Archive for the 'Book Reviews' Category
WARNING: spoilers for the first four books are impossible to avoid.
Dear Ms. Kenner,
 I’ve been addicted to this series since it first started four books ago. While some things have stayed the same, others, thank goodness, have changed and evolved as the series has progressed. And if there’s one thing I can count on, it’s a bang up finish with a “to be continued…” bombshell to make me frantic for the next installment.
Kate Connor, level five Demon Hunter, is once again faced with the powers of Darkness in her otherwise quiet CA beach town of San Diablo. But now her secret identity, which she struggled to hide during past books, is not so secret anymore. Her almost fifteen year old daughter knows, her best friend knows and now her second husband, Stuart, knows. Oh and her first husband, Eric, who was murdered five years ago then returned to her in the body of another man and who is now known in town only as a teacher at their daughter’s school, also knows. Yeah, it’s a lot to keep straight.
The book starts with the usual attack of a demon who utters cryptic threats …
Dear Ms. Slade:
 I confess to being reluctant to start this book. I’m not sure why. I think because there wasn’t anything about the description of the book or the cover that really stood out. It was a paranormal story about good demons and bad demons. Given that it was a free book, however, it didn’t hurt to at least read the first chapter. I was intrigued enough by the first chapter to continue given that the writing style appealed to me.
Ferris Archer is a former southern gentleman who is now one of the demon possessed. He and others like him have banded together to fight in the war against other demon possessed individuals and malices that populate the earth. Archer views himself not so much as a warrior, but a trash collector . Malices can be drained but they cannot be returned to hell and over time, just regenerate. To say that Archer is weary would be an understatement. He went from fighting in the Civil War to a non stop, centuries long battle against entities simply cannot be defeated. When others warn him that …
Dear Ms Brook:
 I participated in a debate the other day on Twitter about whether Romance keeps women in a traditional social position by linking love and the nuclear family to a woman’s ultimate happiness. The Guardians series is one of those I would recommend as an example of how powerfully Romance can subvert traditional social structures and expectations while still celebrating love as a liberating force. And in Demon Forged, these themes are in play on several levels, not only between romantic protagonists Irena and Alejandro, but also in the world of the novel more generally. The nature of love, the nature of sacrifice, fate v. free will, the purpose of being – all are at issue in Demon Forged, a novel that, like the rest of the Guardians series, is dense, multi-layered, richly textured, and slightly flawed.
Irena has been a Guardian for sixteen centuries now, making her one of the oldest of their kind, and one of the most awe and fear inspiring. Her gift is that she can shape metal, and from her Siberian forge she favors making weaponry to be utilized against demons and nosferatu. Guardians, who are …
Dear Ms. Michaels,
 If the purpose of the novella “How to Woo a Spinster” was to get me to buy this full length novel, it worked. But as I started to read How to Tempt a Duke, I wondered if I would get through it. Let’s see…Regency era, Duke hero, feisty younger sister, heroine with Dark Secret in her past who starts to bicker with the hero as soon as he shows his face at the old homestead. Hmmmmm, where have I read all this too many times to count?
Rafe Daughtry, son of the younger son, never expected to inherit the Dukedom. After all, his uncle was healthy and the heir and a spare were still up to their wicked, disgusting ways. That is until all three were drowned – along with some barques of frailty – in a yachting accident. Once word finally caught up with him in Paris, Rafe decided to stay and escort Bonaparte to Elba before heading home.
When he arrives in England, it’s to discover that his newly married aunt has left his two much younger sisters in the charge of his old neighborhood friend, Charlie. And hasn’t …
Dear Ms. Lee:
 The previous two books in the series have told us some awful things about James, the hero in Billionaire’s Bride of Innocence. James was desperate to have a family and when his super model girlfriend could not deliver the goods, so to speak, he divorced her, impregnated a nice young woman, and married the nice young pregnant woman. Â Yes, James is a classy guy. Â But he’s a billionaire who wants children. Â Doesn’t that really absolve him of all sins?
Megan, James’ docile sweet, innocent wife, loses the baby. In the hospital, she overhears James’ two friends, Hugh and Russell, speculating as to whether the marriage will stay together now that James has lost the one thing that he wanted. Â Hugh is incensed that James impregnated and then married Megan in the first place, knowing that James did not love her. Â Â Megan is distraught over this news and basically moves into the pool house, refusing to allow James touch her.
James is upset because, well, he wants to be a dad and how can he get her with child again unless they have sex?
