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

Dear Ms. Webb:

I read this book directly after finishing Nameless that I liked quite a bit. As I said in the Nameless review, the characters generally make or break a romantic suspense book which means the suspense can be awesome but if the romance doesn’t fit, I’m not likely to read that RS author again. The biggest issue I had with this book was how I thought you wanted readers to perceive the characters and how they actually came off.

Carson Tanner’s family was brutally murdered almost fifteen years ago. A serial killer finally confessed to killing Carson’s family but in a face to face meeting that the killer demanded as part of his confession, he manages to leave Carson with uncertainty. Carson, the star assistant DA, wants to close that painful part of his past. His idyllic life was torn apart when he was fifteen due, in part, that he got drunk and woke up bathed in blood. While he was a suspect for only a short time, he lost mainstays of his life, including Elizabeth , the daughter of a current Georgia Senator. …

Dear Ms. Webb:

The romantic suspense market seems crowded these days and it’s hard to pick out a new author. It’s not because the suspense market isn’t full of good authors. It is actually one genre that seems to be full of competent authors and competent books. The problem is that from one to another, they all seem to have the same storylines (law enforcement officers solving crimes), the same hooks that drive the suspense (serial killers), the same time frame (twenty four hours to a few days).

What makes a RS standout for me, then, is the characterizations of the lead law enforcement officers. They must have a compelling narrative, outside of the suspense, in order for me to want to pick up the next book in the series. So while I might come to an RS book different ways*, I won’t go back to the same RS writer unless I found the issues outside the suspense to be interesting.

Such is the case of Nameless. Keishon’s review, while positive, said that the character growth was marginal, but I thought it was large part of …

Dear Ms Webb,

I’m sorry but I can’t get the Bee Gees’ song (”Ah, ah, ah, ah Staying Aliiiiiiiiiiiiive!”) or visions of John Travolta in a white suit, striking a pose out of my head. OK, I’ll stop that now since it has nothing to do with a plot about a teacher dodging terrorists with the help of the FBI.

When her teaching day started, Claire Grant had no idea of the horror that awaited her. In a moment, what had been a normal day with her fifth grade class turned into a showdown with terrorists determined to bargain the lives of her students for the freedom of one of their own. Acting on instinct and her training with rifles, Claire thwarts their sick determination to have her shoot one of her pupils and opens the way for the SWAT team to take most of them down. All except one who vows revenge on Claire as he’s hauled off. “You are dead,” he snarled at her and soon Claire would learn just what he meant.

When the captured terrorist escapes, Claire is provided with a twenty-four hour police guard. When the leader of the terrorist …