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REVIEW: Submission Times Two by Claire Thompson

Joan/SarahF — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:00:51 +0000

Dear Ms. Thompson.

I’ve had numerous people recommend your books to me as examples of good BDSM romances. When James Buchanan recommended you yet again, I broke down. I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed Submission Times Two and look forward to reading more of your books.

I started with Submission Times Two because how could I not?! It hit all my buttons: menage, m/m, and BDSM. But especially the menage. Cam and Ethan are desperately in love with each other. They’ve been living together for just under a year. They’re committed and focused on making their relationship work no matter what. The problem is, they’re both submissive, and unable to dom each other convincingly. So they’ve worked out a deal: on the weekends, they each go to different clubs, scene with doms there, get their pain-play needs met that way, and then go home and fuck like bunnies. So far, it’s been working out for them. Then Ethan hooks up with Maestro and starts thinking about how he needs more than just weekend scenes — he needs a full-time dom, which of course starts getting in the way of his relationship with Cam.

“Maestro” is actually Andrew, and he’s sort of semi-stalking Ethan. He had a huge crush on Ethan back in high school, when Ethan was the so-closeted-even-he-didn’t-know-he-was-gay quarterback who everyone adored, and Andrew was Andy, nerdy and completely forgettable. Andrew finds Ethan through Facebook, and figures he can finally make a dream come true when he figures out that not only is Ethan gay, but he’s submissive. He goes into the relationship figuring he’d steal Ethan from his partner, only to change his mind when he meets Cam.

Cam, of course, is pretty upset when Ethan starts keeping things from him, but what I loved about this story more than anything else is that no one huffs off in a Big Misunderstanding. They all TALK with each other, and work things out, just like real people in committed relationships should do. If they do go off half-cocked (harhar), they get their heads out of their asses pretty quickly and figure things out.

Although the story is only 100 pages, all three characters have emotional arcs, all three characters fall in love with each other, all three characters make it work together. And the BDSM aspects of the story are wonderful. You obviously know what you’re talking about and the BDSM is about the sensation and the psychology, as it should be. You show how intimate it can be, how mind-altering and relationship-changing. It’s also not for the faint-of-heart. The BDSM is pretty heavy at times, definite pain-play, not just submission with some slap-and-tickle. So readers should be warned.

I loved the actual story, the BDSM was fabulous, the emotions were strong and made my stomach all swirly. But…but two things: characterization and writing.

The characters weren’t 100% differentiable (if that’s a word). When you’re dealing with three men, more has to separate them from each other than their names. While Andrew was obviously different from the other two because he was a dom, Cam and Ethan were less distinguishable. They had different backgrounds, of course, and difference relationships with Andrew, and different needs. But I couldn’t tell them apart by speech. I couldn’t figure out whose head I was in without a name marker. The dialogue was great, the banter well done, the conversations good. But the characters didn’t sparkle and because they weren’t instinctively different from each other, I kept having to consciously remind myself that Cam was the one who ____ and Ethan was the one who ____ and that was a little distracting.

For those in my “How not to write BDSM” mega-review who said they didn’t want a BDSM manual while reading, this book was proof both that something that reads like a manual at times can be hot and that it can also be slightly tedious and preachy. I don’t know if it was just that I was super-sensitive to the issue, reading the story as I did while also dealing with the debate in my last post, but at times I felt like Ethan, Cam, and Andrew were reading from a “How to do Safe, Sane, Consensual BDSM” script, rather than organically moving through the story. But I also felt it was better to have that than not. The book did a great job depicting BDSM and the extra little preachy bits were just slightly too sticky-sweet icing on the cake.

But overall, I think the preachiness is a result of the biggest problem I had with story. The writing was inelegant. I’ve thought long and hard how to say this, and I think that word is the best choice I could make. The writing has no sparkle; there are no surprises. Every cliche is milked for all it’s worth. If a situation happens, I just knew what phrase was going to be used to sum it up. The story and emotions and characterization were all mostly solid. And although there was nothing terrible about the writing — with the actual stringing of words into sentences — it was pedestrian, sometimes even boring, although the story itself wasn’t boring. At times this annoyed me, at times I could ignore it and sink into the story. I loved the story and these guys, but the writing was, well, inelegant.

However, I’ll be looking forward to reading the other books of yours that intrigue me, because, inelegant writing aside, you’ve got nice situations, pretty good characters, and solid, even hot BDSM scenes. Oh, and can I just say: Predicament bondage! OMGyum!

Grade: B-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format (this vendor is unknown to us).

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REVIEW: The Bargain (Finding Home Book 1) by Catherine Stang

Jayne — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:51:43 +0000

Dear Ms. Stang,

Me loves a good American Civil War novel but unfortunately, most publishers today don’t agree with me so pickin’s have been slim lately. So when I was perusing the new ebooks at Fictionwise a few months ago, I decided to buy your book and give it a try.

