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

Grand Central Publishing Specials & Other Ebook Deals

Jane — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:00:21 +0000

Grand Central Publishing has these November deals. If you haven’t tried Elizabeth Hoyt yet, it’s a safe bet at $1.99. Even if you don’t like it, you haven’t spent too much money on the try.

Blood Ties by Pamela Freeman for $1.00
The Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin for $1.99.
To Taste Temptation by Elizabeth Hoyt for $1.99. This is a historical romance.
Simple Wishes by Lisa Dale for $1.99. This is a contemporary romance.
Put a Lid on It by Donald E Westlake for $1.99
The Blue Knight by Joseph Wambaugh for $1.99
A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read for $2.99

I thought about not posting this because I really dislike Macmillan’s ebooks policies. Most of the prices for ebooks by St. Martin’s Press are $9.99 and above for mass markets. But alas, it is a deal.

Marked by PC & Kristin Cast for $2.99

Random House has been releasing freebies for months now. This month we have the following:

A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K Hamilton (Sony is supposed to replace all the files you buy through the Sony eBookstore with epub files so even if you don’t have a Sony, you might want to take advantage of this for the future).

Samhain Publishing offers up the following books for free on the Kindle. The first date is when the promo goes live and the second date is when the promo ends and regular pricing will be returned.

11/2/2009 - 11/9/2009 Bound for the Holidays by Mackenzie McKade
11/9/2009 - 11/16/2009 Look What Santa Brought by Annmarie McKenna
11/16/2009 - 11/23/2009 Understood by Maya Banks
11/23/2009 - 11/30/2009 The Twelve Lies of Christmas by Kate Johnson

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Runaway Lady, Conquering Lord by Carol Townend

Jayne — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:00:22 +0000

Dear Ms. Townend,

I’ve enjoyed several of your other books for Harlequin Historicals and was delighted when you contacted me offering a copy of your latest in the “Wessex Weddings” series for possible review. (Note: FTC discloser out of the way!) And the heroine is a Fallen Woman too. Even better. At first I didn’t realize that the hero is the same man used as a decoy in “An Honorable Rogue,” but once I recalled this, it upped the incentive to read the book.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Four years ago, Lady Emma of Fulford would never have thought she’d be sorry to lose her livelihood – washing dirty laundry in an icy cold river – that puts clothes on her back and a roof over her head. But then she also never thought she’d have an illegitimate child or not be living in her father’s noble household. A love affair gone bad has landed her where she is today and that somewhere is desperate to escape the abusive father of her child who has somehow tracked her down.

Her appeal for a job to the garrison commander of Winchester, Sir Richard of Asculf, initially gets her nowhere. They have a bit of a history since he’s a BFF of Emma’s brother in law, Adam, who was awarded her father’s lands. Richard takes a little pleasure in seeing her in such reduced circumstances since Emma apparently made life difficult for them after the Battle of Hastings fallout but he’s also honest enough to admit that she stirs his sexual interest. Not that he’s going to lay a hand on her as Adam would nail him for it.

But with Judhael making threats against her and terrified that he’ll discover the fact that they have a son, Emma is pushed to offer herself to Richard as a mistress with the hope that he’ll take her and her son with him when he returns to Normandy to settle an inheritance. Can these two find love as well as sexual feelings for each other during the journey?

I like a good medieval and am glad to see the subgenre making a bit of a comeback. But for me to be interested in it, I need more than the standard Norman knight (who’s usually a bastard) and willowy Saxon maiden snipping at each other in faux medieval dialogue. I mentioned before how much I appreciate the fact that you avoid this but let me say it again to emphasize how much this means to me. No “mayhaps!” No “tis, twases!” No irate Jayne!

I haven’t read the first book in the series “The Novice Bride,” but I gather that Emma is quite changed since then. Several mentions are made of how her viewpoints on various things have changed since her days as the daughter of a powerful Saxon thane. At this point, she’s taken refuge in an inn with several ‘ladies of the night’ and far from looking down her nose at them, she thinks of them as friends. She’s even tickled pink when they show up after her wedding to wish her well. She’s practical and not above doing what it takes to see to the safety and care of her child.

Richard is shown to be human. He’s a man who can appreciate Emma’s curves and who is also not adverse to enjoying, just a little bit, seeing her pay a bit for her past actions. But his honorable side quickly comes out on top and he goes to great lengths to help her and feels guilty when they succumb to passion. I figured some revelation was coming to explain his nightmares and at first rolled my eyes a little that a big Norman knight would be so anguished at what bothers him but then thought again about how any warrior might take a particular death hard and be haunted by it.

The book is also a bit of a road romance and I enjoyed reading about the journey conditions. Definitely not modern traveling with ‘en suite’ bath included and one can forget having any privacy. You handled some aspects of the story differently than I expected which in this case is a good thing. When a potential wife for Richard is mentioned, I had images of catfights and outraged foot stomping to dread but thankfully this didn’t come to pass. When Emma imagines she feels someone watching her during their trip, I thought of several scenarios involving showdowns between the men. Again, you took a different path.

Emma’s venture towards “please don’t go there” territory alarmed me somewhat. True, she is given one good reason but I would have preferred that she ask before she acted. And let’s be honest, Judhael displays more common sense about her choice of action than she did considering she also has the welfare of her child to consider.

“Runaway Lady, Conquering Lord” – and can’t we just tell this is a Harlequin title? – is a fairly fast read and is quite readable, which I consider to be two different things. It stays away from many of the subgenre’s conventions and features two likable lead characters. I think readers interested in medievals will welcome it to the list. B-

Jayne

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Hidden Conflict by Various Authors

Joan/SarahF — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:00:01 +0000

Dear Authors and Readers.

If you will excuse a personal history, you will see its relevance to my review. I enlisted in the Army National Guard after 9/11. I became a US citizen and commissioned (became an officer) in 2003. I accepted a medical retirement in May of this year, at the rank of Captain, after 7 ½ years of service. I never went overseas, but I served in the Katrina response in Louisiana. I was a soldier and damn proud to be so.

But I am also bisexual (with some extra kinks outside the Kinsey continuum). This is the first time I’ve been able to admit this in public (well, I came out on Twitter on National Coming Out Day) since figuring it out because of the US military’s destructive Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. My sexuality in no way affected my service. All outward appearances show a happily married, monogamous, heterosexual soldier, which is mostly what I am. But every now and then the issue came up and I had to bite my tongue. I could have been kicked out of the service if anyone had dug too deep, for a reason that didn’t affect my service or that of others around me.

At a time when Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is destroying the careers of loyal, hard-working, supremely competent soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen of the American Armed Forces, this fictionalized retrospective of men who serve together and love each other is never more necessary and welcome. I was thrilled to receive it (free) from the publisher (through Jane) and while it did a great job of showing the soul-destroying problem of homophobia in general, I could have wished that it had focused more specifically on the subtle differences of the problem of being gay in the military, rather than just showing gay military men.

