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

Dear Ms. Howard,

I've been reading your books since the days when you wrote for Silhouette and I don't plan on stopping. Few authors of romantic suspense deliver great chemistry between their main characters as well and as consistently as you do. There is something so satisfyingly thorough about this aspect of writing: not only do you understand women's enthusiasm for strong, large, and overwhelmingly male creatures, you also have an intuitive grasp of the resounding response men feel in return, or in any case, of what they feel for us in our dreams.

A Linda Howard hero is never going to ignore the woman he is with to watch a Redskins game, even if he is a former linebacker himself. He is simply too focused on her to ignore her for anything. Nor is the fact that his work probably involves killing people who want him dead likely to put him a bleak mood, make him sullen, or bring on a case of PTSD.

That's because a hero in one of your novels is the stuff of female fantasies, fantasies you understand and fulfill so well that I only grumble a little about …

Dear Ms. Howard:

It’s a good thing that you are going back to writing romances because Cover of Night is not a romance. It is a suspense book with a romantic theme. Frankly, it's a shitty not a very good suspense book. The setup, which pits the town of Trail Stop against a band of professional killers, is ridiculous beyond belief strains the edges of credulity.

The first half of the book is spent setting up the conflict. No real action takes place in the first 70 pages. There is little meaningful interaction between Cate and Cal, two of the protagonists (not to mention the most boring sex scene ever in a Linda Howard book). More than half the book is spent in the minds of the antagonists and watching the antagonists get their operation together (and watching it fall apart).

I found it hard to believe that these killers could stay in business or be the “best” when the whole operation turned into a giant mess. The killers were only the “best” because you told me they were. Not because they evinced any abilities to succeed on their …