Archive for May, 2006
Dear Ms. Matthews:
 Marriage in trouble is a favorite theme of mine. I am always interested in seeing how an author can bring a couple back from the brink of disaster without irreparable harm. But marriage in crises require a delicate balance, particularly if one character is going to embark on an adulterous relationship. You really need to provide an excellent reason for infidelity and boredom is just not a very sympathetic reason.
Kate Lewis is bored with her life. She is a 35 year old housewife with a successful and caring husband and two very well behaved children. She decides that because her sex life is lackluster and her children don’t do drugs and peruse dirty magazines, that her life has no meaning. Instead of volunteering or reaching outside herself, Kate books a week long Tai Chi class. Kate feels badly for abandoning her family and arranges to have a bombshell Australian au pair watch over Jeffrey and the children while Kate is gone.
You aren’t much into sublteties as you hit us over the head with the meaning of tai chi and how Kate should find a center within herself. Tai Chi is her road to self discovery. Fortunately, Kate has help in finding herself when she meets up with fellow classmate, Ben Mahler. Kate, who has a great body and is dramatically gorgeous in an understated way (your words, not mine), attracts Ben immediately. She must be one hot mama because after only two days, Ben is on the precipice of falling in love with her (again, your words).
We’ve tallied up our choices and have gone with the following books and authors. Jayne picked about 10 of them until I reminded her that we were running this contest every month until August and maybe we should just hold some of those over until next month. So if your recommendation didn’t get picked this month, be sure to make it again next month.
Jayne’s picks:
Christy Poff – Chase an Angel (historical)
Crystal Inman – Perfect Timing (time travel)
Marie Harte – Winner Takes All (fantasy, scifi)
Priscilla Darcy – Twenty Hours in Boston (contemp)
Jane’s picks:
Lisa Marie Rice - Port of Paradise (contemporary)
Samanta Winston – The Argentine Lover (cont sports)
Jess Michaels – Wager of Sin (historical)
Shelly Laurentson – The Distressing Damsel (paranormal)
We’ll put up the reviews about every other day or so and sticky them at the top of the blog until the next review goes up. Thanks for participating!
Edited to add: Sheesh, forgot that Jayne and I will be doing a she said/she said review of Blood Brothers.
Dear Dr. Shem,
 I read your book, The House of God, years ago when I was still in college majoring in my health care field. Hmmm, make that years and years ago. Anyway, I laughed my ass off then and I just did it again while rereading the (probably only slightly) fictionalized account your internship year in medicine. I gave a copy to a friend of mine when she started her internship year at the University of Florida. She slowly read it during the 3-4 free minutes she had each day that year. When she finally finished it, all she said was, “Yeah, that’s about it.” She survived her right of passage and has been practicing in internal medicine for over 10 years now.
People who don’t work in teaching hospitals will probably gasp and goggle in disbelief and horror at how you describe that first year of medical teaching as a doctor but I’ve trained and worked in teaching facilities and I’m here to tell them that it’s (mostly) all true. Every horrible, hilarious, “black as the angel of death” humorous moment of it. I’ve seen medical students and interns crack …
Dear Ms. Krentz:
 I keep buying your books even though I know that it’s the same story that I have read before in your previous publications. Oh, I know that it says “first time in print” but I am sure I have read the same characters, with the same conflicts, with the same resolution about 30 times previous. But your one note music must sing to me because I keep reading and buying and reading and buying.
Your “latest” story fearures Elly St. Clair, the only daughter of a distinguished Guild family in Aurora Springs. In fact, the previous Guild boss was Elly’s father and her brothers are all accomplished hunters. Cooper Boone is the new Aurora Springs Guild boss and is set to marry Elly.
Elly finds out that Cooper fought a duel with another aspirant to the Guild boss position and confronts him about it. While she was scared and mad that he took dangerous risks with his life, Elly was secretly a bit excited to think that Cooper cared for her. He hadn’t shown much attention to her (constantly late, absorbed in Guild business). When confronted, Cooper states that the reason for the duel was to protect the balance of Guild power. Not terribly romantic. Elly breaks off the engagement and moves away from Aurora to the big city, Cadence. While in Cadence, Elly becomes embroiled in an investigation involving drug smuggling. Her friends are being targeted and she needs help. Cooper arrives just in time to lend his ghost-hunting skills.
Dear Mrs. Marshall,
 This is a nice pirate romance with a more capable heroine than most “chick in pants” stories. I think it works better than most because Christine is more a thinking pirate rather than a true swashbuckling one. She tries to outwit her victims thereby making herself and her crew richer than when they started yet at the same time still alive at the end of the sea cruise. The fact that she’s tall and is willing to cut her hair off also helps her masquerade work better than in most romance books. You give her lots of reasons for not believing in her marriage of convenience husband, Justin and I love her idea of not only getting mad at being forced into it by her uncle but also getting even by raiding his shipping line. But I wonder just how easy it would be to obtain a divorce in this era. Was it easier legally than later in the century? I would assume the social stigma would still be as bad.
