Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Dear Ms. Johnston:

I know I haven’t read you in a long time, but when I got an ARC of this book I confess that I just had to read it. Tall, dark, and gorgeous always does it for me.  Thankfully, the characters lived up to the cover and despite some small problems here and there, I’m pretty much hooked on the “Fabulous Fourteen”.

Benjamin Benedict is one of fourteen kids between the mixed marriages of Foster Benedict and Abigail Coates Benedict Hamilton.  Foster and Abby had five boys with the youngest, Darlington, dying at the age of 4.  In the emotional year after Darlington’s death, Foster dallied with a waitress once and got her pregnant. Abby left him.  They both remarried. Foster to Pasty Taggart and Abby to Senator Hamilton.  Foster took Ben and Carter. Abby kept the youngest, Rhett, and the oldest, Nash, refused to leave his mother.

All of the Benedect boys (including Black Sheep, Ryan, the bastard) have gone to military school and then into the armed forces.  Ben got out of the army and now is an agent for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), a division of homeland security.  What Ben’s family …

Dear Ms. Cantrell,

Back in October 2007, in one of our Publishing News posts, Jane detailed a little bit of information about your debut novel with a header, “Jayne, are you reading this?” Yep, I read it and was delighted when you followed up this year with an offer for us to review the book. It’s dark, it’s dangerous, it’s bittersweet and while I was reading it, I couldn’t put it down.

Echoes of my footfalls faded into the damp air of the Hall of the Unnamed Dead as I paused to stare at the framed photograph of a man. He was laid out against a riverbank, dark slime wrapped around his sculpted arms and legs. Even through the paleness and rigidity of death, his face was beautiful. A small, dark mole graced the left side of his cleft chin. His dark eyebrows arched across his forehead like bird wings, and his long hair, dark now with water, streamed out behind him. Watery morning light from high windows illuminated the neat grid of black-and-white photographs lining the walls of the Alexanderplatz police station. One hundred frames displayed the faces and postures of Berlin’s most recent unclaimed dead.

…

Dear Ms. Hutchinson,

Firefighters are hot sexy thangs, so it’s easy to see why you picked that profession for this installment of the Courage Bay (Code Red) series. Wow, lots of stuff appears to be happening in this small, picturesque SoCal location including two people falling in love while they fight fires, rescue cats and solve an undercover investigation.

Shannon O’Shea is one of only two women in the fire department in Courage Bay, CA. She’s earned her spot though hard work, dedication and being in such top condition that she’s called “Biceps” by her fellow firemen. That and the fact that she arm wrestled, and beat, a fellow probie when his repeated attempts to ask her out annoyed her.

But John Forrester, newly arrived firefighter from NYC, lights her fires and quickly becomes very important to Shannon. She knows there’s something he’s not telling her. Is it related to the two mysterious warehouse fires that occurred? And is what he’s not telling her bad or good?

I love the calls out the squad gets. Some pathos mixed with humans at their hysterical, whacked out best. What people won’t do… The details about the station …

Dear Ms. Krahn:

I don’t think I’ve read a Blaze Historical before (and I’m not even sure what a Blaze Historical is). I’ll admit that I passed over this book initially when I was perusing the eHarlequin ebook website because the blurb which included a reference to Prince of Wales and I am always nervous about the incorporation of Very Famous People in books. But! I am so glad that I did get this as an ARC because I actually thought the book was great and I wouldn’t have read it had it not been sent to me.

Mariah Eller is a widow whose sole inheritance from her deceased husband is the Eller-Stapleton Inn. One evening she is called to the Inn because several wealthy gentlemen were about to smash out the windows, molest her serving girl, and generally destroy the inn. Worse, because the so called gentlemen have signed her register under fake names (Jack Sprat, Jack B Nimble, Union Jack, Jack A. Dandy, Jack Ketch, Jack O. Lantern), she can’t even hold them responsible if they do wreak havoc. Her only choice is to lull them into a drunken stupor. …

Dear Ms. Hart,

Bess Walsh needs time away from her unhappy marriage. She finds it at the beach house she inherited from her parents. There, in the water, Bess fantasizes about Nick, the boy she loved and lost twenty years before. She touches herself and soon she feels Nick touching her. The lovemaking is intense, unforgettable.

