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

Dear Ms. Hart,

Your Spice Brief, Reason Enough continues the story of Elle and Dan from Dirty. Since I loved Dirty, I was really looking forward to Reason Enough and I am happy to say I enjoyed it.

Elle and Dan have been living in the first home they’ve owned together just a few months when Elle gets an infection and her doctor prescribes antibiotics that interfere with her birth control pills. So for a few days, rather than use a prophylactic, they satisfy each other in other ways. But the temporary ineffectiveness of Elle’s pills raises the possibility of having a baby in Dan’s mind, and he asks Elle if she would agree to have a child with him.

As Elle says in the book’s opening:
It wasn’t the sort of question I could answer at once, without hesitation. It took me hours to pick out which bath mats to put in our new bathroom. How on earth could I decide in one split moment if I should agree to have a baby?
It’s not an easy decision for Elle because, as readers of Dirty know, she comes from a dysfunctional …

Janine: My friend Jennie F. and I had so much fun doing a conversational review of Jane Lockwood’s Forbidden Shores that we decided to do it again. Lo and behold, the subject of this discussion is also a novel about an erotic entanglement that involves two men and a woman! This time, it’s Megan Hart’s Tempted.

Jennie F.: Yes, it seems to be a theme with us!

Janine: LOL! Jennie, I’d like to start with a brief discussion of the labeling of this book and of its cover.

First, Tempted is described as “An Erotic Novel” on its front cover; and simply as a “Novel” on the spine. Are the book’s romantic elements strong enough that you would consider it a romance? Are its erotic elements prominent enough that you would call it erotica? Or do you feel that “erotic novel” is the right definition?

Jennie F.: I think coming up with a niche for this book (and to some degree, Hart’s other books) is a bit problematic. I would have a problem calling Tempted a romance, because I didn’t find the …

Dear Ms. Kelly,

I have enjoyed several of your books in the past, so I rejoiced to hear that you had a new book coming out. Beau Crusoe is the story of James Trevenen, a naval officer shipwrecked on a deserted island where he spent five years in isolation. To hold on to his sanity, James began observing a subspecies of crabs that he named the Gloriosa Jubilate, and wrote a treatise about them.

After his rescue by missionaries, James returned home to find his mother had died. He retired to his estate in Cornwall, but when the Royal Society wanted to award him the Copley medal for his treatise on the crabs, James decided to come to London for a two-week stay, during which he will receive the medal.

Beau Crusoe begins when the eccentric (some might even say kooky) Lord and Lady Watchmere prepare to host James in their London home at the request of Sir Joseph Banks of the Royal Academy. Lord Watchmere wants his daughter, Susannah, to act as James's escort. Years earlier Susannah ran off to Gretna Green with …

Dear Ms. Hart,

Elle Kavanagh wears only black and white. She counts things — not just money at her prestigious accounting job, but also stars, marbles, ceiling tiles. She buys her boss’s wife candy to assuage her guilt for sleeping with him years before. She has been celibate for three years, but before that, anonymous sex was a staple of her life. Elle is the heroine of your book, Dirty, and while I didn’t like everything about her, I liked reading about her very much.

It’s at the candy store that Elle meets Dan, an attorney. He gives her a taste of black licorice and a longing for more. She goes to a bar with him and brings him back to her place, but he says a polite goodbye and leaves without even trying to kiss her. Weeks pass, and Elle can’t stop thinking about him. Then she sees him again and things get sexual. Elle expects nothing more, but Dan convinces her to see him again. She has a policy of not dating, so instead of dating, Dan makes appointments with her.

Elle …