LynneC’s review of A Wicked Persuasion by Catherine George
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 1 Mar 12

In this series of loose adaptations of classic novels by Mills and Boon, Catherine George has taken on Jane Austen’s Persuasion. So now it’s time to come clean. Yes, I’ve read Persuasion once, when I was eighteen. Second confession—Jane Austen isn’t a favourite of mine. I find her tone dry. I appreciate that she was a revolutionary writer who brought the novel on another leap, but I’d far rather curl up with a good Dickens or Tom Jones or Evelina or even Tristram Shandy, if I’m feeling adventurous. They’re bursting with life and in comparison I find Austen’s comedies of manners less than enthralling. Even the revered Pride and Prejudice.

There, I said it. I don’t have to be ashamed anymore. So I’m reviewing George’s book as a stand-alone.

The heroine, Harriet, is a doormat of the first order. The origins of this loose adaptation are probably clearest in the character of Harriet. I can see the book working well as a period piece, but while George’s efforts to bring her up to date are worthwhile, Harriet is still, by modern standards, a doormat. She made a promise to her mother to keep the house River House, which was descended through her mother, not her father, and when the stock market crashes and her father’s unwise investments with it, the house is under threat. Harriet finds the solution – to let the house to agencies, film companies and suchlike, not her father, who is a useless, selfish person until much later in the book, when I’d lost all patience with him.

Ten years ago, her father has Harriet’s one and only love sacked when she says she wants to move in with him. Actually James isn’t sacked, he is transferred, and returns ten years later as the owner of his own company and wealthy. To get his revenge, although he’s a sensible man who won’t let revenge get in the way of company success, so that makes the plot and motivation a little muddy.

Harriet makes herself ill looking after her selfish sister’s child, arranging for the management of her selfish father’s house and doing her regular job. She’s an accountant, and she enjoys it (so there). Told you. Martyr. James looks after her, so naturally she thinks he’s there to see her in her misery, s0 tells him to go away. Then she goes away for a few days. James joins her, and they have some weird disagreement which I’m still not sure about, but which moves the plot along nicely to its black moment.

I got lost in this story. There are far too many characters for a short novel to hold. While Ms. George does a great job at giving each person basic characteristics, I couldn’t follow them all. Just got too confused eventually. There are sisters and fathers and friends and a would-be suitor, and, as a result, the romance is pushed into the background. James and Harriet just don’t get enough time together, and because they are old flames, their relationship is merely rekindled, not renewed and refreshed.

Austen had a much longer novel to expand and investigate all the characters. There’s also the problem that she wasn’t writing a romance as such, only a comedy of manners (which isn’t to say that the novel is funny, or no funnier than Shakespeare’s comedies). I don’t really care about Harriet’s relationship with her selfish sister or her selfish father (there are a lot of selfish fathers in Austen’s books, aren’t there?) I want to read about the developing romance between a more mature Harriet and James. And I want her to tell everyone to look after their own lives. She doesn’t, they sort their lives out for themselves, and then say sorry. So there is no redemptive moment for Harriet. I am convinced that she wouldn’t continue to organise everyone’s lives for them, especially with the ultimate outcome.

However, Ms. George is a great technical writer. Her style flows and her voice is easy and confident. She’s weathered the many storms in the Mills and Boon household with ease, and as one of the old-school writers, she’s done a lot to adapt to newer requirements and not stayed in the brutal alpha/weak female rut. I’ve read books of hers with much more confident, competent heroines, and I’m sure she’ll do more in the future.

Grade: C-

Summary:

A flame that never died… One glimpse of James Crawford’s roguish good-looks sparked a fire in young heiress Harriet Wilde that burned red-hot – until her father forced her to break off the relationship. No way was his daughter going to dilute the family line! Ten years later… James, now the head of a multi-million-pound empire, returns to get revenge on the woman who thought she was too good for him. He’ll make her feel every ounce of the humiliation he once did. But he only succeeds in fanning the flames of a fire he’d thought long dead…

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of The Fireman Who Loved Me (The Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel, Book 1) by Jennifer Bernard
Contemporary Romance published by Avon 24 April 12

A small town romance featuring a reporter for a local TV station and a fireman from a station labelled the one with the hot bachelors. It should make for a cute romance, and on the whole it does. However, some distractions and deviations from the romance make it less than the hot romance promised in the blurb. In fact, it’s almost a case of false description, because the hot sex is a long time coming, and when it arrives, it’s on the vanilla side.

On the other hand, it’s quite a cute read, and worth picking up. I’m not sure who decided to sell it as a hot romance, but I don’t think they were doing the book justice, because while it doesn’t deliver on the erotic front, there are other enjoyable parts of the book.

Melissa is a producer for a local news program being upstaged by an airhead presenter. The presenter is a standard bimbo type who shows up in many, many romances and is increasingly uninteresting. She’s shallow, egotistical, and only there to present a foil and a conflict for the main female character. More effort put into that part of the story might have increased the interest there, and I might not have been tempted to skip those parts, since the outcome is as predictable as sunrise.

Melissa has a grandmother who is determined to see her married off. To that end, she puts her savings into a bachelor auction and buys Ryan, a hunky fireman, for an astronomical sum. But Ryan is hot, so Granny wants him for her granddaughter. Of course, all she has to do is put them together. When Ryan chickens out, after thinking his date is with Granny, and he’d never hear the last of it, his boss, fire captain Brody, steps in. And he ends up with Melissa.

To be honest, I’d have shoved Granny in the lake years before, not put up with her indulgently. Granny is cute as the old person who pushes into line at the supermarket, yelling, “Let me in, I’m eighty.” It’s one thing to allow someone into line, it’s another when they push their way in. Granny, aka Nelly, is like that. She’s clueless, she makes her presence known, and she’s as subtle as a sledgehammer. She isn’t cute or feisty, she’s the most annoying character in the book. She’s a caricature.

In fact, that’s my problem with most of the secondary characters in the book. They are less characters, more types, and you could pick out the ones meant for sequels, because more thought is put into them, although it’s of the “give this person three basic characteristics and take it from there” type.

What’s worse is that the secondary characters eat into the time Brody and Melissa have together. The book isn’t focused enough on the romance, and it doesn’t develop so much as lurch from incident to incident. We get Nelly’s point of view when we want Melissa, we get shenanigans at the TV station when we want to know what Brody thinks of his last encounter with Melissa.

The whole setup is so cute, my teeth are starting to ache. A fire station full of hot men, apart from one with a big belly, and two women we never really get to meet. They cook, they have an enlightened attitude to the opposite sex, they are great firefighters. A small town with no serious problems.

I kept reading, and unfortunately, it doesn’t improve a great deal. In fact, more characters and a distracting plot development detract even more from the romance. The trouble is, I don’t care about the other parts. The characters are sketchily done and the plot doesn’t have much to do with the romance. I couldn’t get interested, and had I not been reading this book for review, I’d have put it down at that point. Gently, and with regret, but down.

While this book doesn’t do it for me, I’ll keep an eye on Ms. Bernard to see what else she comes up with.

Grade: C-

Summary:

Fearless, smoking hot, and single: meet the Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel. These firemen might be heroes, but it’s their bad luck in love that makes them legendary.

News producer Melissa McGuire and Fire Captain Harry Brody couldn’t be more different, though they do have one thing in common: they’re both convinced they’re perfectly wrong for each other. But when Melissa’s matchmaking grandmother wins her a date with Brody at a bachelor auction…

Sparks fly. Passion flares. Heat rises. (You get the picture.)

Add a curse, a conniving nightly news anchor, a stunningly handsome daredevil fireman, a brave little boy, a couple of exes, and one giant fire to the mix, and Melissa and Brody’s love may not be the only thing that burns.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

LynneC’s review of Lust in the Library by Amelia Fayer
Erotic Romance published by Avon Red 6 Mar 12

This is a short that is probably expected to be sweet, sexy fun. Unfortunately, it misses the mark by some distance, at least for me. It’s about two librarians who work in what seems like a vast academic library and get it on in the stacks with their chosen partners. The short book is made even shorter by splitting it into two parts, so each librarian gets her own story.

Sara gets William, an English professor teaching at the university. He comes in and asks for books that don’t seem to have much in common, except that they came from the same stacks. When eventually she goes to the sixth floor to find him, they get hot and heavy. For anyone who has read many erotic romances, the development of the sex is fairly straightforward. Kiss, touch, part nakedness, full nakedness, oral, sex. The sex, despite happening in a library, is fairly vanilla.

The second story is Veronica, who gets Andrew. She starts by giving him head when she thinks he’s going to masturbate onto an old folio, and so spoil the book. However, he has no intention of spoiling the book, he has a napkin ready. She’s wanted him for some time, and he’s wanted her, but a misunderstanding has kept them apart.

Can I tell you more about the plot? No, because that’s just about it. Sex in the library.

The background seems to be fairly thinly researched. An academic library with six floors or more? Do they have many of those in the USA? But for a senior, fully qualified librarian in an academic library, Sara spends a lot of time doing what the library assistants would usually do. I did work as a library assistant once, and we did most of the shelving, checking, issuing and so on. And that wasn’t even an academic library.

There are some conversations between Sarah and Veronica where I lost track of who’s talking, because the women seem so similar. At one point in the first story, before the first encounter, I forgot whether Sarah or Veronica is supposed to be the heroine of this story. And most of the conversation is along “as you know, Bob” lines, bringing the reader quickly up to speed with the backstory.

There are some dizzying point-of-view switches where we are in one character’s head, then we become aware of what the other character is thinking, then straight back to the first character. I think most of them are technical problems, where the editor has failed to pick it up.

As a Brit, I find the assumptions made of English people not only old fashioned but odd. Apparently William finds American girls more outgoing than English ones. So he hasn’t met any Essex girls or Scousewives, or even WAGs, although it’s doubtful they’d be interested in him. And he wears a tweed jacket. Really? I did stop and boggle at that one. The only person I know who wears or even owns a tweed jacket is a septuagenarian. I’m not sure what he was a professor of, although I believe we were told at one point. It didn’t seem to matter.

I find Veronica and Andrew even more thinly characterized, and that’s my main problem with this book. It is, basically, stroke fiction for women. The characters aren’t interesting or believable and most of the prose is dedicated to the hot sex in the library. Fulfilling a fantasy. But because there is no development of character and precious little characterisation, other than what we are told rather than shown, so I don’t really care if they get their rocks off or not.

Not the engaging, fun read I’d hoped for, and the sex is pretty vanilla, described in a vanilla way, for the most part.

Grade: D

Summary:

Some like it hot, and some like it in the reference section

Sara is having a love affair with books. But, since books can’t make love to you, it means she’s in the middle of a very long dry spell. Until a sexy Brit shows up. Suddenly she’s learning just how stimulating a library can be—up against a bookcase, behind the card catalog, on the circulation desk . . .

Meanwhile, Veronica is incredibly frustrated. While Sara and her new man are using the library as their personal adult playground, she’s stuck with only her thesis and her sexual fantasies. But Andrew, her crush, isn’t above using his . . . assets to get Veronica right where he wants her: alone, in a darkened corner of the stacks.

Who knew reading could be this pleasurable?

No excerpt available.

I’ve just about given up on the “historical romance” because it’s not satisfying what I want to see in a well-written historical. But a recent post condemning readers who are labelling books “mistorical” has dragged me right back in.

Just so we know we’re on the same page:

I want to be taken back to a previous age. I want to  be able to trust the writer to do this without jarring me back to the present day. I want that sense of living in the past and sharing a life with people who lived under certain conditions, dressed a certain way, with attitudes different to my own and my contemporaries.