But the next morning Bess is shocked to see that her fantasy lover hasn’t evaporated with the night. Nick is still there, and though physically he hasn’t aged a day since they parted company twenty years earlier, he feels solid and corporeal, and has an emotional maturity he did not have back in those days.

Bess has missed Nick so badly that she does not want to question his reappearance or interrogate his twenty year old disappearance. She knows it must involve something that she won’t like hearing. Instead, she drowns the questions in touch, in passionate sex that makes the rest of the world fade away.

Bess and Nick’s past is revealed in chapters that alternate with the present day storyline. Back then, Bess was a twenty year old college student who came to Bethany Beach …

Dear Ms. Dahl:

Now that I’ve read three of your novels, I see a pattern in your heroines: they are extremely jealous of their independence, convinced that no man can be depended on, and afraid of showing themselves completely to the world.  I appreciate these qualities in a genre that too often holds its heroines to unreasonable standards of nobility, gentility, and congeniality.  All of which is another way of saying that I enjoyed Lori Love, the heroine of Start Me Up, and her difficult path toward the kind of happiness she had more or less given up on the moment she had to leave college and move back home to take care of her father and his car repair business.  I did not find the book to be as strong as last year’s Talk Me Down, but it was still very readable.

In Talk Me Down, we meet Lori as Molly Jennings’s childhood friend, a woman whose tomboy wardrobe, no-nonsense mien, and skills as a mechanic earn her a reputation as the town lesbian.  Lori has no real interest in changing anyone’s opinion of her, as the label gives her a certain amount of freedom from …

Dear Ms. Chase:

After I read last year’s book, Your Scandalous Ways, I knew my expectations were going to be set incredibly high for anything that came after.  And thankfully, Don’t Tempt Me is not a book in the same vein, but instead hearkens back to the Carsington series, especially Miss Wonderful and Mr. Impossible.  A hero who has suffered a great loss and who copes by putting on a distracting outward display and a heroine who lives on the margins of polite society’s rules and whose innocence does not equate to naïveté. And while Don’t Tempt Me possessed a number of charms of its own, somewhere between my high expectations and the echoes of other books, I was not as tempted to love it as I hoped I would be.

From the beginning, little Zoe Octavia Lexham, aka “The Bolter,” was a pain in Lucien de Gray’s young neck.  Although when Lucien came under the guardianship of Lord Lexham, following a tragic series of illnesses and accidents claiming both his parents and older brother, Zoe was also a “bright, bright spot in his life.”  He was the only one she seemed to listen to, and she …

Dear Ms. White,

Last November, I recommended your book “Redeeming Gabriel.”Since then, I’ve made it a point each month to check the historical offerings from the Steeple Hill line. When I saw this new book, I jumped on it and was happy to discover that it’s a (slight) sequel to the first one. I enjoyed “Crescent City Courtship” very much and it confirms that you are an author whose books I will look for.

When Abigail Neal hammers on the doors of Charity Hospital for a doctor to attend her laboring room mate, she wants a real doctor, not some “still wet behind the ears” student wannabe. Unfortunately, she gets John Braddock who stiffly informs her that he’s quite capable of handling the situation.

Only the labor has gone on too long and the baby can’t be saved. John is devastated by what he sees as his failure as a doctor and horrified by the conditions in which these two poor women live. The mother is far too weak to remain there so, along with Abigail and the poor wrapped baby, he takes her to the clinic located at Dr. Laniere’s residence.

And it’s here that a world …

Dear Ms. Winfree:

I can’t recall why I purchased this book but I bought it a couple of months ago with two other books from Samhain. It could have been a “new” book or it could have been on the bestseller list. Those usually influence my purchases at Samhain.  I thought it had good suspense and a very nice romance that was often complicated by attention paid to other romances which had taken place prior to the setting of Facing It.