With her three older brothers gone for soldiers, Cassandra Beaumont has taken charge of the family plantation. She, her younger sister Rachel and her sister-in-law Ellie are the only adults there. Things are grim and looking to get worse when a troop of Union soldiers arrives with orders to commandeer the place for use as a hospital. Cassie makes a bold but thwarted stand against Major Joel Bradshaw before realizing she needs his medical expertise to help deliver Ellie’s breech baby. Needs must and the two work out an agreement: his help with the delivery for her help as a nurse once the hospital is set up.

Baby Joel James Beaumont is delivered, everyone settles into the arrangement and the wounded begin to arrive. A Colonel who dislikes the fact that the Beaumont women are still there arrives too and Joel makes a hasty offer of marriage to Cassie which will allow the ladies to stay. Facing eviction and having no brothers on hand to help her, Cassie agrees. But as their feelings for each other develop, is there hope for this marriage bargain made in the final days of the war?

Let’s see – what I liked. I liked the characters and the fact that no one is a villain. No foaming at the mouth, scenery chewing bad guys to arrive in the last act. No one does a 180 character change and for the most part, everyone acts honorably.

But I felt that a lot of issues were skated over with little depth. This is supposed to be the site of a wartime hospital but precious little time is spent on page dealing with the wounded and I never got the feeling that this aspect of the novel was anything but peripheral. The extent of Cassie’s nursing is described – in past tense – as wrapping bandages and handing Joel surgical instruments. Joel’s activity is described – also in past tense – as a few operations and making his morning rounds. I didn’t see the blood, hear the cries of the wounded or get wound up in any emotional life or death scenes because there weren’t any.

Now for my main problem with the story. There’s lots of potential external conflict: We’ve got North vs South, Cassie and Joel working out their marriage, the Colonel poking his nose into whatever is going on, Cassie’s Confederate doctor brother who sneaks back to the plantation to see his family, his problems with his wife Ellie, sister Rachel and Joel’s second in command who clash but…little of this is carried through into internal conflict.

Everyone is so darned nice and polite and accommodating that whatever conflicts arise in the story are quickly dealt with in a matter of a page or two. To me, it made the characters seem flat. Oh, Cassie does something that Joel doesn’t want her to. No worries because he won’t stay mad or really do anything about it. Rachel defies Joel or Scott’s demands that she stay inside. Not a problem because a short discussion with her will turn her contrite. Ellie is mad that Jamie never answered her letters. Wait, here the letters miraculously are and all is forgiven. Usually my complaints are that conflict is dragged out past believability but with this book I was longing for a good show down. I needed something to build the tension and get me to madly flip pages to see what would happen next. Instead, after a little while, I could easily predict how these people would neatly resolve everything.

The next book in the series also promises an era little used in recent years, that of Reconstruction. I’m interested enough in that time frame to give it a shot and will cross my fingers that I find it more emotionally engaging than I did this book. C+

~Jayne

This book can be purchased at Whiskey Creek Press in ebook form.

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Does eBook Pricing Affect Your Opinion of a Publisher, Author or Retailer?

Jane — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:00:59 +0000

Ellora’s Cave is finally selling its ebooks outside of its own portal, jasminejade.com. Strangely, though, Ellora’s Cave is setting its list prices at third party vendors at twice the rate of the ebook price at jasminejade.com. For example, Jade Black’s After the Storm sells for $7.99 in unencrypted PDF, HTML, MS Reader, Mobipocket, and Rocketbook at Ellora’s Cave but at Amazon, the Kindle version has a digital list price of $18.99 which is kindly discounted by Amazon down to $9.99. The digital list price is the price that is set by the publisher. Devil in Winter, a novella by Diana Hunter is at Ellora’s Cave for a price of $4.45 and it is at Amazon for $8.99. Alien Overnight by Robin Rothman sells for $5.95 at EC and $11.90 at Amazon. You get the picture.

St. Martin’s Press and Simon & Schuster are notorious for selling its ebooks at a super premium price. Simon & Schuster lists several of the backlist titles at $9.99 ebook price even though these books are currently available in a mass market price. St. Martin’s Press lists ebooks as high as $14.00 for books that have a comparable print version in mass market.

It frustrates me to no end that St. Martin’s Press and Simon & Schuster place what I like to call an ebook tax on its digital copies. I would love to access Ellora’s Cave books outside of Ellora’s Cave. I find the checkout process to be unwieldy and frustrating. Oftentimes the site will not load or the login process takes several attempts or the book won’t download and so forth. But to charge twice as much at a third party site is not only frustrating but seems short sighted.

The core readership of Ellora’s Cave is not likely to switch their buying habits to accessing books via a third party site, knowing that the prices at Ellora’s Cave are cheaper. Readers who do buy via a third party but learn later that they paid twice as much will become very frustrated. But will the ire be directed at the publisher (Ellora’s Cave) or the individual author?

Digital publishers are heavily publisher branded. I think readers associate heavily with the publisher identity rather than individual authors when it comes to digital publishing. When you look at the covers of Ellora’s Cave books, Samhain, Loose-Id, and Liquid Silver, to name a few, the publisher brand is carried on the front cover itself. I sometimes think that EC and the digital publishers that came after them were inspired by the Harlequin category lines and its heavy publisher branding.