That’s all. If you want something different from your historical, great. Go and get it, because the trend seems to be for that kind of book right now. That’s why, in my reviews, I try to be careful not to condemn the book, just to explain why I don’t like it, why it didn’t do it for me. What I refuse to do is to condemn readers whose tastes are different to mine and who want something else from the books the read.

I’m tired of picking up a historical, only to find another modern-characters-in-long-dresses story and as a result, I’ve stopped looking at all but the ones from authors I can trust. I need those labels to stop me getting a chapter in, only to find either history that’s wrong or no history at all.

Why is “mistorical” perjorative? Or is it the people who use it? I can’t accept a non-historical historical, and I don’t have a history degree, unless you count art history. I just live in the UK, have learned my history as I grew up, and my mind goes “no, no!” when I find a Faberge egg in a Regency, whether I want it to or not. I need a term that will clue me in to a book being one I don’t want to read. Just as there are heat guidelines, so that people uncomfortable with erotic romance can avoid it, I need a term that will stop me wasting my money on another frivolous romance that couldn’t possibly have happened in real life.

Until recently, I also took the wallpaper historical as an insult against Britain and its history, but having seen what the US has done to its own history, especially in movies (Anthony Quinn as a native American?) and remembering Hearst’s order to “print the legend,” I think it’s more part of American society to want to adopt something as its own and incorporate. Knowing the country (and loving it) a lot better now, I think it’s part of the mindset. That isn’t a condemnation, btw, it’s just the way things seem to be.

What makes a historical unsatisfactory for me is not just strict accuracy, such as using words before they came into common use, it’s the feel of the whole book. Accuracy would be the use of something before it was invented or Waterloo happening on a fine, sunny day in July, or Tiffany lamps in a Regency. But there’s another way to make a book “not historical.” That’s where the term “wallpaper” comes in, and this is a term I think is useful. The writer just eliminates obvious modern conveniences like cell phones and airplanes, and then puts the characters in quaint dresses. But it doesn’t have any specific references. Either that, or there are two or three carefully spaced nuggets that will remind the reader that this is a “Regency.” Dear Author introduced the term “mistorical” last year, and while some found it useful, others found it condemnatory, a criticism on the kind of books they loved to read. God forbid, and I mean that. The romance genre needs more critics like it needs a hole in the head. Ask any author of erotic romance. It was a good try at finding some term to apply to books that didn’t deliver on the historical front, but unfortunately readers got upset, so maybe we have to move on from that term.

When I review a historical romance, I’m being strictly personal. Whether you can be objective by writing a review is a whole ‘nother barrel of fish, but I have never claimed to be, because I don’t think there’s any value in writing a review of a novel and not getting personal about it. I’ve read and reviewed books by authors where I’ve loved one and disliked another. What I do try to do is to say why I didn’t like the book. Then readers can make their own decisions based on that. You might love Big Misunderstandings. I don’t. So you can read one of my reviews and go “hey, that sounds good” and even if I’ve given the book a D, you might decide to search it out. Because our tastes differ. I hope that doesn’t make us enemies or condemn your reading tastes in any way. Or that you should criticize me for preferring my historicals to reflect the time and place where it’s claimed the book is set.

It’s a “tomato, tomahto” thing.

LynneC’s review of What Lies Beneath by Andrea Laurence
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 3 Apr 12

I am so very sorry I can’t do a more positive review for this book, but it has serious flaws which eventually  prevented me enjoying it as much as I might have done. Huge plot holes and a Mary Sue heroine aren’t my favorite tropes, but if you can ignore the holes and go along with Mary (actually called Adrienne), then you will enjoy this one.

I’ve learned that it’s (almost – let’s not get carried away here) as hard to write an unfavorable review as it is to receive one. but I can’t give this book a pass. Several elements make this a disappointing read for me, starting right at the beginning. Since Ms. Laurence is a new author to the Desire line, I tried, but, in the end, I knew it wasn’t a book for me.

Unusually for a Desire, there is a prologue, but in this case it’s definitely needed. Adrienne has just wound up her New York fashion business and is on the plane going home to Milwaukee. She finds herself sitting next to a society beauty who has been downgraded to economy. She and society beauty Cynthia trade places and the plane crashes leaving only three people alive. They assume Adrienne is Cynthia. We, the reader, know better, because the story is told from Adrienne’s point of view, not Cynthia’s.

Anyone else find that whole thing hard to swallow? First, the first-class passenger downgraded. That’s a tricky premise right there. In all my years travelling, I’ve never come across that. Upgrading, sure, and a passenger downgraded for bad behavior, once. Okay, never mind, let it through. It could happen, after all.
So the whole assuming Adrienne is Cynthia part of the story, necessary if the story is going to work.

The amnesia Adrienne/Cynthia suffers is only one of the injuries which also damaged her face and destroyed her front teeth. She has new teeth implanted (can you have that done?) and plastic surgery has rebuilt her face. That’s some expense there, and Adrienne is doing it, albeit unwittingly, on Cynthia’s insurance. Wouldn’t the hospital or the insurance company sue to cover its own ass, when the truth comes out? I’m assuming here that Adrienne’s insurance is basic and Cynthia’s is much better, plus she can afford private treatment.

Wait a minute. There’s a lot of blood involved in plastic surgery, especially facial surgery. So they must have taken her blood type, right? What if it was different to Cynthia’s?

The fact that Cynthia and Adrienne have swapped places on the plane is no indication of their identity and no insurance company or anyone else in their right mind is going to accept it as such. When Adrienne wakes up with a smashed face and amnesia, they’re going to take her “parents’” word that she’s their daughter? I don’t think so. Especially when DNA testing is fast and painless. And what about dental identification? A significant number of back teeth is acceptable for ID, especially when there’s been work done in the past. Since this happens right at the start of the book, I tried to just accept the situation and read on, but things kept nagging me.

The real story starts some time later when our heroine is due to leave hospital. She’s had extensive plastic surgery, but she only seems concerned that her new teeth don’t fit right and she can’t remember anything. I had to fight to stay with the story here. The accident had rendered her unrecognizable and given her amnesia. She seems okay with that, and later, when she meets her real relative, her aunt, the lady accepts her as if she looks just the same. There’s no mention of her learning her new contours or getting psychiatric treatment, almost a requirement of surgery like she’d had.

Peripheral to my concerns are the lack of any mention of possible PTSD and the way the author kills off a plane full of people. She’s created them in the first place, I suppose, so she could kill them. Nobody seems too bothered about that, Adrienne/Cynthia included.

Oh, and the doctor at one point in the story says that one bang to the head gave her amnesia and another restored it. Really? I thought that idea went out a long time ago. Actually, the restoration of memory doesn’t exactly happen that way, but that a doctor should actually say that…?

The character of Adrienne gets more annoying as the book goes on. She’s beautiful but curvy, not model-thin. She’s very kind, very thoughtful, and people in distress upset her. She’s a sweet girl whom everybody loves, from the nurse in the hospital to Cynthia’s fiancée, who she goes to live with after she comes out of hospital. She can design clothes. It’s obvious that the author knows something about sewing and a bit about the fashion industry, but I can’t remember the last designer who made their own clothes. Oh, yes, I can, Yves Saint-Laurent (my mother worked for him for a short time). But, of course, he didn’t. He just could.

Adrienne not only has the money to buy runway-quality fabric, she can make it all up into what she wants with a domestic sewing machine. Not an overlocker or heavy-duty machine for leather in sight. But, again, development of that side might have made Adrienne more interesting. But at this stage of the story, she is Cynthia, a spoiled society beauty who never took an interest in sewing before. And nobody remarks on that? Oh, yes, and she makes a collection worthy of an important magazine in a few days. Makes it herself, on her handy-dandy sewing machine. Vera Wang wishes (or maybe she has more sense). In short, Adrienne is a Mary Sue of the most egregious. Hearts and flowers and skippety-skip.

Ah, yes, the hero. There is an unavoidable spoiler here, but I’ll mark it and try not to go into specifics. Will owns a newspaper, which is doing a deal with Cynthia’s father to go into e-readership. I like that part, it sounds plausible to me and interesting. Would have liked more of that. But there is no real barrier to the main relationship, although Cynthia’s father wants the marriage between Cynthia and Will to cement the business relationship. In the end, though, like everyone else, he falls in love with Adrienne, so that’s all right then.

Will is a cipher. He never comes alive for me, although there are several scenes in his viewpoint. He does what is needed for the plot. There is another character and a side plot. It seems that Cynthia was in love with a poor, struggling man who, when we finally meet him, comes across as a sleaze and a bully. I have no idea what he was doing in the book at all. He pops up and disappears when the plot needs a bit of a stir.

And here’s the  SPOILER ALERT (although if you read many Harlequins, you’ll see this one coming a mile off. Like a train screaming down the track you are helplessly bound to, you beg “no, no, don’t do it” but it arrives anyway).

About the Black Moment. A more contrived one I have yet to read. When Adrienne realizes who she is, Will assumes she’s been trying to con him and he throws her out. At this stage of the story, it reveals a fundamental weakness in Will – doesn’t he trust his own judgment of the woman he’s come to know? And it screams “plot device.” If Will is the brutal alpha type, it would have been more believable, and while I’m happy to read betas, to see one turn like this is a bad jar out of the story. *END OF SPOILER ALERT*

To sum up – the story has serious issues. The initial premise is unbelievable, the heroine is Mary Sue and then some, and the hero is manipulated by the plot. If this book won lots of awards, it must have been in another incarnation, and having been subject to the sometimes brutal editing Harlequin imposes on its authors, I can see how a first-time author would do her best to work in what they wanted and leave ends dangling. However, the book has some style, although the syntax is rather simplistic, and if Ms. Laurence writes another, I’d be interested in taking a look, to see if the next effort is smoother and more interesting.
Sorry.

Grade: D-

Summary:

They say she’s Cynthia Dempsey, fiancée of media mogul Will Taylor. But try as she might, she can’t recall their high-society life or the man sitting by her hospital bed. Though her body certainly remembers him. Even as she senses the distance between them, the electricity when they touch is undeniable.

Will can hardly believe Cynthia’s transformation. Gone is the ice queen who betrayed him, and in her place is a woman who seems genuine and warm. But can he risk his heart again, not knowing what might happen when her memory returns?

Read an excerpt.

I am exhausted. While it’s wonderful to meet people and talk books, I want to go home and write!

I met some lovely people and waved to a lot more. I went to the Series Romance game this morning and had a great time, and got books. I met Caitlin Crews and Lynn Raye Harris and we had fun on a quiz. I like being a reader. You get stuff.

After two publisher dinners yesterday I ended up at the bar, carousing, and when I’m in the mood, I can do a good carouse. Especially with this kind of company. Had a lovely lunch with Monica Burns and Joey Hill, but if I told you what we talked about, I’d have to kill you.

Sometimes I think people will catch me out. After all, I’m not a real writer, am I? I discovered that’s a very common feeling among authors, even the big ones. They feel they’re not really writers, that this fun they’re having won’t last. And of course, in some cases that happens.

But people like my books and I did well at the book signing today. The RT book signings are amazing. Three hundred authors and then some in the same room. All talking, all signing their books. But we’re in alphabetical order. You can find your favorite erotic romance author next to your favorite inspirational order, and the chances are that they will be getting on like a house on fire.

Authors come from all over the world to be at those signings. They’re amazing. We can sign and then meet some of our own favorites. There is nothing to compare with them. Of course, at the end of the three hours, most of us have lost our voices, but after that, we just have to party and enjoy ourselves!

I went and pitched a new book to some people. I hadn’t meant to do it, but it was fun to do and, amazing to me, the people wanted to see my stuff. See above for explanation! So keep your fingers crossed for me. I’d upload some pictures, but I didn’t take as many as I should have done and I take a lousy photo, but I do have some.