Becoming a dad was what James wanted most
…
How did I miss this? Srsly, where was I? Dunno. I’ve heard about the “holding up the boom box” scene. I’ve seen it on so many “Gawd, these are the best films evah!” lists and heard from so many people that “you have to see this film, I mean it!” that I should have seen it before now. But it took doing these reviews and scanning Top Films lists for more film ideas to finally make me do it.
No one thinks Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) and Diane Court (Ione Skye) will ever last. In fact, everyone’s surprised they ever got together in the first place. Including them. The first time Lloyd asks Diane out, she says yes then has to check their recent senior high school yearbook to even know who it is she just agreed to go to a party with. But as their relationship progresses, they find something special. She feels totally comfortable with him and he starts to trust in himself because of her.
Then things start to go wrong. Her father (John Mahoney) is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service and the time before she’s due to leave for a prestigious fellowship in England is …
Dear Ms. Sheridan.
 Thank you for sending me your story when I was moaning on Twitter one night about wanting to read a BDSM romance. I hope you don’t regret it.
When I agreed to read the book, I had no idea it was #2 of the Beautiful C*cksucker series. I had no idea that BC *was* a series. I tend to agree with the outrage over the name (Paul Bens’ original reaction, Teddy Pig’s response, Karen Knows Best’s extensive discussion) but I also know that in BDSM play, some epithets that would otherwise be unacceptable (”cunt” comes to mind) are endearments during a scene. Which is not to say that they should be used as titles to the book/series. I will admit, though, that I deliberately avoided most of the debate and arguments because it was too huge and I’ve only got so much mental energy. But if the writing for BC#1 was anything like the writing for BC#2, we should all just have ignored it and let it slip into well-deserved obscurity.
I also had no idea how BC#2 connects with BC#1. And OMFG, doing the …
Dear Ms. Warren:
 I went out and bought this book for myself. *runs around in circles* A while back I blogged about the seeming dearth of werewolf books, at least books that focus on the pack dynamics and the myths of the beast. Another reader suggested I try Christine Warren’s Big Bad Wolf. I admit that the one book I had tried didn’t make me a fan but I was willing to take another chance. I went off to the bookstore that evening and bought the book. I read and finished it that same evening.
Graham Winters is the Alpha of the Silverback Werewolf Clan. He is bored to the point of celibacy with all the hot Otherworld women around him. He doesn’t have any problem getting it up, but no amount of sexual innovation from even the most gorgeous paranormal is floating his boat anymore. Thirteen days ago, he walked away from one super model look alike and now he’s wondering what he’s going to do with himself. (For a werewolf, thirteen days is like a decade).
Then at the same party in which Graham …
Dear Mr. Nicolls,
 We get lots of arcs and finished copies of books offered to us at Dear Author. Some I am anticipating, others I recognize the author’s name and in a few cases, I’ve never heard of either book or author. Your debut novel, “The Good Mayor” falls into the latter category. I say this not to denigrate it but to point out that I had no idea what I would be getting myself into when I started it. The US cover of the book enchanted me. When Jane sent this in a box of other books, that is what made me pull it out and check the back blurb.
In a busy little city in a forgotten corner of the Baltic, in an office on the square, the beloved mayor of Dot lies on his office floor, peering beneath his door. Tibo Krovic has come to work from his house down at the end of a blue-tiled path. He’s taken, as usual, the tram seven stops, and walked the final two. He’s stopped for strong Viennese coffee. And now Tibo Krovic is looking at the perfectly beautiful feet of his voluptuous,
…
 PLEASE NOTE: this conversational review does contain some spoilers.
Jennie: I was one of many readers mightily impressed with Carolyn Jewel’s previous historical romance Scandal, which I read in January and graded an A-.
Janine: Totally with you on that. Scandal was one of the most impressive books I’ve read this year, and it’s stuck with me so much that I recently went back to my own review and raised the grade from an A- to an A-/A.
Jennie: I was very much looking forward to Indiscreet. While I had some problems with the second half of the story, overall, it did not disappoint.
Janine: Agreed again, although, as readers will see our opinions about what works in this book differ a bit more than they usually do.
Jennie: The book begins:
How everything started.
