November Recommended Reads
Recommended ReadsAbout-Us / book-pimp / Christine Rimmer / CL-Wilson / Emma-Holly / Liz Fielding / Marion Lennox / Nalini-Singh / Recommended Reads / Sarah Mayberry / Sarah Morgan28 Comments
Here’s our November Recommended Reads. Do you have a book you think we should have recommended. Did you read one of these and have a totally different response? Let us know in the comments.
Jennie and Jane
- Seven Nights to Forever by Evangeline Collins.
Janine and Shuzluva:
- Play of Passion by Nalini Singh
Shuzluva:
- Devil at Midnight by Emma Holly.
Sunita
- Dating the Millionaire Doctor (Harlequin Medical, October print, November ebook) by Marion Lennox
- Twelve Nights of Christmas (November HP Extra, M&B Modern line) by Sarah Morgan
Janine and Sunita
- A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh
Jayne:
- Mistletoe and the Lost Stiletto by Liz Fielding
- Christmas with Her Boss by Marion Lennox
Jill Sorenson
- The Lovers by Eden Bradley
Jane:
- The Best Laid Plans by Sarah Mayberry
- Untameable Rogue by Kelly Hunter
- Expecting the Boss’s Baby by Christine Rimmer
- Crown of Crystal Flame by CL Wilson (recommend to readers of the series)
My recommends!
A Duke’s Temptation by Jillian Hunter
Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts
Her Sinful Sectret by Emma Wildes
Promises In The Dark by Stephanie Tyler
When Harry Met Molly by Kieran Kramer (I love the title)
I may buy the “Seven Nights To Forever” just for the cover!
I second Best Laid Plans. It’s a well paced and plotted Harlequin Super Romance by an accomplished author. I liked the characters and the premise of a biological clock baby quest. I will look for other of Jane’s reommendations if we are so in sync on that one.
Does anyone know why some of these Harlequins are showing up as “Not available” for Amazon Kindle?
@Melissa No, because these are all new releases they should all be available for the Kindle. Weird.
Melissa, they’re there. I think the links are messed up today as this is the day they technically go off preorder and onsale. Try another way to the book. Like the author’s name and then through their available Kindle books.
Jane, :-D
@Linda Rader: Eek. I thought I replied but I see my reply didn’t go through. In any event, if you liked Best Laid Plans, you may like Karina Bliss’ What the Librarian Did and the Untameable Rogue by Kelly Hunter. The latter, while labeled an HP in the US, doesn’t really feature the overbearing alpha male and the doormat heroine which HPs are unfortunately known for.
@ Jane and Christine,
The Harlequins are still coming up unavailable which is strange because I preoder books like these all the time and today is actually the release day. I will just try again later to see if Amazon gets it straightened out.
I’m happy to see the Morgan and Hunter on the list. I ordered them in the eHarlequin sale this weekend. :)
I was just able to buy Best Laid Plans for Kindle, so hopefully it was just a little glitch.
Best Laid Plans kept me entertained during a long travel delay this week, so thanks, Jane, for the review/rec!
Was really interested in the Collins until I saw the price and format. :( As soon as the new site is up, I want to add that as a lost sale!
All of the Harlequin Kindle links are now active (and I just bought a bunch because I can’t resist Harlequin Christmas romances).
@Jane: Have you read any of Beth Andrews’ books? I quite enjoyed her November Super Romance, ‘A Marine for Christmas’. The imperfect characters resonated with me.
@SarahT I have that book but I haven’t read it. I’ll mark it down, but now it’s Nov and I have a new slate of ebooks to read!
I too want to know why the Trade format for the Collins’ book. I would love to the reasoning.
That should be “I would love to hear the reasoning”.
@sally My guess and this is just a guess is that Collin’s is deemed to write books that might not appeal to the mass. The book is about a real courtesan and a merchant hero. I know that a publisher can sell far fewer copies of a trade book and still make a profit so it allows them to make “riskier” publishing decisions.
