Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

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For a blogger, even one with a law degree, a letter with legal threats makes you sweat, particularly the first one. I received my first perceived legal threat from an author over a satirical blog piece I did. The email demanded an apology and retraction, the first steps to a defamation suit. I took the complaint seriously and reviewed all my statements, the original blog post, and contacted a lawyer friend for her opinion. I then responded, forcefully, rebutting the claims and citing the law, and requesting the person to refrain from future contact unless through legal representation.

Since that time, I’ve had numerous legal threats lobbed Dear Authors way and I’ve taken them all seriously which is the way everyone should take a legal threat. Bloggers, however, are not without their resources. For example, there is the anti-SLAPP statutes being enacted around the country. A couple of weeks ago, a federal district judge in Northern California has provided bloggers one more shield.

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you’ll know that Victoria Laurie, an author, took the time …

Dear Ms. Alers,

Long Time Coming is the first book in your trilogy about the Whitfields of New York. For the Whitfields, weddings and other celebrations are a family business. The book’s heroine, Tessa Whitfield, is an event planner and owner of Signature Bridals, the company through which she orchestrates dream weddings. Tessa’s sister, Simone, is a floral designer, and her cousin Faith is a baker who specializes in wedding cakes. The three have a warm personal and working relationship, although tension sometimes flares up between Faith and Simone, requiring Tessa to play the role of peacemaker.

As the book opens, Tessa arrives at her home and business (a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights) and finds a message from Bridget Sanborn on her answering machine. Bridget, a young bride, was to come by that evening for a wedding planning session, but can’t make it because she is on a sequestered jury. The problem is that it is now mid-October, and Bridge’s wedding is scheduled for New Year’s Eve. The meeting with Tessa was an important one, so Bridget sends her brother Micah in her stead.

Micah, an assistant DA …

Dear Ms. Giffin,

Exactly one hundred days to her marriage to her husband Andy, Ellen Graham literally crosses paths with her ex-boyfriend Leo. Ellen describes their encounter this way:
From the outside, say if you were a cabdriver watching frantic jaywalkers scramble to cross the street in the final seconds before the light changed, it was only a mundane, urban snapshot: two seeming strangers, with little in common but their flimsy black umbrellas, passing in an intersection, making fleeting eye contact, and exchanging stiff but not unfriendly hellos before moving on their way.

But inside was a very different story. Inside, I was reeling, churning, breathless as I made it onto the safety of the curb and into a virtually empty diner near Union Square. Like seeing a ghost, I thought, one of those expressions I’ve heard a thousand times but never fully registered until that moment. I closed my umbrella and unzipped my coat, my heart still pounding. As I watched the waitress wiped down a table with hard, expert strokes, I wondered why I was so startled by the encounter when there was something that seemed utterly inevitable about the …

Dear Readers,

Just as I had finished reading Forbidden Shores by Jane Lockwood (a pseudonym for Janet Mullany) and was getting ready to review it, I had a conversation about the book with my good friend Jennie F., who had also recently read it. Jennie’s comments were so insightful and thought provoking, and I enjoyed our chat so much that I thought it might be fun to (after editing it a bit, and applying the spoiler font to spoilers) share the conversation with all of you, in lieu of a more traditional review.
-Janine

Janine: Okay. I finished this book and am ready to discuss it. First, I want to bring up that although Forbidden Shores is labeled “Historical Romance,” it should at the very least be considered an erotic romance, and maybe even straight erotica. There is a lot of sex, and not just between the hero and heroine.

Jennie F.: I just finished it too. I would think it would fall somewhere between erotic romance and erotica. The focus is definitely on sex, but there’s enough other stuff going on for me to hesitate to label it straight erotica.

Janine: I …

The cute cover and good word of mouth encouraged me to pick up this book. This is my first Ann Christopher novel, and while not perfect, it won’t be my last. The main characters were appealing: the hero with his cluelessness about women and the heroine who struggles with her mother’s relationships influencing her own. Toward the latter third of the book, the plot careened perilously close to wall banging status but you managed to right the ship and close endearingly.

Sex therapist, Simone Beaupre, is at a high point in her career. She has got a successful practice, is just about to release her first self help book, and her weekly advice column is being considered for syndication. This road to success encounters a very large and angry obstacle in the form of Alex Greene. Alex is the topic of one of Simone’s latest column where a disgruntled ex girlfriend writes a letter of complaint about her lover’s small penis, thinly disguising the ex-lover as Alex G.

Alex demands a retraction and apology. Simone refuses. In retaliation, Alex sets up a blog calling Simone …