Justin very quickly wises up from his initial boorishness and is truly sorry for what he did to Christine and for thinking only of his own interests and feelings in their marriage of convenience. I came to like him a lot.
Dear Mrs Hart,
 I’m finally getting back to Pot of Gold, your first story about Captain Robin Steele and his love, Nora as they search for a hidden leprechaun fortune beneath a Caribbean island. I like it just as much as the sequel, Emerald Isle. It’s fast and humorous and since it’s a fantasy, I just sat back and enjoyed the fun. Despite the fact that romantica isn’t usually my thing, the numerous sex scenes make sense because of the leprechaun sex spell. And they’re hawt without being too purple or ending up silly.
But what really makes me happy about the story is the fact that both lead characters are so well balanced. Robin isn’t an overbearing hero and Nora doesn’t go all feisty on us, even when she saves Robin from the merbitch with the teeth of a shark. Y
Dear Ms. Snyder:
 I came across this book when I was perusing ebook releases. It had a gorgeous cover and an interesting summary. I did minor research and found it received a starred review from PW. I figured it was worth the risk (it was not an inexpensive book). I am glad that I picked it up.
The story is a first person narrative by Yelena, a condemned criminal who is given a chance to live. Yelena killed the son of her benefactor. According to the Code of Behavior that governs her country, Ixia (north), anyone who kills regardless of reason is sentenced to death. Yelena is sent to the dungeons where she stays for 1 year. At the time of her execution, she is offered the position of food taster by Valek, chief of security, right hand man of the Commander, etc. She accepts. The caveat is that Yelena is given a poison and the antidote, administered by Valek each night, is only good for a short period of time.
Her training as food taster was one of my favorite parts of the book. We aren’t just told that Yelena is a food taster, we are shown in great detail the skill involved in being a food taster and how one learns to be a food taster.
Dear Ms. Murphy,
 I’ve had a copy of your first book “Urban Shaman” lying around the house for a while now but just never had gotten to it. Then I got my hands on a copy of your new Jo Walker series book “Thunderbird Falls” without realizing it was a sequel. Silly me. Well, I was all set to go back and read the first book since I get twitchy if I read books out of order but my blogging partner Jane urged me to read TF first. Turns out she just wanted to do an experiment on me to see if this book will stand alone or if we’d get hoards of your fans descending on us.
Well, I can tell Jane that I think TF stands alone very nicely. You give us enough detail about the characters and incidents of US to get new readers up to speed without bogging this story down. And I don’t think returning fans will be impatiently tapping their toes waiting to get back to the new stuff. Well done.
There was quite the dust up last week involving Laura Lee Guhrke and her opinions that Ellora’s Cave is a fringe publisher and the authors for Ellora’s Cave were not making “good money.” When confronted with Ellora’s Cave authors saying that they do make good money, Ms. Guhrke challenged these authors to prove it with royalty figures. (She asks them to scan in their statements)
There is a little known service (little known to readers, I believe) provided by Ingram. Ingram Book Group is the world’s largest wholesale distributor of book product. They have an automated telephone service that provides Ingram numbers of sales for any book with an ISBN. I read that if you use the multiplier of 6, you can get a good idea of approximate sales overall. So I did a little investigating. You’ll be shocked at the results. All numbers are unadjusted until the summary at the end.
The comment thread for the False Advertising is now closed. Any further comments on this topic can be made here. Please remember that the comment section is for discussion of the review or topic. It is not a place to promote your books. We have specific contests for that. Any further comments made by authors that include promotional information not requested by another poster will be edited.
Dear Readers:
A couple of days ago, I blogged about Aphrodisia and its attempts to have its Erotica line pimped as romance despite the line editor’s statements in an interview which seems to suggest that no HEA is required for these stories. Kate Douglas came over concerned that we were spreading some misinformation about the Aphrodisia line.
Other Aphrodisia authors came out in support and left comments.
Dear Ms. Chesney,
 Historical mysteries are my favorite type and I’m looking forward to reading more of your Edwardian series featuring the unconventional Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart. Lady Rose’s suffragette sympathies, excellent education and concern for the lower classes is just enough to be considered odd by her social peers without seeming too modern for the time period. Boer War veteran Captain Cathcart with his willingness to take money for “fixing” embarrassing things for his social peers is made to be an outsider to his upper class background but still able to mingle with them in order to get the task done.