This incident took place at about two o’clock the morning of September 3, 1809. The location was the back parlor of a town house owned by the Duke of Buckingham but lived in by the Earl of Crosshaven on a ninety-nine-year lease, presently in its twenty-third year. It should be remarked that Lord Edward Marrack, the younger brother of the
…
Dear Ms. Hewitt:
 Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. The thing that stuck out most in my mind at the end of the story was how apt the title was. The story really was about the sheikh’s forbidden virgin. This is part of The Royal House of Karedes miniseries. Â These series books generally don’t work for me because so much of the story is dependent on the overall arc. Â Fortunately, while the miniseries theme and arc was present in this story, it didn’t dominate.
Aarif Al’ Farisi lost a brother when he was young. Â He believes himself to be at fault for this and since that time, he has devoted himself to his family, allowing no room for failure. Â His brother, King Zakari of Calista, is to be married to his betrothed, Princess Kalila Zadar and Zaraq. Â Zakari and Kalila have been betrothed since they were young as the dynastic pairing will bring the richness of Calista to Kalila’s people and the stability of rule from Zaraq to Calista.
On the eve of Zakari’s arrival, Kalila’s father reminds her “Tomorrow is not about …
Dear Ms. Walsh,
 You don’t know me, but I sometimes lurk at your blog, Writer Unboxed, which is one of the best blogs for writers I know of. I’ve been following it since the days when you were writing this book, under the working title of Unbounded, so when Jane told me that we had been sent an ARC of The Last Will of Moira Leahy, I was interested in reading it.
The Last Will of Moira Leahy is narrated in both first person and third person. The first person sections take place in the present day and are narrated by twenty-five year old Maeve Leahy, the book’s main character. The third person sections take place between 1995 and 2000, and are mostly written in the POV of Maeve’s identical twin, Moira.
It becomes clear early in the present day story that Maeve lost her twin nine years ago at the age of sixteen, so although we are not told the details of how and why Moira’s life ended, we do know that the “Out of Time” third person sections, which begin when the twins are happy ten year olds, …
Dear Ms. Dare:
 A Lady of Persuasion brings home all the characters in the previous two books in the trilogy as the previous protagonists play a part in the romance of Sir Tobias Aldrige and Bel Grayson. Â Sir Tobias was jilted at the end of book one, Goddess of the Hunt by Sophia, the heroine of Surrender of a Siren. Â Â In an effort to save some face for himself and to allow Sophia to reenter society should she come back from her lark unmarried, Toby played the part of a rake. Â He might have been jilted, but it was because he was not ready to settle down. Â The truth is that Toby is very angry at being jilted and it causes him to have self esteem issues. Â He can get young ladies to fall for him, but they fall out of love with him, seemingly just as easy.
When he spots Bel Grayson at a party, he finds that she can be the perfect instrument of revenge against Benedict Grayson, Bel’s older brother. Â Bel doesn’t want to marry a mere sir. Â She has plans to effectuate reform in London and must have a …
Dear Ladies,
 It’s taken me far too long to finally review this offering which I got in ::winces:: April. Bad moi. But here it is at last.
Once Burned by Emery Sanborne
Dear Ms Sanborne,
Hot firefighters, hot attraction, hot sex. “Once Burned” has all three. Plus lots of local Philadelphia color. Andreas Sullivan has tried to date a fellow firefighter before and all it got him was trouble and heartache. Will this time be any different?
Andreas and Bobby seem to have had some problems with being accepted as gay both by their families and by society. Andreas has been in more than one fight though he’s decided to try and shrug off antigay comments. One of his brothers wasn’t totally accepting of his lifestyle though now it appears that the brother is trying. Bobby’s father, a former Army man, only came to accept Bobby’s sexual orientation when faced with the greater disappointment of his son joining the Marines. Both are experienced and have had long and short relationships though there’s not as much about Bobby’s backstory and history as Andreas’s.
The firefighter stuff adds some color and shading to the story and serves as the …
Dear Ms. Somers:
 Thank you for sending me your book for review. Â It was recommended as an erotic shapeshifting romance. Â I’ll confess that when I started it, I thought it was a werewolf book, but it is not. Â The Pendragon Gargoyles myth is based on cursed (or blessed) creatures that turn to stone during the daylight.
Kennedy Beaumont is a bartender at a popular club called Pendragon.  She has the hots for one of the owners, Tristan Pendragon, but he’s never signaled a return interest and so Kennedy has just lusted from afar.  One night she is targeted by an unknown danger and Tristan helps to save her.  They are placed in such close proximity (her car) that Tristan’s longing for Kennedy cannot be suppressed.  Much to Kennedy’s surprise, Tristan has lusted in a reciprocal, but silent manner as well.
