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

Dear Ms. Teglia:

Okay, some background about this review. I had hoped that you would send Wicked Hot as you had all of your other books but I swore I hadn’t received it and when you sent me your contribution for the DA iPhone bookshelf, I tried to hint around that I would love to read the book. Instead of offering, you replied something to the effect of can’t wait for you to see it on the shelves.

So I mentioned that I was excited about reading your book to a friend of mine and she reminded me that not only had I read it a long time ago but that I had recommended it to her. Sadly, my mind being the sieve that it is and I couldn’t find my notes on the book and had to re-read it for the review. In any event, I enjoyed it as much the second time around.

Edna is a succubus. She seduces. Steals souls. Damns people to hell. It’s her job. She got stuck with the position as a punishment …

Dear Ms. Mead,

I don’t share Jane’s reservations about the succubus story, even in novels billed as romances. These days I take the romance label on spines with a grain of salt since there are an increasing number of books shelved in the romance section that are anything but. So I had no problem with the idea of a succubus having sex with everyone except for her boyfriend. It made sense to me. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean I don’t have any criticism. Because in addition to not being very romantic to a romance reader, its meandering plot and inconsistent characterizations failed to work for this fantasy reader as well.

Let’s start with Georgina. Ignoring the discussion of the strict heterosexuality of the succubi/incubi and preachy moralizing brought up in Jane’s review (which I also agree with), Georgina just doesn’t act and think like a succubus. When Seth’s novella is published and her co-workers assume the elevator-loving dominatrix character is based on her, her first reaction is outrage and embarrassment. Why? She’s been a succubus for several centuries. That can’t possibly …

Dear Ms. Mead:

Thank you for sending us a copy of this book. I know that Jia will be reading it sometime so you may get a different review from her than from me and won’t regret sending it. Overall I think that I am not well suited for the succubus story, particularly one that is trying to be a romance. Having sex with other guys while professing to love the one you aren’t having sex with never seems terribly romantic to me.

I didn’t have a super clear recollection of what went on in book one of the series, Succubus Blues, so I think that readers who are new to you won’t have a trouble entering the series at book 2. The series is based on the life of succubus, Georgina Kincaid, who has lived for over 400 years.

Currently, Georgina is in a sexless relationship with her boyfriend, Seth, due to the fact that when they have intimate contact, Georgina can suck the life energy out of Seth and reduce his life span. So they sleep together and have other small intimacies but mostly their relationship is defined …

Dear Ms. Kessler:

I think The Road to Hell suffers from a mistaken identity. It is a book that would be better as a straight urban fantasy rather than trying to shoehorn into the romance genre. The ostensible conflict in this story is the female protagonist trying to maintain her relationship with her boyfriend and supposed true love, Paul Hamilton, a New York City vice cop. Problem is that Jesse’s body can’t stop responding to other men’s touches. Her stripping joint is shut down. She’s being tortured in different ways to come down to hell and save her former best friend who betrayed her. Everyone wants a piece of Jesse, particularly Hell where she escaped.

Writing a succubus turned human within the romance genre has it perils because if the construct is a couple (or a committed threesome), then one who plies her sex trade with glee has an inherent conflict with the genre construct. To that end, if the book wasn’t meant to be a romance and if it didn’t try so hard to sell the reader on the idea that Jesse, former demon and now …

Dear Ms. McCarthy:

I have liked your lighthearted works in the past but I wasn’t at all disturbed that you were exploring a darker side of your writing. On a superficial level, this book worked and I thought it took chances, but a deeper examination revealed some character trends that I found unappealing.

The story opens with Damien, an 18th Century dissolute and wealthy southern landowner, taking a demon into his arms and asking her for a favor. The favor is granted and we fade to black. The story re-engages in the modern day when Marley Turner makes a stop at Damien’s plantation in search of her missing, irresponsible sister. Marley Turner is the perfect temptation to Damien who has been abstaining for 200 years as a self imposed punishment. If he takes Marley, he endangers whatever soul he may have left to his succubus/incubus masters.

I was initially fascinated by the idea of the redemption Damien du Bourg. In the initial scenes, he is cruel and selfish. I almost wondered if he was really the hero. The problem is that I never …

Dear Ms. Mead:

When I pulled up your book out of the stack to read, I thought that if I had to read one more female first person narrated paranormal that I I may poke out my eyes and never read again. Then I began to read and remembered why I had read so many female first person narrated paranormals in the first place. When the lead is charming and unaffected and the alternate reality is richly drawn, it is easy to escape into the author’s world.

Georgina Kincaid is a succubus who draws life energy from having sex with mortals. She sold her soul to Lilith many thousands of years ago to rectify a mistake she made and she now pays for it with her life. Georgina does not, in any way, feel sorry for herself. She has made the best lemonade she can from her situation but the hundreds of years that have passed have only heightened her state of loneliness. She cannot love because every intimate touch draws life away from the mortal and who kills the person that they love the most? [rhetorical question, of …

Dear Ms. Kessler:

As you said when you sent me this book, hell is the new black and you must be glad that your book is released at the forefront of the paranormal romance craze to redeem demons and Hell. This is a first person story told by succubus turned mortal, Jezebel. She flees Hell after there was been a regime change. In order to avoid a fate worst than death, Jezebel turns into a mortal to avoid being sensed by demons. There is a big bounty on her head to the demon who can find her. Jezebel finds that the perfect occupation for a reformed succubus is stripping. She knows all about how to turn a man on and how to use her body to do it.

The plot focuses on Jezebel turning from demon to mortal, from being amoral to caring about others and the reason, of course, that she is fleeing hell after centuries of stealing men’s souls. This was the best part of the story. That and Jezebel’s frank enjoyment of the hedonistic pleasures of the world: from drinking coffee and eating chocolate to …