I like how Harry uses down to earth methods to uncover the intentions of a bounder, foil a blackmailer and prevent the King from trying his luck with the socially disgraced Lady Rose.
The fact that Lady Rose wants to fit into society and be liked by her fellow debutantes makes her seem poignant and not strident. I especially like that these two misfits see the other as a misfit instead of instantly bonding through their misfitedness. You make good use of their personal servants, Daisy and Becket, to …
Dear Ms. Cabot:
 I don’t know if you remember me. I met you at the RWA NY convention. You were very cute sitting in your chair but looked quite lonesome. You didn’t have much of a line in front of you. I suspect that it would be much different today and perhaps that why you blogged:
Sometimes when I am around authors who have made the big time, I notice that they treat booksellers (and other authors who haven’t made the big time) as dirt beneath their feet. As a matter of fact, when I was first starting out, several big name authors treated ME this way.
This is not a smart move, authors. Because what could happen is that the smalltime bookseller or author you are being so snobby to COULD become a bigtime bookseller or author, and she will remember the time when you treated her less than courteously.
And while I have loved many of your books (although I think the Princess series is getting stale), Queen of Babble won’t be in that category.
No, no, no, Gentle Reader, not the Ellora’s Cave Threeway. I’m talking Love Triangles. Some readers love them. Lisa Kleypas gave a synposis of her contemporary due out in 2007 over at AAR. It features a Love Triangle between one woman and two alpha males.
And just as Liberty and Gage begin a wonderful, really scorching affair . . . Hardy comes back. He is now successful, ruthless and sexier than ever, and he wants Liberty.
So there is a love triangle, with Liberty torn between two alpha males who are business rivals and also romantic rivals
I suppose this is the ultimate female fantasy, but in a romance, to me, that always means one of the following:
Dear Ms. Pattillo,
 I noticed the review for this book while I was watching DVDs of Dawn
French’s British comedy about a female vicar in the Church of England working in a small country village. Some of the obstacles that French faces are also ones that crop up in this book. The heroine, Betsy Blessing, faces opposition from church members because she’s a woman and feels that she’s being passed over for promotions to higher positions for the same reason. Unlike French’s series, Betsy is also having to wrestle with the idea that maybe she’s not cut out to be a pastor. Maybe she should turn in that application to law school. It’s also finally dawned on her that her long standing friendship with a fellow minister in the area might be something she wants to pursue as a romance.
You have a lovely, gentle sense of humor, know the topic and never use Betsy to preach at the reader. I enjoy how you let Betsy’s faith guide her actions and thoughts. This is a fun mixing of Chick Lit crossed with Inspirational Lit. I tend to like first person stories and this …
Dear Readers and Authors:
Edited to add: We often get offers of free books related to this contest but we decided in last month’s contest that we would buy all the books we chose so we could remain objective. We have no problem in receiving books from publishers but at this time feel uncomfortable receiving books from authors.
We are opening up the June ebook contest which was inspired by Cece. This contest asks for you, readers and authors, to nominate books to be reviewed. Jayne and I will pick a number of books (probably around 4 each) to read and review. As seen by the previous contest, not all books are going to get good grades. We hope that doesn’t scare you all away. Of course, if you really hate an author, you may want to nominate them in hopes that we send them a Dear Ja(y)ne letter.
One hint on the nominating process. If you see alot of one type of book being nominated: i.e., paranormals, you are probably going to have a better chance of your recommendation being picked up if it is different. Jayne and I both enjoy reading traditional …
Dear Ms. Orloff:
 Keishon blogged the other day about books that make you cry and whether they are to be avoided and embraced. We decided that it is all about expectations. The title tells the ultimate conclusion to properly prepare the reader but I definitely wished it turned out different. I was touched and charmed by this story of great friendship, loss and recovery.
The story is almost more about Michael, the best friend, than it is about Lily. One element in romances that is often overlooked is the power of friendships. I don’t know many women who don’t have close friends and this book is about how friends who are like family members can get you through anything.
Commenter Alau had a much different take on the interview given by the editor from Aphrodisia. To wit:
I think the definition of a HEA is changing and that's what Aphrodisia is responding to: as long as the woman is happy, it doesn't matter if she ends up with the hero or not. As long as everyone is happy at the end, to me, that means it is an HEA, regardless of who she's with at the end. I don't care if she's partnered, married, with kids, etc, as long as she's happy. I'm also satisfied with a “Happy for now” ending, which implies that there's an ongoing story. So, no I don't think it's false advertising for Aphrodisia to stretch the genre to accomodate these changing attitudes which is what I think they're doing.
From the desk of guest reviewer, Jaili.