“Blessed Isle” by Alex Beecroft
I don’t know what it is about Beecroft’s writing that ravishes me so. Maybe it’s that her prose is like Keats’ poetry to me: redolent with scent, aching with color, and beautiful with taste and sound. Maybe it’s how she scours me inside with the deeply-felt emotions of her characters. But this story manages to do in 58 pages what False Colors did to me in more than 300.

Set in the late eighteenth century, Captain Harry Thompson, late of her Majesty’s Navy, safely ensconced in Rio, begins a journal of his relationship with his Lieutenant, Garnet Littleton. They met when Harry took his first command of the Banshee with orders to escort three transport ships to Australia. Buffeted by storms, typhus, mutinous convicts, and his own yearning for the free-spirited Garnet, Harry only finds happiness when he and Garnet are marooned for months on their own small Pacific island. The actual sexual activity is minimally detailed, but you feel every prick and rush of longing and satisfaction, the abject fear and bone-deep rightness when the men fall in love. See how much Beecroft can do with so few words:

When we woke, that first morning, we made love. Nothing needed to be said; we both understood it would happen as soon as we had the physical resources to allow it. It was sweet and weary and gentle, and afterwards I held Harry tight and mourned for all the things he had had to lose to make this possible. I wished I might give his prudishness and his confidence and his career back to him. And in a petty part of myself I wished he might have come to me despite them, instead of needing to be ruined first. But I will say that holding on to him afterwards, in the warm glow and satisfaction of coitus, I entertained the inexcusable thought that the past months had been worth it.

Harry and Garnet find their happy ending and record it for posterity, for a time when their love might be celebrated rather than reviled, for a time after their death when they don’t have to pretend. The story is told in journal form, with Harry’s memories interspersed with Garnet’s as they reveal to each other, even after years together, their feelings and motivations in the past, as they reveal them to their reader, who also becomes a character in the story. So even the journaling has a place in their relationship. Brilliantly, perfectly done. Grade: A+

“Not to Reason Why” by Mark B. Probst
This is a narrative — a very boring narrative – of Custer’s last campaign, told from the perspective of a corporal (I think? Too bored to go back and look). Brett has the hots for Dermot. Dermot is married to Sarah. Dermot loves Sarah very much, and Brett is jealous of Sarah. There’s absolutely NO indication that Dermot feels anything at all for Brett beyond deep friendship and besides one kiss Brett almost (but not quite) forces on Dermot a few days before the big battle, there’s nothing overtly romantic about this story at all. In fact, there’s nothing covertly romantic either. This is not a romance (especially since it does not end happily); this is a narrative representation of a campaign: They saddled up, then they stopped here, then had dinner, then dicked around in the evening as soldiers tend to do, then slept, then had breakfast, then saddled back up for another grueling day of chasing Indians, then stopped for lunch, then…. Seriously, with a little more detail to prove that Probst had done his research (They stopped under overhanging cliffs. They crossed the stream eight times.), that’s what the story is like. Every now and then Brett will think something emotional for a sentence or two, but then he’ll ignore it and move on. I hate to play to stereotypes, but this read like it was a “romance” written by a man, and hey, look! It was written by a man. Okay, dude, you did your research; now tell me a fucking story.

And seriously, someone please proofread: “Dermot was in line looking none the worse for wear, though Brett could see his eyes were still vacuous from lack of sleep.” Really? I do not think that word means what you think it means.

And if we’re going to have a story about a man who runs away from battle, who deserts his troops, then lines like “The heat was stifling and there were times Brett would have welcomed a warrior arrow straight into his heart just to end it all” are not only not helpful, they’re patently wrong.

After Brett does desert, the level of his thought processes about his actions are symptomatic of the level of emotion and characterization in the rest of the book:

The wind and his body heat had dried his clothing and he began to warm up. His thoughts were a jumble of images and confusion. He couldn‘t sort it out enough to put together a plan of action. A piercing accusation kept surfacing—You are a coward and a deserter. Was he? What good would it have done to have stayed and died with the rest? Perhaps a couple more Sioux and Cheyenne may have been wounded or killed, but it would not have saved a single soldier‘s life. He longed to be unconscious so he didn‘t have to think. After the celebrating quieted and morning drew near, he got his wish and fell asleep, lying on his side on the creek-bank.

Oh! Coward! Deserter! Right, check. Let’s move on, folks, nothing to see here.

The author didn’t seem to be aware of the weight of his words, and coming after Beecroft’s clarity and precision, it was almost painful. At one point, Brett engages Dermot in deep conversation:

“Wrong side?” Dermot frowned. “How can you say that? There is no wrong side against the Indians.”

“I mean wrong side, in that it may not be the victorious side.”

“There‘s nothing wrong with dying to protect your country.”

“Dermot, haven‘t you ever noticed how these things are reported in the newspapers? When we win they say it‘s a victory, but when they win they say it‘s a massacre.”

Then after the Brett escapes/deserts, he listens to the Indian victory drums: “It went on for hours. The chanting haunted him. He wanted it to stop. It tormented him by constantly reminding him of the massacre. He sat huddled on the riverbank; the drums felt like his own heartbeat.” Completely, utterly without irony, Probst uses the word he’d previously questioned.

Dermot was cardboard, Brett was an unlikable, whiny, cowardly turd, there was no romance, no emotion, no connection. What there was was wishy-washiness. Was this deep, thoughtful commentary or just campaign details? Neither. Sorry. Grade: F

“No Darkness” by Jordan Taylor

Okay, so when the book starts like this:

“Lieutenant Darnell!”

“Sir?”

“Oh, there you are. Why are you skulking, man?” The red-faced, broad-shouldered platoon sergeant did not wait for an answer but plowed on before Darnell could even open his mouth, “Find someone to take with you down to the cellar. There should be half a ton of supplies in this bloody shack and no one seems able to find so much as a tin of jam.”

Private Morgan stepped forward and saluted the sergeant. He had large front teeth and matching ears that reminded Darnell of a corgi.

“Sir,” the private said. “Me and Stokes searched the cellar already. Nothing, sir. No sign anything‘s been in there for some time, sir.”

The sergeant walked right past him as if he had neither seen nor heard the private. “Well, Lieutenant? What are you waiting for?”

I’m confused. Unless things are very different in the British army in World War I from the US Army now, lieutenants don’t call platoon sergeants “sir” and platoon sergeants don’t call lieutenants “man” and give them orders. And no one salutes NCOs. So I don’t think much of your research abilities if that’s how the book starts. I mean, seriously. And my father (British AND British history buff) also confirmed for me that the officer corps in 1915 was still very much of and from the upper classes and Darnell is not upper class. He’s almost the opposite of upper class.

