Recommended Reads

Dear Author Recommends for October

Dear Author Recommends for October

It’s October. I know, I can barely believe it either. The following are our recommended reads in October. Here is a catalog of October releases. The November and December catalogs are fairly up to date although the December one doesn’t have the category releases yet. YA Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, recommended by(…)

REVIEW: Broken Fortress & Enemies and Shadows (Rifter Parts 6 & 7) by Ginn Hale

REVIEW: Broken Fortress & Enemies and Shadows (Rifter Parts 6 & 7) by Ginn Hale

[Spoiler alert: I think I've managed to avoid direct spoilers for these two installments, but it's almost impossible to talk substantively about the series without referring to events that occur after the first installment, The Shattered Gates. Proceed at your own risk.]   Dear Ms. Hale, Your Rifter series has been a revelation to me(…)

REVIEW: Ex Equals by L.A. Witt

REVIEW: Ex Equals by L.A. Witt

Jane’s Note: We are posting this review in celebration of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal that is occurring today. We’ll have a lovely post by Maili listing romances featuring deaf characters on Thursday. Dear Ms. Witt. I like your books. Your writing’s solid, the characters are great, the sex is usually hot. So I(…)

Friday Midday Links: Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation Responds to DeGaying YA claims

Friday Midday Links: Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation Responds to DeGaying YA claims

Joanna Stampfel Volpe was allowed to use the blog of former agent, Colleen Lindsey, to respond to the claims made by authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith that they were asked to make the gay character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to his sexual orientation. The authors stated that they(…)

REVIEW: Archangel’s Blade by Nalini Singh

REVIEW: Archangel’s Blade by Nalini Singh

Dear Ms. Singh, Archangel’s Blade opens with a flashback in the vampire Dmitri’s POV, one that takes us back to Dmitri’s human life. In the flashback, dark, ruthless Dmitri is revealed to have once, a thousand years ago, been a loving and tender hearted man devoted to his two children and to his wife. Smiling(…)

Dear Author Recommends for September

Dear Author Recommends for September

Paranormal: Archangel’s Blade by Nalini Singh, recommended by Jane, Shuzluva, and Janine Demon Marked by Meljean Brook, recommended by Jane Isle of Night by Veronica Wolff, recommended by Jaclyn and John. This is a YA title. (review soon) Historical: The King’s Courtesan by Judith James, recommended by Janet aka Robin Kissing Comfort by Jo Goodman,(…)

Tuesday midday links: lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits

Tuesday midday links: lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits

Booklamp.org is up and running. Booklamp professes  to be a Pandora for books.   It does not have much content for romances. It looks to be publisher specific.  Random House and Simon & Schuster have books and authors present but Penguin, HarperCollins, and Hachette do not.  Harlequin also seems absent. Searching Nora Roberts pulls up(…)

JOINT REVIEW & Giveaway: The Rifter Parts 1-5 by Ginn Hale

JOINT REVIEW & Giveaway: The Rifter Parts 1-5 by Ginn Hale

UPDATE: The winner of our giveaway of a full subscription to The Rifter is Stephanie M. Lorée. Congratulations, Stephanie, and thanks to Nicole Kimberling at Blind Eye Books for providing it to Dear Author. And thanks also to all the commenters for their great reading suggestions! Sunita: I’ve heard so many good things about Ginn Hale’s(…)

REVIEW: Out of Focus by L.A. Witt

REVIEW: Out of Focus by L.A. Witt

Dear Ms. Witt. I devoured this book. I had issues with it, sure, but I couldn’t put it down. It’s BDSM, done right! It’s hot m/m/m action. It’s TWO Dominants. It’s people with real lives! Yay! \o/ Ryan and Dante have been together for twelve years or so. They’ve been business partners in a photography(…)

REVIEW: The Man She Loves to Hate by Kelly Hunter

REVIEW: The Man She Loves to Hate by Kelly Hunter

Dear Ms Hunter, A few weeks ago, I again dipped my toe into the Harlequin Presents pool. Now you have to understand that generally I have avoided this particular pool in favor of other Harlequin lines because the asshole:doormat ratio (as Jane likes to term it) usually drives me bonkers. But! I was assured that(…)

REVIEW:  The Disgraced Playboy by Caitlin Crews

REVIEW: The Disgraced Playboy by Caitlin Crews

Dear Ms. Crews: The Disgraced Playboy is the second in the Notorious Wolfe series (or Bad Blood to the UK readers).  The first, by Sarah Morgan, was reviewed here.  The story treads familiar tropes: low self esteem hero plays at being a dilettante so that no one can see how empty he is inside paired(…)

REVIEW: Storm’s Heart by Thea Harrison

REVIEW: Storm’s Heart by Thea Harrison

Dear Ms. Harrison, As a Paranormal reader and reviewer, the concept of a series is both the blessing and bane of my existence. Ever heard of a stand-alone Paranormal? I’ve gotta look around and see if they actually occur…but back to the matter at hand. After the first book, it’s crystal clear as to whether(…)

August Recommended Reads

August Recommended Reads

Here are our August recommended reads.  There are a number of category books and no contemporaries.  I think our contemporary needs were sated by the category books we read.  The reviews of these books will posted this week and next. Series books: Stand-in Wife by Karina Bliss | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook(…)

Harlequin Treasury Purchases

Harlequin Treasury Purchases

On Friday, Harlequin released the first batch of out of print backlist titles that have been recently digitized.  These are called Harlequin Treasury (link to AMZN search page for HT) books and are easy to spot by the red surrounding the old covers.   I’ve read three since their release and I have to say that(…)

REVIEW: The Wild Marquis by Miranda Neville

REVIEW: The Wild Marquis by Miranda Neville

Dear Ms. Neville, I had enjoyed your book, The Dangerous Viscount, enough that I wanted to read the upcoming The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton. The rub was that I hate reading series out of order. What’s an anal reader to do but backtrack and get the first book in the Burgundy Club series, The(…)