Dear Ms. Leigh,
 When I saw that Kiss of Heat is Book 3 in Feline Breeds series, I assumed that it would be a standalone, anyway, just enough for me to get into the story easily. I mean, how hard could it be to catch up? Pretty easy, I’d say, but I had no idea how wrong I was.
Kiss of Heat is the story of Kane Tyler and Sherra who have enough issues to fill a six-piece luggage set. From what I gather so far, Sherra has a serious grudge against Kane Tyler for not honouring his promise he made to her some years ago. For not returning to save her from a pit of nightmares. And for not being there when she alone
This one has been traveling around the net this week. The History of Dance.
The comment thread for this post is now closed. Any further comments on this topic can be made here. Please remember that the comment section is for discussion of the review or topic. It is not a place to promote your books. We have specific contests for that. Any further comments made by authors that include promotional information not requested by another poster will be edited.
Angie W blogged about this the other day but I completely missed it so for everyone’s benefit, here is an excerpt from an interview with Editorial Director of the new Aphrodisia line:
Dear Ms. Weaver:
 After I had purchased, read, and thoroughly enjoyed Let’s Pretend, I purchased your backlist. Thank goodness it was easy to do so and the prices were right. The second book I read was Incubus. This is a short story or novella length. I’ll try to keep the review commesurate with the story length! As with Let’s Pretend, the sensuality level of this book is no different than a Blaze.
Incubus is a romance gothic. Serafina Fisher is stuck at her fiance’s uncle’s cabin while her fiance makes up an excuse for spending the night elsewhere.
Warning: this entire book is a bit of a spoiler for Sex, Murder and a Double Latte. If you intend to read the story, you may want to skip the review. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
Dear Ms. Davis:
 This is the HARDCOVER sequel to Sex, Murder and a Double Latte. Sophie Katz has just extricated herself from one murder investigation only to find her sister, Leah, a main suspect in Leah’s husband’s death. Leah and Bob had been married for years and while they had their problems, Leah was content being Mrs. Bob Miller. Even when confronted with Bob’s infidelity, Leah attempts to win Bob back. Leah’s chance to win back her hsuband is thwarted by Bob’s murder. Leah is the number one suspect and Sophie undertakes an investigation to absolve Leah.
This book is much more flawed than the first one. Leah is an unlikeable character, Leah’s 18 month old son can talk in sentences (not likely), and is the child from hell. There’s not as much interaction with Sophie and her fun friends and most of all
Dear Ms. Mandel,
 Applause, applause, standing applause. You’re gonna like what I hav to say about your book. Anna Bolles is smart, funny and in love with Joe. Joe Malone is smart, gorgeous, and in love with Anna. They know they have something special, something that everybody looks for. They know this by chapter 2. So, I can hear all the authors reading this yelling, where’s the conflict? Where’s the plot? You can’t just have the h/h fall in love on page 10 and that be it.
The It is that Anna has MS, multiple sclerosis. It colors every aspect of her life from home to work (she’s a high school English teacher) and when she got it five years ago, she mentally closed the door marked *future* in her life. Now she’s not sure if Joe will be there for the long haul or if she wants him to be. MS is an awful disease and her relapses aren’t pretty. Does she want Joe to see her like that? Does she, can she believe in *for better or for worse, in sickness and in health?* Because her worse and sickness are already …
Dear Ms. Miles:
Update: The author, Ms. Bennett, was kind enough to send us a cover image for her book (Thanks Maili for the suggestion). And gave us an update on her writing endeavors.
I went on to be published in Australian mainstream as Lilly Sommers. I currently write historicals for Avon as Sara Bennett, and soon paranormals as Sara Mackenzie.
 Continuing my reading of obscure books and settings (sorry, I intend no insult), I pulled this one out recently and read all 250 pages almost straight through. It’s an old Masquerade Historical set in 1838 Sydney and the Australian bush. Now, how often do we romance readers see that time and setting?
Bregetta Smith is up the creek without the proverbial paddle. She’s poor, her mother has just died and her brother is in trouble with the law. The law being the military law in Sydney cause her brother attacked a soldier who subsequently died. A sergeant named Alistair Duncan is after him now but Duncan can’t stop thinking about Bregetta. After her mother dies, he offers her a place in the house he rents and tells her he’ll get her a better job then the one she has in a tavern owned by her best friend’s sleazy husband.