Inaccuracies aside, this has to be one of the most depressing stories I’ve ever read. This is precisely why I don’t read stories that aren’t romances with HEAs. Yes, I understand that World War One was a desperately horrible war. Yes, I understand that being gay in the military is terrible. AND, I understand that the purpose of this anthology was not all about the happy endings. But can we have ANY bright points of light? Can we have ANY happiness in the story? Apparently not.

LT Darnell and PVT Fisher get shelled into a cellar with no way out. Fisher’s broken so many ribs he can’t do anything to help get them out. Darnell literally ruins his hands digging them out, but even when they get out, it takes days to find anyone else and of course when they do, disaster strikes. There’s only a relationship between these men on the level of two men who find themselves stuck in a cellar together, trying to get out. The fact that they’re both gay doesn’t really factor into it at all.

What I do think is interesting is that both this story and the last both conform to the melodramatic abjection of the married gay man being the one to bite it. Think Brokeback Mountain, right? Sure, Jack’s more out, more comfortable with himself than Ennis, but he’s the one who marries first and stays married so he’s the one who has to die. Ditto these two stories.

This story isn’t a romance. Not in the slightest. Not that it’s trying to be — and that’s fine, of course. But it isn’t really even a story about being gay in the military. It’s just a depressing story about a horrific war. I don’t know how to grade it. It’s not badly written like the previous story (research abilities aside). It’s just…not something I choose to read. So, I guess…Grade: C-

“Our One and Only” by E.N. Holland
This is the only story that truly deals with the problems that being gay specifically in the military can produce. Philip is Eddie’s lover, but when Eddie dies in France in 1944, Philip is left feeling invisible, able only to admit to being Eddie’s best friend, not able to fully express his grief over his beloved’s death. The story is told over 40 years, at intervals of a decade. We see Philip deal (or not) with Eddie’s death, even though every now and then you want to hit him over the head and say “Get OVER yourself already!” The story shows the expected and unexpected repercussions the life and death of one soldier have on his friends, fellow soldiers, and family. While not amazing, this story is thoughtful, interesting, and eventually has a hopeful ending (not with Eddie, obviously).

One thing pulled me out of the story. In 1954, Philip thinks, “he always thought war was sort of pointless and his feelings only sharpened after Eddie‘s death.” Maybe this is just me overthinking things, but if there was one “just” war, one necessary war, it was World War Two and I don’t think very many people can disagree with that. Yes, war is devastating and horrible, but with Hitler as an aggressor, there’s not much else that the Allies COULD have done besides what they did. WW2 was not a pointless war; of any war in history, it was the least pointless. The mindset Philip expresses is very much a post-Vietnam mindset and I found it jarring in this story.

Other than that, I enjoyed watching this man through 40 years of his life and I was very happy that he had a hopeful ending “blessed” by his long-lost partner. Grade: B

Overall, while I think that an anthology against DADT, showing the emotional devastation it causes, is a wonderful idea, it was only the last story that really dealt with the peculiar problem of being gay specifically in the military. Because in 1790, 1876, 1915, and 1944, being gay was a problem NO MATTER WHAT. So being gay in the military was no more or less difficult that being gay anywhere else (it might have been easier, perhaps, considering close proximity). I would really like to have seen the awful Custer-era story or the depressing WW1 story dropped, and a story about the Gulf War or even Iraq or Afghanistan added, to make the point that “being gay in the US military” specifically IS an issue NOW, because being gay now is much more accepted than in 1876 and it’s the military that’s ridiculously behind the times.

I once had someone ask me why a gay person would join the US military when they know they’re not wanted, and the question made me shake with rage. Gay and bisexual men and women want to join the military for the same reasons as everyone else: we love our country and want to defend it, we like the opportunities and benefits, we’re loyal and hard-working and honorable people. Just like everyone else. Why should we not be able to serve? We have just as much to offer — more, perhaps, since we’re joining knowing we’re not wanted, joining knowing we’re going to have to hide who we are in order to serve.

Anyway. Overall, I’d give the entire anthology a high C+ or a low B-, but the whole thing is completely and utterly worth buying just for the sublime Beecroft story, “Blessed Isle,” with a nice added bonus of the gentle “Our One and Only.”

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook version that I could find.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Four Ways NOT to Write BDSM Romance

Joan/SarahF — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:00:54 +0000

As there are many ways to get romance wrong, there are exponentially more ways to get BDSM romance wrong. BDSM is tricky. If you’re writing it because it’s hot, but you’ve got no experience with it, you’re almost bound to get it wrong. Almost, but not always, I hasten to add. Examples of successful BDSM romances by authors who aren’t BDSM-identified themselves — as far as I know — are Ann Somerville’s Remastering Jerna and Matthew Haldeman-Time’s An Affair in Paradise and Victoria Dahl’s The Wicked West. So the “authenticity” of a writer who is BDSM-identified isn’t necessary, if that author has imagination, empathy, and has done their research. But still, there are many many ways to get BDSM hideously, awfully, horrifically wrong. I’ve written before about how not to write BDSM romance, but I’ve recently had a string of truly scary BDSM romances cross my computer screen, all scary in very different ways, so I thought I’d combine reviews into a discussion of What NOT To Do.

Thirty Days by Shayla Kersten (Liquid Silver Books)
This book horrified me. So much so that I literally can’t bring myself to read the sequel. Thirty Days got fabulous reviews all over the web and has intrigued me for a while, so I was excited to find the time to read it. But once I did, I was absolutely appalled. If this is really what people think BDSM is, no wonder it’s so reviled and hated — because it should be.

This whole review is italicized, bolded, and written in flashing red and yellow danger signs in my head, so imagine that as you read it. I’ll try to be restrained (harhar — very weak joke).

Cavan has been in held in literal sexual slavery for nine years, probably since he was 13, maybe 11. He has a 6th grade reading level. He has no idea how to interact with anyone normally. He hasn’t seen a woman in a decade. He has no idea if he’s really gay or really into BDSM, because he was given no choice about either. And these issues are NEVER resolved in the book. He’s three months out of this literal slavery — THREE MONTHS!!! — and he’s taken to a BDSM party to be hooked up with Biton, a dom who is three months past his partner’s death from cancer. Biton wants Cavan, takes him, and then when he figures out the depth of Cavan’s issues, including not knowing whether he’s actually gay or submissive, doesn’t immediately stop the relationship and treat Cavan as the little boy he is emotionally and intellectually, but continues with the relationship because he wants to, because he’s hot for Cavan and because ::gag:: Cavan is so sweetly submissive:

Biton set down his coffee cup and stood up. “He doesn’t understand that being a slave is a lifestyle choice. He’s never really known any other life. He thinks being tortured is normal.” Biton paced the kitchen, anger at the people who did this to Cavan growing with each step. “He’s a gentle soul. I don’t think he’d be into submission if he hadn’t been forced into it.”

“And you want to keep him around.” It wasn’t a question and Harry hit the nail on the head.

Biton wanted Cavan, but the idea of giving up the thrill of control, of power over a helpless body, bound and gagged, waiting for his whim…The memory of Cavan strapped in the sling Friday made him shiver. “Yes.”