The length of the book is category and I felt it was too short for the subject matter. Â Primal Hunger is the first book in the series, but it seemed like it was a middle book. There were references to other stories, occurrences and myths, none of which are resolved in this book. Â The myth …
Dear Ms. Minton,
 There is a lot of stuff you are trying to cover in this book. Some of it is done just right, some of it is skimmed too quickly for me and some of it just seems to be on an eternal repeating loop.
The small Kansas town of High Plains is still digging out from and attempting to recover from a horrific tornado. Buildings were demolished, possessions were scattered across the county, an unidentified little girl was discovered in the aftermath and town police chief Colt Ridgeway and town vet Lexi Harmon are unsure whether their decision to divorce two years ago was the right one. But have they dealt with the issues that drove them apart? Or is any attempt at reconciliation doomed?
The small town of High Plains seems like a wonderful community. It’s been hit by hardship, not everyone is getting back to normal at the same rate but neighbors are not only willing but eager to help each other. Sure, being known since birth by everyone and his brother has its drawbacks if you want to keep your business to yourself but the “we’re in it together” spirit …
Dear James:
 I’m not a big one for police procedurals — they usually bore the snot out of me — but I’m a big one for your writing and characters, so I read this anyway and I’m very glad I did. As always, your characters are very real, full of personality, and your spare writing style — no long introspective paragraphs or emotional declarations to be found — appeals to me. While I don’t like mystery books, I like figuring out the mysteries of two men reluctantly falling in love and unable to articulate what’s going on.
Chase Nozick is FBI, following the trail of the man who killed his partner on a bust five years earlier. He’s assigned to a Special Task Force in LA and to an LAPD partner who turns out to be the man he’d hooked up with for anonymous sex the previous night. Both Enrique and Chase are very much in the closet at work, but they use their time together — appropriately: no sex in the middle of a stake-out or on the run — to commit to and deepen a real relationship.
The case gets heavily involved in …
Outlander (2008)
Genre: SF, Viking, horror, fantasy
Grade: B-/C+
No, this isn’t about Gabaldon’s opening to her epic – and then some – TT series. It’s, as many people have said, Beowulf crossed with outer space. But wait, there’s more for romance fans. It’s also got a Rothgar! I kept thinking of JB’s “waiting for Rothgar” and laughing as I watched the Viking edition. Moth recommended this film as one that “initially wouldn’t be thought of as a romance.” So true. It’s another mishmash genre film that at first doesn’t make too much sense – outer space alien crossed with Iron Age Vikings – but somehow it all works out in the end.
I’ll just present the notes I jotted down after I watched it.
I just finished this and – I’ll be honest – I’m still not sure exactly what I just watched. A cross between SF and some Iron age Viking saga. SF guy (Jim Caviezel) crash lands on Earth. SF guy crawls out of his wrecked space ship before it sinks in a lake then passes out and awakes to find his friend dead. SF guy heads off and discovers a ravaged village then gets captured and beaten up while being …
Dear Ms. Brenna:
 I will confess that I don’t often venture into the Harlequin Superromance line. The covers are littered with babies and well, those tiny faces frighten me. This book, thankfully, was baby less although a child did play a fairly important role in the story. I think what surprised me most was that this was a very nice, short romantic suspense.
Erica Corelli is a chef in a Chicago restaurant who receives a disturbing message from her sister to take Jason, her sister’s six year old boy to some place safe. Erica drops everything and heads north to Mirabelle Island. Mirabelle is the site of the best three days of Erica’s childhood and she thinks that this will be a safe place to hide out with her nephew. Erica and Jason pretend to be mother and son until Erica can find out what is going. She suspects that her brother-in-law, Billy Samson, is abusing his family and this is the reason for her sister’s frantic voice mail message.
Erica recognizes she’ll likely lose her job, leaving without notice, and she’s used up about the last of her …
I’ve seen some people say that I should just wait and see about how the FTC decides to interpret its new regulations. I’ve seen some people reassure me that it wouldn’t apply to Dear Author or it wouldn’t apply to me commenting on other blogs or Twitter or Facebook. I’ve seen other people argue that the FTC isn’t going after bloggers so there is nothing to be concerned about. Let me try to articulate why I am going to strictly comply with the FTC guidelines.
- Simply because there is a chance I won’t be targeted doesn’t mean that there is zero chance I will be targeted. Â I don’t think I’ll ever be audited by the IRS but that doesn’t give me free reign to ignore the IRS rules and regulations, even if I don’t agree with them.