Ruthie Chason is in a terrible marriage.  When she finds information that Stephen, her husband, is engaged in criminal behavior, she gets up the courage to grab her children and leave.   Her brother, Tick Calvert, is Sheriff of Chandler County.  She runs to him.

Tick recognizes that Ruthie has to hide while he figures out the best way to apprehend Stephen and make sure the evidence is good enough that Stephen gets put away for a long time.  Both Ruthie and Tick know that if Stephen catches her, Ruthie is a dead woman.  Tick calls on his friend and deputy Chris Parker to take Ruthie and her three children with him to St. …

Note: It will be hard to totally avoid spoilers in this review.

Dear Laura Baumbach and Josh Lanyon,

Dr. Sarah read and recommended “Mexican Heat” back in February but it’s taken me this long for a spare moment to check it out. Hot action, hot love and hot loving all rolled up in one book. I can see why Dr. Sarah likes it.

I’ll use the Samhain blurb because 1) I’m lazy and 2) it’ll sorta, kinda avoid spoilers. At least at this point.

SFPD detective Gabriel Sandalini might as well have put a gun to his own head. One red-hot sexual encounter in a bar’s back room has put two years of deep undercover work in jeopardy—two years of danger and deception as he worked his way into crime boss Ricco Botelli’s inner circle. Gabriel can’t afford emotional entanglements. Hell, he can’t afford emotions. But that was before he had a name to pin on that anonymous one-off—Miguel Ortega.

Miguel Ortega doesn’t trust anyone, but tough, street-smart Gabriel brings out the conquistador in his Spanish blood. But distractions are nothing short of deadly right now, not with his boss’s impending marriage to Botelli’s sister, which will ensure peace—and

…

Dear Ms. Quinn:

Confession time. I don’t remember much about The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever.  I vaguely remember Olivia, best friend of Miranda, younger sister of the hero but her flavor wasn’t with me when I started What Happens in London. I don’t know if that is good or bad but I highly enjoyed What Happens. It is sweet, funny and romantic. Can’t ask for much more from a romance book.

Olivia is the only daughter of the Earl of Rudland. She is very, very pretty. Has received a multitude of marriage proposals, all of which have been rejected and is currently being courted by a Prince.  Olivia’s problem is that she is bored now that Miranda has married her brother and hied off to the country-side.  Olivia finds herself gossiping with some nitwits who suggest her new neighbor killed his fiance. She has nothing better to do so for five days she spies on her neighbor while he is in his study.  She notices that he wears a funny hat with plumes and that he furtively tossed a whole sheaf of papers in the fireplace!  Olivia is intrigued.

Sir Harry is annoyed that Olivia is spying on …

Ruthless Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress by Cathy Williams

Cesar is tired of bailing his younger brother out of hot water so when Ferdinado asks for access to his trust fund, Cesar heads out to see who it is that has her gold digging claws in Ferndando. He finds not a statuesque model blonde, but a mannish, petite redhead. Not Ferdinado’s type and certainly not his. The two get stuck in a snowstorm. They have sex. Jude becomes pregnant and the real fireworks begin. Cesar is standard HP hero (alpha, hot, assholic). Jude isn’t a doormat but falls pretty easily for Cesar. B-
This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Up Close and Dangerously Sexy by Karen Anders

Given that the haikus have come to a close here at Dear Author, I submit my own:
Stranger danger here
As long as he gives good Os
No worries, she thinks

I stopped after the second scene. The heroine is in the sister’s apartment. Some stranger comes in and thinks she’s the heroine’s twin. He gets in bed with her and brings her to orgasm with his hand. “She …

Dear Mrs. Mueller,

To begin, congratulations on your first print book. I liked the different “Impressionistic” cover. Your publisher did very well by you but I must say that I hope a less expensive, paperback edition will eventually be available for readers in the US.

