching the entire film and probably never will. It’s that great. Sure the plot is off the rails – so to speak – from almost the beginning and the ending certainly takes it beyond even that. But the writing is brilliant, the casting is fabulous and it’s totally quotable. And those elements are what helps make a movie for me.

~Jayne

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Players’ Club: Scott

The Players’ Club is an urban legend of men jetting around the world, throwing amazing parties, playing huge pranks, or so Scott Ferrell  thinks, but when he stumbles upon the monthly meeting he refuses to leave until they reveal the truth to him.  The Player’s Club was formed by two friends named Lincoln and Finn and they ask one question: “When was the last time you did something that made you feel as though your life was worth getting out of bed for? ”

Scott can’t recall. His life is okay but he’s never really asserted himself.   His co workers think he’s dull.  His last girlfriend dumped him for being too nice.  The Player’s Club offers Scott an opportunity to push his boundaries.  The problem is that his cute neighbor, Amanda,  was on the fire escape watching the same shenanigans as he was and when pressed, Scott admits to the existence of the Player’s Club to impress her.  And it does.  Amanda is a planner.  She is never without a list and a clear idea of where she wants to be tomorrow but ristk taker she is not.  Scott and his introduction into the Player’s Club gives her a chance to experience some risk, within boundaries.

The two get swept up in the Player’s Club until they aren’t sure whether their emotion for each other is from this emotional high of risk taking or something deeper.  There was something charming about the lack of smoothness in Scott and Amanda’s interactions.  They both are nice people but their niceness has been perceived as a weakness.  In trying to remake himself, Scott becomes something else: “He’d been so worried about not being a ‘nice guy’—so intent on being the badass he thought Amanda wanted—that he’d become the opposite. Selfish, insensitive. Cruel. ”

Amanda had to find a backbone and Scott had to discover how you could be a nice guy and still get the girl.  It was a fun and sweet story, albeit driven by a hokey concept of a rich man’s frat club.  B-

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Players’ Club: Lincoln

This story read to me about the redemption of socialite, Juliana Mayfield, whose entire worth is wrapped up in being famous. She learns to let go of fame, to be a person of worth based upon her own actions (and not the measurement of others).   Talking with Sarah Wendell about this book in our podcast leads me to believe that how much a reader likes this book depends a lot upon how they view Juliana. I liked Juliana’s redemptive path but Sarah did not. The unhappy socialite is no different to me that the world weary billionaire which is a standard staple of romance.  Juliana decides that she’ll infiltrate The Player’s Club and try to sell the reality tv version of it because Juliana has no money and this is her last ploy to stay relevant.

Part of why I liked this story is because Juliana knows that her search for fame is empty but she doesn’t feel like she has any other options. Of course she does, but at the beginning of the book she can’t see those options.  That’s not the worldview everyone around her, including her dilettante parents, holds.  Over the course of getting to know The Players’ Club, particularly Lincoln and another new initiate, Juliana begins to see how truly empty her quest to remain with the “in” crowd is.

Lincoln I liked less.  Lincoln was wealthy and viewed Juliana with contempt.  He treated her as if she wasn’t worth being the gum under his shoe, yet he couldn’t wait to take her to bed.  I have little appreciation for men like that.  At some point, the tables turn. Juliana becomes sympathetic and Lincoln begins to realize his assumptions about Juliana might be incorrect.  C+

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Players’ Club: Finn

This was my least favorite but mostly because I felt like Finn was a rich guy without a clue. I didn’t understand his unhappiness.  He had it all.  A ton of money.  Great friends. As many women as he could want.  Yet, he was disenchanted with life and began taking increasing risks in his adventures.  His father sends in the family lawyer to rescue Finn from himself.  Diana has spent her adult life trying to repay Finn’s father for the chance that he gave her.  She’s the fixer for the family and this time it is Finn that needs fixing.  Diana is portrayed as the Hard Ass Asian, kind of Tiger Mom wannabe, which I loved.  What I was frustrated by was that the HA Asian portrayal wasn’t internally consistent (maybe this is because Diana is only half Chinese?)  When Diana was having all these soft moments in the middle of the book, I might have yelled, err, raised my voice at the portrayal.  HA Asian wouldn’t be crying all the time. HA Asian’s don’t cry!!

Diana’s early breakdowns diminished the tension and build up that could have been.  If she had held on to her emotions until the penultimate scene (before the denouement) when she would realize that her course of action would lead to loneliness and that her obligation had been fulfilled, then the outpouring would have been so much more powerful.  Instead, I felt that it was a cop out, as if a heroine can’t be hard, cold, and resisting whereas a hero can.  My dislike for this story may be more about how I wanted the story to read rather than a failure of the story to deliver but in the end, I have to give it a C.

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3. REVIEW: Letter Perfect by Cathy Marie Hake

I am a big fan of Western romances and your books have been praised by many of my trusted reviewers. So when I was offered the opportunity to review your latest, the middle book in the Runaway Brides trilogy, I was happy to accept. Although I haven’t read the first book, I felt this novel largely stood on its own. My reading experience was very mixed, but by the end I understood why your work is so popular. Be warned, readers, this is going to be a long review, but Colorado Dawn is a long, rich, book, the kind we often complain that publishers don’t offer anymore.

The book is set in the Colorado Territory after the Civil War, but the prologue takes place in England. This is because the main characters, Maddie and Ash, are English and Scottish respectively. Maddie married Angus Wallace, an officer temporarily billeted near her home, soon after meeting him. He went back to his regiment and she went to Scotland and lived with his family. In the prologue, Maddie has just come back to England to bury her parents after they were killed in a carriage accident. Feeling unhappy and abandoned by Angus, she decides to pursue her love of photography. She receives a commission to photograph the American West, sets off across the ocean, and doesn’t look back.

Chapter 1 begins two years later, when Angus, now known as Ash, is searching for Maddie in Colorado because he has become heir to his brother’s earldom and he needs her to come back to Scotland and take up her duties. Maddie is fulfilled by her photography and mostly content. But when she sees Ash again, her long-repressed feelings for him re-emerge.

There are two primary conflicts in the book. The internal conflict between Maddie and Ash first arises because each feels abandoned by the other and resentful, and then it continues because Maddie genuinely doesn’t want to give up the life she’s built and Ash feels duty-bound to return to Scotland and his family responsibilities. The external conflict involves a very obvious villain. Both conflicts play out over the entire course of the story.

I had real trouble warming up to Maddie. I couldn’t understand why a woman (even a young, inexperienced one) would think that when her husband returned to his officer duties it would constitute abandonment. The lack of letters from him offers some justification, but not much, frankly, given the places he was posted (we get the real reason for the lack of letters soon after they are reunited). She complains about her treatment by Ash’s family, but again, we don’t get much evidence beyond what Maddie tells us, and she came across as spoiled and demanding rather than neglected. Until quite late in the book, where she makes a short and unsatisfying apologia, Maddie shows little or no awareness of the responsibilities she assumed when she married him.

Maddie definitely improves as she spends time with Ash, and her growing maturity and the way she agonizes over her dilemma is well portrayed. By the end I liked her quite a bit, which is testament to your characterization. I just wish the setup to make her a Runaway Bride had been more convincing.

Ash is much more likeable. He is a career officer whose injuries have invalided him out of that life and who never expected, as a third son, to be in a position to succeed to the earldom. He shows considerably more understanding for Maddie’s perspective than she does for his, and he genuinely respects her talent and ambition. That respect didn’t feel modern to me, but rather the way a man in any era might take seriously the things that make the woman he loves the way she is.

The first section of the book, where Ash finds Maddie and her right-hand man, Mr. Satterwhite, and the villain is introduced, unfolds in a leisurely way. When Ash and Maddie return to Heartbreak Creek we are introduced to her friends and the town community and the pace picks up. This part of the story is more of an ensemble piece, but since we have spent a lot of time with the main couple already, I felt it enriched the book without taking too much away from the central relationship. There is plenty going on: Ash and Maddie try to work out their difficulties, a secondary couple’s romance is sketched out, the villain subplot intensifies, and there are trips back and forth to Denver because of the statehood debate.

Aside from the over-the-top villain (not only does he verbally and physically abuse his mentally challenged brother, he abuses his horse), I found most of the Heartbreak Creek setting enjoyable and well portrayed. You know your Colorado geography and history. The American Indian character, Thomas Redstone, veered a little close to a Noble Warrior stereotype for my comfort, but I’m probably hyper-sensitive to multicultural depictions compared to many readers.

What made this a mixed read for me was the portrayal of Maddie and Ash’s backstories and Ash’s “highlander” culture. We begin with a prologue where Maddie is in her parents “small, stone cottage” near London. The family is apparently so poor that the house has to be sold to pay for their funeral and she has no other family. But her father is a baronet; there was no heir to be found anywhere? This combination of circumstances is certainly possible, but it isn’t likely, and I would think it unusual enough to warrant an explanation, or at least a passing reference to the baronetcy reverting to the Crown.

But while the impoverished baronet who had no heirs to the baronetcy seemed odd, it wasn’t enough to keep me from suspending disbelief. Then I reached the description of Ash’s position as heir to the earldom:

Turning to the old man, Ash said in a friendly tone, “In the future, Satterwhite, you willna call my wife ‘missy.’ She is a viscountess and should be addressed as my lady or Lady Madeline or Viscountess Ashby.”

