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

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. 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 …

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

…

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 …

Keishon of AvidBookReader explains why the iPhone is her go to ereading device even though she owns and loves her Sony Reader.

Intel hopes to have wireless power charging available in the next 18 months. As someone who lugs around three items that need to be charged at all times, I can only say that 18 months cannot pass quickly enough.

Arnold Schwarznegger’s requirement for California to go digital in its textbooks could represent a huge financial loss for Pearson (parent company of Penguin).  Because educational texts represent a major source of income for Pearson, it has responded rapidly to the Governor’s call for digital texts.  ”[T]extbook giant Pearson has responded with digital content to supplement California’s programs in biology, chemistry, algebra 2, and geometry.”

Kindle download limitations can be publisher initiated according to the blogger at Gear Diary.  Apparently, publishers can license the right to only download a copy to one device but you don’t know until you try it because there are no DRM restriction warnings.

Wall Street Journal suggests that there will be Amazon Kindle price increases in the future because Amazon cannot sustain the loss leader pricing of $9.99 forever. (Only until the publishers …

Diane Pershing’s stance, and one that she is taking on behalf of the RWA, is that digital publishing model of high royalties v. no advances is not a legitimate business model. This post discusses why digital publishing is legitimate and offers insight (I hope) for whom digital publishing might benefit.

The digital publishing model.

The digital publishing model is characterized by a few elements:

1. No advance
2. High royalty (usually between 35-40%)
3. No returns
4. No resale market
5. Monthly payments

The print publishing model.

1. Some advance from $2000-$1 million or more per book which is a prepayment against royalties. These advances are usually paid in increments. Most contracts are for more than one book and therefore you get some amount of the advance when you sign the contract, some amount when you deliver the first book, some amount when your second book is accepted, some amount when you deliver the second book. (This may vary from contract to contract and author to author, but generally you do not get the entire advance in one lump sum).
2. Low royalty. Most print authors receive 6%-10% on mass market sales, 8-12% on trades, and 15% or higher on hardcover sales.
3. Reserves held against returns. In a royalty statement, the author’s royalties are

…

Dear Ms. Leto,

My main problems with romantic suspense books are that sooner or later, someone’s got to act like an idiot or lose all common sense in order to have a reason to save or be saved. No way around this, it seems. I just prefer to not see characters I’m supposed to like acting like morons. So, why do I keep reading this type book? Because there are some rom susp books which have worked wonderfully for me and I’m always looking for the next one. The critical factor appears to be: can the author persuade me to go along with the characters and their actions or does my kitty get an ear load as I complain?

Attorney Faith Lawton steps outside the courthouse. Shots ring out from a nearby rooftop. The concrete around Faith explodes with expended bullets as a pair of strong arms pulls her back into the building….

Faith Lawton welcomes the strong embrace of chief of detectives Adam Guthrie—for the moment. His fast actions save her life. But it’s nothing personal. They’re adversaries in the courtroom and out—in spite of their often sexually charged exchanges. Now Adam’s convinced she was the

…

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. Hailstock,

I have been looking forward to sharp tongued Samara finding love with persistent Joshua for months now – well, ever since Samara’s sister Cinnamon’s book. But, alas, I’m afraid it didn’t live up to my hopes for it.

Samara is marriage shy. Actually not just shy but phobic. You’ve given her some concrete reasons in that so many of her family and friends are on their second and third attempts. That plus the national marriage statistics make the effort looked doomed to failure and filled with heartache. So, Samara decides to play it smart and enjoy dating but with no intention of ever tying the knot.

Joshua knows quickly that Samara is The One for him. He’s one of the divorce statistics and the fact that he was married when he first began pursuing her, though separated and already having filed for divorce, turns Samara off. Okay, that’s understandable. Then their attempts at dating get screwed the next few times he asks her out. With his job, again, I can see it. His ex does sound like a piece of work.

But he persists and keeps after Samara in a way that is unique and …

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

…

Last September I blogged that Literary Fiction should embrace digital publishing because “the psuedo profit sharing that the new arm of HarperCollins is testing: no advances, higher royalties” made sense for the embattled publishing industry.

E publishing, with its low overhead, provides a safety net for experimental fiction, the bailiwick of literary fiction. E publishing can provide success for more authors with lower numbers of sales. Those who have success in digital format are then pushed into the more expensive, but broader retail base of print publishing.

I argued that “Literary fiction should lead the way in redefining publishing so that those who write feel just as accomplished being published digitally as they do being publishing in print.” My belief that digital publishing could save literary fiction continues unbated.  After reading Liza Daly’s report of Book Camp Toronto, I am even more convinced:

So by the end of the day at BookCamp I felt a little worn down by the amount of fear and negativity that arose in some of the sessions. Particularly dispiriting is that some of the most vocal dissenters were

…

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. 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 …

The idea of ownership of ebooks is quite ephemeral. There is no resale. No return. No sharing. Essentially a reader’s right of first sale is totally obliterated by a digital book. I joked with someone the other day that you really only have a leasehold interest in the digital book for your life or the life of your digital copy. Depending on DRM issues, the life of your copy could be short indeed (in my case, before I took to stripping the DRM away, the shelf life of my digital library was about 2-3 years or the life of the computer I used to authenticate the ebook reading software). Google stretches the concept of ownership of ebooks even thinner with its upcoming Google Editions.