These days I don’t go to as many panels as I used to, because of other commitments, but they are awesome, offering a wide selection of craft, industry, and fun reader panels. It was a joy to see one of my favourite writers, Susan Elizabeth Phillips talking about her work process, and the series writer game was also a lot of fun. And our team won the wooden spoon prize, which was worth having!

Apparently this year’s RT was the biggest ever, with more than 2,000 attendees. And when it comes down to the wire, that’s why I attend. Airfare from the UK is expensive, and RT can, on the surface, look expensive, but I think they have it right. It’s the combination of fun and industry, and the massive number of attendees that makes it the most worthwhile convention for me. I could attend smaller cons, but I wouldn’t reach that number of people. I wouldn’t be able to chat to my editors and to potential future editors and agents and also be there for people who read and enjoy my books. And I have such a good time there.

If I hadn’t written for publication ten years ago, I’d have never seen and experienced all the fantastic things I have in this time.

LynneC’s review of Rake with a Frozen Heart by Marguerite Kaye
Historical Romance published by Harlequin Historical 17 Apr 12

It’s a charming beginning to a charming story, which, although is not without fault, is one of the most pleasant historical reads I’ve had for some time.

Rafe finds a woman he doesn’t know face down in a ditch on his land, after she’s been knocked on the head and left for dead. He takes her home, and naturally, puts her in his own bed.

When she awakes, Henrietta tells Rafe that she was knocked out by a housebreaker and that she works for Rafe’s neighbour, a notorious widow, as a governess. She and Rafe have a charming interlude, but while she accuses Rafe of being a rake, something that annoys him, he keeps his hands to himself – mostly.

When she returns home, she finds her employer has been burgled and the family diamonds are missing. The widow accuses her of being the thief.

There is no irritating high concept here, no attempt at bringing the past up to date, and the story is all the better for it. Ms. Kaye depicts Regency life better than most, although there were a few mind-boggling errors, especially towards the end.

So we’ll get those out of the way. Anyone not bothered with historical accuracy can skip this bit, because most of the problems will only bother you if you want a story with no “what?” moments or you know absolutely nothing about the Regency era.

First, the name, the problem that repeats throughout the book. The hero is Rafe St Alban, Earl of Pentland. This means he’d be known as Rafe Pentland, not, as Kaye and the heroine refers to him, Rafe St Alban. When a man has a title, the surname all but disappears and in all cases the title effectively becomes the surname.

And Rafe. It seems to be much more popular now than it ever was in the Regency.

“Nice” means something different to the Regency person. It meant pernickety and overfussy, not in a good way. It didn’t mean “pleasant,” and Ms. Kaye’s repeated use of it with that meaning began to pall a bit.

When Rafe makes his confession to Henrietta (to tell would be a spoiler, so I won’t), he says he has to “rebuild his ego,” and uses “sex” as “a release mechanism.” That is what I meant by screaming. Freudian references have no place in the Regency, and “sex” referring to the sex act is a twentieth century usage. Later, he refers to a “stooge,” which is definitely vaudeville and another twentieth century term.

When Henrietta meets a relative for the first time, she gives her a hug. I cringed.

There are references to “mauve,” a color invented in Victorian times, and a lorgnette, which, while charming, is not a pair of glasses on a stick at this period, but a pair of opera glasses on a stick, and did evoke some smiles, but probably not of the intended variety.

Back to the story. I found Henrietta naïve but not annoying. She has good reason for most of what she does and an impetuosity that doesn’t always work to her advantage. She’s not universally loved and she’s not without fault – for which, big cheers, say I, and long may the imperfect heroine reign.

Rafe is an intriguing hero, very kind, but with good reasons why he won’t give anyone his heart. There is some fun sex in the book, but the ease with which Henrietta gives up her virtue, and Rafe’s assumption that he could turn her into a woman of easy virtue, aren’t altogether believable. Henrietta is a respectable girl, or is before she takes up with Rafe, and there is a gulf a mile wide between the monde and the demi monde, as far as women were concerned. Still, the sex is hot and fun and not too much of it.

Much of the book is a road story, involving the search for the man who will prove Henrietta’s innocence. But that part of the story is downplayed and isn’t ever much of a threat. I do wish the threat is better used, perhaps by making Henrietta’s ex-employer, Lady Ipswich, a respectable member of society, for instance, and able to make her ex-governess’s life miserable or having more of a mystery surround the emeralds, which, if you don’t guess in the first part of the book, you’re not paying attention.

At her first society ball, she is a brown girl, brown hair, brown eyes, creamy complexion, and they make her wear orange. Omg, what are they thinking?

But for all that, Kaye gets the feel right. There are some clues that she’s a Heyer fan, for which—yay! There is no insistence on turning England into a putative USA or having the characters behave like complete idiots. The dialogue is charming, and some of the best parts of the book are the courtship of the couple and their slow realisation that they are falling in love.

I’m up for the next book, for sure.

Grade: B

Summary:

Waking up in a stranger’s bed, Henrietta Markham encounters the most darkly sensual man she has ever met. The last thing she remembers is being attacked by a housebreaker—yet being rescued by the notorious Earl of Pentland feels much more dangerous!Since the cataclysmic failure of his marriage, ice has flowed in Rafe St. Alban’s veins. But meeting impetuous, all-too-distracting governess Henrietta heats his blood to the boiling point.When she’s accused of theft, Rafe finds himself offering to clear her name. Can Henrietta’s innocence bring this hardened rake to his knees?

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

Well, the first day of RT has passed and I’m still here and still standing.

There is nothing quite like RT. Enthusiastic readers treating themselves to a vacation, enthusiastic aspiring writers and jaded writers, editors and publishers all crowding together in one huge hotel.

Actually, no. Because you can’t help but get enthused and excited by such a great bunch of people. Honestly, jaded though I sometimes get with the publishing world, RT is something else.

So, what did I do? I reconnected with my lovely friend and roommate Desiree Holt, and we went to various events. The panel I was booked to appear on, about pseudonyms and should you use them, went beautifully, ably chaired by Celeste Delaney. We told our avid audience that they should think carefully before using a pseudonym and be careful to create it properly. For most writers, writing under more than one name, even if you let people know it’s really you, includes creating two identities, two websites, two sets of promotion plans, so it has to be good. Writing under a pseudonym to keep your real identity private could be because you have small children or work in a profession where they might not like your name associated with what you do. Although, saying that, my husband teaches at a school whose patron is the Queen, and he told them about it, so if the Queen is okay with me writing erotic romance, then other people maybe should be less prissy!
I was fortunate enough to be invited to a reception for the booksellers and librarians at the suite of Kathryn Falk and Kenneth Rubin. That was fun. Packed, but the food was great and the company even better.

The Ellora’s Cave ball was a blast. We had a great demo from The Geek Squad, a hip-hop troupe who intimidated me into not even trying to dance, but I did get my ten seconds of fame when I walked across the stage on the arm of a cute Caveman. I sat next to a lovely lady who turned out to be Lynn Raye Harris, so it was great to catch up with her at last.

After that I went to bed. Actually, I didn’t. I met with Susanna Kearsley in the bar, to discuss the panel we’re to be on the next day, and she, Lauren Willig, and Molly O’Keefe had a blast. Business over, we set to discussing the “trumps” game. You pick a gorgeous man, and he is your starting card. Then you pick another one, and decide if he trumps your original. Believe me, the more Cosmos you drink, the more fun it gets.

In case you’re wondering, Richard Armitage and David Gandy came up tops. If you don’t know them, look them up. You won’t be sorry. Tell you what, I didn’t take any pictures yet, so here’s a picture of David Gandy instead.

LynneC’s review of The Price of Honor by Emilie Rose
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 1 Nov 11

This is a difficult book to like, because of the hero and what he does. But Emilie Rose’s smooth writing style and her skill in depicting characters, together with the heroine, make this a worthwhile read.

I appreciate when a writer, especially a category romance writer, steps outside the box and tries something a little different. While the plot is familiar, the treatment of it and the characters make this an interesting read

Megan has been with Xavier for some time, until the morning she reads about his engagement in a newspaper. She thinks it’s a joke, but Xavier confirms it. He is to marry. He explains to Megan that it’s a marriage of convenience for his business, so he can regain what his father lost, and says there’s no reason they can’t be together until his marriage in twelve months’ time.

Not surprisingly, Megan is hurt, upset, and angry. Xavier doesn’t understand it and is angry when Megan leaves France to go to work with her cousin and friend in the States.

Megan is an equestrienne, and Xavier, who owns a perfume company, is funding her, but she won’t take anything from him, won’t accept him even when she discovers she’s pregnant. But this is no secret baby book. She tells Xavier at the urging of her friend, who comes up with some very cogent arguments. Even then Xavier won’t marry her, but he decides to sue for full custody, since his bride-to-be isn’t keen on having babies.

So far Xavier sounds like a dick. He is, no mistake. At this point we want Megan to kick him into touch. He’s not worth it. But Megan loves Xavier, despite his treatment of her and, while she won’t accept second best, she decides to get him back.

I like Megan. She doesn’t feel sorry for herself, she accepts that she could lose, and she wants to do her best for her baby, but she’s not convinced that, even though Xavier is rich, letting her child be brought up by two busy people is the best for the child. She puts her baby first. Fantastic. Megan is also building a life for herself, and she knows she’ll manage, but it will be a struggle at first. And while she wants Xavier back, it’s on her own terms. An exclusive commitment.

Xavier is hard to understand, until you realize—he’s French. Practical to a fault, with a coldness and a ruthless eye for business. Don’t forget, at the funeral of President Mitterrand, his wife and his mistress with their children walked side by side in the cortege. And the French kings would appoint official mistresses. Although Madame de Pompadour held that title until her death, she probably didn’t have sex with the King for at least the last ten years of her life. The French do things differently.

Emilie Rose has done a good job of depicting the way Xavier thinks. He just doesn’t understand why Megan would be upset. He’s prepared to look after her—even take the child off her hands and raise it as his own, as his heir, and doesn’t see his marriage as an impediment to that. While the conventions of the romance novel would insist that he’s faithful, sometimes a marriage of expedience held that kind of compromise. He’s doesn’t understand the nature of love and the demands it makes, and this is what he has to learn during the course of the book.

The equestrian background is also done very well. I know little about this field, but the story has the confidence and the feel of authenticity. While I can’t say I like Xavier, I could understand him, and that goes a long way towards the fact that I read this book all the way through. Some people will hate it, and even DNF it, because, in American terms, the hero is the definition of a jerk, but maybe it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that the grovel is pretty good, and while it doesn’t make up for some of his behavior, it goes some way towards it.

Read the book for Megan, who is a strong, believable character thrust into a nightmare situation, who copes with it with dignity and independence. She wants Xavier, but if she can’t have him, she’s prepared to accept the consequences and to work towards a future for herself and her child. Without being a martyr. She has a job, she can make it work, but before she dumps his sorry ass, she’s going to have a good try at making him see why his actions are wrong and getting him back.

Grade: B-

Summary:

Aristocratic billionaire Xavier Alexandre had nearly everything: wealth, fame and the love of the beautiful American equestrienne Megan Sutherland. But he also had a secret—a mistake he was honor-bound to reverse.

Megan has her own secrets, but her plans for the future are no match for the Alexandre heritage. When her dashing lover reveals what he must do to safeguard his family name, she knows their destiny is to part. Unless Xavier can win her back. But to do so he must sacrifice all he has been taught to hold dear.