How can someone write those three paragraphs together? Seriously? How can you say you don’t think he’d be into submission if he weren’t tortured into it when he was thirteen and then shiver at the memory of this same man strapped into a sex sling?! It made me nauseous, personally, and although Biton isn’t the man who enslaved Cavan, he’s coming pretty fucking close here, to my mind.

Exposition reveals that Cavan showed up in an ER three months previously “badly beaten. His back was a bloody mess, broken arm, two fractured ribs and rectal lacerations from some kind of foreign object. He refused to press charges against his attacker” and the BDSM “Society” that Biton and his friends belong to “warned Wainwright [Cavan's "master"], threatened to exclude him and issue warnings to potential subs.” You’re shitting me? They fucking WARN him?! They don’t CALL THE COPS?! The ER doesn’t CALL THE COPS?! A whipped back, a broken arm, broken ribs, and anal rape doesn’t qualify for someone getting arrested, whether or not Cavan files the charges?!

Somebody posted on Twitter (it might actually have been Jane) a few days after Roman Polanski was arrested that they’re sick of how the media says Polanski “had sex with a 13 year old girl”, rather than saying he “drugged and raped his 13 year old victim”. Don’t say “had sex with” when it was really “drugged and raped.” In this story, Biton and his friends continue to call Cavan’s abuser his “former master” and a “dom.” No, dammit. No. He’s a pedophile, a rapist, a torturer and, apparently, a murderer. Don’t continue to call him a “dom” when what he did was so hideous. Raping, torturing, and enslaving thirteen year olds is so far from being a BDSM dom that it’s not even funny. So unfunny I was crying with despair when I read this book.

In fact, this book almost made me throw up. This is NOT BDSM, folks. Some things are too big for a romance to cure. A boy — barely 20 — three months out of a decade-long abuse, rape, and torture, a boy with a 6th grade education and an inability to interact with anyone normally, should not be entering into ANY relationship, let alone one with a sexual dominant who has problems understanding the ability to give consent. Because more than anything, Cavan cannot give his consent, the foundation of Safe, Sane, and Consensual. Grade: Epic EPIC FAIL.

Pink Buttercream Frosting by Lissa Matthews (Samhain Publishing)
If you’re going to write about BDSM, if you’re going to have one character be a much sought-after dom and the other be a newbie sub, then the sex should be something other than vaguely hot, but otherwise normal, ordinary vanilla sex. You can’t just slap a BDSM label on a romance that in all other respects is a vanilla romance and expect your audience to believe you without actually including anything that looks or feels like BDSM sex. Bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, masochism. Those are some pretty scary words and some pretty involved practices. But having your hero identify as a dom and your heroine identify as a sub doesn’t mean that their story is a BDSM romance unless you actually have them interact on a BDSM level. Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to be BDSM-identified and have a vanilla relationship and be happy in it (so I’m told), but then you can’t call the book about that relationship a BDSM romance. To be a BDSM romance, the relationship must be built with, explored through, filtered by BDSM practices in the relationship, not just generic BDSM identification by the characters without any application in the relationship.

Aidn is a much sought-after dom who does not date his submissives. Huh? Why not? “He dated vanilla women, engaged in vanilla sex and kept the dominant side of himself just out of reach. It was simply something he did, something he’d done in the years since…” (ellipse in original). Ah. The old “past submissive ruined me for everyone else” trick. Right. Anyway, so Aidn meets Bailey at the mall, they recognize each other from the BDSM club they both frequent, and they go to her place to have sex, because they’re too hot for each other not to. He’s stripped her, has her sitting on her kitchen counter, orders her around a bit, and then cuts her panties off her. Big whoop-dee-doo. Without the constant internal refrain from both characters about their need to dominate or submit, none of this would be out of place in non-BDSM erotica. They do nothing — NOTHING — that vanilla people wouldn’t do when having sex. And then Bailey thinks:

She was slipping into a place that she’d only dreamed of. Subspace; the sensation of floating on air, a bliss so sweet it could be painful. She’d read about it, talked to others about it, but until Aidn, she hadn’t had an inkling of what it might be like to feel it. She gave herself up to it, gave herself and her pleasure over to him, and he was taking her there, making her fly. She was a different woman than she’d been just hours ago.

Oh good lord, no. Subspace is, usually, an endorphin high from being beaten. It’s a feeling of floating, an in-body/out-of-body experience that is the result of physical overstimulation and PAIN. Sure, good BDSM relationships can have submissives slipping into a submissive mindset with a word or a look from their dominants, but that’s not subspace, dammit. It’s certainly not flying! Good lord.

And, finally, submissive does not equal doormat. When a guy fucks you three ways to Sunday then leaves before you wake up, doesn’t contact you for two weeks, and then walks into your bakery, you do not just kiss him when he tells you to. You give him the cold shoulder, make him explain himself, scream at him for being an asshole. Not Bailey. No, sir, she kisses Aidn and calls him sir. Then when he runs AGAIN, she goes looking for him. Give me a break. Might as well write “WELCOME” from sternum to belly-button and lie down in the doorway.

And! way to go, Aidn, ruining another dominant’s scene on purpose by being a possessive asshole about a woman you’ve been running away from for 50 pages. Fabulous manners there. BDSM does NOT give anyone the permission to act like a complete asshole like Aidn seems to think it does. Irrational jealousy is not an attractive trait and not the innate right of a dominant. In fact, most doms are the opposite of jealous.

Bailey’s a doormat, Aidn’s an asshole, and the only thing BDSM about this story is their constant harping on it being their true identity. Take that away and it’s a mildly hot Harlequin with an alphole (TM SBTB) hero and a ridiculously self-effacing heroine. Grade: F

This book can be purchased from Samhain.

Bondage Betrayal by Lila DuBois (Liquid Silver Books)
This book makes the strong distinction between nice normal sane people who do a few kinky things now and then in the bedroom and those dirty rotten perverts who fully identify as kinky and try to live it all the time. I’m actually loathe to include this book in this list, because it’s got some really great writing, really hot scenes, and deep emotional issues. Then again, it’s also got a Big Mis that’s solved in three seconds and the characters are suddenly soulmates again.

Savannah is a famous yet anonymous and stunningly sadistic femdom. The first scene of the book is hot until you get to the part about: “He screamed, not merely a cry, but a true scream. Around the room people jumped, some of the Doms moving as if they would interfere, but no one did.” Um, why not? Because they should have.

