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

In On the Prowl, four authors try to jump the bridge from fantasy to romance with varying degrees of success. This is an area which is not well populated so I like the concept and hope for better execution in the future. Great cover, though.

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Dear Ms. Briggs: Your contribution, “Alpha and Omega”, was the best part of the anthology largely due to your strong voice, however good prose was not enough to cover the relationship flaws. Anna is a young werewolf whose existence as a shiftling has been full of abuse. She believes she is a submissive werewolf because of the way she was treated. Initially, she was passed around the pack until the alpha’s mate stepped in to put a stop to it. Anna is “afraid of her own shadow” and has been made into this mouse of a woman by the abuse inflicted by her pack.

She sees a young man turned, caged and then found dead. She’s sure that her alpha is responsible. Despite her beaten down state, decides …

I noticed on Sybil’s blog today a cover for an Avon Red book which looked strikingly similar to the cover for Sunny Chen’s Mona Lisa Awakening. Are these too similar? They are for my tastes. It’s a great cover, but I’ll always like the first one better. Is it that there are just so many books and not enough unique ideas? Is it better to have one hot cover idea recycled continuously than have a hideous cover?

I tend to think the similar cover may backfire. I may see it and think, I’ve already read, bought, borrowed that book.

Dear Sunny,

Ordinarily I wouldn’t address my letter so familiarly given the fact we don’t know each other but your nom de plume is just one word: Sunny. Apparently, you are the wife of big name author, Da Chen. I assume the connection should be mentioned in the review because it is mentioned a number of times (4?) in the accompanying promotional literature. I would have probably bought this book because of its smoking cover and the cover quote by Patricia Briggs along with the Publisher’s Weekly review that says “Mona Lisa shares many traits with LKH’s heroines, including having lots of hot sex for good causes, but mercifully without their kvetching and self-doubt.”

However, a friend of mine who does not read books in the first person sent it to me because she knows I really enjoy the Merry Gentry series by Laurell K Hamilton. The Merry Gentry series is a story about a mixed race member of the Sidhe who is destined to be the one who ultimately brings life, fertility, and future back to the Sidhe. The stories mostly revolve around court intrigue and the …