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of Untouched By His Diamonds by Lucy Ellis
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 6 Jan 12

There’s nothing revolutionary about Untouched by his Diamonds. It’s just a good, solid story, well told, the kind that often gets overlooked in favor of the different and the sparky. But it kept me engrossed for an hour or two, so that can’t be bad, can it?

Clementine is working in publicity and her job has taken her to Moscow. Although she can’t afford the luxuries, she can’t resist the thigh-high boots she sees in a shop window, and she goes in to try them on. When she looks up, she sees Serge. He’s taller than her, although she’s nearing six feet tall, and gorgeous. But proprietorial. However, she lets him pick her up and take her back to his luxury hotel room. They get it on. Of course, it’s not all hearts and flowers.

Clementine is a likeable heroine, sassy, smart, but not to the point of snarkiness. The constantly sarcastic heroine is one I can well do without, and it’s one reason I haven’t enjoyed my occasional forays into urban fantasy. Sarcasm far too often turns into corniness and heartlessness, neither of which I enjoy. Clementine doesn’t go that far, but she does know her own mind and she’s sharp enough to stand up to the frankly macho and alpha Serge.

Serge is an interesting hero. I had thought that Serge was a French name and Sergei the Russian version, but I could buy into it for his sake, and I didn’t spare much time wondering about it. Besides, Russia always used to have a close connection with France, and the Russian court spoke French customarily instead of the more “common” Russian.

The first scene is delicious. When Clementine realizes Serge is watching her, she puts on a bit of a show for him, flashing some thigh, smoothing the boots over her legs. He’s hooked, but he doesn’t realize that Clementine is a relative innocent. She flirts as part of her job, knowing it’s a power she can use against some of the powerful men she works with. I’m not so much a feminist that I’m above using what weapons we have, so I was with Clementine here.

Serge has an unusual job for a Presents hero – he’s a sports promoter, specifically, cage fighting. Brutal and unforgiving, it’s something Clementine finds hard to come to terms with, but she persists, knowing it’s important to Serge and seeing an opening for herself in the area. Told you I like her. For Clementine, it’s not all about pleasing the hero, and although he makes her melt, she won’t take shit from him or become his doormat. Go, Clem.

The story is told with pace and verve, with both the main characters behaving in character and without absolute stupidity. It flows, and I had no problem losing myself for a couple of hours.

Grade: B

Summary:

The only thing this Russian’s money can’t buy… To merciless Russian Serge Marinov, Clementine Chevalier’s Mona Lisa smile and siren’s body could incite a male riot! She’s so bewitching that ground rules are required: he’ll give her nights of endless pleasure – but in the stark light of St Petersburg’s dawn he’ll be gone! Serge is Clementine’s secret fantasy come to life, but she has no interest in money – his diamonds leave her skin cold! So she sets some terms of her own: she won’t be warming his bed until he shows her she’s more than just this magnate’s plaything!

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of The Man Who Risked It All by Michelle Reid
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 20 Mar 12

Well, actually, he doesn’t. Not his life, not his money, not his reputation. At least, not for the heroine.

Franco races power boats, and the story starts with a disastrous crash that takes the life of his best friend and injures him. Franco has already decided that he wants his wife back, the one he wanted three years before, and he sets about doing it.

He arranges it all so that Lexi will abandon everything and run back to him. His father begs her to, she hears that he’s seriously ill, on the point of death even. So she dumps everything to fly to his bedside. He’s injured, but not as badly as he’s allowed her to believe, but when Lexi discovers that and tries to leave, he threatens to rip the shunt from the back of his hand and follow her.

That’s right. A real prince. A manipulative, selfish prince who’s determined to get his own way, whatever it costs other people. All through the story, this selfish man doesn’t let up. He takes her back to his palace (I kid you not, the building described is pretty much a palace) and uses emotional blackmail to keep her there.
Which, of course, means that he has a doormat on his hands. Lexi does what he wants her to, despite constantly whining that she has to get back to her life in London. She left him three years before and has just served him with divorce papers, but he’s not going to let her get away with that. She’s his, dammit.

Add to that the most inventive collection of speech tags I’ve read in a long time. I kept getting distracted from what they were saying by the way they were saying it. During the course of one conversation at the beginning of the book, we get “he challenged harshly,” “she denied,” “she admitted,” he clipped out,” “she contended,” “he sliced back,” “pressed home,” “reminded him gently.” All that in one page. I admit, I’m a bit of a “said” purist, but I can get by a few different tags. But all these had me wondering what tag she would come up with next, instead of taking in the information. There are a lot more, and Franco does a fair bit of “husking.”

There are also a few point of view switches, so that characters can somehow see their own eyes and how they look at a distance.

There are misunderstandings built on misunderstandings. Lexi thought Franco was cheating on her when she was in hospital miscarrying their child. For that alone, Franco should have grovelled, even though, of course, he didn’t do it. But one of my disappointments is the lack of a really good grovel at the end.
There’s another man who loves her, an older man named Bruce. He wants her back in London, and Franco feels that he is manipulating her and has for a long time. Pot, meet kettle. They both do it for her own good, of course. Oh no, silly me – they do it because it’s some kind of stags locking antlers thing, and they want the prize. I never got the feeling that either of them really wanted Lexi or understood her needs. Otherwise, they’d both leave her alone.

Lexi is supposed to be a bit kooky and buys soft toys for her men friends. Oh goodie, so we have a “crazy chick” here, one who probably shouldn’t be allowed out on her own. She shows no real judgement and absolutely no independence of thought. If there is any consolation, it’s that at least both Lexi and Franco won’t be bothering anyone else anytime soon. They really deserve each other.

Grade: D

Summary:

This fearless playboy has everything to lose… For Franco Tolle, the golden boy of Europe’s jet-set society, life is just a playground – filled with racing speedboats on the azure Mediterranean Sea. When you’re rich and famous money is no object…and to hell with the consequences! But he once took a risk with a price bigger than he was willing to pay… In a rush of red-hot infatuation he put a glittering diamond wedding ring on Lexi Hamilton’s finger, yet within months they were living separate lives. Now Franco’s daredevil life has caught up with him – but he’ll risk it all for the one thing he craves…his estranged wife!

Read an excerpt.

Sandy M’s review of Rendezvous at Midnight by Lynne Connolly
Paranormal Romance published by Decadent 3 Apr 12

I don’t read many ghost stories. Either they don’t appeal to me or not that many come to my attention. When Lynne Connolly offered this novella, along with the idea of perhaps continuing on with a series, I like the concept, hope she goes with it, and got in on the ground floor.

Michael and Lisa work on a ghost hunting TV show together, she’s the narrator/host and he’s the psychic, also called a sensitive, who communicates with the spirits that are discovered. There’s been an attraction between them for a while, but because Lisa was involved with someone else until just recently, they’d never gotten together. That’s all changed now, and Michael and Lisa are looking forward to a weekend with each other — and a few ghosts who live on the restored ocean liner, the Gem of the Sea.

Once aboard, however, Michael discovers there’s anti-sensitive spies who are targeting Michael himself. Needing to eliminate Lisa as a suspect, he gently probes her mind, something she fears and despises. It scares her and also tells her Michael has no trust in her. I’m a little confused at this attitude of Lisa’s, though. The man talks to ghosts. Helps them cross over. We’re talking real paranormal here. But Lisa, for some reason, has a problem with anything beyond that. Of course, she does eventually understand and accept Michael’s powers, it’s just the initial discovery that jolts her. It’s her feelings for Michael that help her get over it.

What makes this particular event personal for Lisa is her mother. It’s her ghost who haunts the Gem of the Sea. She died when Lisa was very young, so Lisa never knew her mother and really has no connection to her spirit now. Lisa just needs to know the truth of what happened, not what someone was bribed to tell the world all those years ago. Poor Lisa gets another jolt when her mother takes control of Lisa, reliving her last day – all done with a twist you certainly don’t see coming, which is good because the anti-sensitive resolution, you kinda figure it out before all is revealed. Michael handles that jerk quite well.

Michael and Lisa are very likable characters, you care about them right off. There’s plenty of danger to keep the intensity high, and the paranormal covers several different elements other than psychics. Another confusion for me, however, along that line is in the book blurb that says Michael is a vampire. I really didn’t get that from the story. His father is a vampire, mother a sensitive also. Like father like son perhaps? What I come away with, though, is Michael is only a psychic and Lisa is not upset he’s a vamp.

But I think Ms. Connolly is on to something with a series, especially if she uses some of the same characters with Ghosts of Home, the company that produces the TV show. A great concept.

Grade: B

Summary:

When medium Michael Scott takes the assignment with the TV company “Ghosts at Home” to explore the old ocean liner Gem of the Sea, he does it with one aim in mind. Lisa Perez. Michael had wanted Lisa for a long time. She already knew about his ability to communicate with ghosts, but not his deepest, darkest secret. Would she object when she discovered he was the son of a vampire?

Lisa was desperate to discover why her mother died on Gem Of The Sea all those years ago. And she wanted Michael for his gift, but she also wanted him. With her revengeful ex and a malicious ghost onboard, Michael and Lisa might not survive the weekend.

If they want their passion to survive, they have to fight the living. And the dead.

Read an excerpt.

Preparing for RT has given me a clue that many people don’t travel very much by plane, if at all. Recently, it’s become an annual thing for me, and I’m kind of in the routine. I’ve been asked a lot about how I cope, so maybe it’s a good idea to have it all in one place.

I adore solo travel. My first trip, I was just worried and nervous, but once I got through that, I realized that I actually enjoyed it. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, didn’t have to make polite conversation, didn’t have to defer to anyone else.

My other big revelation – once through security — become the airline’s bitch. Do as you’re told. Find your gate, read the instructions, plug in your music player (essential at airports unless you want to go insane listening to the repeated announcements that don’t concern you). Unplug or turn it down half an hour before your flight or when they start to board. Don’t piss off security. Some of the things they have to do are a bit intrusive, but if they weren’t so thorough, we’d be in trouble. Do what they tell you (yes, I know I said it twice). Go where they tell you, sit where they tell you, watch the films they give you (with caveats, but I’ve discovered some really interesting films that way – also seen a lot of crap – it’s all experience), eat what they give you.

You will find, that like a good BDSM experience, it’s a freeing thing. You don’t have to make decisions about your own life anymore. Not until you clear security at the other end. It means you are free to do things you enjoy and don’t always have time for. Read a book, watch a film on your laptop, and glory be, you have eight hours or more to work with no internet and no phone calls and nobody knocking at the door. For that time, they can’t get at me.

So, my top tips?