That aside, then, Savannah in her normal life is an artist with a dark past, a deep betrayal in her background. She accepts a commission for a sculpture for a building only to see her dark past, the man who betrayed her, as she leaves the building. They meet again at a BDSM club that evening and most of the book is spent in flashback in alternating points of view that tells about the dark betrayal. Roman and Savannah were very much in love and exploring shaking things up in the bedroom a bit. They go to the house of a “Master” and go through a pretty intense but positive scene as Roman is coached by “Master Wilcox” and another guest. Wilcox then convinces Roman to let him “train” Savannah because she’s a “born submissive” and “needs” submission all the time and Roman can’t provide it because he’s too weak. Proving him right, Roman says yes rather than listening to his instincts. With smoke and mirrors and digital recorders, Wilcox then convinces both Savannah and Roman that they have abandoned each other, all the while raping and torturing Savannah. Savannah feels abandoned and betrayed (duh) and runs away, Roman feels abandoned and betrayed and runs away, everyone runs away until they come back together in the end with 20 seconds of “I’m sorry”, “no, I’m sorry”.

On the surface, it looks like the conflict between the characters is a deep betrayal, but underneath, the conflict is actually a Big Misunderstanding that pits The Plucky Hero and Heroine against The Evil BDSM World. BDSM is the enemy. Anyone who does it as more than spice in a relationship is evil and a torturer. And anyone who feels the need to do it more than occasionally should be willing to give it up to please their partner. And yes, technically, sometimes people who do BDSM are evil, but really, statistically, many more vanilla people are evil than kinky people. Grade: D

This book can be purchased from Liquid Silver.

Look, I know that authors are convinced that their books are unique and spring from their own fears and desires, so they’re just trying to tell this one story and aren’t writing a treatise about all BDSM everywhere (this was Tymber Dalton’s defense about her hot mess of a story). And they’re right, of course. But those fears and desires are themselves shaped by culture and society and the people we’re with and the shows we watch and the books we read. And if all books, shows, people, society, culture represent BDSM as sick, twisted, perverted, ridiculous, then that’s going to be reflected in your writing sometimes, however much you might not want it to, unless you’re a very strong-willed writer OR unless you have a healthy understanding of and respect for BDSM-identified people that comes from lots of experience in and with BDSM. Yes, DuBois’ book shows some scenes in which BDSM is used to enhance sexual interaction, but the fundamental, underlying message of the story is that anyone who wants it full-time, anyone who actually identifies as full-on kinky, is evil and sociopathic, abusive, manipulative, and murderous. Is that really what she was trying to say? On the other hand, Matthews has it in her head that BDSM is Hott! and Exciting! and makes a relationship better and bigger and more meaningful. But that doesn’t mean that any sex scene labeled BDSM is kinky — it just doesn’t.

Impacted! by Mickie B. Ashling (Dreamspinner Press)
Finally, a book that gets BDSM very right, in my opinion (Yay!), but is terribly, horribly, awfully written (Boo!). It’s just as possible to get the BDSM right and be a truly bad writer, as it is to be a great writer and get the BDSM wrong. Everything Ashling writes about the BDSM sounds fine. She seems to get the emotions, understand the way it feels, understand the whys and wherefores. It’s not abusive, it’s not the enemy, it’s not there just to make the story hot. But she’s just a truly bad writer: info-dumping; terrible flat, bland voice; ridiculously flat, stereotyped characters; characters and storylines that come out of nowhere; cringe-worthy motivation — you name it, this book has it.

Scott is an oral surgeon (no, really — there’s a whole plot point about making sure his partner doesn’t do some delicate oral surgery because he doesn’t have the training. Sexay!) and a sexual submissive and masochist. He comes to work one day and finds that his new dental hygienist is the dominant he hooked up with for a one night stand a few weeks ago. Hijinks ensue, mostly having to do with their homophobic mutual boss. It’s one of those stories that thinks it’s a romance because there are apparent external barriers keeping the couple apart, but not really, and the characters fall in love and express that love so early that there’s no emotional tension or uncertainty at all. It’s boring. Seriously boring. Even with the ridiculous plot twist at the end of the book. The BDSM’s good, but the story as a whole is a cure for insomnia. Even though I struggled through in order to write the review, I’d have to say that this book was truly unreadable. Grade: F

Oh, and P.S.? No dom is going to pierce his sub’s left nipple. Left side flags dominant. Right side flags submissive. Do your research.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: From Waif to Gentleman’s Wife by Julia Justiss

Jayne — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:00:53 +0000

Dear Ms. Justiss,

You’ve been writing Regency set stories for years now so by now, I’m sure you’re more than familiar with all the conventions, the standard plots, the trope characters, all the things we’re used to seeing in this historical category. Well, I am too so when I come across something different, I’m liable to sit up, smile and say, “Yes!”

I’m sure that Sir Edward Greaves was, even if only briefly, a minor character in your book, “An Unconventional Match.” Alas, I don’t recall him. Shame on me as he’s a nice guy. As he, himself, thinks, he doesn’t have the lofty title of his friend Nicky Stanhope, the Marquess of Englemere, or the money his financial wizard friend Hal Waterman does but he’s not a bad catch on the marriage mart. So far, his attempts to find a wife he can admire as well as love, and who he thinks would enjoy living with him in the country, have not panned out but hope springs eternal.

In the meantime, he’s intrigued by a little property owned by Nicky. It’s far from Nicky’s other holdings and has currently been run almost into the ground by land agent mismanagement. In these postwar years when crop prices have plummeted and out of work Peninsular War veterans roam the countryside searching for work, it’s hard for even well maintained properties to cover their expenses. When an estate has been as badly administered as Blenhem, it’s almost a lost cause. But for Ned, this “perfect storm” is like a red flag and he offers to buy the property.

Widowed Joanna Merrill is truly destitute when she arrives at Blenhem, late on a stormy night, on foot and half starved. Unjustly thrown out of her last post by his wife after the Viscount got frisky and cornered her in her room, Joanna’s only hope is to find her brother who was managing a small property for their very distant relation the Marquess of Englemere. Only when she arrives, Greville is gone and another man has taken his place.

For various reasons, Ned has decided to take the role of an untitled land agent to allow him to discover just what went on under Greville’s management. He’s immediately attracted to the lovely Joanna but as a relation to his friend, she’s “hands off.” Trying to help her find employment, Ned hits on starting a school for the estate children with Joanna as the teacher. As their interest in each other grows, they attempt to discover what went on at the estate. But will Ned wait too long to tell Joanna who he really is?

For the most part, this is a quiet, country Regency. There is little about ton life in London, no Seasons, no Almacks, no dowagers quizzing young misses. I like that Joanna is a gentleman’s daughter while Ned is a Baronet instead of the usual Duke. And though he is sort of undercover in a way, he’s not a spy for Wellington. The use of the Luddites as a background conflict as well as Joanna and Greville’s experiences at the hands of the aristos is inspired. It’s been years since I saw this aspect of the times used in a Regency.

Ned doesn’t wallow away his romantically broken heart with wine, women and song. No, this boy throws himself into dethatching grass, soil additives, farming techniques and other agricultural improvements. Be still my beating heart. He’s also actually got a good reason for going undercover, as it were, at his new property. He thinks things out and truly wants to do the best for his tenants. What a guy!