Interestingly, over at Barnes and Noble, readers are upset with the ebook prices at BN, arguing that the BN prices are too high in comparison with Amazon.

For most readers, though, the face of a book is the author. If the reader doesn’t like the title or the cover or the price, the reader often blames the author. If there are typos and grammatical errors that occur in the post author stage because some copyeditor gets his hands on the manuscript last, the author gets blamed. So, in the case of ebook pricing, does the reader blame the author, the publisher or the retailer?

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Google Book Settlement Take 2: Still Creating a Blackwater for Books

Jane — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:00:23 +0000

Google and the Plaintiffs (Authors’ Guild and representative authors and publishers) went back to the negotiating table to craft a new settlement agreement that would address the concerns of the Department of Justice and other critics. The new settlement agreement was released yesterday.

For Consumers

There were quite a few positive changes. To address the concern of price fixing that the DOJ had expressed, the Books Registry no longer has any say in the pricing of books. This is really a win for consumers and for Google. Google now has the sole right to set prices and will do so using an algorithm developed based on market pricing. Authors might not like this because pricing of ebooks is trending downwards but it’s a plus for consumers. Additional revenue models have been changed to be limited to POD and PDF/EPUB downloads.

For Authors of Books in Print and Under Contract

The revised agreement also resolves many concerns that authors of books in print and under contract may have. It has removed the requirement to arbitrate one’s cases. Authors are allowed to dictate how a book is displayed through Google Book Search and can remove the book from sale if she disagrees with pricing or discounts.

Authors can also designate creative commons use/reuse rights, free distribution and removal of any display restrictions.

Orphan Works

Still a central feature of the Google Book Settlement is the treatment of Orphan Works. Orphan Works are works that are in copyright but the owner of the copyright is not found. This usually occurs because the original content creator has died and has no direct heirs or the heirs do not know of their right to copyright.

The new agreement proposes to set up an Unclaimed Works Fiduciary. This person would be appointed by a supermajority vote from the Books Registry Board and be subject to court approval. The Unclaimed Works Fiduciary will be vested with the power to grant use licenses for these Orphaned Works. The money generated from the use of the Orphan Work license will be held in trust until such time as the rightful owner can be identified. After the 6th year of existence, the Registry can authorize the use of up to 25% of the funds in that trust to locate the rightful owners. After 10 years, the Registry can apply for court approval of distribution of funds to literacy based charities.

Essentially, the Google Book Settlement wants to create a Blackwater for Orphan Works. Blackwater is a private company that contracts with the government to offer various military related services. Blackwater serves as a government contractor to carry out the duties of the government that it cannot do itself. The government engages many, many contractors. Medicare program is administered by private contractors throughout the country. Individual public works projects such as highway repair or building construction are also carried out by contractors.

While the Copyright Agency could carry out the tasks that are being offered by the Registry and the UWF, it doesn’t have the funding nor staffing. Nor is there a legal structure which would allow the Copyright Agency to carry out the role of the Registry or the UWF.

The Registry and the Unclaimed Works Fiduciary wants to stand in the shoes of the government to administer a program that would allow the use of orphan works, collect money, and hold the money in trust. If the money goes unclaimed, the Registry and the UWF would distribute the money in way that would ostensibly assist the public. Google profits off the use of Orphan Works by establishing a larger database of searchable works than any other company.

In theory, the offering of orphan works to the public is is a social good. Google wants to create a world library that would permit the public access to books that it would not have in the past. However, the approval of this settlement sets this precedent. Where the law is lacking, private organizations with money and power can come together to create a private solution and change the law without legislative process.

Let me draw this example. Every year, real and personal property goes unclaimed primarily because people die without wills and heirs are not easily located. This property such as land, uncashed checks, stock certificates, or jewelry or other goods is taken by various States and then kept in trust until the property can be claimed. What if, instead of the property being turned over to the State, a private company came in and collected the unclaimed property up. They cashed the checks and use the interest for their own benefit, but never spent the principal. The company maybe even developed some of the land and placed a museum on it and made it open to the public so that the could see the property, enjoy the land. If some heir came along and was able to prove ownership, the company would give it up.

What’s the problem with this? The taking of someone else’s property for one’s own use is just fundamentally contrary to the rights of ownership upon which our legal system is based. The government may not do this without complying with specific legal guidelines (it’s called eminent domain). Further, laws are created and changed through legislative process, not through private agreements. Finally, under this agreement only Google would have the unfettered right to be free of suits from Orphan Work heirs (and any other copyright holder). Only Google would be able to create a worldwide library because other companies would be subject to the lawsuits of copyright holders.

The question that Judge Dennis Chin, the judge overseeing the Google Book lawsuit, must answer is this: Is the social good of creating a mechanism to deal with Orphan Works (an issue long ignored by the legislative process) greater than the requirement that laws are changed only through legislative process? I’m uncertain.