What is available in the Google Partner Program will be available for Google Edition users. The books that have been scanned in and are part of the Google Book Settlement are a different set. The Google Partner program is something that requires publisher or author consent. (As an aside, Google Partners had a territorial rights list for publishing here).

What does this ultimately mean for readers and authors? Read on.

Dear Ms. Amos,

The blurb of this book got me to buy it. Books with unusual professions for the characters always make me sit up and take notice. Of course then it has to actually be fun to read and well written for me to finish it. Luckily for me, this book is both.

For Shelly London, relocating to Houston for a top-secret space project could rock her world. Until the ambitious aerospace engineer collides with Lincoln Ripley. A hotshot astronaut, Lincoln is sexy, arrogant and a knowitall, but he launches Shelly’s hormones right into orbit.

Getting lost in space with the gorgeous wannabe astronaut could be the best thing that ever happened to Lincoln’s flight path. Just as soon as he finds out who’s trying to sabotage their spacecraft. Then Shelly better watch out, because now Lincoln has a double mission: to catch the culprit, then take off with Shelly for a rendezvous with love!

Thank you for conflict that is real and not manufactured for the plot. Well, I guess all conflict in a book is manufactured but this arises from the background you’ve given the characters instead of zapping …

Dear Ms. Dahl:

Anyone who has read your contemporary Romance, Talk Me Down, knows that its heroine, Molly, writes erotic fiction under the name Holly Summers, including a little work called The Wicked West, an homage to her very own hero, Ben. So what a clever promotion to actually publish this story under the pen name Holly Summers, because for those who have read Talk Me Down the tie ins are fun and illuminating, and for those who have not, they will simply be getting a fun and hot piece of erotic fiction (more on that in the second half of this review, penned by Joan/SarahF) in The Wicked West.

Lily Anders has come to Wyoming from England after inheriting a house from her brother, a young widow looking for a new start in what we now call the Old West. Her next store neighbor, Tom Hale, is the upright, slightly uptight sheriff of their little town, and he’s not at all sure about the tempting Mrs. Anders. Neither is Lily, for that matter, as she is only beginning to learn about herself beyond her unusual desires in the bedroom – her desire, specifically, to …

The Orbit $1 special for June is Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan, original retail price $10.99.

Warner Forever is launching its special $1.99 Sizzling Summer deals.  The following titles are available in June for $1.99

• A Hint of Wicked by Jennifer Haymore (a new release)
• My Wicked Enemy by Carolyn Jewel (this is a crackalicious series)
• Between the Sheets by Robin Wells (I really enjoyed her newest release, How to Score).
• Too Far Gone by Marliss Melton

Get your credit cards out folks. It’s hard to turn away from these deals.

It’s hard for me to tell exactly how many of the readers of Dear Author are from outside North America, but it is not insignificant despite the fact there is no localization of the blog. In other words, we are an English blog that can be run through a translator but is not translated directly.   Likewise, on a much greater scale, books have international appeal even without translation.  

In this age of digital publishing, books can easily be transmitted from one country to another. In the digital publishing world, there are no borders.  This is a wonderful thing.  It means that the market for a creator’s works is not merely limited to an aging, dying, decreasing number of North American readers. It means that those who live in the UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Africa, India, China, and other countries are potential markets for publishing growth.

Yet publishing operates under an antiquated rights system that divvies up rights primarily according to geographic territories despite the fact that translation rights have long been a part of the contractual bundle of rights. Given the mobility of the economy, particularly when it comes to digital books, hewing to artificial geographic limitations is harmful …

Dear Ms. Brady,

After I bought your book, I pulled it up on my Sony and began to read the opening scene. Which is where I stopped, more than a little afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to read a book which seemed to be headed towards over sensationalism. A screeching vehicle bringing in a badly wounded person who a young doctor is determined won’t die on her watch? Hmmmm, let’s read a different book first.

But something made me give it one more try. One chapter, I promised myself, and I’ll know whether it’ll work or not. Good thing for me I tried again because from that point on, I was hooked.

I have endless admiration for those who are in the front lines of emergency medicine. They get it all – from people in the wrong place at the wrong time to those with a long history of destructive behavior which they then expect doctors to fix with a cure all pill. And then there’s the daily grind of sore throats, chronic diseases and assorted ills which bring patients in to see the doctor.

Working in a …

Dear Ms. Overton,

Did someone describe your book as being about cooking? Sweets? Falling in love? Oh, yes. All of the above. And since I have no “won’t” power when confronted with anything sweet, I was so there about getting it. And reading it. It was just writing a review that took me awhile.