I like that Ned listens to Joanna and doesn’t dismiss her concerns and statements about the aristocracy and their abuse of their privileges. He offers considered responses and tries to show Joanna the other side of the coin.

Joanna does get to see the real Ned even though she thinks he’s lower in social station than he is. Ned doesn’t hid who he really is, a man interested in farming and improving the lot of his tenants. While he, in turn, finds out more about her closely held feelings than he would have been able to in more polite, conventional realms. When they do start their physical relationship, I felt that they knew each other and didn’t just jump into lust. I will admit, however, to being slightly tired of the prevalent mental lusting up til then.

When the truth is revealed, at least Joanna doesn’t completely dismiss Ned’s entreaties to listen to his side of things, then to go to London to seek out her many-times-removed cousin the Marquess to see if he can assist her in finding her brother. Then she does listen to Nicky’s wife Sarah – who, thankfully, doesn’t meddle too much – and considers what Sarah, who knows Ned, has to say.

I did notice that Joanna mentions how diligently Nicky appears to work for his tenants at his various properties but then that brings up the question of why Blenhem was allowed to sink so far into disrepair while Nicky still owned it.

Another thing I noticed is when Joanna first arrives in London, she thinks something about how Nicky never offered to assist her. But then, I thought she had dismissed all thoughts of even going to him to seek aid. So is this really his fault he didn’t offer to help a relation who never called on him?

I was glad to see Jesse and Mary have a happy, and believable, ending. Yes, they will be sailing to America but honestly, I doubt that they could have lived in this small village given what Mary was forced into.

I hope readers looking for a slightly different Regency will check this one out. The innovative use of the actual concerns and conflicts of the age – progression of technology and factories, destruction of traditional handicrafts of rural England and fate of wounded soldiers after the Napoleonic wars were finally over, make it stand out. The mental lusting dragged and I had some slight questions about various parts of the plot but overall, I enjoyed it. B-

~Jayne

This book can be purchased at eHarlequin.com or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Piracy Is Bad

Jane — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:00:17 +0000

From the comments on the thread regarding the copyrights of readers, it appears that some authors believe that they aren’t getting a sufficient forum on Dear Author to air their frustrations and concerns about piracy. The pressing need to talk about piracy whenever the subject of ebooks comes up appears to overwhelm any other thoughts about digital books and readers. This post is a forum for those authors.

Before we get to the comments, though, I want to state two things.

First, Dear Author is not a blog devoted to authors or author causes or author issues. We are a reader blog and our focus is for the readers, from the reviews, to the giveaways, to the opinion pieces. We are not author advocates and yes, often our reader interest is at odds with the authors. We do not exist to advance any author position nor any particular author. If it appears that we do, it is because we have an interest in an author topic or a particular author, not because we exist to do service on behalf of authors and their self interests. To state it more bluntly, we at Dear Author owe you, the author, nothing.

Second, we do not condone piracy at Dear Author. We understand that piracy causes us pain in terms of enabling author and publisher hysteria, increasing the costs of ebooks, and contributing to stupid publishing tricks such as super premium pricing, delaying of the books, and DRM. But we also understand that fighting piracy is not the best use of our time. The best use of our time and space here at Dear Author is to discuss the book, spread the love of the book, and seed interest in the book.

Yes, publishing is tough these days. Publishers are turning away books they may have bought in the past. Booksellers are cutting back on their orders and contracts are being canceled. This is not the result of piracy, but you can certainly try to sell me on the idea that it is. I am convinced that the best thing for authors and publishers to do is to make sure that the pirate has the least attractive option. This is a phenomenal article on the futility of fighting piracy. Piracy, like the poor as Matthew says, will always be with us. Nothing the RIAA or MPAA has done in terms of anti pirate measures has worked. The pirates will always make material available for free. The goal then must be to make the legitimate purchase equal to or better than the pirating experience.

“Well, maybe we were focused on trying to disrupt the networks and we should have focused on a technological solution to mass notification.” Well be on to the next thing. Well spend some number of months–I’m just essentially recounting the music industry’s journey–filing vast numbers of infringement notifications, letting everybody and their granny know you’re infringing our content. They’ll take the temperature and they’ll do surveys and collect data and they’ll try to convince themselves that this is having a real effect in reversing the tide and then after some period it will just not have been convincingly demonstrated to have worked. And they’ll realize that by any number of measures the piracy problem has only grown worse. But they will have to exhaust all of those things and more. They will have to chase legal remedies, legislative agendas, all the way to what they view as being the end of the line before they say “OK, so this really is the landscape we’re stuck with. As much as we didn’t want it, this appears to be it. Now we have to just dive in and make businesses that work here.”

Having said that, some authors clearly believe that we, as readers, need to hear them on this issue. So authors, here is your space. You can tell us why we shouldn’t pirate even if most of us have already said we don’t. You can tell us in what ways piracy has hurt your career (empirical evidence and studies not funded by the RIAA or MPAA are helpful). You can tell us why you think it is the reader’s obligation to pursue piracy and enumerate the ways in which you think readers should act to help you prevent piracy.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Should I Buy an Ebook Reader This Year?

Jane — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:00:37 +0000

The nook, an electronic reader from Barnes and Noble, was announced on Tuesday. It is not likely another ebook reader will be released before the end of the year. Therefore it is safe to start contemplating whether it is worth buying an ebook reader this year. Author and reader Kay Sisk sent me this awesome comparison chart of current ebook readers.

There are three basic choices for the dedicated reading market:

Amazon Kindle: Kindle 2 and Kindle Dx
Sony Reader: Pocket, Touch, Daily Edition
Barnes & Noble: nook & iRex

KINDLE

Pros of the Kindle:

There are two flavors of the Kindle:

Kindle 2, available internationally, 6″ screen for $259.00.
Kindle DX, available in US only, 9.7″ screen for $489.00.

The Kindle allows for continuous access to your ebook purchase and the Amazon digital bookstore via 3G network from AT&T. You are allowed to hook up to 6 devices to your account. I have my iPhone and my husband’s iPhone devices registered to my account. If you are particularly trusting, you can share an account with up to 5 other readers. Anyone with a device registered to the account, however, may charge to that account.

Kindle’s refresh rate is fast (how fast the pages “turn” electronically) and your annotations, notes, and last place read will be synched across the registered reading devices. I.e., if you had an iPhone and a Kindle, the notes that you took on each would be synced, as well as the last place that you read the same book.

Amazon will be releasing a desktop application for both the PC and the Mac allowing synching with those devices as well.

Cons of the Kindle:

The only place you can buy secure ebooks for the Kindle is through the Amazon digital bookstore. (Books that are DRM free like His Lordship’s Mistress by Joan Wolf can be purchased at Fictionwise in Mobipocket format and then emailed to the Kindle).