“Oh, rubbish,” his wife interjected. “And I suppose next you’ll insist I call you Lord Ashby. Don’t be such a stick. Missy is fine, Mr. Satterwhite. We are friends, after all.” Turning back to Ash, she added as if he were a blithering numptie, “Americans do not recognize titles, Angus. And as I have not yet accepted yours, I choose not to use it.”

He managed to keep his voice calm. “It’s not a matter of choice, Maddie. I am Viscount Ashby. You are wedded to me. Thus, you are Viscountess Ashby. And even though it’s customary for peers to be addressed by their titles rather than their given names, if Ashby is too lofty for you, I’ll answer to Ash.” He punctuated that with a wide grin.

Let’s count the errors. (1) Lady Madeline is incorrect address for a Viscountess unless she is the daughter of a Earl, Marquess, or Duke and chooses to retain that form. (2) Courtesy titles do not elevate the holder to the peerage. (3) As the current Earl’s brother, Ash is the heir presumptive, not the heir apparent; therefore he wouldn’t become Viscount Ashby because only sons and grandsons of title-holders may use courtesy titles. If the Earldom is Scottish (pre-1707), then Ash could be termed “Master,” but Maddie would still be the Hon. Mrs. Wallace.

These errors wouldn’t have grated on me so much if they weren’t reiterated throughout the book. Maddie says several times that Ash is a “member of the peerage” and refers to her privilege as the wife of a peer. His nickname, Ash, is given him by his fellow officers (who are British and would know better, and would probably keep calling him Wallace anyway). While I can skate over occasional miscues, this one is central to Maddie and Ash’s relationship, conflict, and interaction, and it is repeated over and over again.

The misconstruction of their social rank was compounded by the use of “Scottish” words. I have little patience for “dinna fash yerself lassie” language of Ochlassieland (TM Maili) at the best of times. In this book Ash is constantly substituting dinna, willna, wasna, and “bluidy” in place of their generic English equivalents. Since the book is written in third person omniscient POV, with much of the narrative from Ash’s perspective, we get a lot of passages like this:

Ash blinked at the old man, deafened by the ring of truth in his words. That joy in life was what had attracted him to Maddie in the first place. Attracted him, still. But a member of the peerage couldn’t go haring about in disreputable places just to pursue a hobby. It wasna safe. Or proper. Or acceptable. Such behavior would make her the laughingstock of society, and he dinna want that for the lass.

I know there are readers who like dialect in their historical romances. For those who don’t, the dialect detracts from some really lovely writing. Indeed, the writing and the western setting are strong enough that at times I was swept up in the romance and the story despite the dialect. The scenes where Maddie and Ash are trying to work out how they can stay together made me understand why your previous books have had such ardent fans:

He looked away, afraid she would see the wanting in his eyes. He would bargain with the devil himself to keep Maddie by his side. But he couldna let her give up her art. She would end up hating him for it.

He felt her hand cup his cheek and gently force his head around until their eyes met. “It’s all right, Ash. This is what I want to do. My decision. Just give me a little more time, that’s all I ask.”

Tipping his head into her hand, he kissed her palm. Then he gave her a smile he hoped would hide his doubt. “As it happens, love, time is all I have right now.” Then before she could see the despair in his eyes, he pulled her hard against his chest. He took a deep breath and let it out, knowing what he was about to do was wrong, but unable to keeping himself from clutching at any reprieve he could find.

“All right. I’ll stay here with you, lass. As long as I can.” But he wasn’t convinced it was the right decision. In the end, she still wouldn’t be able to leave, and duty wouldn’t allow him to stay.

She reached up and pulled his head down and kissed him hard. Then again, gentler, her tongue sweeping the seam of his lips.

That was all the invitation he needed.

Regular readers of Dear Author know how pedantic I can be about historical errors, but I am often able to gloss over inaccuracies. Several circumstances prevented me here: first, the mistakes weren’t brief or superficial; they were repeated and they were integral to the plot and relationships. Second, there was some excellent historical contextualization, so the missteps stood out. And finally, I’m more easily able to overlook howlers in a fluffy book than a serious one, and this is in many ways a serious book.

I dithered and waffled over my grade. How do I reconcile the wallbanger parts, the parts I dislike but know other readers will enjoy, and the really well done parts? In the end I have to give it a C. But it’s not a “meh” C. It’s a “good + bad = split the difference” C.

~ Sunita

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I am always on the lookout for India-set and India-related historical and contemporary romances, so when I saw your new contemporary was forthcoming from Entangled Publishing, I was intrigued. You’ve written a number of well-received category romances at Harlequin, so although Entangled is a new press, you are a proven author. But while there were aspects of the book I really enjoyed, in the end this was a frustrating read for me.

The story revolves around two Indian-American women, Shari and Amrita, who live in New York and are close friends. Amrita’s parents have arranged a marriage for her with an Indian man who lives in Mumbai, and since she wants no part of it, Amrita seeks Shari’s help in sabotaging their plans. Shari is unemployed after ending a yearlong affair with her married boss at the law firm where she worked. Amrita talks Shari into impersonating her in Mumbai, hoping that Shari’s behavior will convince the groom-to-be and his family that Amrita is unsuitable and therefore back out of the agreement. Shari is reluctant, but she allows herself to be talked into the scheme and flies to Mumbai, where Amrita’s Aunt Anjali, who is in on the deception, takes her under her wing. Shari’s impersonation is just the beginning of a series of events involving Amrita, her putative fiancé Rakesh Rama, and Rakesh’s handsome and sexy British business partner, Drew Lansford. The setting moves from New York to Mumbai (including scenes at a Bollywood film studio) and back to New York again, and the plot cycles from Amrita and Shari to Shari in Mumbai, back to Shari, Amrita and various other characters in New York, with short stops elsewhere.

The novel straddles the line between chick-lit and contemporary romance. Amrita and Shari’s close friendship is front and center, and many of their scenes involve drinking pitchers of mojitos and talking about their love lives. While Shari’s romance with Drew is the main relationship, Amrita has a pleasant if predictable secondary romantic storyline. The fact that Shari has just ended a year-long affair with a married man who lavished gifts and money on her contributes to the Sex and the City vibe, which some readers may enjoy but I find a bit played out. Shari knows she made a big mistake, but it was never clear to me why she fell for the snake in the first place. Drew is requisite hero material, though, and that relationship is sweeter and more characteristic of a standard romance novel. The major external impediments to the HEA are resolved relatively straightforwardly, and the final hurdle has more to do with Shari’s personal growth, which contributes to the chick lit feel of the book.

The setting is quite well depicted, and there is plenty of local flavor to make New York and Mumbai come alive. The heat, color, and dynamism of Mumbai are nicely portrayed. There are some false notes that will probably only resonate for readers who are extremely familiar with Mumbai, with a couple of exceptions. For example, two of the places Aunt Anjali points out to Shari are the Taj Mahal Hotel and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus). These are major landmarks, but they are also two of the main sites of the 2008 Mumbai bombings. It was strange to read a book set in 2010/11 that talked about them as if nothing had happened, especially since the repairs to the Taj were only recently completed. I can’t imagine a Mumbaikar (not Mumbaians as the book has them) introducing someone to them without the subject coming up. I understand why there are no references in the book (talk about ruining the mood), but then maybe other tourist sites would have been better choices.

Two other issues I had, though, are more general annoyances. First, everyone, and I mean everyone, in this book gets a nickname. At first it fits the breezy style, but then it becomes wearying and finally it got to the fingernails-on-a-blackboard level of irritation. When Shari meets Rakesh for the first time at his family’s home, she is introduced to his mother and sisters:

“Hi, I’m Pooja.” The eldest, a miniature rotund Anu, had a shy smile and my predilection for nicknames instantly dubbed her Pooh: round, soft-spoken, cuddly.

“Divya.” The middle one flicked a dismissive glance over me and gave an imperceptible shrug, more intent on patting her sleek hair and studying her nails. Definitely Diva.

The youngest enveloped me in a brief hug. “I’m so thrilled to meet you, Sister. I’m Shruti and if there’s anything you need during your stay here, don’t hesitate to ask.”

I might’ve been impressed by such an effusive welcome if I hadn’t caught the furtive glance she shot her mother, seeking approval. Her expression begged ‘have I done well, Mommy?’ Shrewd Shruti, knowing who controlled the family and how to stay on her good side: she became Shrew.

I’d met the three stepsisters and the fairy godmother—of my nightmares.

Why? What have these poor women done? Nothing, really at this point in the novel. But they remain Pooh, Diva and Shrew to the end. And the mother, Anu, is always a cow. In fact, and this is my second major complaint, all the women are portrayed in unflattering ways. Aunt Anjali is vulgar and gobbles ladoos (Indian sweets). Drew’s mother behaves badly to Shari and is given a nasty nickname for the duration. I’m not looking for perfection or role models in my romance reading, but the drumbeat of insults became really depressing.

The men don’t escape the nickname fairy either: Shari’s ex is the Toad, and the hero, most unfortunately, is Bollywood Boy. For me, at least, it didn’t do much for his appeal.

These shortcomings are really a shame, because there is much to like in the novel. The relationship between Amrita and Shari was well developed and believable (if excessively rum-drenched). Rakesh and Drew were both really decent men. And while Shari’s path to independence and maturity strained credulity and screwed up the pacing of the last quarter of the book, it was well within the bounds of the genre. Shari and Drew’s relationship could have used more on-page time, but what was there was very enjoyable.