I’ve been on a major Marion Lenox binge since so many of her backlist books came out in digital format, and I just have to comment on how good they are. She has quite an imagination, and manages to come up with incredible…and yet credible at the same time…plots. I also love her sense of humor.
Lennox (not Lenox) — sorry!
@Statch: I hadn’t realized that her backlist was coming out until Jane posted last week, but I’m thrilled.
The Medical I recommended is a tough read in some ways; it’s set in the immediate aftermath of the Australian wildfires. I’m obviously not a native or familiar with the area beyond what I’ve read, but it didn’t feel at all exploitative to me and it was intense and very moving. Lennox has an amazing ability to mix humor, angst, and improbable settings (I even like her Fake Tiny Royal Country books, and I’m usually allergic to that setting). Her Medicals generally feature more ordinary people, and they’re very grounded in the setting. Dating the Millionaire Doctor reminds me of the intense, realistic novels we found in Harlequin and Silhouette in the 1990s.
If only there were a couple of animals peering at the couple on the cover of Seven Nights To Forever I would swear it was an 80’s Pino Daeni cover.
Darn, I didn’t realize he died in May until I Googled to check my spelling of his name.
@Sunita, I bought about 20 of the Lennox backlist books. It was one of the few times Fictionwise has been useful for me lately. I got the ‘first week’ discount, plus my member discount, so it worked out well. As I mentioned, I’ve been on a binge with them, which usually leads to ‘formula overload,’ but hasn’t, mainly because the story lines are so imaginative. They do tend to be intense and moving, yet also with humor and witty dialog. The characters are nice (not bratty or overly alpha), but with real problems to overcome. The Medicals have enough medical information to be very interesting, but not overwhelming or distracting.
The Doctor’s Proposal has one of the most imaginative birth scenes I’ve ever read. It shouldn’t work, but it did (for me, at least). (It’s the 2d in a series; the woman giving birth gets her story in The Heir’s Chosen Bride.)
One thing worth noting for potential readers is that her books are sensual but not at all explicit – mostly only at the ‘kisses’ level and nothing past the bedroom door (that I’ve found yet). I was slightly disappointed in that at first, but I’ve enjoyed the stories so much that it hasn’t bothered me since.
Oh, JOY! A Balogh Christmas story!
If only I could get an anthology with a new Metzger, Farr, Butler etc in it (no Layton though. Argh). Then I could face the holiday season with enough of the proper brand of sap to keep me going.
@kate r: Balogh’s A Christmas Promise (a reissue of a trad regency that first came out 18 years ago and hasn’t been reprinted in a long time) is a strong contender for my favorite Balogh thus far, which is saying a lot, given the size of her backlist (then again, I’ve only read around 30 of her books). Sunita and I are working on a review of it.
@Linda Rader:
I bought “Best laid…” on this rec, but was very disappointed. To me it read like a grocery shopping list, there was no tension and no surprise and no feeling whatsoever. However, I have just discovered Julie Anne Long’s Pennyroyal Green series on a rec by Janine (I Kissed An Earl), so I am not complaining. Eagerly awaiting “What I Did For A Duke”, out next year.
@helly: I’m sorry that Best Laid didn’t work for you. I liked it because I thought that there was a lot of emotional conflict between the hero and heroine, particularly the hero who didn’t feel like he could take another chance on loving someone.
I am glad that other recommendations worked. Sometimes you just line up better with one reviewer’s taste than another. I know Janine’s tastes and mine are really different. You can click on a review by Janine and then click on her name. It will bring up an archive of all the reviews she has written.
@Jane: That is excellent, thank you for the tip. I really appreciate your site. Before I used to buy ebooks simply based on the blurb on the ebook site, and that did not work out for me at all. Also, I find the D-reviews very entertaining.
@helly: Thanks helly! It’s a crapshoot out there sometimes.