August Recommended Reads

Comments

1. 
   SHZ

   August 1, 2011 @ 4:26 am

   The Sarah Mayberry and Karina Bliss books were both fantastic. I love when Superromance gets it right. Tara Taylor Quinn’s Full Contact (another Superromance) comes out today too – also very, very good.
2. 
   SHZ

   August 1, 2011 @ 12:31 pm

   I should point out that the blurbs for the Supers this month are appalling. They make the books all sound so bland (and don’t let poor Karina Bliss’ awful cover put you off!). I’ve read three of the releases for this month so far, and they’ve all been so much better than the packaging suggests.
3. 
   Ridley

   August 1, 2011 @ 1:26 pm

   There are a number of category books and no contemporaries. I think our contemporary needs were sated by the category books we read.

   I think category length is where contemporary romance is happiest. Any time I’ve tried single-title contemporaries, they’ve almost always felt padded out. Without the world building of historical or PNR settings or the complexity of a suspense plot, there’s not a whole lot to hang 90k words on for a contemporary.
4. 
   SarahS

   August 1, 2011 @ 2:57 pm

   Your links aren’t right for most of these.
5. 
   Jane

   August 1, 2011 @ 3:05 pm

   @SarahS thanks for the heads up. I think they are fixed now.
6. 
   Karina Bliss

   August 1, 2011 @ 4:08 pm

   (and don’t let poor Karina Bliss’ awful cover put you off!).

   Thanks SHZ! I always said I wanted a half-naked man for a cover. But I did get a naked half man.
7. 
   Liz Talley

   August 1, 2011 @ 4:41 pm

   LOL. Karina! I hadn’t looked at the cover well enough. He’s missing some important parts.

   Glad to see both Sarah and Karina in the Recommends. I’ll be picking those us this month :)
8. 
   Ros

   August 1, 2011 @ 4:48 pm

   You see, I love Karina Bliss’s books, I really do. I just can’t help wondering who on earth they think they are appealing to with a badge on the front cover proudly proclaiming TWINS. It makes me shudder just to think about it. And if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t touch that book with a barge pole.

   @Ridley, I think that’s an interesting point. I do think that a longer single title contemporary needs to have more secondary characters and subsidiary plots than you’d get in a category romance. But I also think that a lot of the single title historicals (I don’t read paranormals so I don’t know if it’s true of them but my suspicion is that it might be) I read have those things too. So it’s not just the world-building that adds to the word count. For instance, I’ve lost track of the number of historicals I’ve read which also have some kind of mystery plot going alongside the romance. You can do that in a contemporary too, it just gets categorised as a romantic suspense or something.
9. 
   Ros

   August 1, 2011 @ 4:52 pm

   Also, I adored the Disgraced Playboy (Shameless Playboy in the UK) but The Man She Loved To Hate was a surprising disappointment. Normally I gobble up Kelly Hunter’s books like Green and Black’s chocolate, but that one didn’t really ring true to me.
10. 
    Susan

    August 2, 2011 @ 12:06 am

    Cheryl Reavis is one of the best and I love this book. I’m looking forward to your review.
11. 
    Jayne

    August 2, 2011 @ 6:19 am

    @Susan: When she’s on, she’s one of the best authors for me and I’m so happy that her books are being reissued by Harlequin.