For bakery owner Sophie Mayfield, life is getting sweeter by the minute. She’s managed to keep her family’s cherished business from being acquired by mega grocery chain Fulton Foods. And her new employee Eliot Wright is as appealing and oh so chocolate fine as he is hardworking and talented.

But then Sophie discovers that Eliot isn’t exactly who he says he is. And she’s sure he’s hungry for only one thing: her boutique bakery’s bottom line. Now a lovestruck Eliot will have to do whatever it takes to win back Sophie’s trust and prove that he truly is her Mr. Right….

Mmmm, I can almost smell the aroma of the baked goods lovingly described, especially the wedding desserts. Good thing I don’t have anything like it in my kitchen or I’d be stuffing my face.

The way …

Dear Mrs. Hartman,

After the A grade I gave the last book of yours I read, I had high hopes for this one. Perfect heroine and slacker hero find love fifteen years later despite having to overcome the mistaken images they’ve maintained of each other over the years? Okay, I can go with that. Heroine who lies to the people for fifteen years, including her own daughter? That, I had trouble with. Lots of trouble with.

Hailey Maddox was always seen as perfect. A popular cheerleader who had all the boys in knots over her, no one was more surprised than JT McNulty when Hailey agrees to go out with him. But Hailey is keeping secrets including the fact that she’s sleeping with someone else.

After she gets pregnant and the father renounces their clandestine relationship, she turns to JT who lies to both sets of their parents about being the father. But when Hailey rejects his offer of marriage and his parents throw him out, JT leaves town.

It takes the death of his mother to bring him back. Then dealing with his father’s injuries to induce him to stay for a few days …

There are a couple of new eink readers on the market.  The COOL-er ebook reader mimics the look of the colorful iPods for the exterior casing of its 6″ ebook reader.  It reads EPUB, TXT, JPEG, any kind of PDF, MP3 for audio, and eight languages including Russian and traditional / simplified Chinese.  It is both Window and MAC compatible.  It’s definitely a product I would take a second look at if I were thinking about buying a new dedicated reader these days.

Kindle App for the iPhone has an update which allows tapping or swiping to advance pages, landscape mode, and a choice of three different color schemes: white on black, black on white, and sepia.

Sony Reader 700 is part of the Oprah Summer Giveaway. I’m not sure what, if any, kind of buzz the Sony Reader will get from being featured in this way.

For ebook readers, you’ll want to bookmark this site. It allows you …

At the suggestion of Peter Brantley of the Internet Archive, I offer up this Frequently Asked Questions for Authors regarding the Text To Speech (TTS) functionality that is the subject of debate. This may be an evolving document as more people provide input so that it adeqately addresses the issues. Please feel free to offer suggestions and/or revisions in the comments section.
***

Q: I’ve heard that there is some debate over Kindle’s Text to Speech Function. What is it and should I be concerned?

A: When Amazon released it’s Kindle 2 in February, it announced that it had included the ability for every document/book/written work on the Kindle to be real aloud using a robotic voice (either girl or boy). You can hear a sample of it here as read by Wil Wheaton. The TTS functionality was switched “on” as a default. Author’s Guild objected to this on the basis that the right to read a book out loud was an audio right, a derivative right of authors under the Copyright Law.

Q: What exactly is the legal argument that Authors Guild is making?

A: Ideas cannot be copyrighted, only their …

Dear Ms. Blackwell,

I didn’t realize this book is part of the “Everlasting Love” line until I began to read it. Which shows how much I pay attention to the “icon” on the front cover. Anywho, since my house has been a renovation project in the works for years now, that aspect of the book description caught my eye.

Alyssa Franklin just knows that the run down old Queen Anne house is meant for her, even if it will take her life savings to buy it, months to restore it and probably cost her a long term romance that, actually, is on its last legs. At first, she’s entranced with the idea of the love affair between the original owners of the house – the scion of what used to be the most prominent family in the area and the daughter of a seamstress. I mean, they must have been deeply in love to thwart social conventions. But as she tackles the issues of the house with the help of a hunky handyman, the truth of that marriage as well as Alyssa’s hopes for a new romance, begin to be uncovered.

Managing to …

Dear Ms. Miller,

Well, this one certainly lives up to the “Blaze” standards of sex, more sex and ultimately true love. And the heroine has a cool profession/trade as well as there being a hot cop hero.

Jack Riley is just looking for someone to arrest to take the edge off his anger at almost blowing a drug king pin take down. Being called “grandpa” by a hotshot new officer on the Nashville Police Department didn’t help matters either. When he sees a young woman being harassed by two college boys, he dives in to help.

Alex Morgan hasn’t had many romantic interactions with men since a disastrous event in her teens. Now these two drunk guys as well as the cop thinks she’s a hooker. Once they get run off, she and the cop get a chance to check each other out and quickly satisfy the explosive heat between them.

Months later, Jack finds himself in the small town of Dahlia, looking to avenge his fallen partner by busting the drug ring who’ve been smuggling drugs into the area and discovers the young woman he’s had hot nights of fantasies about. Alex hopes Jack …