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

Dear Ms Dane,

Your novella arrived at a perfect time. Both my Christmas trees are up and decorated (with lots of help from my children) and I’m really moving into the holiday mood. This is a great story to tuck into spare reading time between parties, cooking and other seasonal activities

I guess the plot could be summarized as anal-retentive lawyer and childhood dairy farmer friend realize they have the hots for each other, then decide that it might be love. Add plenty of family members to the mix, stir and bake. I like that lawyer Belle and dairyman Rafe have known each other almost all their lives so the sudden romance didn’t make me roll my eyes. As Rafe says, it was a short step to love from friendship and the two easily stepped right into it. But even better, they talk to each other. And listen to each other. And work to make their wildly different lifestyles mesh.

You add a lot of family members to the story but they add to the romance between Rafe and Belle instead of grabbing the spotlight for themselves. I love the guy talk between the men. …

Dear Ms McLeod,

What a delightful regency novella. It’s sweet but not saccarine, has a nice period feel, and characters who felt true to times. When they meet, Peter Trevayne and India Pottersby feel an attraction yet neither acts on it since India is busy as the sister of the young vicar of the village and Peter is the newly arrived nabob still cautiously feeling his way through the pitfalls moving into said village presents him. One must move slowly, not push and wait to be accepted into rural English society. Peter, determined that this will be his home after so many years in India, is content that it be so. I like that he is pleasantly surprised by his discovery that India isn’t the older, slightly dried up spinster he expects yet that he slowly gets to know her before delicately showing his hand.

India has her own reasons for not moving too quickly after meeting the handsome newcomer. Her orphan childhood of being passed from one relative to another slightly echoes Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park.” Now that her brother has his own living, they finally have a home of their own …

Dear Ms Ruger,

After being pleasantly surprised by “Eight Minutes,” I decided to take advantage of the February romance sale at Fictionwise and try some of your other stories. I bought “Dessert for Two,” “Morning Coffee,” and “Jason Taylor Kissed Me” along with the trilogy of novellas included in “It Must Be Love.” While I enjoyed the novellas, I think you excel in distilling a story down to the essence needed for the short story length. Alas, I’m not as thrilled with the price charged by Fictionwise (even on sale). Yes, yes, I know you as the author have no control over that but those short stories are pricey.

The short stories are all contemporaries and mostly deal with slightly older characters (mid to late 30s) finding the possibility of love. The novellas are historicals (2 Regencies and 1 medieval) and with the longer length allow you to bring the romances to a HEA conclusion. I do feel the need to warn readers that you play a little fast and loose with Regency conventions which, though OK to a point, might annoy purists. Your editor might want to watch more closely for …

Dear Mrs Carsen,

Thanks for sending us a copy of your ebook “Not Quite Dead.” I think it’s the first time I’ve read a book featuring this particular type of paranormal hero and to be honest, I’m still trying to name him. Is he a zombie? Or should we just settle on the term “undead?”

He’s gorgeous, he’s got great manners, he’s got a mission to accomplish. The only drawback? He’s been dead for a hundred years.

This one starts out with great humor and eerie suspense as we watch the cynical heroine, Sabine watching her flaky cousin Lily and Lily’s goth friends trying to raise the dead. Then to everyone’s surprise, including Lily and Co, it works. And what’s even more surprising is that in addition to raising a dead guy, there’s also a vampire involved in the goings-on in the old Louisiana cemetary.

The humor continues as Sabine tries to maintain her poise and manners while dealing with an undead man who’s invaded her house - which used to be his house 120 years ago, as he tries to figure out how he’s going to get his revenge on the people who killed him. At …

Dear Ms Ruger,

Your short story sounded fun so I took the plunge (after all it was a very short story so I woudn’t have been wasting much time if it had turned out to be a stinker). This is a fun, fast story with good characterization for such a short piece.

Lynn is a divorcee trying to get back into the dating world via an evening of speed dating. After meeting a few “maybes” and a lot of “absolutely no ways,” she’s about to wrap up the night when the man who had made eye contact with her at the beginning finally introduces himself. Thomas might just turn out to be the man Lynn’s been waiting all night to meet.

I liked how we know something about hero’s personality before we even meet him. And how you quickly put us into Lynn’s first person POV shoes. I also appreciated how you conveyed Lynn’s dismay over some of her “dates” without making her seem cynical, bitter or mean.