Two years ago, The Honorable Miss Sophie Greenwood had just arrived in London for her first Season when it was over before it had barely begun. Her father’s attempt to increase the family fortune ended up costing them almost everything they had. But what was worse, at least in the eyes of the ton, was her mother’s desperate attempts to marry her off before the news became widely known.

She was unsuccessful, Sophie was humiliated and the family retreated to their modest country estate. Her brother bought a commission in the Army with what little funds they could scrape together and since then, Sophie has endured her mother’s tantrums and veiled comments making Sophie out to be the villain of the story.

She looks at her bleak future with dread until the day Mariah, a cousin, arrives with Lady Sandbourne who is to present Mariah for her first Season. Mariah has inveigled an …

Evangeline Anderson’s books are my dirty little secret, my secret shame, my love that dare not speak its name. I don’t know WHY her writing makes me feel oh so fulfilled but in such a wonderful dirty way, but it does. They’re so full of *angst* and *melodrama* and *gay for you* and all the things that usually just make me roll my eyes. But they’re quick reads, hott! as anything, rollicking good fun, and you totally don’t notice the huge gaping plot holes until after you’re done and REreading the damn thing when you go, Hur? (like I just did). Her books are the one reading habit I’m ashamed of, but it’s the squidgy, yummy shame that you just want to share with people. So let me share…

Str8te Boys is pretty much dorm porn with extra-angst. It’s a short little story–under 70 pages–but so much fun. It’s told completely from the third-person perspective of Maverick (ORLY? I mean, that name? Really?!), an arrow-straight (uh-huh) jock at the end of his senior year of college, who happens to play “gay chicken” with even straighter, party animal roommate and …

Dear Mrs. Bylin,

Until recently, Readers looking for a western set, historical romance have had to hunt. Now there seems to be a growing number to feed our need for American historicals on the western frontier. But while some still feature the standard gunslinger, yours offers something different. A Bible slinging hero who’s already fallen to his lowest and a heroine who mistrusts religion.

Adie Clark runs a boarding house in Denver, Colorado and, up til now, has stuck to her policy of only renting to women. Adie’s known what it is to be a woman alone, with little money and few prospects. So when a gaunt man collapses on her front porch in the middle of the night, her first thought is to get rid of him quickly. But he’s not a drunk and offers her twice the normal rent to be allowed to stay. Needing the money for the mortgage payment, Adie reluctantly agrees to a week stay.

Events take a turn when one of Adie’s mistrustful boarders shoots the man in the shoulder when she feels threatened by him. Now Adie’s stuck with him and terrified that the longer he stays, the more …

Dear Ms. Haymore,

When I first picked up A Hint of Wicked, I did not have much in the way of expectations. I assumed that this was your first book, since I hadn’t heard your name before. I hadn’t really heard any buzz about the book, and I had to remind myself of the plot before I started by rereading the blurb. I rarely go into reading a romance with less of an idea of what to expect. It was a refreshing change, and one of the strengths of the novel turned out to be how difficult it was to guess what direction the story was going to go in.

The book opens with our heroine, Sophie, the Duchess of Calton, discovering that her beloved husband Garrett has fallen at Waterloo. With Sophie when she gets the news is Tristan, Garrett’s cousin and a dear friend to both Garrett and Sophie.

The story then shifts to eight years later; Tristan has succeeded his cousin as the Duke of Calton, and has now been married to Sophie for a year. Together they are raising her daughter Miranda (Sophie was pregnant with Garrett’s child when he left to fight Napoleon) …

Dear Ms. Townsend,

Beyond an Egyptian setting, I wasn’t sure what to expect with “Blue Gold” as I didn’t read the description until after I’d finished the story. And what a story. It’s a sprawling 1970s miniseries crossed with a soap opera crossed with the epic sword and sandal movies made only in the 1950s. Plus it’s got almost as many characters as Cecile B. DeMille managed to pack into his films.

Since I can’t begin to summarize the entire plot, I’m going to be as lazy as a cat in the sun and steal the one from the Bookstrand website.