For readers who like books that straddle the chick-lit/romance boundary, this could be a fun read. For me, the fun was undercut by the depiction of some of the women. I’m sure the intent was to write clever and witty, albeit caricatured, supporting characters, and I tried to read them that way, but I failed. Dial down the descriptions of women as waddling cows, and the underlying sweetness is more likely to shine through.

Grade: C

~ Sunita

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All she wants for Christmas is him. All he wants is everything…for her.

Urban Fairytales, Book 3

As Christmas bears down on Eric Athers’s empty wallet, one question plagues him: What to get the love of his life when he has less than nothing?

It doesn’t help that his wife, Nia, who works extra shifts to support him through his medical residency, practically glows with holiday spirit. Her determination to put the “Merry” in Merry Christmas only serves as a painful reminder of everything he’s unable to provide for her.

Nia loves her husband to distraction, and she can’t for the life of her figure out how someone so smart can be so dumb when it comes to something as simple as a little holiday. Christmas is so much more than presents and shopping malls.

All she has to do is show her own personal Scrooge that the best gifts come from the heart.

Dear Ms. Matthews,

The reason I chose to read your Christmas novella is that it seemed cute, about characters who aren’t billionaires and might just be about the real Christmas spirit instead of the “how much money did you spend on me?” mentality. Well, parts of it are sweet and sexy hot while one aspect seems firmly rooted in fantasy land.

I love Nia, almost as much as Eric seems to and I can fully understand why he went all out to win her love as soon as he met her. She’s smart, lovely, hawt, filled with joy and gets genuine happiness from her pitiful little Christmas tree. Eric seems like a downer at times compared to her. There were times I wanted to shake him and say, “Lighten up, man. If the puny tree makes her happy, why harsh on it?” Though he does put the left over ribbon and decorations to good use in a smoking love scene.

Showing how broke the Athers are as they struggle to pay off student loans is a slice of ‘young doctor reality’ that I perversely enjoyed seeing. Eric and his best bud Dominic Choy appear to be dedicated doctors although if they have enough time to take an hour lunch break and actually leave the hospital they have far too much free time on their hands to be residents. They also discuss Eric’s relationship woes a whole lot for men but this does allow for Eric’s breakthrough with his past and why he needs to let some of it go.

The nod to O’Henry’s famous short story, “The Gift of the Magi” is wonderful though thank heavens that things work out better for the Athers than the well known twist ending to that story. Where I think this story takes flight into fantasy is in the amount of time Eric and Nia have to make love. This is an instance where RL knowledge interferes with my enjoyment of your smexy efforts. Too many of my friends are doctors and, one and all, told me that during the intern and early residency years, they would have sold their souls for more sleep much less the energy and time for sex.

I enjoyed watching Nia and Eric work out what’s really important in life and appreciate how realistic parts of this are. Bonus points for Nia being willing to get their fight resolved because we all know that marriage in real life is a lot of work along with the joy. I just wish that beginning doctors had this much time to devote to hot orgasms. B-

~Jayne

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The Seventh Veil (The Etsey Series, #1), by Heidi Cullinan

I began this back in the spring and had a difficult time getting into it. Then I restarted it and suddenly it clicked. This is a big, ambitious, densely plotted and written novel, and very unlike the other Cullinan novels I’ve read. It features m/m and m/f relationships, it’s Fantasy, and it demands the reader’s full concentration. I was having a difficult time reading it at the same time that I was reading Hale’s Rifter serial. But #2 in the series, Temple Boy, is releasing next week, and I really wanted to have this finished before the second book came out. I picked it up again and I’m enjoying it. It’s not an easy read, but it’s a rewarding one. The setting is a fantasy land that draws on 18th or 19th-century England. The characters include a witch, a goddess, two brothers, a wicked alchemist, and an equerry from another land. There are cross-cutting relationships from past and present, regular magic, sex magic, violence, and hot sex. Review to come.

Let’s Misbehave, by Rae Summers

This short story/novella is a debut that received an enthusiastic review from one of my go-to reviewers, and it garnered a number of 4- and 5-star reviews on Goodreads.  I was intrigued by the premise: it’s set in late 1920s London and features a free-spirited heroine and a buttoned-up hero. I loved the setting and thought it was well done. Unfortunately, I found the overall reading experience marred by the author’s tendency to tell me about the characters (and the characters’ tendencies to tell me about their feelings) rather than showing me through behavior and natural-sounding dialogue. Since the characters are archetypes rather than fully-fleshed-out human beings, the telling became overwhelming. The heroine felt like a legitimate free spirit, the hero really was a decent guy but hemmed in by convention, but they just didn’t come alive for me. And the revelation at the end about one of the characters restrospectively undercut the power of the conflict in a major way. But I’m in the minority on this one, so you may enjoy it more. Warning: the hero is engaged to someone else for most of the story, and she’s quite sympathetic. I’d rather read a story about her, to be honest. Grade: C

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Vindaloo and the T-Bird, by Sarah Black

This is one of a slew of books I picked up in last week’s Fictionwise coupon sale. I’ve heard good things about Black for years and the title caught my eye. I was a bit apprehensive that the (South Asian-American) character would be named Vindaloo, but no worries, Black knows what she’s doing. Vin is a mechanic and Race is an eye surgeon. They broke up months before the story begins but are brought back together when Race falls in love with a vintage Thunderbird coupe and asks Vin to help him restore it. Through the course of this short story we find out that Race is much better at surgery than relationships and that Vin is a smart mechanic and no pushover. Both characters are sympathetic and deftly portrayed, and the supporting characters come to life despite their brief on-page time. Vin’s grandmother in particular is a hoot. Black manages to capture the essence of a loving, interfering Indian female relative without getting mired in stereotypes; believe me, I know this lady! The story is full of lovely, small details, from the main characters’ shared love for T-Birds, to why Vin isn’t short for Vindaloo, to Race’s earnest and overly systematic study of the roots of rock ‘n roll. And it’s set in Boise! Grade: B+

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Primal Red, by Nicole Kimberling

I’ve been meaning to try one of Kimberling’s Bellingham mysteries and Fictionwise made it easy. This is the first of three in a series featuring journalist Peter Fontaine and artist Nick Olson. When artist-professor Shelley Vine is murdered in her studio, suspicion falls on the other artists in the loft building they shared. Peter and Nick are attracted to each other but their budding relationship is hindered by Peter’s investigation for The Bellinghamster weekly, aka the Hamster. Peter’s research dredges up Nick’s past and Nick’s status as prime suspect endangers his carefully rebuilt art career. Meanwhile, Peter’s other story lead on the Russian Pierogi-Tea-Café/Bordello puts his own health and well-being in jeopardy. The novella is smoothly written and light on the angst and gore, and it features witty dialogue and eccentric supporting characters. Peter is self-deprecating without being annoying, and while Nick is gorgeous and taciturn, he reveals himself to be more multi-dimensional than Peter’s besotted POV initially suggests. Grade: B

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If It Ain’t Love, by Tamara Allen

I’ve saved the best for last. Allen slipped a free story onto the internet with little fanfare, but eventually even I noticed. I downloaded and opened the file to read away some of my disappointment with Let’s Misbehave, and I didn’t look up until I was done. This is a short story, but it has more depth and richness than many full-length novels. The setting is Depression-era Manhattan. Whit is a gifted journalist at the New York Times who is having trouble writing his highly-regarded feature articles. He lost his apartment and is barely hanging on, borrowing from his editor, sleeping in Bowery “hotels” and trying not to notice how hungry he is. Peter doesn’t have a job either, but he has a huge empty townhouse, a well-stocked refrigerator, and a closet full of expensive suits. Peter comes to the Bowery looking for companionship and Whit goes home with him. Their begin a tentative relationship without asking or offering much in the way of information to each other, and when they inevitably discover each other’s backgrounds, it jeopardizes the tiny bit of happiness they’ve begun to build together. There’s a hopeful HEA, or at least an HFN, but Allen doesn’t shirk from portraying the misery of that era. It’s the Depression, and she takes that seriously. But the story is full of small and not-so-small acts of generosity and grace, and it reminds us that even in the midst of degradation, human beings are able to draw on reserves of dignity and compassion. There were a couple of plot points that didn’t quite work for me, but the writing is beautiful and overall this is a terrific read. Easily one of the best stories I’ve read all year. And did I say it’s free? Go forth and download! Grade: A-

Goodreads | Amazon |  nook | Smashwords (free)

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I really wanted to like this movie more than I ultimately did. Sanaa Lathan and Alfre Woodard are favorite actors and the plot promised more than the usual rom-com. But though the acting is good and it did make me think as it kept me entertained, ultimately it failed to deliver the bigger goods it promised.

Kenya McQueen (Sanaa Lathan) is an LA corporate accountant who’s wrapped tighter than a siege catapult. Her life is work, work, work to make partner, especially since she’s yet to find her IBM: Ideal Black Man. She and her three girlfriends lament the lack over martinis on Valentine’s Day, deciding to “let go, let flow” and loosen their requirements for dates. Kenya’s new decision gets tested immediately when a coworker sets her up on a blind date with Brian (Simon Baker) a landscape architect who also just happens to be white.