The Amazon is a closed device and only the Kindle and thus the Kindle App can view the Kindle book. The keyboard on the Kindle is difficult to use and not conducive to long note taking. There is no file organization on the Kindle so if you have a huge ebook collection, there is no easy way to navigate through it.

No library connection. Covers are extra. There is no ability to expand the Kindle memory.

SONY

There are three versions of the Sony:

Pocket, 5″ screen at $199. No note taking ability. Must side load the books via a USB connection.
Touch, 6″ screen at $299. Touchscreen. Must side load books via a USB connection.
Daily Edition, 7″ screen at $399. Touchscreen and 3G capability. Ability to purchase direct from the device.

Pros of the Sony

The Sony devices accept epub which is fast becoming the standard in the industry. Because of this, the reader can engage in Internet price comparison, shopping for the book at the cheapest prices. The epub The touchscreen is responsive and it is easy to take notes using the stylus by writing on the screen itself. Sony boasts a great organization system for the devices allowing books to be sorted into “collections” (like folders).

The Sony Touch and Daily Edition come with faux leather covers along with SD and Memory Card slots for expansion.

One of the best features of the Sony devices is the ability to interface with libraries. Most libraries that lend digital books use Adobe DRM encryption (epub and pdf). Sony reads those formats and therefore the Sony allows you to take your library reads with you. The Daily Edition allows you to access libraries directly from the device itself.

Cons of the Sony.

Only the expensive Daily Edition allows for over the air purchases. The Sony ebookstore, however, often has higher ebook prices than other ebook retailers. Sony does not ship with a wall charger. Instead you either charge via USB or buy a wall charger separately. There is no synching between annotations you take on the computer or other device and your Sony.

BARNES AND NOBLE

Barnes and Noble has two devices currently available:

nook, 6″ eink screen for reading and 3.5″ LCD screen for browsing, buying, and note taking. $259. 3G and in store wireless
IRex DR 800SG, 8.1″ eink touchscreen (stylus enabled only) for $399. 3G capability powered by Verizon.

Pros of the nook

The nook has 3G and in store wireless capabilities built on an Android platform. Android signaled to me that the hackers will be all over this. The wireless capability is likely to be the first things hacked. As commenter Dana noted, wireless capabilities are not crippled. Moving on, The 3.5″ LCD screen allows fast browsing and note taking. Like the Kindle, the nook allows for synchronization of notes across platforms. The notetaking on the LCD screen will be light years faster than it is on the Kindle.

The nook will be able to read encrypted epub as well as eReader. (Can read more about the Adobe/eReader integration here). Supposedly this should mean that you would be able to use these devices with digital library books.

BN has a much heralded Lend Me feature but it only allows you to lend a book once AND it will not be enabled for all books. Publishers don’t like the feature (and neither do authors). PublishersMarketplace has this to report (paywall):

But the company’s web site clearly states that a given ebook can only be lent “one time.” One publisher told us that BN was initially trying to secure broader lending rights but pulled back based on broad publisher resistance.

For many big publishers, that’s still one time too many. [William] Lynch would not specify a number of lendable titles, only saying it would “a good bit,” noting that available titles will carry a LendMe burst symbol. But executives at most of the biggest trade houses indicated to us that they have not agreed to participate in LendMe.

Cons of the nook

There is no file organization on the nook. You can browse by title and author. You cannot create your own collections. As with the Kindle, this provides problems for readers with large digital libraries. The nook does not read RTF or Word docs.

Because of the LCD, the battery for the nook does not last as long as the Kindle.

CONCLUSION

Of the current slate of devices, the nook at $259 seems to be the best device for the money. It has a more open platform than the Kindle but still has the over the air purchasing capability. Having said that, if you could wait, I wouldn’t buy a new device this Christmas.

New multi function devices are due to hit the market in 2010 including the likely Apple Tablet. It is easy for me to play the waiting game. I have an ebook reader; three of them, in fact: the laptop, the iPhone, and the Sony 700. Having said that, I just know from years of reading on dedicated and multi function devices that I gravitate toward using the multifunction devices. These new tablet devices will allow you to browse the web, play music, watch video and read. If you can, wait.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: An Unexpected Suitor by Anna Schmidt

Jayne — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:42:23 +0000

Dear Ms. Schmidt,

I am coming to look forward to your many novels set on the Massachusetts coastal islands. Plus you use the turn-of-the-century (turn of the last century I should say) era which is something I’d love to see more of.

Nola Burns initially appears to be an uptight, dried up spinster who’s as rigid as her corset while Harrison Starbuck has been known as a scamp and a carefree rogue since his boyhood. Nola’s hardworking, having taken over the care of her siblings at the death of their parents and since run the teahouse which was her childhood home. Harry is well off due to his instinct for a good business deal. Now they’re about to clash over Harry’s latest venture.

The beachfront teahouse is the perfect location for Harry’s planned luxury hotel to accompany the cabaret he’s building to entertain the locals and summer tourists upon whom they all depend. But it’s all Nola has and she’s not going to sell it or see her business ruined without a fight.

When Nola allows the actors to stay in her house in order to fill in for the summer staff she was unable to hire, the town busybodies’ tongues begin to wag. That wouldn’t bother strong willed Nola but the unsigned, threatening letters which have begun to appear finally start to take their toll on her. Can these two see a way for both to get what they want and how long will it take them to see in each other what the rest of the town already knows?

In many ways, “An Unexpected Suitor” reminds me of “The Music Man.” The time frame, the initially unbending heroine, the charming hero, the disapproving town elders and music thrown in to top it off. For while the town thinks well of Harry, they’re not so sure about the theater people he’s begun to associate with and whom he’s bringing to the island to stage his latest play-turned-operetta.

It reminds me of how restricted were the lives of most women of the time. There is Harry’s unmarried older aunt who’s finally “of an age” not to be bothered by gossip and speculation that she lives alone and the women of the theater, whom most respectable people have already consigned to sin, but poor Nola is still bound by the conventions of the day. I enjoyed watching first Nola’s, then everyone else’s, opinions of the theater people change. Even the minister confesses to his shame that he isn’t immune from preconceived notions. You remind all of us, regardless of creed, to step back and examine ourselves. But you do it without preaching which is something I admire.

The relationship between Nola and Harry takes time to develop. At first they appear not to know each other well at all which is something I found odd. They grew up in the same small town and in their youth, Nola seems to have had a crush on Harry but, when the book starts, it’s almost as if they’re strangers. However, I do like how you conveyed their growing interest in each other without resorting to mental lusting.

The pace of the story is more like the lazy days of summer and there are several subplots. While I enjoyed the story and the characters, I did get impatient at times. I felt a little tightening up would have moved the story along more quickly while not losing the substance of the novel. And while I admire Nola for not casting stones or making accusations before the identity of the letter writer is revealed, her stubborn determination to blow off the threats finally began to seem foolhardy.