1.    Don’t forget to put your ID inside all your suitcases and bags, together with an itinerary, so if you and your bags get separated, you can reunite with them at some point. If the labels on the outside get torn off, they can look inside and find out who and where you are.
2.    Put copies of your tickets and accommodation details in the cloud. If you lose them, you can just access them again.
3.    Check in the day before online and print out your boarding pass. Then you can sneer at the long check-in lines on your way through to the baggage drop the next day. One caveat – you still have to check in at the desk if you’re going from the USA to Europe. They don’t trust us, you know.
4.    Give yourself plenty of time, even if it means getting up at 4 a.m.
5.    Hydrate. Don’t drink too much coffee before you go and drink lots of water, or, guaranteed, you’ll get a headache.
6.    Leave a detailed list of where you’ll be and your credit card numbers, etc. with your spouse, other half, mother, whoever. Someone who can take control if the worst happens and you get knocked down because you’re looking the wrong way when you cross the road or if you lose your credit card. Make a photocopy of your passport, so if that goes AWOL, you can show the copy to the embassy and they can get you home.
7.    Don’t carry too many liquids. Try never to carry foamy things, like hair mousse. The decompression does something weird to it and it will explode. A fun experiment, but not good if you want to actually wear what you pack.
8.    If you’re visiting somewhere new, make sure you know how to get to your hotel. Book a shuttle from the airport, if you can. Look up your hotel on Google Maps and use the little yellow man to actually see it. Apart from anything else, it’s huge fun.
9.    Take the cables for your laptop, Kindle, phone, etc. with the devices.
10.    These days you can only have one suitcase in the hold and one carry-on, but your savior is the “handbag” you’re allowed. Get a nice big one. It’ll hold your duty-frees and the water you’ll buy once through security and all those last-minute things you forgot about until ten minutes before you’re due to leave the house.
11.    Once past security, repack. Put everything you won’t actually need on the journey in your carry-on. Pack everything else in your handbag/briefcase. Change of clothes, laptop, ereader, paperback, mp3 player, water, toiletry kit. You can separate the cables at this point, if you want to. Best kind of carry-on is the one that zips across the top, like those cartie things that old ladies use when they shop (old ladies are wise – listen to them). Then, if the zip breaks, you can use a belt to fasten it and not be screwed. I speak from experience. I had a fancy briefcase on wheels until the zip burst in a departure lounge. Totally unusable. Did that leg of the journey with everything stuffed into plastic bags. Speaking of which, disposable plastic carrier bags are awesome. Laundry bags, shoe bags, you name it.
12.    I know old ladies love them, but on flights elasticated waist skirts and pants are everybody’s friend. Your body does some weird expansion and contraction things during a flight. Dress for comfort, but don’t dress like a slob. I’ve never seen anyone turn up for a red-eye flight in their pj’s, but I live in hope. No novelty jewelry or accessories, like combs in the shape of flick knives or necklaces in the shape of revolvers. Don’t wear too much metal. They’ll have to search you in more detail. Wear slip-on shoes or sandals, because you’ll have to take them off at security. And socks. Wear socks, at least for security.
13.    Get one of those security belt thingies. You’ll have to put it in your carry on for security, but it’s so useful and also reassuring to have your passport, ticket and some money on you, rather than in your bag next to you. And you know just where to find them when you need them, because you’re going to have to produce them a lot.
14.    Sit back and let the plane take you where you want to go. Try not to annoy the staff. Don’t make stupid jokes, like “hope you don’t find the bomb in there.” Smile and be pleasant, but don’t waste their time. They’ve seen it all, and they just want to process you as painlessly as possible. That “I am not a number, I am a free man” thing? Reverse it for the duration of the journey. You are a number. Embrace it. Love it.
15.    If you have anything valuable, wear it. I have a pair of diamond earrings. If I take them when I travel, I wear them, or put them in my security belt. Junk jewelry is far less stressful.
16.    After takeoff, alter your clocks and watches to the time at your destination. The sooner you start getting used to it, the better.
17.    Here’s my guide for things you’ll need during the flight:
a)    The toiletry kit – some airlines provide one, though not many anymore, so don’t bank on it. Pack your own. Pack a pouch with a small bar of soap, a toothbrush and tiny amount of toothpaste or a preloaded toothbrush, and a washcloth or cosmetic sponge. And some mouthwash. For the sake of your fellow passengers, mouthwash. Chewing gum, if you like it. Mints. Anything.
b)    I got this one from Douglas Adams, and he is so right. In The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy his characters are rarely without a towel. Read what Ford Prefect says and believe it. A hand towel can be a large napkin, a screen wipe, a cover, an actual towel, and, wadded up, can be extra support. I get backaches on long flights and the towel is really handy wedged in the small of my back.
c)    Those silly looking blow-up neck supports? Get one. You won’t be sorry. You’ll look a bit daft and feel embarrassed until you realise that every seasoned traveller you can see also has one and isn’t afraid to use it.
d)    Essential – wet wipes. I like tea tree oil ones. Face wipes, hand wipes, whatever. You’re not allowed to take much liquid through customs, so the wet wipe will help you keep clean and fresh. It makes a huge difference. You’ll probably end up sharing them with the person next to you.
e)    Painkillers. Nuff said. But if you forget, the stewards can usually get you some. Also any medication you’re on. Carry it in the right container, so they can see that you’re entitled to take it and whatever it is.
f)    Electronics. Transatlantic flights are eight hours plus. Buy a spare battery for your laptop. Get an ereader, and make sure everything is charged up and ready to go before you leave. Also pack a paperback or magazine, because they don’t let you use anything electronic during take off and landing.
g)    Carry a change of clothes with you, at the very least a clean t-shirt and underwear. If your main suitcase goes astray, you’ll need something, and it’s nice to put on something fresh for your arrival.
h)    Airline socks, as well. I have a hospital pair that I have to wear because I get arthritis. They are hideous and I put them on just before boarding, because I can’t bear to look at them. But for transatlantic travel, if you don’t want your ankles to swell like footballs, those socks work pretty well.

Alternatively, you could do what the teenager who was in the seat next to me on the flight to San Francisco last year did. For a twelve-hour flight she had a magazine and a bag of lollipops. Yeah, that worked well. Not.

LynneC’s review of The Rancher and the Rock Star by Lizbeth Selvig
Contemporary Romance published by Avon Impulse 27 Mar 12

Music is an important part of my life. I have soundtracks for each book I write, and I get excited when I discover new artists who can evoke an emotion in me, so I’m always jonesing for books about musicians. (except for country and western. I just don’t get it, and believe me, I’ve tried. I think I’m missing the country and western gene). When I saw The Rancher and the Rock Star, I decided to give it a go, despite the terrible cover.

Half way through, I DNF’d this book. The unbelievability of the hero and his situation, the super sweetness and the managing heroine did me in. While I love stories about someone extraordinary and an “ordinary” person, I need to be sold on the idea. A non-cursing rock star who believes in virginity (about as mythical as the unicorn to the rocks stars I’ve met, and I’ve met a few) who falls for a Mary Sue doesn’t cut it for me, I’m afraid.

For the first three chapters, the hero’s alias confused me. Many rock stars have stage names, and I wasn’t sure if Gray Covey was a real name or a stage name. A bit distracting. But I decided I could live with that and read on. Far worse is the first chapter. The hero arrives at the heroine’s farm and “thinks” all the plot so far. To himself, as if he didn’t know it. And while thinking to himself, he uses words like “darn.” I’m sorry? He’s not born-again, and as I read on, I realized that he wasn’t precisely a rock star either. About as much as Elton John is a rock star. I can’t complain about the technical details, they seem about right, so there is a measure of authenticity in the research. While the author tries to keep the references current by talking about Bon Jovi and Elton John as rock dinosaurs and people Gray and Abby had grown up loving, there’s little or no mention of current bands, and you don’t have to look far to find the glorious Elbow, Radiohead and the Foo Fighters to reference, instead of mainstream pop stars of yesteryear. (Not sure I’d call Elbow rock but glorious, definitely).

I just couldn’t believe in Gray. He’s perfect, doesn’t take drugs, doesn’t drink to excess, and he is the star, it seems, while the rest of the band and crew work for him. Maybe he’d have been better as a country star, but he doesn’t work as a rock singer. But no, his internal voice is far too feminine to work. He uses “female” words and thinks in a female way. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean “effeminate.” It’s hard to pin down, but I never get a sense of Gray as a real person. He is an object, perfectly built, behaves impeccably and falls in love with a hard-working widow.

Groan. The hard-working widow is the most Mary Sue I’ve read in ages. She’s feisty, whatever that is, she’s God-fearing, she’s beautiful but holds no store by her beauty. And she isn’t special in any way. Why would Gray fall for her? I have absolutely no idea. I find her a bit boring. She does nothing but scold him in the portion of the book that I read, and she pays more attention to the irritating teenage children than she does to him. Oh yes, and she cooks and tidies like a dream. I have no doubt that if they do have sex later in the book, it’s good, and sweet, and missionary, perhaps in a tent or a deserted cabin so they don’t disturb the children.

Gray has a sixteen year old and Abby has a daughter, and that’s what initially brings them together. Abby runs a ranch, only it’s not a ranch like I imagine it. A bit small, or do you get ranches of 40 acres? (Even in the UK, farms have at least 200 acres. I thought ranches were big-ass places). And in Minnesota? I can’t say too much, because I really don’t know much about the set-up, but it does strike me as mildly odd. Gray’s son has run away from his boarding school in England and come to this ranch to meet his online best friend. Yep, you read it right. A sixteen year old managed to fly half way across the world with nobody checking his details. I have to tell you, that’s pretty much impossible these days. Meh, never mind, perhaps he flew on a false passport that he bought from a man in a pub that gave his age as eighteen. Or something like that.

And the title. The Rancher and the Rock Star? It just doesn’t work for me. Too clichéd, I guess. The cover, also, is one of the worst I’ve seen recently, from anywhere but Siren, which, I’m convinced, does it on purpose. This one is badly photoshopped, with a model ripped in that particular gym-bunny way, plonked against a background with a guitar whose perspective doesn’t make sense. It is so poorly done, you can see the lines around the outside of the male figure where it had been detached from its original background. Someone didn’t even bothered to blur it or do the cutting out properly.

Although this book isn’t described as Inspirational, it comes very close. While I don’t object to a character referring gratuitously to God, it is jarring when you’re not expecting it. It annoyed me, to be frank. Evangelicism always has. Perhaps that’s my main problem with this book. The evangelical attitude spread to the other characters, Abby in particular, who decides she’s going to help Gray for his own good. Ick. And it’s so sweet it comes in the tooth-aching section.

I try to read books with as few expectations as possible, but I did know going in that the author had won the Golden Heart. Winners of the Golden Heart often have one book that they tweak and tweak, and I believe that is the case here. Some sections are overwritten with too much description and language so well thought out that it dies on the page. It also has hallmarks of a pet project that the author wouldn’t quite let go of. There are a few alterations I’d have loved to see, like making Abby a bit less wonderful and managing and giving Gray a bit more grit, but they are there, all spread out on the page. Honestly, the book might have worked as an inspirational, but as a mainstream romance about a particularly sleazy business, rock music, it doesn’t work at all.

I did skim the rest of the book, to see if anything remarkable happens in the second half. Nope. But typical of the editing errors sprinkled throughout, at least I got a laugh on the last page. “He craved the taste of her mouth like an addict needed heroine.” I kid you not. Kill me now.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t read further than halfway, and I need something a lot grittier and realistic to satisfy my yearning for reading about rock music.

Grade: DNF

Summary

To the world, Gray Covey is a rock superstar. But to his runaway son, he’s simply the father who never has any time for him. To prove that he’s more than his rock star lifestyle, for the next few weeks Gray must put aside his fame and become…a farmhand?

Abby Stadtler has built the perfect, quiet life for herself. Neat and orderly is the name of the game for her and her beloved farm. When Gray shows up on her doorstep, looking like he stepped straight off the front cover of a magazine, she is determined that he won’t upset her routine.

But what neither counts on is the love that springs up between them. Abby knows that life on a ranch in Minnesota can never compete with an exciting world tour. But for Gray, it’s time to decide what’s really important. With Abby’s help, will he be able to decide, once and for all, that love and family are the answer?

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of To Pleasure a Duke (Husband Hunters Club, Book 3) by Sara Bennett
Historical Romance published by Avon Impulse 25 Oct 11

Bennett, hmmm? A Jane Austen fan, perchance, or a mere coincidence?

This one reads like a children’s book. Far too simple, far too flat, with basic sentence construction and any number of inaccuracies, anachronisms, and Americanisms.

The story starts at a kind of Regency prom. Several young ladies at a girls’ finishing school are getting ready to go out into the world and discussing the kind of husbands they want. Although this is set in 1837, the year of Queen Victoria’s accession, and the year of mourning for the late King, there is little evidence of this.