Thinking about these books:
Contemporary/Contemporary Romantic Suspense
- Bevarly, Elizabeth – Express Male (HQN)
- Bird, Sarah – The Flamenco Academy (hardcover–KNOPF) (reserved at library)
- Brashares, Ann – The Girl of Lost Things (hardcover–RIVB) (reserved at library)
- Civil-Brown, Sue – Hurricane Hannah (HAR)
- Dunn, Carola – Styx and Stones (reissue–KENS)
- Glass, Julia – The Whole World Over (hardcover–PAN) (reserved at library)
- Howard, Linda – Cover of Night (hardcover–BALL) (reserved at library)
- Krentz, Jayne Ann (writing as Jayne Castle) – Ghost Hunter (JOVE) (reserved at library)
- Ross, JoAnn – Impulse (POCK)
- Shay, Kathryn – Ties That Bind (BERK)
Ms. Davis:
 I bought this book at Elibron.com. Elibron carries no cover images and no descriptions so my purchase was based solely on a) the name and b) the publisher. I was in the mood for something chick lit and I was buying something else at the time . . . Oh, Hot Ticket. Gah. I had no idea what I was getting myself in for when I started reading your book. By the end of the first chapter, I was well and truly hooked and stayed engaged the entire book.
The mystery was great. The heroine was great. The dialogue was great, even if the cute sexy exchanges happened between the heroine and a guy who may or may not be out to kill her. The setting is San Francisco and that, in and of itself, was fresh for me. I hadn’t realized that there were major urban areas in the United States other than the East Coast!
Dear Authors and Readers,
Jane and I have finished our first monthy ebook reading contest. We’d like to thank everyone who posted their suggestions for books to read, especially authors. It takes guts to nominate yourself and maybe some of you are cursing your friends for nominating you. We know it’s not easy to step to the mike and say “Pick me.” The response was awesome and I think I can say that Jane and I enjoyed something in all the books we picked. We hope that readers have enjoyed our reviews. Authors, we hope you don’t hate us too badly! And we hope that we’ve helped generate some buzz and sales for ebooks. Perhaps the best thing that we learned from the ebook contest is that ebooks are not terribly different in quality than that of the mainstream publishers offerings.
We gave out 1 B+, 3 B, 4 B-, 2 C-, 1 C+, 2 Ds. Looking at the mainstream reviews, these grades parallel the grades we have given to NY published books. I think it is safe to say that ebooks have some great offerings, some okay offerings, and some bad offerings – just like would find at the bookstore.
Dear Ms. Warren:
 Your stories benefited from a 3 book release one month after the other. The series started with The Husband Trap which featured a twin swap. I don’t like Twin Swaps so I skipped it. The second book, The Wife Trap, featured the villian of The Husband Trap. The villian was the twin sister, Jeanette, who convinced her sister to marry the Duke of Raeburn so that she could run off with another man. I like redemption stories so I started with this one and figured if I liked it, I would get the first book.
Jeanette is sent to rusticate in Ireland with rural cousins. It is a fierce punishment for someone who loves parties, clothes, and the social scene. There is no one to socialize with at all. Jeanette and Darragh O’Brien meet and are at loggerheads.
Ms. Kinsale has went on to clarify that her post was more about differentiating books from a service industry. To some degree I agree with her, but the whole discussion raise an interesting point for me as to what is art. Ms. Kinsale’s argues books should not be subject to the whims of the market because to allow your writing to be controlled in such a manner reduces the writer’s ability to be brilliant, original, and creative. (am paraphrasing here, of course). And that the creative process of writing is art. To extrapolate further, the end product of the creative process is art. The book is art.
Art is such a difficult term to use because I think it is hard to define. Kinsale starts with the premise that art of fiction deserves respect. I don’t really have a good definition for art, but the theorum that Kinsale presents has problems because the first statement in the hypothesis is not an absolute truth.
Dear. Ms Carter,
 After reading a review of your book I decided to take a chance on it. I’m not usually a category romance book fan (Some of the titles alone are enough to make me gag) but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has two mature leads acting reasonably and a nice background story. There are no misunderstandings, no sudden personality changes, and no overbearing villain. The heroine’s father has a lady friend who he’s been seeing for a few years but their relationship never overshadows the main one. And the heroine’s conflicting emotions about the daughter she gave up for adoption are told from her perspective and serve to add to her story. The firefighter hero’s feelings about his job never freeze him at a key moment nor plunge him into the depths of angst. I would have liked to have seen the love story drawn out a little (the total time frame is about 3 weeks plus a 6 week later epilogue) but that would probably have involved more subplots which would have detracted from the main love story. I can live with it. B for you
~Jayne
Dear Mrs. Treanor,
 As I started to read The Other Sea, I was all set to brave Triskelion and buy all your backlist at once. Despite the editing problems that I’m coming to associate with that publisher (smiles at Angie), I was prepared to glom. After finishing this book, I’m still willing to try your backlist, but I will restrain myself, buy them one by one and hope that they don’t have the same problems as this one.
