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

Dear Ms. Coughlin:
Although you have been writing romance for some time, I confess to not having read you before, or if I have read a book of yours, I don’t recall it.   I wasn’t initially interested in The Lost Enchantress but when so many in our Berkley Giveaway pinpointed your book as the ARC [...]

Dear Ms. Sheckley,
Earlier this year I read and reviewed (with Janine) your first urban fantasy book, The Better to Hold You. (Wait, can a book be termed “urban fantasy” when it’s set in the boonies? Maybe it should be called semi-rural fantasy? Though that’s kind of unwieldy as a name…) Janine and I agreed that [...]

Dear Ms. Jewel,
It isn’t easy to summarize the plot of your newest book, the paranormal My Forbidden Desire, and doing so necessitates giving away some spoilers for the first book in the series, My Wicked Enemy. That’s because the series is set against a backdrop of a complex battle between paranormal [...]

Dear Ladies,
I’m often leery of trying anthologies. Generally there’s one author I want to read, a few I’ll deal with and at least one I automatically skip. Or, behind door number two, there’s one story I’ll love, one or two that are readable and one that’s just awful. So, imagine my delight when three unknown [...]

Dear Mrs. Handeland,
I hope the inhabitants of your newest urban fantasy series never meet up with the Jager Suchers from your previous one or there’ll be a lot of fur flying. Since the J-Sers are sworn to hunt down and kill strange beasties and the “Phoenix Chronicle” series seems to be splitting at the seams [...]

Dear Ms. Samuels,
This book has a great beginning with a different plot. In a book world overpopulated with vampires and werewolves, it was something totally new to me. You give us interesting characters – a flawed heroine, a Japanese hero and Tom, who’s a ghost. It starts wonderfully and then, unfortunately, goes totally overboard [...]

Dear Mrs. Stuart,
The description of this novella at Fictionwise caught my attention and induced me to buy it. Too bad that that description has F-all to do with the actual plot. I don’t blame you for that. But it’s lucky for Fictionwise that I enjoyed the story anyway.
The actual paranormal elements here are [...]