- Even though the regulations do not go in effect until December 1 does not mean that they will change. It took two years to get this revision after periods of public commenting and voting.
- I am bound by my oath to uphold the laws of the land. Until the regulation by the FTC is ruled in a court of law as unconstitutionally
…
Dear Ms. Mullany,
 Two years ago I feel in love with “The Rules of Gentility.” Its first person spoofing of the Rules of Writing a Regency Romance had me in stitches. When Janine mentioned that you were going to have a sequel to it published this summer, I rubbed my hands with glee.
Deep in debt, widowed Lady Caroline Elmhurst and her maid Mary are decamping from their rented room literally one step ahead of the bailiff. Caroline’s two marriages – first to much older man who left her money and second to a young man who spent that money – plus her slight slip in social mores by allowing a man unrelated to her pay her rent, have left her with a soiled reputation among the ton. Luckily for her, she’s received an invitation to a country house party given by an amateur thespian with plans to stage Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” using his guests and servants as the actors. With luck, she’ll be able to find a wealthy man here to marry.
Mr. Nicholas Congrevance and his valet Barton, lately of the Continent, are also among the guests present. …
Dear Ms. Kery:
 I really enjoyed Wicked Burn, your debut novel, enough so that I hunted down and purchased quite a few of your ebook backlist titles. Â From those I can see that you have eclectic writing tastes and from those I’ve come to acknowledge that, personally, only your straight up contemporaries work for me. Â The paranormals, the ode to Chicago (Daring Time), just aren’t to my taste. Â Lucky for me, Paradise Rules, is a straight up contemporary. Further, Paradise Rules features two multicultural characters. (Right, like one is a hard sell, so two is like the kiss of death! Who wants to read about hot Polynesians???)
Lana Rodriguez’s is a famous bluesand jazz singer.  She’s on vacation in Hawaii with her personal assistant, Melanie, who was undergoing a very acrimonious divorce.  Melanie wanted to do something to reward herself, like going to Hawaii and having a fling.  Lana is her best friend and goes along, reluctantly.  Hawaii holds some bitter memories for her and everything about it – the scent, the scenery, the laid back attitude of the natives, stirs up things she’d rather forget.
Jason Koa is a former Olympic …
Dear Ms. Jewel:
When I met you recently, I had to sheepishly admit that I had not yet read any of your books. So I volunteered to review your new release Indiscreet, relishing the added bonus that it was a Regency set in Turkey. Despite all of the stereotypical sheikh novels and the often fetishized relationship genre Romance has with Middle Eastern settings, I have a very soft spot for these fictionalized locales, and Indiscreet did not disappoint in that respect. In fact, there were very few disappointments for me along the way, and while Indiscreet might be the first Carolyn Jewel book I read, it certainly won’t be the last.
When the Marquess of Foye was merely Lord Edward Marrack, he had the displeasure of overhearing a terribly indiscreet boast from his then-friend, the Earl of Crosshaven. It seemed that Miss Sabine Godard was, as Crosshaven put it, “’no better than she ought to be’” in submitting to Crosshaven’s seduction. And Lord Edwards knows that “’Tomorrow…Miss Godard will not find the world so pleasant a place. That is a fate you ought to have avoided for the girl,’” because “’the consequences of an …
There are a number of exciting opportunities out there if you’re academically involved in Popular Romance Studies:
Romance area of the Popular Culture Association conference in St. Louis, MO, March 31-April 3, 2010.
PCA is a fabulous conference to test out new ideas and start to be a part of the new and exciting field of Popular Romance Studies. We’re a lot of fun, very open and inviting and inclusive, and we’re specifically expanding this year beyond Popular Romance Fiction to Popular Romance Studies writ large. From the Call For Papers:
We are interested in any and all topics about or related to popular romance: all genres, all media, all countries, all kinds, and all eras. All representations of romance in popular culture (fiction, stage, screen—large or small, commercial, advertising, music, song, dance, online, real life, etc.), from anywhere and anywhen, are welcome topics of discussion.
Contact me with questions or proposals.
Deadline: November 30, 2009
IASPR conference in Belgium, August 5-7, 2010.
This is the second annual conference for the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. Our first annual conference in Brisbane, Australia, was a great success, and Belgium looks to be even better. Our keynote speakers are Pamela Regis, …
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Open Threads at Dear Author. Want to know what new releases are out this month and what readers are excited about reading? Check out the threads below. 
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