Ruling Upper Egypt from Thebes, Pharaoh Sekenenre has many enemies. Aweserre, whose grandfather seized the crown of Lower Egypt. Kamose and Ahhotpe, his son and daughter, who plot to rule in his place. And, most dangerous, the storm-god Set.

It is a time of famine. To prosper a man must be civilized and ruthless. Ramose, priest and Vizier, is all of these. Kasa, a farmer, must learn to be like him to survive. Neith, wife of Ramose, is driven, first to drink, then to courage. Hathor, who killed her son, finds love, desertion, then a second chance at

…

I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)
I Know Where I’m Going! – Criterion Collection
Grade B
Genre: Romance/Drama (UK)

Dear Readers,

“I Know Where I’m Going!” is a film made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger who wrote, directed and produced a number of films in the UK. This one was a kind of “tossed together,” time filler that they decided to make while waiting for color film to become available in order to make “Stairway to Heaven” aka “A Matter of Life and Death.”

It popped up at Netflix on one of those “if you like this you might like that” pages and I liked the blurb so I got it and watched it about a year ago. I had issues with it then but something about it wouldn’t let me forget it. When Jaili/Maili began her Friday Films feature, I decided to email her and ask her opinion of the film for a number of reasons. 1) I respect her knowledge of films and 2) most of the story takes place in Scotland. Anyone who’s read her opinions of novels (supposedly) set in Scotland knows how she feels about them but I …

Dear Readers,

Mary Burchell wrote an astounding number of books for Mills and Boon/Harlequin before her death. And before I wrote the review of her autobiography “Safe Passage,” I hadn’t heard of her or her books. What a loss that would have been as I’m discovering that she was an amazing author.

Anna was sure she’d made a mistake in marrying Tony Roone. Not that she didn’t love him, but she felt she had nothing to give him.

As a compensation, she had made a career for herself as a singer – but found success wasn’t satisfying. Only when things went wrong did they begin to really find each other!

That sounds like such a pitiful description when measured against the contents of the book. Today I’m sure there would be something included like, “after one night of unforgettable love, Tony and Anna find themselves torn apart but the cruel demands of his society family and her shrinking belief that she could never match the glittering future that is so clearly his!” Or maybe, “to buffer her broken heart, Anna throws herself into training for a grand career on the operatic …

Dear Ms. Anderson:

Over time, the Australia/New Zealand Harlequin Presents (HPs) have become my favorites mostly because I feel that the women are slightly more emancipated in these stories (not always of course). Pleasured features the requisite millionaire but the heroine isn’t a virgin. Instead, she’s provocative and proactive.

Sienna, on vacation in Sydney, is drawn to a band practicing in a club. Inside she finds not only a band but “Mr. Utterly Attractive.”  She wants him and after seeing the mutual attraction in his eyes, she sets out to get him.  Sienna is determined to abide by her new motto of “living in the moment.”

The target is Rhys Maitland, millionaire in disguise.  He’s taking a much needed vacation from his medical career by hiding in this less ritzy, touristy part of Sidney.  Rhys is constantly pursued by women and the tabloids as he is an heir to a large Sydney fortune.  His attraction to Sienna is surprising, a little unwanted but still invigorating.

Sienna and Rhys have secrets that they keep from each other because neither of them want to divulge personal information but for differing motivations.  They both fear that the other …

Dear Ms. Hughes,

Last year I found “Lord Sin” to be a great and happy surprise. As you’d already written a follow up to it, I was poised for more happiness. Well, I was sorta happy but, alas, not quite as much.

Gabriel Angelstone can’t believe his luck when he discovers that the subject of the infamous divorce portrait is also a guest at the country houseparty of his newly married female BFF George. Gabriel happily anticipates some sexual fun until Imogen sets him straight. “No huggie or kissie” from this woman attempting to edge her way back into polite society.