Brian is smitten from the start but Kenya takes some persuading to see him socially a second time, even after she hires his company to landscape her new house. Her family (Alfre Woodard and Earl Billings) and friends aren’t helping either as they alternately tease her and try to dissuade her from dating outside her race. But Brian has broken through the shell Kenya’s build around her heart and she refuses to give him up. That is until her attorney player brother Nelson (Donald Faison) hooks her up with Mark Harper (Blair Underwood) a fellow lawyer who is everything Kenya has always said she wants. Now, will she follow her heart or her head?

Most of the movie is shown from Kenya’s POV and centers on how the people in her life see her relationship with Brian. He’s charming, he’s intelligent, he ought to give lessons in seduction and love and he’s great at painting Kenya’s toenails plus getting her to loosen up. But I never got the feeling I really got to know his character. And the film never shows how the people in his life see his relationship with Kenya. I guess it would have made the film too long but it still left me feeling slightly cheated of seeing both sides of the race dating issue.

On the other hand, the issues facing Kenya are explored. Her family is, well not appalled, but not that supportive of her dating Brian. Her friends urge her to enjoy the sex but also obviously see Brian as merely filler while Kenya waits for that perfect man they can all approve of. I wish her girlfriends, funny though their scenes were, had been more than sketches of characters. And I was really disappointed with Alfre Woodward’s character who comes off as little more than a name dropping, social snob. Billings, as Kenya’s father, has some of the best lines in the film though: “The point is, love is an adventure, Kenya. It’s not a decision you make for others. It’s a decision you make from your heart. Anyway, the boy’s just white, he ain’t a martian.”

I also liked the inclusion of Kenya’s work life in the story. She tells Brian about the unwritten “Black Tax” that demands that she must work twice as hard to be thought as good as any white colleague. This also provides a powerful draw to Mark since, as a black professional, he will understand her struggles without her having to explain. And though the character of Mark is fairly bland, he does highlight the easy social/family path Kenya would tread should she choose him vs the uphill struggle for acceptance a relationship with Brian will be.

I like the fact that this movie is willing to address some of the racial dating issues of today – and isn’t it about time? – and do it in a non-confrontational manner that might just get people to watch it. I think people are more likely to see something they might consider controversial if they don’t think they’ll be preached at. More importantly seeing it might get people to think about the fact that if you’re lucky enough to find your someone, it shouldn’t have to matter what race you are or s/he is. I just wish that the issue had been shown from both sides and that some of the characters had been more than mere caricatures. C+

~Jayne

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This may be your first published book but wow, just wow. I am in love with it and want to go around telling all my friends, my coworkers, total strangers on the street, almost everyone about it. I haven’t read too many A grade books this year but the wait for another was worth it.

“When Major Pettigrew, a retired British army major in a small English village, embarks on an unexpected friendship with the widowed Mrs. Ali, who runs the local shop, trouble erupts to disturb the bucolic serenity of the village and of the Major's carefully regimented life.

As the Major and Mrs. Ali discover just how much they have in common, including an educated background and a shared love of books, they must struggle to understand what it means to belong and how far the obligations of family and tradition can be set aside for personal freedom. Meanwhile, the village itself, lost in its petty prejudices and traditions, may not see its own destruction coming.”

Rich, meaty, satisfying, filling – I’m making this sound like an advert for a pot pie but it was just such a treat to read this book. I don’t just mean I enjoyed the story, the plot, or the characters, what I’m trying to say is the experience is something to be savored as well. The gentle humor, the cutting truths, the ease as the story flowed on – all of it came together for me and made reading the story magical.

Since I’m headed towards becoming a woman of “a certain age,” the fact that the romance is between a woman in her fifties and a man ten years older is an attraction for me. I don’t mind that most romances these days are about people in their 20s and 30s but every once in a while, I like to be reminded that anyone at any age can still fall in love. Here it’s shown delicately, slowly advancing, almost gently occurring but totally believable.

Mrs. Ali and the Major are from different backgrounds, different religions, different experiences and yet…they have so much in common. Their sense of loyalty and honor is bred in the bone, their love of literature calls to the other, their enjoyment of the countryside, of England brings them together more closely than any mere physical attraction can. They are perfect for each other.

But it’s not easy sailing as the combined prejudices of a village and both families thrust themselves in the story like a cold wind, seeking out vulnerabilities and testing strengths and weaknesses. I like the story better that both Mrs. Ali and Major Pettigrew have their moments of failure, their fleeting experiences with clay feet yet no knight in shining armor ever rode – or in this case drove – to his lady’s rescue with any more feeling than does the Major. And no lady ever seized the day and demanded her joy in life more sweetly and more insistently than does Mrs. Ali.

What brings my grade down from a straight A is a bit that is at the end of the story and which seems out of place compared to the rest.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Both the Major and Mrs. Ali grow as people and learn as the story progresses. They make each other better and, to some degree, help those around them be better too. In the end, the circle of friends and acquaintances might have been pared down by the prejudices of those around them but in each other, they have found that which will sustain them through what I can just feel are going to be happy years together.

~Jayne

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
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*****

A new website, Shameless Yonis, is devoted South Asian women writing, exploring and discussing all things erotic. Most of the women who are writing for this site are authors of multicultural erotic romance.

****

Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks has been putting herself out there to explain what exactly a publisher might offer to authors who are debating whether to go the self published route. This is a recap of what she spoke about at Frankfurt bookfair.

Unsurprisingly, Raccah rounded on the idea that e-books should be “free or $0.99″. She said: “It comes from the concept that we are not adding any value, and I feel we are adding a lot of value, and it's not cheap.” She added: “Book publishing is not book printing, let's be really clear about that: if you think all publishers do is print, you have a problem.”

Raccah also wrote an article for RWR (Romance Writers’ Report) which she republished on the Sourcebooks.com blog.

This deluge of books has, I believe, two big implications:

1. It devalues content-’there's too much of it and too little time. So there's increasing pressure to keep prices low and to give readers more for their money. Not necessarily a bad thing, by the way.

2. It also creates an overwhelming sense of constantly being sold to, which, when combined with the fragmentation of media, makes marketing increasingly difficult. No one likes being sold to. And today there are fewer and fewer mass market media outlets.

….

For me, the real job of a publisher is many, many things, all of which center around the incredibly rewarding challenge of connecting authors and readers. In the end, whether physical or digital, the role of the publisher is to create an audience for the author. It's to bring the author and the book to market. It's never really been about printing. And that's really clear now, isn't it? It's always been about connecting authors and readers.

****

Sony is finally bringing its content to the app market. In December iThing and Android users will be able to use Sony Reader App to read their books and it looks like the Sony Reader store will be web based and will not require a software download. I think this signals that Sony intends to stay in the reader market for a while.

****

Gawker published 21 pages of Sarah Palin's upcoming book and this made Sarah Palin unhappy. HarperColliins has responded by filing suit. On Saturday, a temporary injunction was issued and Gawker was ordered to remove the content. I'm not sure whether the reason for this is because the content had not yet been published and therefore republication would not be considered fair use or whether the republication of 21 pages is considered to be beyond fair use.

Interestingly the pre publication of Palin's books by conservative sites have not been targeted by HarperCollins.

I think litigation of fair use is a valuable activity and I am very interested to see the outcome of this.

I saw the Gawker suit on NBC Today show so the Nick Denton media network is getting a lot of airplay as a result of these suits (Apple's suit against Gizmodo for the acquisition of the iPhone 4 pre release and now this one).

*****

A couple of other really important copyright cases that are going on include the suit against mp3tunes over the safe harbor provision of the DMCA. According to the DMCA, an internet service provider or a hosting service isn’t legally responsible for the illegal content hosted on its servers until it receives notice of the illegal content and fails to take prompt steps to remove such content. EMI sued MP3Tunes, which allows users to upload content, because users were uploading illegal content. Youtube won a similar suit against Viacom but in the Ninth Circuit. The MP3 case is in the Second Circuit.

The second important copyright case is the Costco Wholesale Corporation v. Omega SA. Costco went overseas and bought a whole bunch of Omega watches and sold them at a discount in the Costco warehouses. Omega sued Costco for copyright infringement. This case was argued to the Supreme Court of the United States on November 8, 2010. The ruling in this case might have impact on geographical restrictions, among other things.

****

Amazon introduces the PriceCheck app. News of this had leaked a few weeks ago, but the App is live today. If your phone has a good enough camera, you can take a picture of an item's UPC and then price check using Amazon's app. You can also speak the product's name and Amazon will look up the price of the product. The results that are returned are from Amazon and other online merchants.

****

Borders will be closing 17 superstores after the holidays because they don't fit in with Borders' business objectives. Whatever those may be.

****

I thought this article in the Guardian about how the King James Bible has influenced the secular language was fascinating.

As well as selling an estimated 1bn copies since 1611, the KJB went straight into our literary bloodstream like a lifesaving drug. Whenever we put words into someone’s mouth, or see the writing on the wall, or go from strength to strength, or eat, drink and be merry, or fight the good fight, or bemoan the signs of the times, or find a fly in the ointment, or use words such as “long-suffering”, “scapegoat” and “peacemaker” we are unconsciously quoting the KJB. More astounding, compared to Shakespeare’s prodigal 31,000-word vocabulary, the KJB works its magic with a lexicon of just 12,000 words.

