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

Dear Ms. Higgins:

Congratulations on winning the RITA for best contemporary. I’ll confess that I’ve been a skeptic of RITA winners in the past, but as I was lost in the world of Eaton Falls, I thought yours was well deserved. Just One of the Guys (link to excerpt) is a book that sells itself. The voice of the narrator is so captivating that no summary could adequately convey the charm of Chastity, tall, broad-shouldered, Amazon of a woman. For example, the story opens with Chastity getting dumped by her latest companion. She asks him for the reason he is breaking up with her.

“Fine,” he acquiesces, leaving whatever morsel lurks at the back of his mouth for later enjoyment. “You want to hear the reason? I just don’t find you attractive enough. Sorry.”

My mouth drops open yet again. “Not attractive! Not attract—I’m very attractive!”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Sure. A handsome woman. Whatever. And with shoulders like those, you could find work down on the docks.”

“I row!” I protest. “I’m strong! That’s supposed to be sexy.”

“Yes, well, proving that you could pick me up didn’t exactly set my …

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 Ms. Crandall:

You are a new to me author. I do love a good romantic suspense but I’ve often found the balance between the two to be somewhat lacking. Either the book has really good romance but the suspense is light or the suspense is very good but the romance is too light. In recent years, though, it seems that there has been a good collection of romance suspense authors who are striking the right balance and you are definitely one of them.

Madison Wade, a big city journalist, took in a foster boy Ethan at the age of 13. She decided that continuing to live in Philadelphia would endanger Ethan so they moved to a small southern town of Buckeye. (I actually have no idea where that is but I don’t think it is Ohio).

Sheriff Gabe Wyatt has been slowly but steadily pursuing Madison since her arrival. She’s been reluctant to do anything about the simmering low level attraction because of being a new single mom with a teenage boy to parent.

When a local and well known man takes Ethan and three other boys on a camping …

Midnight Rising by Lara Adian

Dylan Alexander is a talented journalist who is overseas enjoying a vacation with friends of her mothers. During a walk, she wanders away from the group and encounters a cave with strange markings. She has photographed these and a homeless man she observed in the caves before said homeless man frightens her away.

Rio is hiding in the caves having volunteered for the job of sealing in evidence about his kind - a group of vampires created by an alien race. Rio has been engaged in a battle against the Rogue vampires for much of his life. In book one, Kiss of Midnight, Rio’s mate betrayed him, causing the death of one of his blood brothers and causing irreparable physical and emotional damage to Rio. He takes on the duty of sealing the cave because he sees this opportunity to end his miserable life. But instead of discharging his duties, he’s been wrestling with his decision. Something is preventing him from taking that final step. He’s in stasis, growing half mad.

He felt dizzy with anger, his head spinning so badly it …

Dear Ms. Clare:

I admit to having some reservations about starting this book because I had a real hard time with the heroine in Hard Evidence. However, the gritty and realistic feel that emanated from the pages of this book were captivating and made the book hard to put down. I read that you had gone into lockup overnight so as to experience what it was like incarcerated. Even that short time clearly had an impact in the writing of this story.

Marc “Hunt” Hunter and Sophie Alton had a moment in high school and then Hunt disappeared from Sophie’s life, seemingly forever. Fast forward twelve years and Sophie is a journalist celebrating the release of a female inmate whose life Sophie had been following through her writing and Hunt is a felon doing hard time for the murder of a federal agent. Sophie had begun reporting on Megan’s life in prison when she heard about the stillbirth of a different inmate’s baby. When Megan was released, Sophie was to meet her and help Megan adjust to post incarcerated life and to reunite Megan with the baby she birthed in …

Dear Ms. Grady:

I thought that I had read you before and that you were jmc’s secret pleasure which was why I bought this one. Unfortunately, this was a case of mixed up names. I was thinking of Robyn Donald but must have fixated on Robyn, forgetting the last name. It’s not the first time, I’ve gotten authors’ names mixed up and it won’t be the last.

Donna Wilks is a psychologist who does work for the criminal justice in Sydney including giving profiles of accused individuals. She is appointed by the courts to be an impartial party.

Tate Bridges, Australian broadcasting mogul, is thrilled when Donna is assigned to his recently arrested brother’s case. He comes to a fundraising party to seduce Donna into giving his brother a favorable report. Bridges is not shy about the fact that he’ll use whatever power and influence he has to game the system.

Donna and Tate were engaged five years ago but Donna broke it off after realizing that she would always come second to Tate’s business ambitions. Tate begins by blackmailing Donna …

Dear Ms. Clare:

It makes me kind of sad to write this letter as your historical books are so strong. I also think that your first book in this loosely related series was received well. This book had all the trappings of a good story but it never managed to work together for me. The concept is compelling: an investigation to bring to a close the use of underage minorities, mostly illegal immigrants, for prostitution. There is really no greater despicable act that to violate the weak and innocent in such a way.

Julian Darcangelo worked for the FBI and was close two years ago to identifying and arresting Burien who was thought to be the head of underage, illegal prostitution ring. Due to circumstances that aren’t fully explained until the latter part of the story, Julian lost a couple of agents, his investigation and he gave up on his job. 2 years later, Burien resurfaces in Denver and Julian is invited to be a special investigator on the scene.

Tessa Novak, a young investigative reporter, is trying to make her mark in Denver. She hasn’t had a …