No, just no. There were no finishing schools for daughters of the aristocracy until much later on in the nineteenth century. There was simply no need. You were brought up by your governess and your parents and you just knew. Sending your daughters to be taught by someone else was unthinkable.

So a prom. Not something I’m particularly familiar with either, because they weren’t usual until relatively recently. Not when I went to school, certainly. The young ladies would have been better as cheerleaders, rather than young women entering society, which wasn’t a playground, but a place for doing business.

The hero is, of course, a duke, and one of those dukes that exist merely to be lusted after. He’s cardboard and tedious, never comes alive.

The family of the heroine behave more like Bobbsey Twins than anything from the Regency. The appalling manners and the family atmosphere wasn’t typical of the period, and I doubt would have endeared anyone.

Unfortunately, the story descended into slapstick fairly quickly. There was a goat and an incident designed to make the hero look foolish. He managed pretty well, I thought, but the whole tale didn’t engage me, and, despite that incident, the hero is pretty dislikable. It isn’t funny and it makes everyone concerned appear juvenile. The language and sentence construction are really basic, and I feel as if I’m reading a YA novel or maybe younger than that. There is no depth and nothing to really grab me.

Grade: DNF

Summary:

It has taken Eugenie Belmont but a moment to decide whom to marry . . .

Unfortunately the gentleman in question, the Duke of Somerton, hasn’t yet offered—a mere formality for a confirmed member of the Husband Hunters Club of Miss Debenham’s Finishing School. Like her friends, Eugenie is unwilling to wait demurely until the perfect mate happens by. And, despite the handsome duke’s imposing reputation, she can feel his heated glances in her direction are charged with desire . . . and possibilities.

Saddled with a dukedom, a haughty dowager, and an irresponsible younger sister, Sinclair St. John is far too occupied with important matters to indulge in romantic whims. But for the first time in his life, a brazen temptress has him utterly distracted. He could—and he should—dismiss her and court someone more befitting his station. But he is irresistibly drawn to this bewitching woman . . . and must match her game of seduction, move for passionate move.

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of Chosen By Blood (Para-Ops Series, Book 1) by Virna DePaul
Paranormal Romance published by Berkley 3 May 11

What a relief to read a paranormal romance that is peopled, for the most part, by adults! I must be on a roll, because the last paranormal I read was the marvellous Nightborn. While Chosen by Blood isn’t quite in that category, I do have hopes for the author and that her paranormal world can coalesce into something as vibrant as the Viehl.

It’s a paranormal world peopled by different kinds of Others, as she refers to them. Some are interesting, such as the wraiths, dead people with no knowledge of what they were before they died and no way of knowing how they got to that state, and familiar creatures like vampires, vamps in this world, and werebeasts.

Knox Devereaux is a vamp. In fact, he leads his clan, but he’s the offspring of a human and a vamp, so he’s not as affected by the loss of pure blood as the rest of his clan. He’s been in love with Felice since before the story starts, although his wife only died the year before. Since he was faithful, and Knox and Felice haven’t consummated their relationship, I could roll with that. No cheating involved, just a lot of yearning.

Felice is a mortal, an agent specialising in hostage situations. She loves Knox but knows he is immortal and bound to marry another vamp, because the vamp race is dying. During the recent war between Others and mortals, a vaccine was developed that prevented blood-giving nourishment to vamps, and so they are starving.

Team Red of Others, a para-ops group, is formed with the objective of uncovering the antidote to the vaccine. At times I wasn’t clear where the plot was going—there are so many twists and turns, I sometimes got a bit lost, especially toward the end.

Unfortunately, toward the end the author had to start including “Only on a Tuesday” rules. This happens when the paranormal beings are so powerful that they can overcome any obstacle, except—only on a Tuesday. If these things aren’t built into the world and the characters early on, it’s obvious when it’s introduced as a limiter rather than a natural progression. If the series continues, these difficulties need to be sorted out.

There are also too many “kitchen table” scenes, places where the characters talk about what they’ve just done and what they’re going to do next. They really need to be cut down a bit.

No matter, because for me, the characters matter more than the plot, and the characters in this book are intriguing and led me to read on.

The sex is hot, but a little pedestrian, if you know what I mean. By the time of their first consummation, Felice and Knox have been fancying each other for ten years, and Knox is already clear that he loves her. While it’s a turn-on to have a hot, powerful man in love with you, I like to read about what led up to that and why and how. That’s why I tend to avoid the “fated mates” trope. In a romance, sometimes it feels like cheating. I want to see their courtship. That’s where Nalini Singh excels, and even in the first Psy-Changeling book, she sets up the romance and we, the reader, watch it build. We learn what great characters the two protagonists are and eventually understand why they belong together.

DePaul effectively skips this part and plunges into the consummation. The relationship doesn’t move forward in the story, and most of the threats to the relationship come from outside, so the idea of Knox marrying someone else and yet devoting his life to Felicia is a welcome one. It is, apparently, usual for vampires to have an “open” relationship, but Felicia is a mortal, and she wants none of it. One of the most effective parts of the story is when she is considering what it would mean and deciding she can’t do it. But until Knox marries, she’s willing to sleep with him.

Although the book isn’t without its faults, I think the characters and setup are interesting, and I’d like to read more para-ops stories.

Grade: B-

(See Ash’s review here.)

Summary:

Leader of an Otherborn clan, half-breed vampire Knox Devereaux would do anything to find a cure for the anti-vamp vaccine slowly starving his people into extinction. When the FBI contacts him about leading a team of hand-selected Others on a mission to reclaim the stolen antidote, Knox accepts. His new assignment places him in direct contact with Special Agent Felicia Locke, the beautiful human he’s craved since their very first meeting.

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of The Real Rio D’Aquila (The Orsini Brothers, Book 6) by Sandra Marton
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 15 Nov 11

This is the last book about the children of a Mafia don, who turn their backs on him and his ways and find their own way in life and to love. This series has been guilty pleasure after guilty pleasure, although I haven’t read them all.

This one is the last sister’s story. Isabella, or Izzy as her siblings call her, is a gardener, trying to make it to the big commissions. Her brother-in-law puts a big job her way, doing the landscaping for a house in the Hamptons, owned by a self-made billionaire (this is the Modern/Presents line, don’t forget!). She arrives late and disheveled, having crashed her car.

Rio D’Aquila started life as Matteo Rossi. He’d been brought up in an orphanage and worked his way to the top. He is annoyed when Izzy turns up and gives her his alter ego, Matteo. He’s been digging. Rio likes digging.

Most of the book is them having a wild weekend and then a wild week in his house in Mustique. The telling of the story is enjoyable, and if you let yourself get carried away by the read, then you’re in for a good time.

It’s only when you start to question that the story begins to crumble.

For instance, Isabella is born into wealth and she has fabulously wealthy siblings. So how come she doesn’t know about Mustique? It’s extremely exclusive, if a bit démodé these days, and buying a beach hut there is beyond the capabilities of a mere millionaire. You have to be seriously rich to live there. But she swallows the story of a caretaker having a house there. I could believe that said caretaker could pilot a small plane, if his quirky boss demanded it, but when we get to the Mustique bit, I had to suppress an eyeroll. She’s a professional gardener/landscaper, but she doesn’t talk like one. When she sees the garden, she says she’ll put “some” plants here and “some” plants there. She sounds like a small-scale amateur, not the kind who remodels estates.

At times, Isabella goes past sweet and naïve into stupid. To do her justice, she does realize she is getting in way past what she should. Going into an empty house with a total stranger on her own, however ripped that stranger happens to be, is little short of criminal.

And another question. Admittedly, I don’t know the Hamptons well (for that, read not at all) but in such an exclusive area, how likely are you to meet a run-down would-be rapist? (not Rio, but a walk-on character). Isabella shouldn’t be allowed out on her own, and my growing lack of sympathy for her makes some of her story a bit hard to take.

Rio is gorgeous, and he realizes early on that he has to come clean about who he is, but Isabella doesn’t let him. She wants to make love. I enjoyed his self-guilt and his crawling at the end, but I think Isabella should have done a bit of groveling herself. However, this isn’t the Modern/Presents way. He builds his fortune easily, gets accepted into all the right places, has sex with and then discards women, you know the score. I like a little more detail about my billionaires, maybe a bit more than the vague references to him buying and selling. For me, it adds to an authentic background and lets me buy into the story.

I also find it hard to believe that they could fall so deeply in love in a few days. In some romance novels I’ve gone along with the fantasy, but in reality it takes more than a few days. At one point Isabella realizes she doesn’t know Matteo at all, and I’d have been happier if they’d have not rushed into marrying.

And for reference, you can now get pregnancy kits that will tell you for sure two days after conception. And you don’t need a doctor to confirm it. If you’ve done a reliable over-the-counter test, repeated it, and it says you’re pregnant, then you are.

I’d skip the epilogue, all but the last paragraph, which is amusing. Wrapping the series up with a corny explanation of what the father was doing all this time isn’t really satisfactory. Not for me, anyway, so I prefer to believe that bit didn’t happen.

Grade: C-

Summary:

Italian by birth, this street urchin lived a life of extreme poverty until he escaped to Brazil—where he cast off his roots, took a new name and pulled himself up from the streets.

Now Rio D’Aquila is beyond wealthy, with a reputation for being uncompromising in business…and incomparable in bed! But on meeting vulnerable Isabella Orsini, he feels something deep within him stir, and he finds himself pretending to be that long-forgotten man.

Passion flares and their affair spirals, but Isabella still doesn’t know that her lover has lied to her. Who is the real Rio D’Aquila?

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

LynneC’s review of How Miss Rutherford Got Her Groove Back by Sophie Barnes
Historical Romance published by Avon Impulse 21 Feb 12

Thanks to the kindness and generosity of Avon, I’ve received a fair few historical romances recently to review. Unfortunately it hasn’t yet worked out, but I do have a couple I’m getting excited about, so maybe my luck will change soon.

On the first page, we had the Viscount of Hillsbury. That warned me that I was in for a less-than-accurate read, since the title of viscount doesn’t carry “the.” I can hear the groans, but bear with me. It’s not just a matter of nomenclature, it’s a basic understanding of how titles work and what they do. That “the” means more than a mere name. Never mind, I put it aside. Together with the flood of other inaccuracies and anachronisms.

Emily falls firmly into the TSTL category. She does some really idiotic things, and everyone, including the hero, thinks she’s marvelous.

Apparently the heroine lives in a cottage with her family, after her father’s profligacy caused their impoverishment. Another misunderstanding of how the aristocracy worked, I think. No aristocrat paid off all his debts, and part of the Letters Patent that confer a title mention that the title holder must be able to support his title, which means not shaming the crown by living in a cottage. By the way, apart from cottages orné, ordinary cottages usually had one big room. The livestock lived downstairs and if the family was lucky, it had a sleeping platform upstairs. Cottages were not quaint and didn’t usually have separate rooms. They were slums.

There are a few other errors. The family fortune passing to a cousin meant that cousin is honour bound to support them. If he didn’t, they could shame him into it. There are references to an adoption, which in this period, 1811, was not legally possible, although informal adoptions did occur.

So half a dozen pages in I knew that the author hadn’t done much, if any, research and didn’t understand the historical period she was writing about. Fair enough, I was reading a fairy tale. Nothing wrong with a well-written fairy tale.

The out-of-period feeling, plus my not being on the same wavelength as the author made me abandon this one six chapters in. I did try, but the heroine is so adolescent and the hero such a stick, that it really doesn’t come alive. I gave up.

Grade: DNF

Summary:

Emily Rutherford is having a very bad day.

Of course, having the man you’ve loved forever announce his engagement to your (now very former) best friend will do that.

Emily is sure nothing good could possibly come out of this horrid situation. But she lets her sisters—along with Francis Riley, the delectable but brooding Earl of Dunhurst—convince her that a season in London will be just the thing.

Now Emily has a choice: sulk in a corner while her sisters enjoy the glitter of the ton . . . or become the belle of the ball, dazzling everyone on an earl’s arm. But as Francis helps Emily get back on her feet, she quickly realizes that a childhood crush is nothing compared to the power of true love.

Read an excerpt.

We’ve seen some seismic changes recently, but basically the market is running to stay still. I realized recently that it doesn’t matter a lot to me, or it shouldn’t. Let me explain.

When I write, I write for me. I write the stories I want to read. It’s why I wrote my first story at seven years old, and it’s why I write now. Like many authors, I started with fan fiction, only it wasn’t called that then. I did Georgette Heyer fanfic, and that forced me to evaluate what I wanted to see in the stories, and I wrote my own versions, or did a continued story. I didn’t write sex then, not at thirteen, when I started scribbling in earnest, but I did write more intimacy. More cuddling, more togetherness, more kissing. That was how I finally realized I wrote romance. I wrote about what kept the couple apart and how they came to each other.

It took me a long time to realize that I didn’t write about external events principally, but about what’s going on inside—and I don’t just mean the sex. How the couple have to evolve to come to each other and to make a success of their lives together. That takes bravery and strength. That, in a nutshell, is why I write romance. And it’s why I won’t compromise that part and why I want to try to get better and better.

I revise and edit for the reader. Ultimately, the person I get my money from is the reader. The relationship with my readers is extremely important to me. That’s why, despite not being what you might call independently wealthy from my writing, I spend a big chunk of change flying across to the RT Booklover’s Convention every year. I meet readers there, and they let me know what they want. Oh yes, and it’s huge fun.

But I don’t sell to the reader, I sell to publishers. I don’t currently have an agent, having parted company with lovely Isabel a year or so ago, and I’ve been happy building my career in the sphere I know well, the digital-first scene. Recently that has changed almost beyond recognition. It’s become a viable market in its own right, and some companies have pulled ahead in the game. Most notably, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain, Carina, and Loose-Id. I’m proud to say that I write for all of those companies, so they have liked something about what I do.

Market is becoming more and more important to digital-first publishers.

If I may digress a little (bear with me, it’s relevant, honest!), a few years ago I wanted a pair of flat-front trousers. This was when pleated front trousers were fashionable. So fashionable that, outside jeans, it wasn’t possible to find them. When I asked, I was told “there’s no call for them.” Well yes, there was. Me. I’m too short to make that look work for me. Looking around, I saw other height-challenged women who also wanted flat-front trousers. A year later, the stranglehold disappeared, much to our relief. But I stopped wearing trousers then, except for jeans, and I’ve never really gone back.

Something similar happens in writing, too.

Something becomes popular and the publisher will look for more of the same. They had to gear themselves to what they could sell. Not what the reader wants, that’s something different, and always will be. But what the majority of the market would tolerate.

This has led to publishers flooding the market with a certain type of book until the market (that’s you and me) tires of it. That’s why most historicals currently tend to be the frothy variety – low on history, high on fun and sex. The lack of history has become so pronounced that ‘historical’ has to be put in inverted commas. I give the publisher enough nous to know they are not publishing historicals anymore. If they had wanted to, they could have ensured historical veracity, but that’s not what’s selling right now. I’m currently finding myself in the flat-front trouser situation. I want something the market isn’t currently providing. I see staleness growing in the market, the readers who last year would have grabbed all of them off the shelves becoming a little disillusioned. When that happens, the core of a strong subsector remains. So, say, when sales for the frothy ‘historicals’ declines, the publishers will be ready with something else.

That means the authors of the ‘frothy’ will decline. In brutal terms, that means that, although their books are just as good as they ever were, they’ll find themselves out in the cold, without a contract. Unless they can adapt and write to their editor’s new demands. Most can and will. But if their hearts remain in the frothy category, if that’s what they really love to write, they have just started “writing to the market.” Their fans might become disillusioned or just not enjoy the books as much as they used to. They might not know why, just that either their tastes have changed or they sense the lack of spark in books they used to love.

Which leaves the writer out in the cold, writing books she doesn’t really believe in for a dwindling readership.

That’s one reason why I won’t ever “write to the market,” although I will respect my reader and try to make sure that the brand of romance that I write is as satisfying as I can make it and shows the reader respect. She deserves her happy ending, and she deserves the best I can do.

I write angsty historical romances that deal with the inner dilemmas of the people involved, and I try to keep the stories as accurate as I can to historical reality. That isn’t what the market wants right now, but I won’t force myself into a mold that doesn’t fit me. I believe that if I try, writing won’t be fun anymore and will turn into ‘just another job.’ I won’t let that happen. So I’ll continue to write what I love to read. I don’t write light-hearted “Regency James Bond,” high-concept stories, and I don’t find much enjoyment reading them, although I have nothing against the people who do. In fact, it’s lovely to know that people get enjoyment from reading, when they could be playing “Angry Birds” or watching movies.

Similarly, with the paranormals, I write the angsty, dark kind which, luckily for me, are popular right now. I want to write about adults that have come part of the way but need an extra push to get there, to their personal nirvana.

Recently I came close to pulling a book that had been edited to be something I didn’t want it to be. Never sure about the quality of my writing (seeds of doubt niggle!), I’d let myself believe that my work was deteriorating in quality. I now know that not to be true, and I believe that my work no longer fits what that editor or publisher requires. A spiral of depression didn’t help, neither did a deteriorating hard drive that wasn’t saving my work properly. But that’s my problem, not something that should concern an editor or a reader, and something I’ve since dealt with.

Thankfully, I rescued it in the edits, although the drastic changes required made me lose faith in it for a time. But I restored some of what I wanted to achieve. It’s a salutory lesson, to write something you know is “good enough,” but to have it not find a home. But I’m still happy with the book, and I know it will belong somewhere one day. There might be other things going on, but I realized that they’re not something I can do anything about, or change, so I’m best just keeping to doing what I do and being upfront about it.

It happens to a lot of writers. A publisher or editor previously enthusiastic about an author can turn lukewarm, or even not welcome their work, and it’s not always down to the author or what she is producing. So the author has to have faith in herself but not to allow that faith to turn into arrogance, a belief that everything they do is perfect. It’s a difficult line to tread, and that’s where good author friends come in.

It was a new one for me and I didn’t cope with it particularly well at the time. I’ve always tried to get better and better, and what I write never matches up to the vision in my head, but these days I have the skills, technical and artistic, so I can get closer to realizing what I want to achieve. However, years of learning and refining leads to a lack of self-confidence. Most of the writers I have ever met feel that. It makes them vulnerable, especially to the publisher who wants a commercial product and urges the writer to write to that ideal. Or, these days, to reject the book without adequate reason. Publishers are far too busy these days to nurture and encourage established talent. If a writer puts in a query that hits the market square-on, it’s easier, in the short term, to take that book and go with the new writer, rather than continue to develop the career of a more established one. Doing that maximizes profits. And it’s a sad fact that for every published, accomplished writer, there are a hundred just as accomplished but unpublished ones. Also a sad fact that publisher’s margins have shrunk, so much that their savior is the digital section, so some publishers have decided to squeeze that sector until it squeaks. They give the author a derisory amount of royalties and jack the price right up.

The only thing a writer has going for her is loyal readership. Some have so much that they can set out on their own. Some have enough to ensure continued sales. Most are encouraged to believe that they have to survive book to book, and in many cases, that is now leading to authors leaving the market entirely. It happens quietly and steadily. It always has. Occasional calls for “whatever happened to…?” appear, but on the whole, the writer slips away unnoticed.

Here’s a test. If you’re a Harlequin reader, as I am, look at the writers you’ve read and see how many of them are still writing for that line, how many have moved on to different companies, and how many have simply disappeared. Very often it’s pressure to write something they don’t want to or can’t, a change in company policy, for instance, or direction they don’t want to follow.

Why should the reader care? Well, the answer is, of course, that she shouldn’t. There’s no need for her to, unless she’s finding that she can’t get the books she enjoys anymore or that her favorite writer has disappeared. Most keep a dignified silence, choosing to leave with grace, rather than to expose private hurts and slights in public. Most realize that it happens, has always happened, and most likely will continue to happen. Or they’ll start all over again, under another name. That’s something the reader isn’t always aware of, by the way. I know at least two writers who have done that recently, started with a new name and persona, as well as a new style and even genre, and not ‘fessed up to it publicly. Which leads to another question. Where does fiction actually end in those cases? That could be an interesting topic to explore another time.

So where is Judith Ivory, and why isn’t she writing anymore?

LynneC’s review of Caught in the Spotlight by Jules Bennett
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 6 Mar 12

Jules Bennett is a Desire writer of some standing. She’s been writing for the Harlequin Desire line for a number of years and understands the tropes perfectly. The heroes are the usual alpha males but without the hard edge you sometimes find in a Presents. They have a more modern outlook, don’t expect their heroines to be prisoners of the kitchen. The heroines are often a little older, nearer thirty than twenty, and more independent, more likely to answer their heroes back. This book contains all that and more. So why didn’t I like it better?

Bronson is a film producer, the hottest in Hollywood, and the son of one of the queens of the film acting profession, Olivia. The heroine, Mia, works as Olivia’s PA, and she and Bronson fall for each other during the Cannes film festival, when he uses her as a kind of heterosexual beard – to keep the ravening hordes of predatory females away. They have one night, and several weeks later, back in Hollywood, Mia finds out she’s pregnant. She tells Bronson because he has a right to know, not because she expects him to do anything. I like that, I do think the father of a child has the right to know. In any case, she can sue the pants off him for maintenance after the child is born, especially with DNA testing to prove paternity beyond doubt. Not that sweet Mia intends to do that, even if Bronson turns his back on her. She’s too sweet for that.

That’s one of my problems. Mia is, basically, a Presents heroine. She nurtures. She loves to cook, looks after Olivia and her needs, doesn’t have any ambitions for herself. I don’t know why. In fact, I don’t know a great deal about Mia and what makes her tick. I do know that she is keeping a secret from Bronson – that his chief rival and someone he dislikes for having an affair with his ex-wife, Anthony, is really Bronson’s half-brother from an affair Olivia had when she was on the brink of stardom. But Anthony, who used to be Mia’s boss, asked her not to tell anyone.

So I don’t even mind her keeping the secret from Bronson, because it isn’t her secret to tell. I do mind her constant angsting about it and the way she doesn’t call Anthony to ask his permission to tell Bronson. Even when Anthony realizes that Bronson and Mia are an item, she doesn’t ask him. Although lip-service is paid to Mia’s independence and feistiness, she actually has very little. She instantly decides to keep the baby, cries in Olivia’s arms, and takes Bronson back as a lover. What finally finishes her for me is the inevitable “this is only for sex, I can’t love you” spiel that Bronson spins her.

I am getting heartily tired of this trope. It seems like a favorite trope is adopted by Harlequin writers and then goes into overdrive. So we have a spate of secret babies, then a bunch of Big Misunderstandings, and now it’s the I Can’t Give You Anything But Sex, Baby line. The men are emotional cripples who won’t give emotion but find the little woman winning them over anyway. Basically, they are cowardly jerks, not my idea of heroes at all.