Overall, my impression of this book is favorable. You have a wonderful, little used setting (1068 in Scotland or Scotia as some of your characters call it) and you appear to have done your homework regarding the politics and people of your story (thanks Maili). You use period names (again, thanks Maili for the pronunciation lessons) instead of incongruously expecting us to believe that medieval women were named Chelsea or medieval men were called Cody. Your descriptions seem accurate and thank God you don’t attempt to have the characters speak in dialect nor use anachronistic words. Huzzah!
I like that you don’t spoon feed us by stopping to awkwardly insert information nor dump a history lecture on …
The SB’s have a letter from Laura Kinsale up at her website. Somehow I doubt she will ever write a letter to us but I felt compelled to respond (don’t I always).
Dear Authors:
If you (and by you, I mean the universal you) are writing in a certain genre, particularly within the romance genre, aren’t you always thinking of the reader. I.e., why else put in the HEA? or conform to any the constraints the romance genre maintains? When an author writes for Harlequin and signs on to do a group project – are they writing for themselves or their readers?
When writers do connected series books writing about brothers, cousins, nephews, etc, aren’t those written with the reader in mind? When writers write stories about a certain character because readers were clamouring for that character’s story, isn’t it the reader that you are thinking of at that point?
I think that we reviewers are the HR department (killing the fun) and authors are Michael Scott (hating us for it).
HelenKay Dimon has posted an interesting article at Access Romance about the publishers that she likes. The ones she’s loyal to because they’ve delivered good books in the past and that she’ll take a second look at just because of who they are. An interesting concept raised by Ms. Dimon’s post is branding, both across the line itself and with the authors.
Avon has created a brand with its historicals. They might not have pioneered the stepback cover, but their books are strongly associated with them. It’s interesting that they are now moving back toward the clinch cover. Almost all chick lit books, regardless of publisher, are branded with the same size (trade), color (pastel, usually pink tones – take a look at a bunch of chick lit spines), cartoon like figure of a woman or some other object. No manly chests or heaving bosoms.
Dear Ms. Counts,
 I think I’m all Peninsulared out right now. I used to love books using this setting but alas, like aristocratic English spies, it’s been done to death. I had hopes that your book would be different but once past the novelty of how the hero and heroine get together, it sank into same old same old.
Rachel Brady was more or less coerced into marrying her husband, a soldier,
and now is following the drum during the Peninsular Campaign. She helps care for the wounded and after one battle she takes over the care of Major Lord Jacob Forrester. Rachel’s husband is an @$$ and hasn’t treated her well in most of the years of their marriage. After Jacob recovers, things kind of mosey on for months and months. Battles occur, the army moves, the army goes into winter quarters. Rachel isn’t happy. Bo-DE-oh-do-do.
The @$$ husband decides to sell Rachel as a sort of poor man’s divorce. A
friend races to inform Jacob of the sale and he races to the rescue and buys her.
Dear Ms. Stuart:
 It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter. I enjoy your blog. I enjoy your comments. Yours was a book that was recommended in the contest by several people so I know you can be reassured that that you have fans of your work. A book that starts in the middle of the series always has challenges but it is my belief that each book of a series must stand on its own.
Ironically, when the story began, I recall drafting a letter in my head about this type of story exemplified the best in small publisher’s: content not found in mainstream publications. It began with a first person account of the life of a successful salon owner who hasn’t quite made it out of her small, hometown where she enjoys the infamous reputation of being the daughter of the town drunk and being a bit free with her favors. Betti Blanchard’s voice is breezy, no nonsense, and full of southern charm. She was the type of woman who went for what she wanted, instead of waiting for it to come to her.
Jane and I wanted to be sure that eveyone knows which reviews are for books that we’ve chosen in our ebook contests. So, from now on, we will add CB (contest book) at the beginning of reviews for contest books. I’ve also gone back and added this to all the ones we’ve already posted.
Jane’s last review for May is coming up soon and I just started reading my last pick.
~Jayne
Dear Ms. MaryJanice Davidson:
So I was at the Half Price Bookstore yesterday and was browsing through the $1.00 bin. There was a romance book there proclaiming to be by New York Times Bestselling Author so and so (see I can’t even remember her name today). I looked at the copyright date: 1980s. Hadn’t ever heard of the author. She obviously still isn’t a) writing or b) writing books on the NYT list. I hope she saved up some royalty money from those heydays because she certainly isn’t still making money on the writing gig today.
Moral of the story. Don’t be so bloody cocky (I don’t think I need to say which comment, but just in case: 109 posted on 05/14 at 12:00 PM by MaryJanice Davidson). This effen stupid reader who can’t read will still be buying books and pretending to read in 10 years. Will you still be pretending to write?
Best regards,
Jane
Dear Authors:
 I love sports. Really love sports. I listen to ESPN at work everyday. We purchase the MLB Ticket, the NFL Ticket, the NBA Ticket. ESPN is on every night. This is itemized to tell you that one of you isn’t going to be real happy with my review because it was glaringly obvious to me that you don’t know sports. In fact, you and sports are on the opposite ends of the football field. Let’s begin.
Dear Ms. London: Yours is the first book in the anthology. I started reading it and then had to skip right to Martin’s for fear that my IPAQ was going to suffer severe damage after being tossed onto floor. Your hero is a former Houston Astros shortstop & slugger who moved to New York Mets to sign one of the biggest baseball contracts in history. Why didn’t you just call him Alex Rodriguez and be done with it. Other than changing a few details (Seattle to TX Rangers and then to the Yankees), it’s him. Do you totally lack any creativity that you had to steal your character from real life? And can’t you make up your own team names like Martin or Susan Elizabeth Phillips?
Dear Mrs. Kwitney,
 Your first book had more of a traditional “romance” style to it and since then, you’ve been moving in more a “chick lit” crossed with “women’s fiction” with some romance direction. I’m fine with that and have enjoyed all your books but it is something I thought I should mention in case fans are hoping for another “Dominant Blonde” book. While Kat, the heroine of Sex as a Second Language, does look like she’ll end up with someone, this is really more a story of Kat learning who she is and what she wants out of life now that she’s forty.
Kat is a former soap opera star who “retired” to have a child but whose 10 year marriage is now almost over. Her actor husband, who is headed towards stardom now, has little time for their learning impaired son and his only contact with Kat is through lawyers as they fight over the terms of the settlement. Kat’s trying to break back into acting but is finding that the options for 40 year old actress are few and often limited to infomercials for dubious skin care products. But she needs more money than her job as an English language teacher pays so she’s learning to lower her standards. When the spy father who abandoned her and her mother suddenly appears in her life after a 30 year absence, Kat doesn’t know if she wants to see him or tell him to f*ck off. She also doesn’t know what to do with Magnus, an Icelander in her language class who keeps showing up wherever she goes. Meanwhile Magnus, who is actually a CIA agent, is desperate to earn Kat’s confidence and hopefully get in touch with her father whose knowledge of a third world leader is needed to avert a potential crisis. What he never counts on is what ends up getting Kat’s interest.
Dear Ms. Champagne,
 For a first time effort, you didn’t do a bad job. Since this is a romantic suspense novel, I’m going to end up giving you two individual grades and then a combined final as I find that most books of this type are better in one area than the other.
Kat, your army Captain heroine starts off as a competent, no nonsense woman who seems to be able to take care of herself. Jude, the FBI hero who’s come to her out-of-the-way Maine home to search for stolen, long lost gems, is the proverbial fish out of water. I like his sense of humor and the way these two spark off each other. But after the initial fireworks are over, things start to unravel a bit.
Kat’s been fired on by strange men and her parents were murdered less than two weeks ago yet there are plenty of times when she doesn’t have a firearm on her or even near her. Would law enforcement have shelved her parent’s murder investigation in the cold case files after only two weeks? A villain waltzes right into her house and is luckily driven out yet despite realizing the constant danger they’re in, neither Kat nor Jude try and barricade the lockless house at night. Then Kat has a habit of wandering outside the house, again with no weapon, at night when anyone could be sneaking up on her. And how does Kat know that Jude has siblings or that his boss’s name is Frank? I don’t recall him mentioning these facts to her but I might have missed them. And just out of curiosity, why does Kat keep her weapons behind a false wall in a closet?
Dear Mr Wainwright,
 Your debut novel The Adventures of Alianore Audley is a brilliantly funny, subversive spoof that shouldn’t be missed.
Elizabeth Chadwick recommended this book on another list and it was well worth the effort to track down. I try to tell people to imagine a female Blackadder intelligence spy during the War of the Roses and they’ve got Alianore Audley. Smart as a whip with a dry, sarcastic wit, Alianore and her lord and master (who usually is smart enough to do just what she tells him) move through the tumultuous events surrounding the Lancastrians vs the Yorks vs the Tudors and somehow manages through stealth, bribery and blackmail to end up on top and unscathed. It makes trying to follow the plots, counterplots, battles, deceptions and intrigues that make up the Wars of the Roses actually fun. It’s absolutely hilarious but I do have to wonder if the anachronisms were a deliberate move on your part to see who’s paying attention and who’s napping while reading. B+ for you.
~Jayne
Dear Triskelion,
Earlier I wrote about the bad experience I had buying 2 ebooks from you. Now I’m sorry to say but the reading experience for one of them has been less than wonderful and it’s not due to the author’s voice or style. It’s due to your poor editing.
I was reading the first book on my IPAQ and all of a sudden — the font totally changed. Different size, different style and for no apparent reason. Then it happened two more times.
