This just in…

As of 12/15/09 the ARC for Shameless is in my hot lil hands… release date is April 2010 from Pocket and there is a new cover I will look and see if I can find it.

last update 11/12/06

Do you remember Shameless by Karen Robards?

If you don’t it might be because it was first called Reckless… or at least that is how I recall reading about it in the Romantic Times. This is the long awaited finish to the Banning Sisters Trilogy. And it is… drum roll… historical! not romantic suspense. And it was set for release in April of 2006.

Now it will be released 31 Jan 2008!!

the update

Karen Robards sent out her newsletter yesterday and once again there was no mention of this book. And that made me sad. So I emailed her. It bounced. I checked and found I had the wrong email and tried again.

It bounced.

So I emailed another addy I found. And waited.

After I didn’t get an answer (WHAT? it had been like 3 mins) I started to dig around. I am not sure if it was the addy I sent the third email or one of my newest but quickly becoming much lurved contacts at Penguin, but Karen Robards emailed and had this to say about Shameless.

Shameless is nearly finished.

Now in authorspeak ::looks around at authors:: THAT can mean a week away to 4 years. But she went on to say it is “In Line” to come out after:

• the paperback release of Obsession (May 27th, 2008)
• her new hardcover romantic thriller, Pursuit, in February, 2009.

I hope it keeps this cover and I hope to god it is better than Garwood’s return to historical. But either way I am glad it is still in the works. hmmm now I need to find out what Pursuit is about – I know I’m never happy…

LauraD’s review of Guilty by Karen Robards
Romantic Suspense released by Putnam 1 Apr 08

I’ve got more than one Karen Robards title on my keeper shelf, but Guilty got tossed into the UBS box so hard and fast it scared my cat. I’m guessing others will disagree with me, but I just can’t identify with a hypocritical heroine. (Possible slight spoilers in review)

Fifteen year old Kat Kominski and her pals are having a night out, when one of them accidentally shoots and kills an off duty policeman in a robbery gone bad. They flee, and the killer is never identified or caught. Present day, “Kate White” is a single mom, and a prosecutor in the DA’s office. One of Kate’s former friends is now a career criminal, and begins blackmailing Kate. Meanwhile, hot Detective Tom Braga keeps turning up, asking Kate questions about her past and somehow making himself a part of her and her son’s lives.

I’ll just lay my main problem out straight. Kate’s a liar. At a young age, she gets caught up in a crime, and she never reports it. She goes to college, then to law school, and then (despite a goal of rapid financial success) goes to work for the D.A. Keeps lying! A criminal begins blackmailing her, so she tells more lies! To the detective! That she’s falling in love with!

Kate lies until it’s beyond stupid to keep lying, tells more lies to explain away inconsistencies, and when the truth finally comes out, she never apologizes.

Good ol’ Detective Tom has surely earned himself some grovel, but he does not get it from Kate. Poor Tom. Oh yes, did I mention that Tom has a Tragic Secret in his Past That Has Kept Him From Loving Again? Or Kate’s Eerily Mature 9 year old? Or Tom’s Big Noisy Loveable Italian Family? I could go on, but I’m tired of capitalizing.

Really, I’m sorry Karen Robards. I wanted to like Guilty. I tried to read it a second time to see if I liked it any better, but I couldn’t do it.

Grade: F

     Blurb:

     One cold November night when Kat White was fifteen years old, she and some friends held up a convenience store. In the heat of the moment, one of the others shot and killed an off-duty cop moonlighting as a security guard. Kat and her pals fled the scene in a panic, and no one was caught.

     Sixteen years later, Kat-now Kate-has built a new life for herself. Now a single mom with an eight-year-old son, she works as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia DA’s office. But her dark past rears its head when she walks into court one day and discovers that she is to prosecute Mario Castellanos, one of her friends from that terrible night.

     Kate is in a bind: even though Mario was the one who probably did commit the crime, he’s counting on Kate to make sure he’s not convicted. If she convinces the judge of his guilt, he’ll claim that she was the one who killed the off-duty cop. Before real despair sets in, Mario is found dead-in her apartment, and with her pistol. When homicide detective Tom Braga shows up to investigate the murder, Kate is far from relieved; the two have clashed since she started working for the prosecutor’s office. But when another man who knows the secret of Kate’s past gets involved in the investigation, she learns that her life-and her son’s-are in danger. Frantic, she realizes that she has nowhere to turn. Except, maybe, to Tom . . .

     Read an excerpt.

Do you remember Shameless by Karen Robards?

If you don’t it might be because it was first called Reckless… or at least that is how I recall reading about it in the Romantic Times. This is the long awaited finish to the Banning Sisters Trilogy. And it is… drum roll… historical! not romantic suspense. And it was set for release in April of 2006.

Now it will be released 31 Jan 2008!!

Which means I spent the weekend rereading book… two I didn’t even remember reading. And that sort of spilled over to the week. 

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas was my first reread last Friday. Derek and Sarah… what more do you have to say. I love this book. It is just wonderful.

Which lead me to read Tiger’s Eye by Karen Robards since people tend to say it is like DoY. I must have skimmed it the first time I read it because I didn’t remember reading it until the very end with the bathtub scene, which that scene still annoys me.

Go figure… I can see how it gets compared to DoY but DoY blows it away. A good read I would rate about a C.

I then moved onto Forbidden Love by Karen Robards and poof read that too. And sorry maili, I liked it. I would rate it about a C-, it is way flawed but a nifty guilty pleasure read.

The next on the hit list aka randomly picked off the shelf was The Seducer and The Sinner by Madeline Hunter.

I still love both of these books. Madeline Hunter is one of my favorites and she has a way with an old plot. She can take it and make it new, fresh, fun and exciting. I wish we could get another Medieval out of her but I am still in love with this series and so need to read LoS. I dont think I ever really read it, more like skimmed and marked it as a want to read later.

Beauty Like the Night and The Devil You Know by Liz Carlyle came next.

I adore Liz Carlyle and am looking forward to her new series. The funny thing is The Devil You Know is the first book by her I read and I hated it. I didn’t pick up another one of her books until AWoV was recently rereleased and after falling in love with her short story in Big Guns Out of Uniform Let’s Talk About Sex.

Now I have no idea if it has to do with reading BLtN first and having read AWoV so I understood Bentley more than I did the first time but I just fell in love with this story. Rosario has a great review for the story and it pretty much sums up what I love about it. I would say to enjoy Carlyle you need to read her earlier works. So it is a good thing she is having them reprinted and at GREAT prices. What a great way to get new fans.

So what is my point in all this? I have been reading, just not the 10+ books I am suppose to read for AAR reviews. But I think I have found my groove again. So off I go to try my hand at new books. I also have company this weekend, so I really need to kick my ass into gear.