Though this book doesn’t match my fondness for “Gift from the Sea,” it’s still one for which I think there is an audience. The setting and time period are ones I hope will be further explored even if I hope the pace is quickened, just slightly. B-

~Jayne

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: How to Tempt a Duke by Kasey Michaels

Jayne — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:00:17 +0000

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 Charlie – um, Charlotte – grown up nicely. But what’s this about Charlie having been engaged to his younger – and more repulsive – cousin before the sailing accident? And why won’t she tell him what’s behind that? As Rafe tries to settle into a position he’s not been trained for, he realizes there are a few other things to discover before he can claim the woman he’s coming to love.

I’m not joking when I say that this book took me a good 100 pages to really sink my teeth into and get involved with. The opening scenes with Rafe and his soldier BFF, Fitz, were what made me stay the course. The instant bickering between Rafe and Charlie boded ill and Rafe’s younger sister, Nicole, made me want to urge him to check into a good, strict military school for her. Very, very strict. The subplot about the attempts on Rafe’s life also seemed like it would be dragged out just when I least wanted it. And it was.

But then things settled down and Rafe and Charlie began to talk. I mean really talk. And the Dark Secret was revealed without too much martyred silence and padding of the plot. This was when I fell for Rafe. The man steps up to the plate and smacks a homer out of the ball park with his response to what happened to Charlie and how her family reacted to it. Then he gets a little more touchy feely than seems normal about waiting for Charlie to overcome her reluctance to marriage but I guess I’d rather this response than cold indifference to her fears.

And it’s about this time as well that Charlie begins to show the managerial skills as well as teasing that have been written into her past. She also knows exactly what Nicole is up to and seems like she’s not going to take much shit off Nicky. I could even tolerate the oft used “climbing into bed with fever stricken hero to warm him” scene considering how much humor Rafe shows when they’re inevitably found out.

I wasn’t sure where the secondary relationship in the story would go and have to give you a nod for taking it into a difficult direction, then seeing it through. I have a feeling as to what will happen in the next book. Let’s see if I’m right.

With all these aspects taken care of, I was afraid that the dreaded subplot of “who’s trying to kill Rafe” would rear its ugly head. And it did. And Nicole acts feisty. Though she did take a hand in her salvation. Rafe truly needs to lock her up until he can hand her off to some poor fool. I mean….honestly. This part of the book seemed tacked on and basically useless, IMO, complete with foaming at the mouth villain. All I could think was…page count needs to be padded out.

So a weaker beginning coupled with weaker ending lowers the grade on a book that could have been something much more special. The middle is something that I can recommend, in contrast to so many books which drag before a bang up finale. But the whole gets a B-

~Jayne

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Beautiful C*cksucker II: Such a Good Boy by Barbara Sheridan

Joan/SarahF — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:37:26 +0000

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 research, BC#2 is the second romance for the dom of BC#1 after his sub from BC#1 fucking DIES!! Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have read it. Don’t freaking kill off the main characters from a previous book! Cardinal Sin of Romance #1! Even if it is after 20 years of “happiness.”

Right. So. That aside…Mikisaburo Nabeshimi is a high-profile cop in Tokyo. He goes to New York to drop his son off at Columbia and meets Dave Kirkland, a brash young cop, when Miki meets a friend of his at the courthouse. Dave is the unofficial foster son of a Chinese woman killed by the man that Miki’s friend successfully defends against the murder charge. (Confused yet, dear readers? This is a novella. None of these stories are really resolved.) The story is the progression of Miki and Dave’s D/s relationship as they chase down Miki’s friend’s client and prove that he’s actually guilty of serial murder.

So, my notes say: “Dave is a bratty little shit with no personality, Miki is stereotypical inscrutable Japanese dom.” I think that kind of sums it all up. This is one of those books that, to my mind, get BDSM so wrong, it’s scary and dangerous. Miki basically inflicts his domination on Dave, a complete BDSM newbie without a clue of what Miki’s doing. He makes Dave guess what’s going on, never talks with him about anything, “punishes” Dave in various ways for infractions in protocol and behavior that they haven’t talked about or agreed to, and just in general acts like an absolute shit. The whole concept of

“I can sense what you need even if you can’t. Trust me”

is actually contrary to all good BDSM practice. It’s not sexy, it’s frightening. Then again, Dave is an immature asshole who takes risk after risk without thought for the personal or broader consequences. BDSM is about safe, sane, and consensual, and all three of those require open and honest communication. BDSM is both mentally and physically dangerous when not discussed openly and for Miki to keep Dave guessing, to never talk to him about what they’re doing, is stupid and wrong. (And biting hard enough to leave a scar, without TALKING ABOUT IT BEFOREHAND, is not only wrong, it’s actually about impossible.)

What is also stupid and wrong is that Miki decides that he and Dave will go under cover to catch the killer. He informs Dave of this fact, then acts the same way with the undercover assignment as he does with the BDSM: never talks to Dave, never tells Dave his plans, keeps Dave guessing and on his toes and in the dark. Which is all very well for the sex (or not), but OMFG!stupid for a freaking undercover assignment that could get either or both of them KILLED! Metaphor for the relationship? I think so, but not in a good way.

There are story lines that go nowhere and coincidences that are just too much to believe (Dave’s best friend’s suicide?! The fact that Miki figures out the connection between the NY killing and killings in Japan in about a second?! Dave’s inherited apartment?!). All the incest imagery was strange and freaky and odd: Miki’s (platonic, lesbian) wife talking to Dave about their son gets Dave all hot and bothered, for example. Ick. And finally, Miki talks about his former lover (hero of BC#1, remember) as a friend and sometimes lover, but not as the love of his life: this is romance? How am I supposed to trust the HEA of this book if you’ve not only destroyed but called into question the very existence of the HEA of the previous book? All this AND the resolution of the suspense plot is confusing (I have no idea of who is doing what, where, and in what order) and anti-climactic.

So. Just no. Thank you for your generosity and I’m sorry I couldn’t like the book. But just no.

Grade: D

Best Regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

As a Mean Girl review, this one doesn’t really need an FTC disclaimer, but here’s one anyway: This book was provided to the reviewer by the author. The reviewer did not pay for this book but received it free. We endorse good books that portray BDSM positively, realistically, and safely, but this book isn’t and doesn’t.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

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

Grand Central Publishing Specials & Other Ebook Deals

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Runaway Lady, Conquering Lord by Carol Townend

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Hidden Conflict by Various Authors

Related Posts:

Four Ways NOT to Write BDSM Romance

Related Posts:

REVIEW: From Waif to Gentleman’s Wife by Julia Justiss

Related Posts:

Piracy Is Bad

Related Posts:

Should I Buy an Ebook Reader This Year?

Related Posts:

REVIEW: An Unexpected Suitor by Anna Schmidt

Related Posts:

REVIEW: How to Tempt a Duke by Kasey Michaels

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Beautiful C*cksucker II: Such a Good Boy by Barbara Sheridan

Related Posts: