Sorry! I crashed last night at 8pm. I will check on everything when I get to work. Looks like I have a ton of new email to join the ton I already had to answer, promise I am not ignoring you.
The winner of Hwang’s Special Reserve (the Oct addition) your address is in good hands with Mz Hwang of Berkley. We will announce the other winners today. Along with the posts… good thing I didn’t go back yet and remove the labels.
I must thank Cindy Hwang and Berkley for being so grand in supporting my desire to be silly, have contests and give books to readers. Got to love people who give you a pile of books and say go for it. Well book titles… since she is sending them I didn’t really “HAVE” the books. But we should have reviews up for must of them soon! I think… we are still missing like three of them.
So did you guys have fun with it? Too hard? Too easy? Right now Cindy is on board for doing it (or something like) again and I have another editor or two who wanna play.
And extra special thanks to the amazing GWEN who did the wine label and so often comes through soooo quickly when I throw out some amazingly off the wall thing.
Speaking of off the wall things looks like Dear Author had a fab post yesterday on Harlequin Categories. That isn’t the odd thing but I am waiting for a few answers on emails and I will get into that more. Until then go read, looks like a nifty post.
And really I need to make a note to self that on all things Harlequin just email Michelle Styles. In my defense I thought it was just all things Harlequin Historical, which I have a grand stable of authors to annoy about *g*. But she just answered one question that had been bugging me…
The old temptation line became the 2 book per month Modern Extra line. The line is being remaned as Modern Heat in the UK. They started going back into the US as Promotional Presents earlier this year.
It was announced at the AMBA lunch, that they are expanding Promotional Presents to 4 books per month. These will include the now renamed Modern Heat offerings. So all of the Modern Heats will be going into the US market.
Presents will be the 8 books, plus 2 weeks later the 4 books of Promotional Presents. The other Promotional Presents will include special projects like the very popular Royal House of Niroli continuity series or some of the Medicals.
Tres nifty… but I still don’t get how HP ties into Temptation when Temptation to me was always a cross of Desire and Blaze. Of course Desire seems much more Presents these days… sez Wendy and I am just about to the point where I agree with her.
Good god I am rambly… see why I shouldn’t sleep in large doses 😉
LOL on simply asking me about Harlequin, but sometimes I know a bit.
Modern Heat is like Presents first cousin. The stories are far more cosmopolitan than the Old tempt — settings have been from around the world, rather than being North America centric. And while the heroes are alpha, they are prehaps not quite as old as Presents heroes. And there is a bit more flexibility in the hero’s professions. Heat is a bit more flirty, a bit more fun. And the sensual level is up there. The ones I have read have been v good. Kate Hardy is excellent (she also writes medicals). A number of the Presents writers have also written Modern Heat — Susan Stephens springs to mind. Tessa Shapcott is the executive editor for both Presents and Modern Heat.
The ones that have made it to the US thus far have all done well, and they were marketed as Promotional Presents.
In any case, it appears that the lines whose editorial have moved to London have gained a new lease of life — Modern Heat, Harlequin Historical and Harlequin Romance — a combo of the old HR and Sil Rom. The main difference with old v new HR is now the bedroom door is firmly shut and emphasis is on the emotion.
Hope this helps.
I’m really looking forward to reading the Promotional Presents Modern Heat titles; I love Presents and I loved Temptation, so I’m really curious to see what this line is doing.
Really? ::note to self don’t buy new HR::
crap and there is a Diana Palmer that just came out from them…
I bought a few HP recently that didn’t look like they were apart of the books for the month but like a collection of 12 or so. I will have to look at the titles. All I know is wally world seemed to be over grown with them at the time.
It could be they were the recently released Promotional Presents. Julie Cohen’s McAllister’s Baby is in there as is Kate Hardy one about the barrister. Trish Wylie and Kelly Hunter are also there. They changed all the titles as well.
The new HR — the bedroom door is closed which means that certain things simply happen off stage. Certain readers prefer to draw a veil. In some ways, it gives more time for development of the relationship between the characters as well as the build up of the sexual tension. From what I hear, the readers in general appear to be very happy with the direction the line has taken.
Now if I could just get everyone else to agree with me life would be damn near perfect 😉
The more time that passes the more I miss the old HT line. SD is annoying me at the moment and I never got on the Blaze bandwagon (although I do own a few).
All this talk about Harlequin makes me want to go on a category reading binge in the worst way. Maybe after I’m done with the mysteries I have lined up….
Blaze Blush is supposed to be like the old Temptations, Wendy. Have you tried one of those?
Charlene:
No, I hadn’t even heard of Blaze Blush! Is it like a “miniseries” tag on the books? Kind of like how Blaze used to be a tag on some of the old HT titles?
OK – I’m not getting this. As someone who really enjoyed the Temptation line, one of the things I liked about it was the heat as well as the character development. So this new line has no heat so to speak. So how is it the same? And will they get the old Temptation authors back? ‘Cause that’s who I miss. And will they have those REALLY BAD TITLES that Presents does? And like Wendy, I’ve never heard of Blaze Blush
No the NO SEXY SEXY is the Harlequin Romance line. Uh I think that is what michelle is saying. Harlequin Presents doesn’t go blaze on your ass but there is sex. The old Temptation line never went away in UK but no clue who the authors were/are.
Last Blaze I bought was by Jo Leigh… last month I think. And there is a nifty baseball one.
Yes, Blush is a Blaze miniseries like Blaze was in Temptation. Just kind of reversed. *g* The only one I’ve seen so far is Does She Dare? by Tawny Weber.
Kristie J, the lineup of authors from Temptation was phenomenal. I have a zillion of those old books on my keeper shelves.