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

This week features big scores for the apocalypse, zombies, and urban fantasy…and a couple of historical romances tossed in. All pretty unexciting.

Never heard of the author, but this sounds kinda cool.
Richard Kadrey’s SANDMAN SLIM, after eleven years in Hell (where he worked as an assassin), a magician/hitman returns to Los Angeles to find out who betrayed him and murdered his girlfriend, to Dino De Laurentiis Company, in a major deal, by Holly Frederick at Curtis Brown on behalf of Ginger Clark at Curtis Brown.

Post-apocalyptic fiction is seeing a boost – does it have anything to do with the Cormac McCarthy book? Pretty sure that Oprah’s done with the apocalypse.
Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead author Alan DeNiro’s TOTAL OBLIVION, MORE OR LESS,in which a teenage girl travels the Mississippi with her dysfunctional family in a bizarre post-apocalyptic America, to Juliet Ulman at Bantam Dell, in a nice deal, by Colleen Lindsay at FinePrint Literary Management (World English).

Zombies seem to be extremely popular for YA lately. I’m wondering if it’s because they’re the target movie-goer audience, and zombie movies seem to be on the rise ( pun intended).
Christopher Golden’s SOULLESS, about seven very different teenagers with …

This week is an eclectic mix - some old-school type stuff, some already-played-out stuff, and zombies.

I loved the movie Lost In Translation, and this sounds like a literary parallel. I’d buy it.

Malena Watrous’s REPEAT AFTER ME, in an effort to outpace her grief, a young American woman moves to rural Japan shortly after her father’s suicide and finds work as an English teacher as well as unexpected solace with her Japanese supervisor and seemingly different neighbors, to Jeanette Perez at Harper Perennial, by Lisa Bankoff at ICM (World).

This sounds like all those 1980s ‘science fiction’ romances crossed with a harem fantasy. I should be disgusted, but who are we kidding? I’d buy this on release day.
Shelli Stevens’s CAPTURED ROSE, on a planet where females are on the endangered species list, a woman who has spent her life in erotic servitude to the three wealthy and powerful men who own her finds freedom and passion in the arms of her abductor, a man who should be her fiercest enemy, to Peter Sentfleben at Kensington Aphrodisia, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Laura Bradford at Bradford Literary Agency.

Yay! She writes …