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REVIEW: A Hearing Heart by Bonnie Dee

Jayne — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:00:20 +0000

Dear Ms Dee,

Thanks for offering Dear Author the chance to review your latest historical from Liquid Silver. And then for following up with me to be sure I got the book. I do fall behind on my reviewing at times.

After the death of her fiancé, Catherine Johnson, a New York schoolteacher in 1901, travels to Nebraska to teach a one-room school and escape her sad memories. One afternoon, violence erupts in the sleepy town. Catherine saves deaf stable hand, Jim Kinney, from torture by drunken thugs.

As she takes charge of his education, teaching him to read and sign, attraction grows between them. The warmth and humor in this silent man transcends the need for speech and his eyes tell her all she needs to know about his feelings for her. But the obstacles of class difference and the stigma of his handicap are almost insurmountable barriers to their growing attachment.

Will Catherine flout society’s rules and allow herself to love again? Can Jim make his way out of poverty as a deaf man in a hearing world? And together will they beat the corrupt robber baron who has a stranglehold on the town?

The scenes of Catherine teaching Jim to read then of them both learning sign language are fascinating. Since I’m not a teacher, I wouldn’t have the first clue as to how to start. I think you did a great job showing how Jim’s new learning is opening up the world for him. I can’t imagine not being able to communicate beyond simple pantomimes. Not being able to hear, speak or write would be terrifying and immensely isolating. You conveyed this well.

The book avoids sugary sweetness. It is matter of fact and down to earth. Brava. I did get tired of reading about the state of Jim’s cock. It was almost to the point where I was looking for the scene “cock alert.” Is it hardening yet? Has Jim managed to hide his physical condition from Catherine? The inclusion of the hawt sex scenes at the end of the book were jarring as compared to the low heat level of most of the rest of the story.

Jim is ready to help people, even when he initially doesn’t like them as we see with Dean and his filly, but when the chips are down, he steps up to the plate – though thank you for not turning him into a sudden Superman. He’s never fired a gun, as I believe was the case with most men of the time, and it shows. This is a good thing, IMO.

The villains and the lengths to which Karak is willing to go to get what he wants don’t surprise me. This was the age of range wars and men owning towns – just as you’ve described him as doing.

Jim isn’t made to be a poster child for pc-ness nor does Catherine treat him like some pet project – she sees him as a man and realizes early on she is attracted to him as more than a friend. But here’s the trouble for me – the first time they kiss, she’s not expecting it and she feels guilty and thinks – “we can’t do this because of the social differences.” Then – while they’re on their picnic – she thinks that if there’s going to be any kissing that day, she’ll have to instigate it. WTF? And she does, knowing that she doesn’t feel they’re social equals and that she could hurt Jim with any rejection. Then she keeps letting them get more physical all the while knowing that she isn’t up for a social relationship. I know you want to present a flawed heroine, and I’m grateful for that, but I couldn’t help but finish reading the story thinking that she’s damn lucky to get Jim rather than the other way around.

The ending is nicely done. They obviously can’t stay in a town that views Jim as nothing but low class hired help and the location of the School for the Deaf in Catherine’s home state is fortuitous. Win-win situation all around.

Despite the issues I have with the book, I’m glad I read it and glad that you sought out a review for it. I’m sorry that it didn’t work quite as well for me as you would probably wish it had but it’s still a B- for me.

~Jayne

FTC discloser – A free copy of this book was provided to DA by the author for a potential review.

This book can be purchased Liquid Silver Books in ebook form.

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REVIEW: Bound and Determined by Jane Davitt and Alexa Snow

Joan/SarahF — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:00:33 +0000

Dear Ms. Davitt and Ms. Snow.

I love the title of this book, because it’s so true to the characters and to the book. I’ve been disappointed, sometimes even sickened by some of Loose-Id’s titles recently (no, I didn’t review them, I couldn’t bring myself to do so), so I was happy to be intrigued enough by the excerpt to buy Bound and Determined. And I’m so glad I did. This book, while lacking slightly in the pure romance department, is a fabulous look at a BDSM relationship with some amazing characterization and some really hot sex.

First a warning for readers, though: the characters in this book are a masochist and a sadist. Yes, much of the relationship is about dominance and submission, which many people have less issue with than with pain play, but the sadomasochism in this book is strong. Not violent and visceral like Anah Crow’s (brilliant) Uneven, but it’s there, its unabashed, and if that bothers you, don’t read this book. However, if you’re intrigued by the psychology behind masochism, this is the book for you, because it’s beautifully depicted.

Sterling is a college senior. He figured out that he was gay years ago, but he’s only figured out his attraction to BDSM very recently. He’s been domming a friend, but they both know it’s not working, and the friend takes Sterling to a BDSM club, where he watches a well-respected dom Owen (and Sterling’s former English professor) scene with and then break off his relationship with a submissive woman. Sterling has a moment of clarity (he’s not a dominant, he’s a submissive and a masochist) and chases down Owen and asks Owen to be his dom. Owen, understandably, refuses. After all, he’s just broken off a relationship, Sterling’s a former student, not yet 21, and almost half his age. But Owen is not proof against Sterling’s persistence, and, to be honest, his beauty, and finally agrees to become Sterling’s dominant.

