Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Dear Ms. Gayle,

When Jane forwarded to me our copy of your first release My Summer of Southern Discomfort I wondered if she’d read it first and what she might have to say about the legal aspects of the book. And then I wondered if this was going to be a “trash the South” story. I also pondered if the title could refer to the humid, heat wave we’ve been sweltering through for most of the month of August. The answers are 1) no and not bad, 2) no and 3) yes the heat was mentioned. It’s also one of the nicest surprise reads I’ve had this year. Since I am lazy and the work has already been done for me, I’m going to steal this nice synopsis from Carol Haggas at Booklist:

Having suffered professional and personal humiliation at the hands of her boss and lover, promising young attorney Natalie Goldberg beats a hasty retreat from the prestigious Manhattan securities law firm where her career precipitously derailed from its fast track and surprises everyone by taking a low-paying, demanding, …

Dear Ms. Goodman:

I’m never sure a) why I started reading you so late (only two years ago) and b) why not everyone has caught onto your genius by now. If His Kiss Is Wicked is another solid entry into your catalog of published books.

I don’t want to give any of the plot away because what happens is quite a surprise and I wouldn’t want to ruin that for the readers. My summary, thus, is a bit vague. Emma Hathaway is a gentleman’s daughter who went to live with her uncle and her cousin, the beautiful Marisol, a few years ago upon the sudden and accidental deaths of her parents. Her cousin is flighty and tends to engage in flirts with men not her fiance. Emma agrees to pretend to be Marisol and put an end to the most recent flirtation. What happens at the meeting pushes Emma to seek out Restell, a man who solves problems.

Restell Gardner is known to be a bit poor, a bit disreputable, and a bit of …

The Novel of Formation

The novel of the same title by Charles Dickens is a bildungsroman, a novel of formation following a protagonist from childhood to maturity. In some cases, it might loosely be described as a coming of age story although it generally follows a protagonist from childhood to some significant period beyond adulthood.

A genre readers’ bildungsroman is the formation of their expectations through reading similarly situated books. At a smaller level, the formation of expectations can be reduced and assigned to an author or a series of books.

Series Books Foster Expectations

Reader expectation is fostered by series books. When an author writes single titles that are loosely connected, there is no continual emotional investment in the characters, but rather the author’s work. Overtime, the author can either build a relationship with a reader for quality work, uneven work, or bad work, depending on the reader’s response.

With a series where the main characters re-appear from book to book to book, the readers become emotionally attached to the characters more than the authors’ work. Readers become so involved in the characters that they almost become real to those …

On the heels of the Triskelion Bankrupty and the Silk’s Vault troubles, Mardi Gras Publishing will apparently be filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy at the end of this week or the start of next. (registration required). The rights will be returned to the authors but as we discussed previously, the bankruptcy court has the power to bring those rights back into the estate.

Mardi Gras authors do not want readers to be buying the books because they aren’t likely to receive a royalty off the sales.

Dear Mrs. Gabaldon,

A few years ago when the first Lord John book (Lord John and the Private Matter) was released I made a mental note to myself that I ought to try this one out. After all I had enjoyed Outlander (though got bogged down in the next one and never finished it). Alas, a mental note made was all I did and it wasn’t until Jane mentioned all the goodies she picked up at RWA and hadn’t I read the first book because she had an ARC of the second and did I want it? that I decided to get off my arse and give it a go. What followed was an intense four days of me fitting in snatches of reading time whenever I could despite having to work 10 hour days at work and sleep sometimes. I read. I devoured. I inhaled. I had to know what happened next. I cursed when it was the last second I could leave for work and not be late. In other words, I liked the book. …

The Goldman’s were granted the rights to the OJ hypothetical confession and shopped it to Beaufort Books, a sometimes vanity press where authors contribute monetarily to the publication of their books. The Brown family is not happy about the publication of the book. Oprah has booked the two camps for a high charged Springer like episode. Fred and Kim Goldman will face criticism from Denise Brown on September 13, 2007.

Grand Central Publishing (formerly Warner Books) is an all-format, all-genre trade publisher. We're the house of Nicholas Sparks, David Baldacci, Brad Meltzer, Lolly Winston, Preston & Child and many others. We have several imprints including 5 Spot, where we publish smart women's fiction and nonfiction such as Knitting Under the Influence by Claire LaZebnik, and the Forever imprint, where we publish romance.

***

We've got a very exciting fall coming up for romance!

Die for Me by Karen Rose: For those of you who love edge-of-your-seat suspense, Karen Rose is the perfect author for you. Her books are gritty, tightly-plotted, and action-packed. She began her career on our Forever list, and is now published on the GCP mass market list (where we also publish Sandra Hill and Dorothy Garlock, among others.) We're also repackaging Karen's backlist to reflect the new, edgy look of Die for Me. (September)
The Serpent Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt: This is the third and final book in Elizabeth's "Princeâ€? series. They're historical romances, taking place in the …

I received notice this week of an issue with Silk’s Vault, an epublisher, failing to make payments to its authors. I did email Silk Vault and received no response but given that I have two individual reports of royalty payment failures, I felt it was important to offer these incidents up for the community’s consumption.

Camille Anthony recently went public regarding the non payment of royalties for books she has contracted with epublisher, Silk’s Vault. Since the publication of her novels, she has never received her royalties on time. As of the writing of her blog post, she hadn’t received royalty payments at all for her sales in 2007. Her first quarter royalty statement sent to her (without the accompanying payment) does not include the first quarter sales of books sold at Fictionwise (506 copies). She has not received as second quarter royalty statement. When the owner was confronted by Ms. Anthony, Ms. Anthony was told that she would be paid when the owner was able. This is a contractual violation. Ms. Anthony’s contract requires payment of royalties no later than 45 …

Dear Ms. Howson:

When you sent me your book to read, you said that it was a Young Adult Futuristic Romance. I didn’t need a blurb or anything else since I don’t know if I had ever read a YA Futuristic Romance and was quite intrigued. I really liked your voice, the story, the world, but was disappointed at the development of the romance.

Linnet is a privileged girl who lives in some type of futuristic earth setting. There are two distinct classes of people - those who live above the pollution in the sky and those who live below the pollution on the ground. I really liked the play on the “upper” class and “lower” class concepts giving them both literal and figurative meanings. The wealthy have moved themselves away from the smog because the pollution was killing vegetation, causing impurities in the water, and generating deformities in people.

Linnet’s family has enough money so that they live entirely above. Everything from their schools to the nurseries that grow their food are in the upper areas of the atmosphere. But all of living creates waste …

Dear Ms. Hoyt,

Many readers (including Jane and Jayne) have fallen in love with your debut, The Raven Prince. I wish I were one of them, but unhappily, I have to report that I closed the book feeling that the fan bus had left the bus terminal without me. As I sit here, figuratively waving to all those folks whose faces are plastered to the bus windows, wondering how to explain to them why I couldn't get on board, the bus turns smaller and smaller, until it's a dot on the horizon. I look around. Yup, I'm all by myself out here.

The Raven Prince takes place in eighteenth century England. It's the story of Edward de Raaf, the temperamental Earl of Swartingham, and the widow Anna Wren, whom he nearly runs over with his horse one day. Shortly after that, Edward finds himself in need of a new secretary, and since he doesn't give his steward, Mr. Hopple, much time to come up with one, Hopple hires Anna, a woman.

It doesn't take long for …