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

There I was, sitting at my computer, reading a review copy of Pepper Espinoza’s gay male triad novella from Samhain, Falling in Controlled Circumstances. I’m feeling pretty nifty that I’m reading a review copy—like, OMG, people are actually giving me free books in the hopes that I’d write something nice about it. And I’ve got that warm, flippy, rolling feeling in my stomach because the romance is THAT good, the characters that well-written, their story that heart-warming. I’ve got the beginnings of a multiple review post started in my head: I was going to suggest that the answer to the question that’s been bopping around Romancelandia in the last few weeks about “Where have all the good contemporaries gone?” was that they’ve all migrated to gay male romance e-books. After all, you’ve got Madelaine Urban and Abigail Roux’s Caught Running and Love Ahead, and Jules Jones’ Lord and Master series, and you’ve got this book, all fabulous, gentle, emotional, just plain GOOD romances. They’re not trying to be clever—they’re just trying to tell a love story. They’re not trying to make a …

Dear Ms. James:

Angela James (no relation, I assume), Editor Extraordinaire at Samhain, has been Twittering about your book for weeks as she edited it, saying how good it is.  She then had a Twitter competition to give away five review copies of the book and while I missed out on that, she sent me a copy anyway (because she’s such a sweetie!).  My Twittered response the next morning.

Trevor and Chassie Glanzer are happily married Wyoming ranchers, trying to make ends meet as they work hard on their small family ranch.  Edgard Mancuso, hot Brazilian cowboy and Trevor’s old roping partner on the rodeo circuit, shows up one day and Chassie invites him to stay for a while.  Problem is, Edgard is gay, Trevor’s former lover, and still in love with Trevor.  His own life has fallen apart (although you don’t find out about that until the end of the book) and he’s come to visit Trevor to see if there’s anything salvageable of their old relationship.  Three and a half years ago, he left Trevor because Trevor refused to give him anything …

I emailed Jane a couple of days ago, wondering if she’d be interested in reviews of BDSM romances (BDSM is a combination acronym of the sexual practices/identities of Bondage/Discipline, Domination/Submission, and Sadist/Masochism and covers under its umbrella many sexual paraphilia and fetishes). While I’m a contributing blogger at Teach Me Tonight and at Romancing the Blog, the reviews I want to do are not appropriate for either forum. I don’t want to analyze these books, I just want to pimp them. I want to show the world how brilliant these books are as romances despite the fact that a large portion of the population might find their subject matter repellent. I want to pimp the books that get BDSM relationships, that understand how they can be just a loving and supportive as vanilla relationships. So while I might be “blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd” when it comes to these books, at least I’m aware of it, right? And I’m still writing a review—showing the bad with the good, trying to be at least slightly impartial (is that like being a little bit pregnant?).

I found …