The word scapegoat is a great closing argument in a trial. The story goes that the word scapegoat is derived from an Old Testament ritual described in Leviticus 16. In order to atone for their sins, a clan would gather together each year. Two goats were chosen from the herd, perfect and without blemish. One would be sacrificed. On the head of the other, however, the clan would cast all its sins, hurts, jealousies, aggrievements (is that a word?), misdeeds. This blameless goat would then be driven out into the desert, alive, to suffer alone and die as atonement for the wrongs of all the clan.   (then you appeal to the jury and say something like “this is what the opposing side would have you do, heap all the wrongs and misdeeds of an entire corporation on the head of one person, and drive that blameless person out into the wilderness, alone and helpless, a scapegoat for someone else’s wrongdoing.”)

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As I understand this, The Taming of Mei Lin is a prequel of sorts to Jeannie Lin’s Butterfly Swords.   Mei Lin is an orphaned girl who lives with her uncle and aunt.   The uncle and aunt play little role in the story and while not kind they are not cruel either.   Mei Lin works at her uncle’s village stand selling noodles.   Her uncle has her working during the hottest part of the day and Mei Lin looks with envy at Chang’s tofu stand because he had protection of the shade tree.

Mei Lin is a pretty girl and came to the attention of the magistrate of a nearby town.   Zhou’s flaw was that he already had two wives and Mei Lin has no desire to be a third.

Uncle and Auntie Yin had been thrilled that someone wanted to take her off their hands, but Zhou already had a wife. Two wives, in fact! She would be little more than a bed warmer and glorified kitchen maid.

Mei Lin declares that she’ll not marry until someone can best her in a  challenge.   She’s beaten all the village louts, the buffoons who have  come to take up the challenge, and the minions sent by Zhou but ultimately she realizes that one day will come when someone stronger  and better at the sword than she will defeat her and that person could  be far worse than Zhou.

One day, a tall, dark stranger turns up and asks her to take up the  challenge.   She does, of course, because what else is there to do but try to win?   Her confidence is shaken when she hears his name.   Shen Leung.   Even in her tiny remote village they have heard of the emperor’s sword.

He bowed, blade pointed downward, very formal. Like this was a sacred ritual instead of a street brawl. She looked down at her swords and for a moment they felt strange in her hands, as if she didn't practice every morning and night with them.

Master always said she wouldn't know her limit until someone pushed her to it.

"Now?" the swordsman asked from afar.

She tossed her hair out of her face. "Now."

I thought  you did a good job of setting it up so neither Mei  Lin  or  her challenger, Shen Leung, lose face in the challenge.Shen Leung didn’t mean to fight a woman but he was intrigued by the stories in the tavern about a girl and her butterfly swords.

Shen Leung  admires  Mei  Lin  greatly and although he didn’t know the full terms of  the challenge when he fought her, he doesn’t see himself as worthy of  marrying one such as Lady Wu, as he calls her.   He brings no property, no coin to her  (not that  Mei  Lin  has any of her own).   Even her proficiency with the swords adds to his feeling of inadequacies as it comes to a suitor. What I didn’t understand, and perhaps the shortness of the story contributed to this, was the motivations of Shen Leung which prohibited from marrying Mei Lin and then ultimately succumbing to that state. We spend more time with Mei Lin and it is easy for us to see why she chose to take particular action but Shen Leung was far more of a mystery.

There are two sex scenes in the story and I felt like they were almost  superfluous. I wanted more fighting!   The sword scenes were wonderful.   But even if I felt that the sex scenes were imbalanced in the story, it gave me a feel for your voice (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and whetted by appetite for the full length novel, Butterfly Swords.   B-

Best regards,

Jane

Book Link | Kindle | nook | Sony| Harlequin

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Reader Statch recommended your books a few weeks ago.   Fortunately for me two things existed.   First, the four books preceding Red Hot Renegade were already digitized and easy for me to purchase and download. (FN1).    Second, I didn’t have long to wait until the fifth and final book in the series was released, namely Jacob’s story.   The second was almost more important than the first because Jacob’s failed marriage to Jianne   plays an important part in some of his siblings’ reluctance to form permanent relationships thus seeding the burning desire of this reader to know exactly why Jacob and Jianne’s marriage did not last.   Of course, I did have to buy Red Hot Renegade from Mills&Boon UK but what’s a little international purchasing when it comes to fulfilling a reader’s desire for a book?

Jacob Bennett and Jianne Xang-Bennett were married shortly after Jacob’s parents died and left him with four siblings to raise. For a multitude of reasons, all dribbled out throughout the course of the book, Jianne left Jacob and the two have been separated for twelve years. Neither has made any attempt to legalize the separation.

Jacob has always felt an enormous amount of guilt at bringing Jianne into his household and thus holds few feelings of animosity toward her. He is a bit resentful that he learned after they were married that Jianne’s personal wealth rivaled that the GNP of small countries. What he does now feel is longing, want. Jacob lives a life of austerity, both in spirit and in deed and thus denying himself is easy and of long standing habit except when faced with Jianne.

Jianne also feels guilt for not staying. She was unsure of Jacob’s love for her and unready to be the mother figure to four teens; but her desire for Jacob never waned. Immature when they married, Jianne never fully understood Jacob and she didn’t stick around to learn. Of course, believing that Jianne was better off without Jacob, he never pursued her leaving Jianne to believe Jacob was as unhappy in the marriage as she.

Fast forward twelve years. Jianne has caught the attention of a very shady character from Taiwan who deems Jianne to be the next perfect acquisition to his collection of beautiful objects. Jianne’s uncle seeks out Jacob and suggests that if there was ever a time to take action on Jacob and Jianne’s separation, it would be now. In other words, does Jacob love her and want to rekindle their relationship or should he not let her go. This brings Jacob and Jianne face to face for the first time in twelve years.

Initially it seems that nothing has changed. Jianne refuses to ask for what she wants and Jacob is uncomfortable in Jianne’s wealthy surroundings.

"Keep your money,' he grated. "I don't want it.'

Jianne recoiled as if he'd struck her.

Jake gritted his teeth and prayed for mercy. "Must you flinch every time I look at you?'

"Must you glare every time I open my mouth?' she replied in kind. "People pay rent when they live in a place that's not their own. Why is my offering to do so such an insult to you? Is your pride such an enormous thing that there can be no room for mine?'

At its core, Jianne and Jacob’s initial problems seem to consist of uninformed expectations and maturity. The question that always remained in my mind was why the twelve years of separation? Did it take both of them twelve years to grow up? Maybe.   They both act like a couple of martyrs from time to time. Jacob calls Jianne on it, but no one really calls Jacob on it.

I can’t say definitively whether readers unfamiliar with the previous books will find it hard to start with RHR, but I think it’s fairly self contained.   In fact, there were times that I wish the stories had been slightly more referential.   For instance, I didn’t see any acknowledgment by either Jiane or Jacob that their failed marriage had affected Jacob’s siblings relationships.

My enjoyment of the story was tempered by the things I felt were missing in the story.   I would have liked to have seen more of the initial courtship and marriage.   I wished that there was some explanation for why the separation was so long.

One of the more compelling sides of the story was Jacob’s dark nature and how he had funneled his energy and desire for violence into training karate. In taking on a street kid by the name Po, we see Jacob’s natural leadership and caretaker tendencies come to the forefront, no matter how easy going Jacob tries to portray himself.   Jacob has this belief that Jianne is too innocent, too pure to be exposed to his dark side.   Jianne, after deciding that she could no longer live without Jacob, set about making a place for herself in Jacob’s life.

The story had a lot of build up from the previous books and generally, the final book in a series falls flat because of the increased expectations.   Red Hot Renegade, though, for all its flaws, delivered a strong emotional story. Both characters are very likeable.   I enjoyed the Singapore setting, the slight multicultural feel, and I adored the speech that brother Lucas gives to Jacob toward the end of the story.   Finally, I gave the book a “B” because I really had my doubts that the fifth book about the heart of the Bennett family might fall on its face and it didn’t.   I ended the book with a good feeling.

Best regards,

Jane

FN1. The five titles in this series include Red Hot Renegade and these others (all of which I enjoyed):

• WIFE FOR A WEEK
• UNTAMEABLE ROGUE
• THE MAVERICK’S GREEK ISLAND MISTRESS
• BEDDED FOR DIAMONDS
• RED HOT RENEGADE

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Fictional diversity is a favorite topic here at Dear Author, and a personal focus of mine. I’m very resistant to the idea that readers don’t want to see more diverse representation in their books because I’m a reader and I very much want to see that. So I was very happy to give your novel a try.

Kira Solomon is a Shadowchaser, an agent for the Gilead Commission, an organization that fights the forces of evil (here called the Fallen). By day, however, she works as an antiquities expert and she finds her two lives colliding when her mentor is killed and his latest project, an ancient dagger, falls into her possession. Of course, the Fallen want the dagger and are tearing apart Atlanta to get it. To further complicate things, the dagger’s rightful owner, an immortal warrior, comes looking for it as well.

Longtime readers of the urban fantasy genre will probably not find anything especially new or unique in the premise or plot. In many respects, Kira is your standard urban fantasy heroine in terms of personality and traits. She’s a loner. She has a tragic backstory. She doesn’t get along well with authority figures. She’s a special, chosen one.

I did like her special ability, however, and it did go a long way to explaining Kira’s standoffishness. Kira is a sort of ultra-sensitive psychometrist; she can tell the history of any object simply by touching it. It’s so powerful that Kira has to take special measures just to wear clothes or eat food without going insane. It’s this same ability that landed Kira into the hands of the Gilead Commission in the first place, when she inadvertantly sent her adoptive sister into a coma as a child.