After her boorish first husband believed the rumors which circulated through London society, he went to the extraordinary length to get a divorce. Can’t have rumors about one’s wife ruining one’s political future. Tossed out on her ass by her husband, banished by her family, Imogen has eked out an existence until George takes her under her wing and decides to resuscitate her life. Imogen’s hopes for this endeavor are simple and she’s aware that she needs to be Caesar’s wife. If only she didn’t find Gabriel so damned attractive …

Dear Mrs. Kelly,

I’ve been a fan of yours for years. Back “in the day” when the traditional Regency still ruled and I could look forward to a book a year from your pen – or typewriter or hard drive – I was living the good life. But then came the bad years, the years when that line of books was dropped and we Kelly fans had to content ourselves with slowly doling out the few unread books of yours in our stashes. Then bliss! Three books due out this year and the old song “Anticipation” began running through my brain.

“The Surgeon’s Lady” picks up where “Marrying the Captain” left off. It’s a few months later and Nana Worthy has reached out to her two half siblings – all of them the illegitimate daughters of a true slime ball. But where Nana had a home to flee to when daddy dearest offered her to clear his latest gambling debts, Laura, the eldest, had no one to champion her. She suffered through a marriage from hell which was finally cut short when her much older husband died after years of …

Dear Ms. Leiknes:

If it were not for the wonderful query from your editor, Harrison Demchick, I do not know if I would have picked up your novel, The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns.  And given my response to the book, I would suggest that more publishers take the approach of Mr. Demchick in either promoting books they truly believe in or at least being very smart about showing respect to and familiarity with potential reviewers.  Because I liked The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns quite a bit and hope that many more readers get a chance to enjoy this quirky, intelligent, clever ode to everything from Faust to Walt Disney to the Native American trickster tradition to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

When me first meet the grown-up Lucy Burns, she is welcoming two police officers into her home who are suspicious about the strong thermal energy emanating from her house (and yes, this is a legitimate means for law enforcement to use in seeking a warrant to search your home for drugs).  If they only knew that what Lucy has in her basement is much more problematic than a little illicit horticulture, they …

Dear Ms. Mitchell.

This book reads like what I imagine being inside a guy’s head must be like. Lots of stonewalling, lots of mixed motivations, lots of confused emotions. This ability you have to get emotions perfectly right and to show how they are so very wrong-headed is both the beauty and the problem with this book.

Daniel Gardner is back at his childhood home in Easton, PA for Christmas and then to supervise the final packing for his mother’s move to Harrisburg. The story opens with a break-in at his mother’s house on Christmas Eve. In the aftermath, he meets Detective Trey Erikkson, his teenage crush and first-fumblings compatriot. They haven’t met in 15 years since Trey ran away to bootcamp and there’s hard feelings between them, as well as the mystery that encompasses the break-in, Trey’s mother’s murder and father’s imprisonment for it, and later criminal shenanigans.

It’s the suspense plot that made the book less than brilliant. While I could get behind the conspiracy theory of the final revelation and I enjoyed the slow reveal of Daniel and Trey figuring out the mystery, the plot itself was Swiss cheese. Why would Daniel’s …

Dear Ms. Craven:

I’m never sure what to expect from you. On the whole, you are one of my favorite HP authors but from time to time, your stories send me over the cliff. I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond to this one.

The Santangeli Marriage begins with a scene from the hero’s point of view which is rare for an HP.  Most HPs are told from the female point of view and in this manner builds suspense, uncertainty, and agnst over the outcome of the relationship, or at least the tumultuous path to the inevitable outcome.

Lorenzo Santangeli is struck with how precious life is when his father suffers a minor heart attack.  Guillermo takes this emotionally vulnerable moment to press Lorenzo on the issue of his eight month separation from his wife Marisa and the need for a son and heir.  Lorenzo admits that the parting with Marisa was bitter and not without regrets.  Lorenzo tells his father

“If stupidity were all, I could live with it,” Renzo said with quiet bitterness.  ”But I was also unkind.  And I cannot forgive myself for that.”

The decision to show Renzo’s point of …