One thing to make clear is that this IS a dominant/submissive and sadist/masochistic relationship. Owen does not consider himself Sterling’s boyfriend. They do not have a traditional relationship. And although Sterling gets to come and their connection is a sexual one, because fundamentally, BDSM *is* aobut sex, Owen refuses to have either anal or oral sex with Sterling until Sterling is 21. Which pisses Sterling off, because he’s not a patient person, and over which they fight a few times. Which makes it awkward every now and then when they’re not in dom/sub roles and find they have very little in common. This is the one concern I had with the book: what kind of relationship can they have beyond the D/s? Because at the end of the book, they’re together as committed partners as well as dom/sub, and I think the relationship building gets skimmed a little too much and I wonder what they’ll talk about of an evening when they’re just lounging around together.

That aside, everything else is wonderfully done. The characterizations are perfectly clear: Sterling’s bratty but conflicted, so used to getting his own way, brought up to be a hard-ass by his dick of a father, but so desperate to submit, to serve, but so eager to get off because OMG, he’s 20 and a walking erection. And Owen’s older and wiser and very much in control but still vulnerable to a pretty pout and a desperate “please,” just like we all are. And oh, the BDSM is beautifully done. The scenes are hot and these boys TALK. In fact, that’s part of the characterization: both Sterling and Owen are in their heads too much, too smart not to take apart everything they do, alone and together. And so the reader understands every step of the way, everything that’s going on.

In fact, at a climactic (harhar) point in the book, Owen says to Sterling, “I’m not your father,” which causes Sterling to freak out and leave. And the characterization is so perfectly done that even though the scene was told from Owen’s perspective, I was in both of their heads to such an extent that I knew why Owen had said that (he wanted Sterling to know he wasn’t doing something to punish him the way Sterling’s asshole of a father did), felt his utter shock when Sterling reacted apparently illogically by running away from a reassurance, and yet, at the same time, completely understood WHY Sterling was running away (he thought Owen was saying that he thought Sterling was looking for a father figure and he felt Owen didn’t really know him). The scene was so well-done it actually pulled me out because I was astounded at how well I viscerally understood the motivations and feelings of both Sterling and Owen right away.

Back to the BDSM, though. It’s a very formal BDSM. Owen likes things just so and is very much into training Sterling. It sounds too much like hard work to me, especially since Sterling’s quite so much of a brat, but you make it work beautifully, precisely because it’s so much a part of their characters. And the BDSM is done lovingly and well. Here’s an description of Sterling’s masochism:

God, it hurt like nothing else ever. He screamed so desperately that it didn’t even come out very loud; there just wasn’t enough air behind it to create volume. It was like his nerve endings were using up all his oxygen, and he couldn’t breathe or think through the searing pain.

He couldn’t do anything. He was gone.

The scary part was how fucking good it felt, the bright agony ripping him free of restraints that weren’t made of rope or chain. He used the pain, just as Owen had told him to, shaped it, loved it, let it take him. Dimly, distantly, he felt his climax begin, lagging long moments behind his scream, an afterthought, as if his body was trying to kill the pain with pleasure, which was stupid, really, because they were both the same.

And one of Owen’s sadism:

“It’ll hurt,” Owen said, and there was something in his voice that told Sterling how much it would hurt and how much Owen wanted to do it. It was hard to wrap his head around at the beginning of their relationship; the way that for all Owen made him feel safe and protected, Owen got off on hurting him, leaving him bruised, marked, crying. With anyone else, that would have freaked Sterling out, but he didn’t just love Owen, he trusted him. Totally. No limits.

It was what allowed him to ask for more than he could take, made reckless by arousal, knowing that Owen was more aware of his limits than he was. Spanking him scarlet and hot turned Owen on, but controlling Sterling, reining him in, curbing his impulses, did even more for him, and Sterling knew that.

But both of these are told from Sterling’s perspective and brings up one tiny niggle more that’s my own personal issue more than anything else. You GET submission *and* masochism, or at least Sterling does a brilliant job of showing it to us and making us understand it. But when we’re in Owen’s head, it’s much more about the dominance than it is about the sadism. Yes, he gets off on hurting Sterling, but that’s much less explored than his dominance is. And that disappointed me slightly. But not enough not to thoroughly enjoy this book.

The book was a wonderful, slow, thoughtful read with some really REALLY great sex and a fascinating depiction of some very formal, very safe, and yet still emotionally dangerous BDSM. The plot of the book, such as it is, is focused on the emotional trajectory of the relationship and on Sterling’s issues with his idiotic father. There’s no suspense plot, no saving the world, nothing but two people falling in love as they explore each other, both physically and emotionally. Which is why the lack of exploration of what they have in common besides BDSM and hot hot sex was vaguely disappointing as well. But only vaguely. In the end, I trusted that they’d stay together because they were both too damn stubborn to do anything else: Bound and Determined indeed.

Grade: B+

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Loose Id in ebook format.

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REVIEW: Redline Lover by Charlene Teglia

Jane — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:00:20 +0000

Dear Ms. Teglia:

Thank you for sending this novella to me for review. I know, having read erotic romance* for several years, that here is a real skill in delivering believable and sexy consummation scenes. You have that skill and I appreciated the delivery of that content. The overall construct, perhaps because of the length, was problematic.

Maggie Parker and Adam Richards were a couple until Maggie up and left one day, leaving Adam sleeping and a post it note breaking up with him. She moved to Chicago to take a job with a magazine. When Maggie’s sister gives birth to a son alone and abandoned by her husband, Maggie returns to her hometown near Washington, D.C.. Of course, that puts her back into proximity with Adam.

Adam feels like there was unfinished business between them and proposes that Maggie have sex with him until she leaves for Chicago again. Adam wants to sex Maggie out of his system. Maggie is given a remote assignment to come up with a story about Adam, race car driver who leaves it all behind to start a mechanic shop.

I wasn’t sure why Adam and Maggie started dating in the first place and I never got a sense of where their relationship was when she left. They obviously had communication issues. Maggie never explained to him that she was searching for jobs outside the D.C. area and Adam never explained why he gave up competitive racing. Some of the conversations they had was if they had never dated before. Adam really didn’t see Maggie’s departure coming. He was curiously even keeled about Maggie leaving him. He was more frustrated and wondering if his strong desire for her had driven her away.

There are great little touches here and there that convey a lot of emotion and provide great setting but the coherency of the story lost me from time to time. I was confused about how Maggie could maintain any journalistic integrity by sleeping with Adam and I was confused about Adam’s desire to both push Maggie away and sex them both into exhaustion. For example, Adam swung back and forth after their first sexual encounter. First he leaves her on the bed, wanting more and hoping that she is gone when he is done with his shower. When she comes in to the bathroom to say goodbye, he draws her into the shower and they proceed to satisfy each other. I needed something to signal his own internal conflict if that is what you wanted me to read into this. If he wanted to fuck her out of his system, why did he engage in delayed gratification to heighten sensory satisfaction?

I did love the explanation of what the redline was and I wish that this were teased out even more. I thought it was an interesting concept that was brought up but never fully integrated.

There was a nice circling of around for Maggie, from running away to staying and deciding to risk Adam’s rejection in order to find out if they could be together. As I said in my opening, your sex scenes are always well done and this book is no different. I wished that there was more cohesiveness in the character motivations. C

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Samhain in DRM Free multiformat.

* I’m not sure I would tag this an erotic romance. I didn’t find the scenes to be any more erotic than in a Blaze.

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REVIEW: Falling Through Glass by Barbara Sheridan

Jayne — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:00:05 +0000

Dear Ms. Sheridan,

When Tina submitted a list of new books to Dear Author for possible review, “Falling Through Glass” grabbed my attention. Hmmm, time travel to 19th century Japan in the waning days of samurai warriors. Can’t get much more different than that.

Since I’m feeling lazy this morning. I’m just going to steal the blurb at Liquid Silver.

Los Angeles
Present Day

Japanese-American Emiko Maeda set aside her film school studies following the sudden death of her father. At odds with her mother and burdened with the guilt over her role in the tragic accident, she moves in with her uncle Jake and comes into possession of an antique mirror. While accompanying Jake to Japan on a film shoot, Emmi is caught in a freak storm and plunged through time–into Feudal Japan and the world of samurai.

Kyoto, Japan
1864

The city of Kyoto is ablaze with violence and on the brink of civil war. Nakagawa Kaemon is a young samurai with a secret. He gathers information on those who claim to “Revere the emperor” but harbor their own agenda to control the country. Kae is honor bound to execute anyone who poses a threat to the throne even if it is Emmi, the unusual young woman he has come to love.

The first 50 pages of this book almost lost me. Way too much telling and not showing. I had actually put the book down at this point only to rethink it the next morning. I want to promote different times and places in books so I hefted it up and kept going. I’m not sure if it was my determination to finish the book or at this point you started more showing and less telling but it’s then that things started to pick up and become more interesting.

But I have to ask, what is with heroine casually accepting that her Uncle Jake has time traveled? I’d be all “WTF?!” but she just brushes it off in the conversation almost like Jake was merely saying he’d gone to San Diego for the day. Then when she tells Kae she’s from the future, he does the same. Or at least initially, though later he does think a little on what she’s said. But it’s more that he wants to see this future than any freaked out, “OMG! (or Japanese equivalent), she says she’s from the freakin’ future!” Emmi’s g-g-g-whatever grandfather is the same. His “visions” were never actually explained to my satisfaction. Ditto how Emmi’s mother’s monk works in the story.

Emmi is young – and she does act it at times. Pouting when Kae leaves her alone, excited about her wedding night – let loose your inner slut!, hasn’t had her maternal hormones kick in yet as seen when she takes Matsuhito out slumming through the festival, worries about possible STDs after her hot wedding night. Emmi also creates a ruckus whenever she’s let loose. I just wish she’d take a little more responsibility for the people she injured and the property she destroyed. Instead she pouts some more and tries to put the blame on everyone but herself. It takes possible deadly consequences to others (Emmi have you ever heard of seppuku?) before she finally does realize when she’s done something wrong.

Lucky for Emmi that Kae can look deep into her eyes and “just tell” that she’s not a traitor. Which he’ll believe until she does something – yet again – to make him rethink his position on that. At one point, Kae thinks that he wished he had more time to just sit with Emmi and get to know her. So did I. These two fall in love fairly quickly given all the unusual aspects of how they meet and get to know each other.

At first, I wondered if we’d get Emmi’s view of how things differ from her world vs 1864. Specific things and not just, “wow I’m in the past.” I loved her thoughts on the Shimabara brothel district, the palace, the hair gunk and face paint, the whole physical process of dressing for the wedding and actually walking in her outfit. This made the story more immediate and interesting to me.

Along the same lines, the scenes of the fair when Emmi and Kae attend as well as when she takes Prince Matsuhito there, are fun and a wonderful way to “show” the past and how Emmi views it.

The use of the historical actions as a way to decide whether or not Emmi’d stay in the past or return to the present is great. With TT books, I dislike any lingering regrets of “should I stay or should I go?” You remove all doubts about this. I was a little lost at times with regard to the historical action going on at this point in Japan but not enough for the story to lose me.

I hope that she and Kae work out their differing views on marriage and a woman’s place in it. But hey, at least he’ll buy her lingerie! Oh, loved the haiku poem but did you not want to include any of Emmi’s crappy poetry?

Like Mrs. Giggles, I also got the impression that this is a sequel to some other book. That I was missing some information that would allow some of the incidents in this book to make sense. There is a lot I like in the story and I wish I could give this book a higher rating but with all the issues I have with it, I’m afraid not.

~Jayne

FTC discloser – A free copy of this ebook was provided to Dear Author by the publisher for a potential review.

This book can be purchased at Liquid Silver Books.

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REVIEW: Memoirs of a Hoyden by Joan Smith

Jayne — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:00:26 +0000

Dear Ms. Smith,

Your comedic trad Regencies are always a delight for me. There are some that have had me cackling with glee as I read them since I love it when an author can turn the standard Regency conventions upside down – or at least twist ‘em a little.

Miss Marion Mathieson takes no prisoners and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. She followed her English Army father across the Peninsula then after he died and she got shipped off to boring relatives, she got a secretary, Ronald Kidd, and took off for parts more interesting which she detailed in a book. Her daydreams are for the three romance novels she’s penned under another name. So when she and Ronald are traveling via coach to a speaking engagement and it gets held up, she’s eager to see what happens so she can add it to her next manuscript.

To her utter disgust, she displays more gumption then any of the men with her including one Corinthian who is merely either bored or more bored throughout the whole event. But something about it strikes her as odd and she eventually bullies Lord Kestrel out of his boredom to set off after the men she thinks are Frenchie spies.

But are there really spies and if so, where are they? And for a woman who is past thirty and has made no bones about her lack of interest in marriage, Marion is startled to find her interest caught by Kestrel. Even if she does want to brain him half the time.

The plot machinations and time that Marion expends convinced that she knows exactly what’s going on are enough to make my head hurt. At times I can see why Kestrel wants to return the favor of clobbering her over the head. But no one can say Marion isn’t ready and willing to hold up her end of the events which unfold. To his credit, I think Kestrel is going into their marriage with his eyes wide open and fully ready to battle his way out of whatever Marion might get them into.

The whole spy stuff plot is nothing new. The reason to read the book is for the sparks which fly whenever Marion and Kestrel are in a room. The fact that they keep from killing each other on their way to saving England is a wonder. The secondary fact that I buy into the fact that they go from despising each other and fighting with each other to kisses that seem as if they’ll cause these two to explode with passion and all in the course of 3 days says something for your writing skills.

“Memoirs of a Hoyden” is another oldie but goodie that I’m glad that “Regency House” has reissued it. B

~Jayne

FTC discloser – I bought this with my own money and you can buy it at Fictionwise in DRM free multiformat.

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Angela James and her journey to Harlequin with Carina Press

Jane — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:37:44 +0000

Today Harlequin is announcing the creation of Carina Press, a digital only epress from Harlequin. On a personal front, this news is exciting because Angela James is a friend of mine and will be the Executive Editor of this new line. On a reader front, I think this move signals how important the digital space is becoming.

You can read all about Carina Press at its website: Carinapress.com. The plan is to launch in Spring/Summer 2010. Carina Press will release DRM FREE!!! ebooks on a weekly basis. The books will be available for sale at Carina Press and through other etailers. Carina will be publishing steampunk, sci fi, futuristic fantasy, multi cultural books – “if readers are blogging about a genre with passion and interest, we’ll publish it.” A whole list of genres can be seen here including thrillers, mysteries and erotica in addition to romance.

The Press will consider nearly any length of novels including short stories, genre novels between 50,000 and 100,000 and “complex narratives” of over 100,000. In short, it seems like Carina Press has few restrictions for authors in terms of genre, length or subject matter.

There are no advances and the books will be royalty based. Carina will be looking to relaunch digital editions for titles that are out of print. (Someone contact the Curtis’ stat! We need Windflower and Bad Baron’s Daughter out in eform!)

In any event, here are a few words from Angela James and her journey to Carina.

****

Sometimes it’s hard to believe everything happens for a reason, when you’re the one it’s happening to. Four years ago, I was a stay-at-home mom to a one-year-old daughter. I’d left a job I loved as an occupational therapist in a psych hospital in order to stay home with Brianna. To keep myself occupied (because I’m someone who loves to work) I’d been doing some casual work for Ellora’s Cave as a proofer, something I’d started doing while I was pregnant. I actually applied for a position as an editor, but didn’t quite make the cut, and in mid-2005, they restructured how they did the editorial and I was cut loose as a proofer.

By that time, I had the editing bug, I’d made contacts with some authors and I wanted to do something to stay in the business, so I began doing freelance editing. Right around that time, several authors mentioned to me that a new publisher was going to be opening its doors, the owner was looking for editors and would that be something I’d be interested in, because I’d be good at it? Heck yeah! So I was introduced to Christina Brashear and in September of 2005, I found myself the first editor for Samhain Publishing.

I loved working for Samhain, and helping build a fantastic publisher in the digital community. I learned a lot during those first few years, and it was an unforgettable experience. In the past year, I’d had some soft interest from others in the industry, with potential job offers, but it wasn’t until the crew from Quartet Press came along that I started giving serious thought to leaving Samhain. After four years, I felt almost inexorably bound to Samhain, with an emotional connection that I’d certainly never had to my jobs as an occupational therapist. It was a difficult thing, contemplating leaving, giving up the easy camaraderie I had with the other editors, who I found an amazing source of information, talent and support, leaving behind all of the authors I’d worked with, many of whom I’d watched grow their careers from their debut books with me, and walking away from a company I felt entwined with.

But at the same time, I was ready to grow my career and do something that would help grow the digital publishing industry even further. So when I say the decision to leave Samhain was not made lightly, I mean the decision was made after weeks of sleepless nights, long talks with my husband, close friends and the partners at Quartet. And weeks of stress, anxiety, tears and a headache I was convinced had taken up permanent residence. Once I finalized the decision to leave, I still had to move past telling Samhain, my co-workers and authors. After that, there was a period of dealing with the public reaction to my departure, something I hadn’t anticipated. Shock, excitement, and from some, dismay and a sense of betrayal. All of it difficult since it was, without a doubt, one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made. At the time, I compared it to being similar to all of what I’d experienced when my first husband and I divorced.

Beginning work for Quartet was an amazing period of discovery and anticipation. I truly believe the industry has room for more quality digital publishers, and with the assembled team at Quartet, I believed we were in a fantastic position to create that press. I had an immense respect for my teammates and was flattered that they felt similarly about me, enough to woo me from my position at Samhain. So imagine my complete and utter shock when just a few weeks after I’d begun, I got an email stating the press was closing its doors. I had little information as to why or what occurred to cause the decision, and suddenly, there I was, playing my (urn)employment drama out in public again while trying to deal with they myriad of not-so-positive emotions I experienced.

This is where I realized how lucky I was because the outpouring of support was immense. I got blog comments, personal emails, messages on Twitter, Facebook, message boards and elsewhere offering sympathy, suggestions and any kind of support I needed. People I barely knew or didn’t know at all wrote. Friends and acquaintances put out the word that I was available for hire. No less than three companies emailed me that first day to soft query me about possible jobs. Sure, there were a few people who felt I’d somehow gotten what I deserved, but overall, overwhelmingly, the publishing community, from readers to authors to editors and publishers, let me know it was going to be okay, and that everything happens for a reason.

And you know what? They were right. You were all right. The day after Quartet announced it was closing its doors, I got a phone call from someone I admire tremendously. Some might call it a phone call offering the opportunity of a lifetime. Malle Vallik of Harlequin called to say, “I heard what happened, I’m really sorry but…this might be really good for us and we might have an interesting proposition for you.” Okay, hello! The Harlequin digital team wanted me to consult? And help with this new digital-only press they were building. And they thought there might be a spot for me at this digital-only press. Dear God. How much emotional rollercoaster can one person handle? Devastation and fear to instant euphoria? Harlequin was (and is) my dream publisher. They’re forerunners in the digital field, I’d been reading their books since fourth grade, and they throw the best RWA Nationals party. Heck yeah!

So here I am, almost two months after becoming publicly unemployed, and keeping Carina Press a secret for that entire time, finally able to share my news, my excitement and my joy with everyone. And finally able to publicly say thank you to everyone who supported me these past months, and who believed all this time that something awesome was right around the corner for me. I think I really did get what I deserved. I’m so glad you all were right when you told me that everything happens for a reason.

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