You’ll find the other staple UF elements here: the dead mentor, the mysterious artifact that everyone wants, the strained relationship with her immediate superior. Even the immortal love interest is here, although I liked the fact that Khefar is not a vampire and that his brand of immortality is a little bit on this side of creepy.

On the other hand, I found it very refreshing that the major characters were not white. (And even better that the cover reflects this fairly accurately!) I liked the fact that Kira had a good female friend who had her own life and wasn’t just there on the page to make Kira look better. The urban fantasy genre can always use more of that. I don’t know much about Egyptian mythology so I can’t speak at all about the authenticity or accuracy, but what I read of it here gave the book a fresh, added dimension. And Anansi was great.

Overall, I thought this was a worthwhile read. It didn’t necessarily break any new ground in terms of story but the very fact alone that Kira and company are black was enough to elevate this to a higher level for me. I look forward to reading about Kira’s next adventure. B-

My regards,
Jia

| Book Excerpt | Kindle | Amazon | Nook | BN | Borders |
| Kobo (higher price includes tax) |

Book not found at Fictionwise, Books on Board, Sony.

This is a book priced by the publisher who is one of the Agency 5

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Our multicultural post got me digging into the older ebooks on offer at Harlequin. Readers searching for different settings and nationalities ought to look at this series (Mediterranean Nights). Our heroine is Chinese, our hero is from Israel, the ship travels across the Mediterranean and has Irish, Somali, Russian and Greek crew members. Though in all honesty, we get to see few of these people beyond brief glimpses, it’s nice to even see them at all.

When Mei Lin Wang met young radical social activist Wei Chan she knew it was fate. She didn’t know that less than three years later she would be left widowed with a newborn son after a suspicious illness claimed Wei’s life. Now, still convinced of their shared destiny, Lin is determined to avenge Wei and continue his work, but she must also protect her son from those responsible for her husband’s death.

For months Lin has secreted her son below deck on the cruise ship Alexandra’s Dream, under cover of her job. It’s turned into a game of hide-and-seek with the ship’s security officer, Gideon Dayan, whose interest is piqued by the mystery that surrounds her. But through his attraction, Gideon sees his own haunted past when he looks at Lin-and she can’t let her past go. Will they finally be able to face the future-together?

I do have a question. Would Gideon, a current member of Mossad, be on leave and working as security director of a cruise ship? My mind is boggling a bit here. Several references are made to how attentive Gideon is to small details and how thoroughly he follows up on things yet when any reference is made to the missing Ariana (whose book follows this) he almost seems to shrug it off as if to say “oh well, we can’t follow up on everything.” It struck me as odd.

It’s a pleasant surprise that at first Lin is not attracted to Gideon. I’m not made to endure drool sessions while she moons over how gorgeous and ripped his is. Gideon is attracted to Lin but tries to maintain his professional boundaries. I like that he knows a little about Lin’s culture including Ng Mui. But hey, they both love books. I have to love that!

Lin might not be a trained Mossad agent but Gideon finds strength in her through her ability to endure for herself and later for her son. And what is the deal with Lin’s shipmate, Dima? Did he have any reason from Lin’s actions in a previous book to expect more from her than friendship? He certainly turns into a supercharged asshole in a hurry.

The conflict between Gideon and Lin is real and heartfelt. Gideon has spent a professional lifetime working to contain martyrs and people inflamed by causes while on the other side of the world Lin fell in love with a man devoted to them to the point of death at the hands of authorities. By the end of the book, Lin has changed her POV of what is expected of her for her dead husband’s cause but I’m not sure that, for me, her change of heart works. It seems too sudden given that she’s spent over a year grieving for her husband and planning her future actions and that only a week before, she still wanted to carry out this course. She and Gideon discuss this at length and Lin raises some important points. Can Gideon apply his experiences to those of another country fighting another fight? Can he impose his views on someone else? I guess love is supposed to be what opens her eyes and finally changes her mind.

On the other hand, I could totally believe in Gideon’s feelings. He’s a man exhausted by his 15 years of work – mentally, physically and emotionally. I appreciate that you show us this and don’t make him a superman. It’s not just the loss of his lover that has drawn on the last of his resources, it’s the whole scenario. Now he wants to relax some, enjoy life without constantly being on edge and alert.

When the attraction hits Lin and Gideon, it isn’t just physical – which I like. They are attracted to each other’s minds and intellect as well. Yet the sexual heat between them is hot. Lin is bold enough to act on this and makes the first move. Brava. Gideon declines to just be a sex toy though and demands more than just bodies banging together. Good for him.

Lin did take her son and flee China but when threatened by her past and her present, in the form of Dima, she takes control as much as she can and stands up for herself. She has the intelligence to go to a man she trusts and who she knows can help her. No foolish heroics or TSTL moves from her. And Gideon, when presented with the situation, acts as I would expect. First he’s honorable enough to go to the captain and confess his own failure – to have detected a baby being brought on board ship and for the child to have been secreted on the Alexandra’s Dream for so long. Secondly, he uses his intelligence contacts to gain some leverage against those threatening Lin. I wouldn’t expect him to go in with guns literally blazing and he doesn’t. He uses smarts instead.

Obviously this book is part of a series but there wasn’t that much from a previous book and only bits and pieces of the one to come. Still, I’m not invested enough to want to seek out the book which follows this one as the heroine is the type who I think would drive me nuts. But overall, given how tightly this series seems to be linked, a good job was done to focus on Lin and Gideon.

~Jayne

This book can be purchased at Amazon (affiliate link), Kindle (non affiliate link), eharlequin (non affiliate link), or other etailers.

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On Saturday, September 15, 2001, seventeen-year-old Samar “Sam” Ahluwahlia encounters a man she doesn’t know at the door to the house she and her mother share. The man is wearing a turban, and his presence on her doorstep disturbs Samar. But he turns out to be not a menacing terrorist, but a loving uncle, part of the extended family from which Samar’s mother is estranged. Samar is surprised by how quickly she grows fond of her sweet, gentle uncle Sandeep.

That’s just one of the many changes Samar experiences in the wake of 9/11, an event during which, as she puts it, “my regular, sort of popular, happily assimiliated Indian-American butt got rammed real hard into the cold seat of reality.”

Linton, New Jeresy, where Sam lives, is close to the epicenter of the attacks, and many of the people there view Sam’s turbaned uncle with wariness or suspicion. Sandeep’s presence in her life also makes Samar wonder what she is missing by never having known her other relatives, her family’s religion of Sikhism, or anything about her cultural heritage. Sam envies her best friend, Molly, for knowing who she is:

If I had to describe it, I would say Molly’s family is a painting in bright, vibrant colors, while my family–meaning me and Mom–is bland neutrals and beiges in a taupe frame. Molly’s family is 100 percent, no question, without a doubt, Irish. They all know it, celebrate it whenever possible, and broadcast it with great pride.

When Molly encourages Sam to express her heritage through fashion, Sam observes that:

Molly’s way more into my “Eastern” heritage than I am. It’s not as if I’m not into it…it’s just that it was never really into me.

My mom spent a whole lot of time, when I was growing up, smudging the hard lines that made us different from everyone around us. She dressed me like everyone else, packed my lunch with all the same snacks as the other kids, and stressed the fact that we’re all more the same than different. “You’re American,” she’d say, “and that’s all that matters. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

But now Samar is beginning to become conscious of the differences her mom tried to erase. When some of Molly’s relatives react negatively to Sam’s uncle Sandeep, the girls’ friendship is strained and tested. A conversation at school with another Indian-American girl named Balvir leads Samar to realize that some of the kids view her as a “coconut.”

“A coconut?” I’ve been mistaken for Dominican and everything else she listed, but a coconut?

“Yeah, you know…brown on the outside, white on the inside.”

That catches me off guard. In grade school I was called plenty of names–paki, doo-doo skin …all kinds of things to let me know my brown skin was not coveted. This is the first time someone’s telling me I’m not brown enough. It’s true I’ve always been like the center of a daisy, if daisies had dark centers. Surrounded by all these white petals: Molly, my best friend, and her family; Mike, my boyfriend, and his buddies; and just about everyone else except Mom.

But that’s because whenever I tried to hang out with the Indian kids at school, they talked about things I knew nothing about, sometimes using words in languages other than English–which is the only language I’m fluent in. Things always got real awkward real fast when we realized we had nothing much to talk about other than school. In some ways, that was even harder than the obvious differences between myself and the white folks I surrounded myself with.

Just as Samar begins to realize that she wants to befriend other Indian-American kids, and to know her grandparents and cousins, even if they are as religious and strict as her mom has told her, she encounters another obstacle in the form of her boyfriend, Mike’s, lack of understanding.

Mike has graduated and is working in retail to help his mom pay off her credit cards debt, but the hardship he faces has embittered him. When Sam’s uncle is harassed by some boys Mike knows, he does not offer the kind of empathy he has sometimes shown Samar in the past.

“Look, I’m not saying what they did was right, Sam.” He turns to face me. “But maybe if you didn’t hang out with your uncle so much, you wouldn’t have to deal with that kind of crap.”

I’m stunned. Words slip through my teeth like smoke. I can’t look at him. If I do, I might burst into tears.

“You could pass for anything. When I first met you, I thought you were Mexican.”

My voice comes out as a gravelly whisper. “But I’m not. I’m Indian-American just like my mom…and Sikh, like my uncle.”