I ended up enjoying this one enough to wish it was longer and to look for further books you’ve written. B …

Dear Ms. Thompson,

A Lover's Call, your Ellora's Cave BDSM “Quickie” (rated E-rotic) happens to be the first Ellora's Cave offering I've read. Yes, before your novella came along, I was an Ellora's Cave virgin.

The heroine of the story is Rachel, a librarian by day who works a phone sex line by night. We are told that Rachel daydreams of bringing a man to his knees with a smoldering glance, but her outward personality is described this way:
…Rachel was a sensible girl whose modesty was genuine and bordered on the insecure. She had chosen the career of librarian precisely to avoid situations in which smoldering glances might get her in trouble.
I liked Rachel, but you portray this aspect of her personality so well that it's difficult for me to understand why someone as modest and as initially sexually repressed as Rachel is (she hasn't dated very much, and in her limited experience, sex was disappointing) would be a telephone sex worker. I liked the explanation that Rachel feels sorry for lonely men because she was lonely herself, but I still couldn't completely reconcile her choice of moonlighting job with her personality.

One night …

Dear Ms. Matthews,

I don’t know whose idea it was to post this novella for free at Belgrave House publishing, but it’s a great one. As my blogging partner Jane posted, it will showcase your writing for new readers and reward faithful fans at the same time.

Drucilla Carruthers might be young but she’s been in charge of her family’s estate for years ever since her father finally lost his grasp on reality. His deep grief over her mother’s death colored Drucilla’s childhood and she’s grown up more quickly than most young Regency girls. Her commitment to her father’s tenants has lead her to conceal his condition and try her best to rectify the dreadful condition the estate sunk to after a previous steward lined his own pockets instead of working to better it. But the extensive outlay of capital has finally brought the situation to the attention of her father’s heir and her cousin, Julian Winslow, Lord Meacham. Now he’s arriving at any minute and Drucilla can only hope he’s not the same stuffy prig he was when she last met him 16 years ago. But then she was only 5 and he …

Dear Ms. Knight:

This novella is about the size of an anthology story and gives you an opportunity to have a full fledged story. Armand is the human servant and lover of vampire Giselle Dubois. A mob comes to kill her and Armand insist’s the Giselle save herself and promises that he will reincarnate and rejoin her on All Hallow’s Eve. For some reason not explained, Giselle believes this and she, the predator and hunter, leaves her mortal human servant and love to die at the hands of the vampire mob. HUH?

Evan Harris is a thirty five year old photographer whose car breaks down. He finds an abandoned home and is compelled inside. Of course, Evan is the reincarnated Armand and Giselle recognizes this immediately. Sexual hijinks occur. I would say that the sex to story ratio is about 60:40. The real problem and downfall of this story is that you introduce two conflicts. First, Armand has changed and Giselle must deal with the change and second, Armand must make an important decision regarding his future. The problem is that neither conflict …

Dear Ms. Drake:

Your novella has a little more going on in terms of characterization but again because of the length, 4558 words, there isn’t much more to this story. Arielle is a witch who works for the FBI. Her partner is Jackson, a vampire. They are sent out to investigate demon activity in the swamp. During this short 24 hour period, Arielle and Jackson discover their latent love for each other and defeat demons. But this is nothing more than a chapter in a longer story. There is an excerpt for another Jackson/Arielle tale that picks up where this one left off. Perhaps if you were doing a serialization, it would be a better story as you would spend some time fleshing out details of how long the two were partners, what the latent attraction was, the world building and so forth. In 4558 words, however, this story lacks any real meat, or heat for that matter. D+.

Best regards,

Jane

Dear Ms. Heart:

I am probably the wrong person to review this book as I generally don’t like short stories unless your name is O. Henry and I am not a fan of erotica. I think this is an erotica novella and not a romance but I am getting more and more confused about the line between the erotica v. erotic romance genres. The entire book is comprised of one sex scene featuring Mike and Trisha Jones. They have been married for 8 years and their marriage is stagnant. Trisha is acting too submissive and Mike isn’t asserting himself like a proper Dom should. I kind of laugh at that sentence because it indicates I actually know how a proper Dom should act which I don’t. It’s simply my interpretation of your story. The story, all 7900 words of it, has no plot, other than the submissive apparently hasn’t been properly punished for the last six months by her master and thus acts out to gain his attention. I wasn’t engaged by either character or the story but I suppose if a reader is in the mood …