At first I thought maybe there was a blip during the file transfer so I pulled the file up on my pc and discovered that it was even worse there. Not only did the font change but the lines didn’t wrap and I had to scroll waaaaaaaaaaaay across the screen to read the entire lines.
Then I began to notice the editing errors. “Red made it to a tree and almost over when he lifted his leg.” Did the dog almost fall over, tip over, sprawl over, crash over, jitterbug over? What?
There aren’t many people happy with the Ashworth novel, Duke of Scandal. I didn’t much like Duke of Sin so I wasn’t shelling out $8.00 for Duke of Scandal particularly after I read Ashworth’s own description of it:
As his feelings for her grow, he's confounded by her honesty, her naiveté coupled with a glamour and sophistication he's never had to deal with in a woman.
I figured any heroine who was naive and glamorous and sophisticated was going to be too precious for words. Over at AAR, the readers are mostly panning it.
The posts on this book exemplifies what authors hate most about online readers.
Dear. Mrs. Connolly,
 I’ve been a Richard and Rose series fan for years now. I’m looking forward to seeing poor Richard suffer while Rose is in labor and I’m really looking forward to poor Rose ending her 2 year pregnancy. So, in the meantime, I thought I’d try Noblesse Oblige and see how you write regency era books. The answer would be exactly like you write the Richard and Rose series. Well, pretty darn close. And I mean *exactly* and not in a good way.
When I started NO, I began to get glimmers of unease. They only increased as the book progressed. If you hadn’t written it yourself, I would have thought someone had lifted whole plot elements from your RR series and inserted them into a different (very slightly different) setting.
When Jayne and Jane first started blogging, Jane had picked out a plain and ordinary theme. Since that time, it was mutually agreed that our site looked boring. We’ve made some changes and added some new code that should make your visit to the blog more fun.
- Inline commenting. That allows you to see the comments without have to reload the page. Look for the “show comments” link at the bottom of posts.
- Preview and quicktags to make commenting easier.
- Chatbox for anyone (hopefully not spammers. we’ll see) so that you can leave any sort of message.
- Theme Switcher so that users can decide what look they want to see. We will probably add more themes as we go along instead of doing a massive overhaul.
- Social icons. The icons at the bottom of each post allow a user to submit the blog posts to various sites.
There’s still stuff left to do. We are going to bring back recent comments and recent posts as soon as Jane figures out the css styling for nested lists. We’ll be bringing back the subscribe buttons, but you …
Dear Ms. Jameson’s Editor:
 I am writing this letter to you, the editor, because I think you failed at your job. Isn’t it your job to tell the author that she needs to cut out unnecessary scenes, make sure the characters sound consistent, and keep the pacing timely? Because all of those things seemed to be missing. Big Trouble is a big book: 432 pages. It was about 100 pages too long. The book started out snappy. Naomi Connor works for security firm who specializes in making companies hackproof. She begs for the chance to be lead on the Brennan Shipping Industries job because she sees it as a chance for redemption. When Naomi was 12, she inadvertently hacked into BSI as a result of an elaborate setup by Russian bad guys. The Russian bad guys had set up a contest for hackers to hack into a “dummy” network. Only it wasn’t a dummy network, it was BSI’s network. Naomi realized right away what she had done and went straight to her parents but the damage had already been done. Naomi wants to make it right.
Joe Brennan is Assistant General Counsel for BSI and acting CTO. He still remembers that night when BSI was hacked and his family suffered a great deal as a result of it. He draws a hard line between right and wrong and puts hackers, no matter their age or justification, on the wrong side. Instant conflict. The good parts of the book feature the growing attraction between Joe and Naomi and their desire to NOT mix business with pleasure and the very realistic corporate espionage problem. The tech stuff was explained so an ordinary reader could understand.
The bad part was the rest of the book.
Dear Ms. Summers:
 There is a reason why I don’t read alot of categories. It is bad for my health. Only a couple chapters in and my blood pressure is already rising. Your heroine, Dr. MacKenzie Lloyd, embodies all the my hot button issues with contemporary romances. She is young, 26 years of age, but has a Ph.D. and runs her own lab. She did her doctoral studies at the age of 21. She is repressed sexually but interviewed a number of sexperts such as a madame (french, of course) and is ready to go and field test her research to ensure that she has the skills to attract and keep a husband.
The hero, Lucas Wainwright, is sitting with one of his friends who Lucas describes as a “Celtic warrior.” Because, you know, Celtic warriors are very common comparisons these days. Everyone knows at least one Celt who is a warrior thus everyone has a frame of reference for such a comparison, right? And he compares the heroine to “Joan of Arc.” If Lucas was a medieval scholar or a dark ages …
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