He turns the music up, and the lyrics of Get Rich or Die Tryin’ fill the little black Civic. “Who has to know?” he says.

I look out the window on my side.

Me. I know.

As all the quoting I’ve done in this review shows, Shine, Coconut Moon is a thoughtful, sensitive look at issues of culture and assimilation, diversity and self-knowledge.

The writing is at once delicate and penetrating, and Sam’s first person narration shines with her often painful honesty about her confusion. I liked Samar very much, and found myself moved by the challenges she faced in her quest to discover her roots.

The other characters were mostly sympathetic as well, even when they were at odds with Samar. Molly, Samar’s friend, wasn’t always in the right, but she was a good friend much of the time. Sharan, Sam’s mother, wasn’t always in the right either, but she clearly loved her daughter. Uncle Sandeep had a touching gentleness. Even the villains of the story, such as they were, weren’t without their own issues.

I do have a few criticisms. First, I felt that Samar’s ignorance about her own cultural heritage strained credulity at times. I found it hard to believe that at the age of seventeen she would not even know the correct pronunciation of the word Sikh, or that the people of the Indian diaspora refer to themselves as South Asian, even though she was one of them. I understand that her mother did not teach Sam much of anything about her background, but I still think that in seventeen years of life she would have picked the most basic things up.

Second, I also felt that Samar’s mother’s childrearing didn’t completely fit Sharan’s background as a psychotherapist. In my opinion most people with her grounding in psychotherapy could have foreseen the difficulties she was creating for her child by keeping her completely separated from any and all family besides herself and failing to teach her anything about her background. Had Sharan been a member of a different profession, I would have found her choices more believable.

The novel’s final chapter serves as a kind of epilogue showing a more assured and self-aware Samar than the one with which we’ve spent much of the book. I found it comforting, but at the same time, it felt a bit out of place.

But these aren’t major criticisms. Shine, Cocount Moon moved me and made me reflect about my own life, and the degree to which I have assimilated since emigrating to the United States; the things I miss about the culture of my native country and the large family I left behind. There are no easy answers when it comes to these issues, and so the book was not always easy reading for me, but I am glad I bought it, and got to experience Samar’s touching journey. B/B+ for this one.

Sincerely,

Janine

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

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Back in July of 2008, I reviewed Tangle XY, an anthology of short speculative m/m stories. Earlier this year, Blind Eye Books, the publisher of Tangle XY, came out with Tangle Girls, an f/f anthology. As with Tangle XY, some (not all) of the stories are multicultural, and many have fairy tale or science fiction elements, but in this anthology the commonality all the stories share is the focus on girls who love other girls. Here are my reviews of the six stories:

“Raccoon Skin” by J.D. EveryHope

In “Raccoon Skin,” Sophia, a college student, arrives at her parents’ home on a pre-dawn morning. After seeing that her parents’ trash can that has been upended by a raccoon, Sophia goes outside to put it back up, and while there, she sees crows attacking a golden eagle. The eagle falls to the snowy ground, and Sophia chases the crows away. Just as she is debating whether to take the eagle inside, the bird shifts shape and turns into a human girl — and not just any girl, but Sophia’s girlfriend, Caterina.

Caterina and Sophia met in college and began dating, but Sophia never told Caterina that she hadn’t come out to her parents. Now it seems Caterina has also been keeping secrets: not only is she a shapeshifter, she is also a princess from another realm, and her younger brothers’ lives are in danger. Caterina wants to return to her land and rescue her brothers, but her injuries are serious. Sophia convinces her to ask Sophia’s parents for shelter and help and allow Sophia to save her brothers instead.

Caterina gives Sophia a ring which will open a path to Caterina’s world when dawn arrives. Just as Sophia is about to go through the portal, a raccoon speaks and warns her that Beyond, where she is about to venture, is a dangerous place. Her odds of success will be better if she and the raccoon trade skins.

Sophia agrees. Clothed as a raccoon, she enters Beyond and it is indeed a dangerous journey. Fortunately, the raccoon skin proves very helpful.

“Raccoon Skin” is a charming quest story that reminded me a bit of some of fairy tales I read as a child. I loved the way the mundane was transformed into the magical, and enjoyed the clever ways Sophia found to see past the deceptive illusions of the Beyond. It was also neat to see the traditional gender role upended, so it was a heroine who charged to the rescue. I would have liked to see more of Sophia and Caterina’s relationship, but on the whole, I really enjoyed the story. My grade for “Raccoon Skin” is a B+.

“Amazons” by Jesse Sandoval

“Amazons” was the reason I plopped down $12.95 for Tangle Girls. I loved Sandoval’s story in Tangle XY, “Los Conversos.” The setting of “Amazons” is unnamed, although the title of course alludes to the Amazon. As the story, which appears to be historical, begins, its unnamed female narrator is rowing a boat on a jungle river. She observes the crocodile beneath the water and the black snakes hanging from the trees above with respect.

Once I saw one of those snakes lift a grown man off his feet and swallow him whole. The man pissed himself as the snake wrapped herself around him as if she were falling in love. She opened her thin mouth and took him in a deep kiss. I watched her eyes the entire time. She had the mesmerized gaze of utter adoration, as if this man’s form, his meat and muscle, had entranced her and drawn her into an unthinkable action.

I remember seeing that same unflinching stare long ago, looking back at me from a silver mirror. My hands trembled as I tried to load the pistol, the slender bullets wavered and slipped between my fingers. Then I caught sight of myself in a mirror. I gazed into my own eyes, the wide pupils dilated, entranced with desire. My reflection knew that I was a murderess before I did. She passed that assurance to me in a glance. My fingers have never trembled since.

How did the narrator come to look in the mirror and see a murderess? Since this story is only six pages long, I don’t want to give it away, but the story begins in Europe, where the main character met a woman named Maria, with whom she shared slices of cake and stories about the New World.

The imagery in “Amazons” has a hallucinatory beauty that captures what it is like to be drunk on love, willing to do anything for the other person. The story is haunting and powerful, though I wish it were longer so that I could feel I really knew Maria. I can’t wait for Jesse Sandoval to write a novel or a short story collection so that I can drown in his gorgeous prose. Ms. Kimerbling, if you’re reading this, can you do anything about that? My grade for “Amazons” is a B+/A-.

“The Conclave” by Trent Roman

Tanya Drake has been dating Erin, a centuries-old fey, but the relationship is becoming frustrating for her. The two met at the private Catholic school in which Tanya was enrolled. It wasn’t long before they became lovers. But Erin has a habit of comparing Tanya’s lovemaking to that of lovers from her past, lovers as famous as Sappho and Gengis Khan’s concubines. Erin also disappears for days on end only to reappear expecting the relationship to resume as though she’d never left.

After one such disappearance, Tanya tries to question Erin and find out how serious she is about their relationship. To make it up to Tanya, Erin offers to sneak her mortal lover into “the biggest bash in two worlds,” a party for immortal beings known as the Conclave. What kind of adventures will Tanya have at the Conclave, and how will they affect her relationship with Erin?

“The Conclave” is written in a crisp, snappy style I enjoyed. I liked the way Tanya and Erin arrived at the Conclave, too. But though Tanya is said to be a high school student, the character comes across as older. Erin is jaded and doesn’t treat Tanya that well, taking their relationship very lightly, so it’s hard to care about her, but Tanya isn’t sure if she’s serious in her feelings for Erin, either, so it’s also hard to care about how the relationship will change.

I felt that essentially, nothing that is deeply important to the characters happened in the story, so nothing that happened was all that important to me as a reader, either. After “Raccoon Skin” and “Amazons,” it was hard not to be disappointed in this one. My grade for “The Conclave” is a C-.

“Under Suspicion” by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon

Set on the spaceship Mastodon, “Under Suspicion” begins when a shipwide alarm sounds, alerting United Star Fleet Ensign Lily Branoch and her fellow crewmembers to an accident in the main hanger. In the process of helping to rescue people trapped under “cargotainers,” Lily encounters a beautiful marine whose name she doesn’t catch. She glimpses the woman again before she learns that she is Lt. Cruz-Ortega.

Lily is powerfully attracted to the woman, so much so that she can’t get the lieutenant out of her mind. But this distraction becomes a problem when Lily begins to suspect that the beautiful Daniella may be involved in a plot to smuggle weapons off the Mastodon. Could Daniella Cruz-Ortega’s lovely face be hiding treachery? And even if not, will Lily ever get up the gumption to ask her out?

“Under Suspicion” was an enjoyable story and it probably had the most relationship focus of any of the stories in this collection. Lily was likable and the enigmatic Daniella was compelling. The worldbuilding was solid and I liked the military atmosphere. My main complaint is that due to the nature of the plot, the relationship between the two women did not develop that much. Nonetheless it was fun, though I would have liked it to be a bit more substantial. C+/B- for “Under Suspicion.”

“Cupcake” by Erin MacKay

Erin MacKay’s “Cupcake” takes place in the future, on a colonized world. The viewpoint character is Stasya, a professional assassin. As the story opens, Stasya receives an assignment from Rupi, a man who has hired her to kill in the past. This time Stasya is astonished at the target, whom she describes as “just a…a cupcake.”

Mitusko Jennings-Villega’s husband wants to collect on his wife’s life insurance policy, but Mitsuko is constantly watched by her wealthy father’s guards. To kill her, Stasya has to infiltrate “High Street,” Mitusko’s rarified world of corporate celebrities. Yet once she meets Mitusko, Stasya is in for a surprise. Mitusko realizes she is an assassin, and she is willing– no, ready — to die. Will Stasya be able to kill the woman she is beginning to admire and care for?

“Cupcake” is written in clean, straightforward prose and while the worldbuilding isn’t completely fresh, it’s well-executed. The story felt a little oppressive to me (though not nearly as much as MacKay’s story in Tangle XY, “Crossing the Distance”), but on the whole I liked it.

Stasya is a compelling character, though I wish her past, and especially her reason for becoming an assassin for hire, had made her more sympathetic. Mitsuko isn’t as morally ambiguous, but her life hasn’t been very meaningful. Though neither character is always likable, the story still kept me involved, probably because of the danger and high stakes. My grade for “Cupcake” is a B.

“Dead and the President” by Tenea D. Johnson

Set in a dystopian future, Tenea De. Johnson’s “Dead and the President” begins when the consciousness of the main character, a young black woman named Dead, is inhabiting the body of the President. Dead intends to speak to the world from within his body, but the President pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head.

Dead then begins recounting her history to the reader. She was born in the Basin, where many people have inherited the special abilities given to blacks by a doctor who believed he was making genetic reparations. Dead’s talent is “phasing” into other people and controlling their actions.

Dead is a motherless twelve year old when she is tagged by the Internal Processing Department, which tracks those with unusual abilities, and uses her talent to escape. She ends up Topside, where life is much nicer and safer, but she can’t forget about the hungry kids she left behind in the Basin, and eventually, she hatches a plan to help them.

Dead has the potential to be a sympathetic character, and there were a number of relationships that could have been involving in this story, not just the sexual one Dead eventually has with another young woman, but also her friendships with a girl named Nina in the Basin, and with an elderly woman named Cecilia in Topside. But these pass by the reader quickly, like houses glimpsed briefly from the window of a moving car. It is hard to get invested in these people, even when they mean a lot to Dead, because we readers hardly get to spend time with them.

What gets the most attention in “Dead and the President” is the setting. Dead’s world is an interesting place, but I almost stopped reading a few pages in, when the unfamiliar terms became difficult to decipher. I still don’t understand exactly what a couple of them mean, even after reading certain paragraphs three or four times. Johnson has a nice writing style, and another thing I liked about the story was the way the futuristic setting reflected social and political injustice. This aspect of the worldbuilding was well handled and thought-provoking, but for me, it’s not enough to make up for what’s missing. C- for “Dead and the President.”

Overall, the anthology was a bit uneven, but still worth reading in my opinion, with four enjoyable stories and two weaker ones. I want to reiterate my plea for more fiction from Jesse Sandoval, who writes so beautifully. I will be keeping my eye out on future offerings from Blind Eye Books, too. My overall grade for Tangle Girls is a B-.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook.

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Tangle XY (Anthology edited by Nicole Kimberling)
2. REVIEW: My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon edited by P.N. Elrod
3. REVIEW: Big Guns Out of Uniform by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Liz Carlyle, & Nicole Camden

Here are a couple to start the thread:

• Eileen Wilks, Tempting Danger featuring Lily Yu, of Chinese descent.   Main protagonist.   Urban fantasy romance.
• Meljean Brook, Demon Moon featuring Savi Murray, of Indian descent.   Main protagonist. Urban fantasy romance.
• Jade Lee, The Concubine, historical set in China featuring two Chinese protagonists. Historical.
• Anne McAllister, Antonides’ Forbidden Wife, featuring Ally, half Japanese.   Main protagonist.   Straight contemporary.

Related posts:

1. PW Does Paranormal Books Featuring Romance
2. Residents of West Bend WI try to sue for the right to burn books
3. Romance Books Comprise 21% of the $6.31B Book Industry

Earlier in this year of 2009, there was a Great Cultural Appropriation Debate, dubbed racefail09, that centred mainly around the SF/F genres. If you clicked on that link, it leads to a set of many, many, many links about race, racism, cultural appropriation and white privilege. (If you’ve never heard of these terms before – or your knee jerk reaction is to say “I don’t have white privilege!” – this is a good place to start reading.)

Romance suffers from the same problem SF/F does. It’s very, very white. It would also seem that readers are far more okay with reading about vampires and werewolves and demons and angels than characters of colour. That is not okay. Think about what this means for a second. And imagine, if you will, being erased in stories or always in the background, a victim, evil, maybe the best friend or sidekick. . .but never the hero of your own story. This is what appropriation does to people of colour. It is not diversity to have white people running around in foreign lands without much thought to the people who are native to those lands. I can’t say I find it romantic when they’re in the middle of colonizing another country either; I’m not sure how I’m supposed to root for our heroes when they’re killing or enslaving other people, or condoning/profiting from it, even if they aren’t actively participating (this is an issue even when white characters don’t visit foreign lands, but it’s a bit harder to ignore, I think, when they’re in the middle of taking over another country).

Is it possible to write white people in foreign lands without it being appropriative? I don’t think I’ve seen this done in a historical. I hesitate to say never (it’s not like I’ve read every book in the romance genre), but at the same time, there’s also the issue of creating yet another story about white people. Even if this story were remarkably absent of exoticism and respectful of the other culture, it still features white people, which means the characters of colour are in the background somewhere; this is a problem in contemporary (and fantasy) settings, as well. The stories of white people are being privileged over the stories of people of colour. If you truly mean to be diverse, write and read about people of colour. Make them the main characters of your stories. Even – or especially – in a historical romance.

I admit to reading less and less romance novels as I’ve grown more aware of these issues. I’ve also fallen out of the fandom quite a bit because there seems to be an overwhelming pressure to keep things “nice” and “polite”; I can understand the need for civil discourse, but not when tone is used as a silencing tactic so these things don’t get discussed. So I read other genres, like YA, which is still mainly white, but seems to be a bit more open to diversity. There’s this YA book I read the other day, Justina Chen Headley’s Girl Overboard, that I fell in love with. It’s everything I mean and want to see in a book when I say there ought to be people of colour in the leading roles.

Girl Overboard is about a Chinese-American teenage girl, Syrah Cheng, whose story is one of growing up, finding herself, dealing with her parents, making friends, thinking about boys, thinking about her future… And snowboarding and drawing manga. I like to think some of Syrah’s emotions and experiences are universal enough that white people would be willing to read about them and perhaps even see themselves in this character; after all, it’s what many people of colour often (have to) do. I appreciate that this isn’t a book about race or racism; they are mentioned, but are not the main focus of the story (there’s a place for those books too, but not what I always want to read). For the most part, being Chinese simply is. And it’s integrated with the American culture of the Pacific Northwest because Syrah is a first generation citizen living in Seattle. This book stands out to me not only as a fabulous story, but also as a story about people of colour by a person of colour. [/plugging]

One way to combat appropriation is to let and encourage people (writers) of colour tell their own stories. I don’t see a reason why this couldn’t apply to romance as well. It already exists, though I’ve only read it in a contemporary setting with Marjorie Liu’s books (her supernatural people don’t bother me because she has actual characters of colour in her books. I mean, I like the X-Men. I see value in metaphors, but the metaphor of alienation, being different, being treated as sub-human, etc, only goes so far when there aren’t any characters of colour in your stories, which ends up perpetuating the problems the metaphors are attempting to address.)

As a romance reader, I’ve grown increasingly wary of books set in “exotic” locations. I never know, if I read that story, if it’s going to offend or hurt me in some way. It’s easier, for me, to suspend disbelief – pretend it’s a kind of fantasy or alternate history – if the story is about rich, upper-class white people doing rich, upper-class white people things. Although this is not to say it’s a good thing to have “wallpaper history” as the setting, or that writers should aim for such a low standard or write alternate histories in which people of colour are erased. I am saying, when writing people of colour or another person’s culture, take the time to know what you’re writing about. If I never see another non-white person described as “exotic” or with “almond shaped eyes“, it won’t be soon enough. If nothing else, I think these are very lazy terms to use to describe someone who isn’t white — it’s an extremely vague description and rather insulting to be lumped together in one or two tired phrases, like all people of colour (POC) look alike (and, for some reason, we always get compared to food. What’s up with that?). I would like to think it’s possible for historical romances about characters of colour, set somewhere that isn’t England or America, and that’s respectful of the culture to exist. And that white people could write these stories alongside writers of colour telling their own stories. I’m just not sure that I’ve seen it, or, actually, looked for it.

I’m not saying writing is easy to do. I’m not saying writers will get writing other people and their culture(s) right all the time. And it’s hard, as a reader, to come across beloved books or authors and find out their writing contains racist or white privileged ideas. I’m not saying you will cure racism. I’m not saying I want authors to defend their work; I’d like them not to continue to further get stuff wrong, though. I’m not even saying you’ll be praised for your efforts (especially if you get stuff wrong — your intentions are only as good as the outcome). I am saying you should try, regardless. And I think supporting or reading books by and about people of colour is one way to do this; as is being more aware of when cultural appropriation, racism and white privilege are occurring in your fiction and perhaps even talking and educating others about it.

Janine adds: Handy Hunter, our guest blogger, has requested that we add this video of a speech given by Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie, titled “The Danger of a Single Story,” to the bottom of this opinion piece. You won’t regret watching it. It’s truly excellent!

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1. Is the Kindle Ruining Cultural Snobbishness?
2. Book Pimp Post #2
3. Cross Blog Post: State of Plagiarism Today