Bronson is no exception. He wants her, he takes her, he thinks it’s fair to tell her that he can’t love her because a woman done him down once. What a jerk. He won’t even try. She wins him over despite his desire to keep separate. At least he accepts responsibility for the baby. Eventually. He starts by demanding a DNA test, which Mia reluctantly says he can have once the baby is born. So she’s a jerk, too. Because he’s a Hollywood hotshot and someone did this to him before. It makes him a jerk, but it makes Mia as stupid as a lump of sugar. She’s been around Hollywood types for a while now and she doesn’t understand the pressures they’re under?

I bought a new hard drive for my computer a couple of weeks ago. It arrived well packed. Very well packed. I swear, Bronson had more cardboard than the new hard drive came packed in. He does what he does for the plot. I never feel particularly as if I understand him, and the old “my wife betrayed me” thing is never explored, never made real, just used as an excuse.

If the whole Anthony subplot is ditched, then it might have given Bronson and Mia a bit more room to develop as real people, to give the tropes room to breathe. Because using tried and true isn’t the problem, it’s that they aren’t used to make Bronson and Mia into real people to make the reader care.

My last irritation is the confusion of tenses. Bennett uses “that’s” and “it’s” when she really means “that was” or “it was.” She even uses two tenses in the same sentence, moving from present tense to past. It happens so much in this book that it is a real distraction and I found myself looking for more of them, rather than sinking into the story.

Presumably Anthony and his wife Charlotte are heading for a sequel. I doubt I’ll follow them there. Sorry.

Grade: D

Summary:

A True Hollywood Love Story?Who’s the exotic beauty on the arm of mega-hot ladies’ man Bronson Dane? Word is she’s Mia Spinelli, recently rumored to be the mistress of her former boss—and Bronson’s longtime industry rival. Now she’s the personal assistant to Bronson’s mother. Is Mia getting “personal” with Bronson, too? He’s been spotted escorting her into a Hollywood doctor’s office, and Mia has a noticeable baby bump. Has the sultry assistant managed to get under the playboy producer’s skin—and into his bed?

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of An Inconvenient Obsession by Natasha Tate
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 20 Sep 11

This is definitely a guilty pleasure book. I shouldn’t like it, as it contains many elements I’m not fond of, but it was downright fun to read.

The hero is a self-made man, who Cate sent away years ago, although they grew up together and fell in love. She thought he should move on and have his chance and knew he wouldn’t while he was in love with her. But he resented that and subsequent events she doesn’t know about. So when she puts the island where they both grew up on sale at a charity auction, he bids on it and wins. He wants it for his father.

This brings them into close proximity and rekindles their attraction for each other. It isn’t long before Ethan realises he doesn’t just want the island, he wants Cate, too. So strike one, revenge. I don’t generally like revenge stories, but it doesn’t last too long, although the ramifications do.

She has been injured by a fall from her horse and has spent years in recovery, but she doesn’t tell him. He has heard of the accident, but she makes light of it. Strike two, the makings of a big misunderstanding, and it could also lead to the martyr syndrome. There’s no doubt that the heroine is a martyr, but I couldn’t help but admire her nerve and courage in coping with her problems. She is also very conscious of her scars. I do think her recovery from self-consciousness is a bit too easy, though.

Strike Three is her virginity. I did, however, understand why she kept it for so long, but losing your virginity up against a door strikes me as more than painful. And the hymen is misplaced again.

I did enjoy the progression of this story, the way Ethan moves from revenge to understanding. He is too ruthless at the beginning, too ready to hurt. Then he realises some things he should have known and grows to want her more. He does railroad her, and I did feel for Cate at parts of the story. Ethan’s obsession doesn’t rise to the level of Edward in Twilight, but it comes pretty close. I mention Edward because at one point, Ethan stands outside Cate’s window to watch her sleep.

Cate is definitely a victim. She is hurt by her father, then by pushing Ethan away, then by her accident. What redeems her somewhat is her courage and her determination to live her life on her terms. Unfortunately, Ethan puts paid to that, and by the end of the story, Cate is entirely dependent on him. I would have rather she had a life of her own.

Tate’s style is very intense, occasionally moving over into near-farcical, but she certainly has a way with emotional scenes. That is the main reason I read the story to the end, because of the way Tate gets inside the characters and makes us feel with them. Sometimes even if we don’t want to. She does tend to have disembodied body parts, “his eyes moved around the room,” that kind of thing, but on the whole it’s solid and well done.

Strike four, if I’m allowed to bend the rules a little, is the epilogue, but I can’t say too much about that because it would be a spoiler. But that does make me roll my eyes.

Grade: B-

Summary:

The Carrington family’s island is up for auction…
Now, that’s an invitation Ethan Hardesty just can’t refuse. This groundskeeper’s son turned global entrepreneur has it all. All, that is, except a piece of the Carrington estate—the island that holds all his most pleasurable and painful memories.
Ethan doesn’t count on the beautiful Cate Carrington handling the transaction—and providing him with the perfect opportunity to take her into the bargain. But toying with the woman who was once the girl he loved and lost soon turns from a game into an all-out obsession.…

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of Time Out by Jill Shalvis
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Blaze 21 Feb 12

This one is hot. I mean steaming hot, with believable sex too, between two people I couldn’t help but like.

After a series of “meh” and C reads, not all of which I’ve reviewed, and a fair few DNF’s that I didn’t read far enough into to give a fair review to, someone said, “Try Jill Shalvis. You’ll love this one.”

Well, she was so totally right. I inhaled this book in one sitting. Could not stop reading. If you’re looking for a book with oodles of tension and will-they-won’t-they, you won’t get it here, but this is a romance, so it’s a guarantee that Mark and Rainey will end up together, committed to each other. But if you want to read about a courtship and romance, with very few distractions, then this is the book for you.

Rainey has forged a life for herself in her hometown. She’s thirty and is receiving the usual “Isn’t it time you settled down” noises from family and friends, not least from her best friend Lena, who has found the man of her dreams in local businessman Rick. She’s in no particular hurry, and the first scene of the story shows her accepting a blind date from the son of a friend of her mother’s.

Mark is Rick’s brother, but unlike Rick, he left home. He now coaches a team called the Mammoths, who don’t actually exist in reality, so don’t go looking for them in the leagues. I don’t understand US sport, but I wasn’t left wondering in this book, except for one or two cryptic utterances from the hero. He comes to his old home with two players in tow. They’ve misbehaved, so they’re doing Good Works rather than having some vacation time. After a recent fire, many people have been left homeless, and as well as coaching the local baseball team (I think it was baseball – it sounded like rounders and it had pitchers and catchers in it), they are helping around.

Rainey and Mark have history. When she was sixteen she had a helpless crush on him, leading her to an embarrassing scene when she got into his apartment wearing next to nothing, only to discover him getting a blowjob. So she resents him. The main conflict keeping Mark and Rainey apart is her shame from that earlier incident and her knowledge that he is a player on and off the field. However, Mark is a likeable player. He never pulls the old “this is just sex” thing, although he comes close a time or two, and he treats his girlfriends fairly. In less skilled hands, Rainey could be annoying, since she is extremely wary of getting involved with Mark. But in Shalvis’s, it works well. She knows Mark can’t stay and she knows he doesn’t take women seriously, not next to his career. That, taken with her continuing infatuation for him, is dangerous for her, and she knows it.

Mark has always wanted Rainey, and this time he gets her. The sex is hot, really hot. Scorching against the wall, shower – in fact, the only thing missing was elevator sex. They do get to a bed, but in different circumstances, and it allows Mark to show his practical, caring side.

A lesser writer might also assume that a sports coach is the nurturing kind. Well, he is, but not always in that gentle, feminine way. Otherwise, Sir Alex Ferguson might not have thrown a boot at David Beckham and made him get stitches for the resulting cut (allegedly – it’s a well-known incident, but neither side has confirmed or denied it, so I have to put that bit). Mark is the kind of take-no-nonsense coach who is aware of his investors and his responsibilities. He’s also very young, 34, and he has “the look” that he deploys a time or two. It’s something coaches of whatever sport have. At least the successful ones do. Although a bit younger, Mark has that Jose Mourinho thing going for him, and I’m all for that. This is the difference between providing an alpha male who is abusive and up his own ass and a true nurturing alpha. Mark’s busyness, the way he runs his job, the way he cares for people who need it and often notices before anyone else makes for a character I want to root for, despite his carelessness to the women in his life.

Rainey could have been irritatingly stubborn or perverse, but because she is afraid, and Shalvis lets the reader see that, I like her. She is a grown-up too, which I always prefer to a gorgeous but inexperienced twenty year old.

I used to drink up small-town romances by American authors, because they showed a way of life alien to me. Village life and small town life in the UK is totally different, even down to the geography and the youthful memories. Then the sweetness in many of these romances got to me and I went off them a bit. Everybody is kind and nice and neighbourly, apart from one person or one family. While Time Out has some of this, it is never overwhelming. The teenagers are a bit softer than they are in real life, more “Glee” than “Skins,” even the bad ones having reasons to be bad, and the black moment is only sketchily foreshadowed, but it is enough and it doesn’t spoil my enjoyment of this well written, eminently readable book.

Grade: A

Summary:

NHL coach Mark Diego’s plan to spend his off-season volunteering in his hometown goes awry when he learns that not only is he coaching teenage girls, but that the program is coordinated by energetic (and five feet two inches of trouble) coordinator Rainey Saunders, his childhood friend—and the woman he could never stand to see dating any other guy….

When their tempers flare, Mark and Rainey discover their fireworks don’t just burn angry—they burn very, very hot! But that’ll just sweeten the victory. Because Mark always plays to win. And with Rainey, he’s planning on playing very dirty, too…

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of Nightborn (Lords of the Darkyn, Book 1) by Lynn Viehl
Paranormal Romance published by Signet Select 3 Mar 12

The Kyn are back. For those of you who prefer your paranormal romance set in a realistically built world, with characters that burst off the page, look no further. Add to that truly kick-a heroines, and you’re onto a winner. Nightborn deals with Korvel, the seneschal who captured Alexandra, and kept her from the man she loved in a previous book. He gets his redemption in this book, together with a woman who is so kick-a she could give Buffy lessons.

Simone lives in a nunnery in France. She wears the habit and lives simply. The other nuns are blind, but they are independent enough, although Simone is a great help to them. Her father lives or lived nearby.

Except from the beginning you’re aware that Simone is more…something, though you don’t know exactly what. The gradual unfolding of Simone’s secrets is one of the key points of the novel. It’s used to create tension, although there aren’t many big misunderstandings, except for one at the beginning, when Korvel thinks Simone is a nun and doesn’t make love to her out of respect for her vocation. That gets slightly irritating by the time they actually do, because it doesn’t add a great deal to the story, and just serves to put them off until it’s the right time. Otherwise, they would have done it earlier.

Korvel is English, the son of a Saxon lady and an unknown rapist. He serves as seneschal to Richard, the high lord who is still part animal, after ingesting animal blood for years. I really appreciate how the older characters in the Kyn books (and we’re talking centuries here) actually appear to be old. They have long memories, they’re not agonizingly hip, and they don’t make stupid decisions or behave like juveniles.

Simone rescues him from almost certain death, and then they spend most of the rest of the book together. However, Simone has a mission, and she can’t commit until it’s completed. Since she believes she’ll die in her mission, and as she comes to care for Korvel, she tries to save him from the consequences. But Korvel refuses to let her deflect him or fool him.

They are looking for a scroll, a very special scroll with, it is rumored, the secret of eternal life. So is one of Simone’s father’s ex-pupils. The few scenes in his viewpoint serve to demonstrate that he really is evil, not the Evil Overlord or a flat character. His wickedness is clearly demonstrated, unlike the endless scenes in the early BDB books featuring the Lessers, which I tended to skip. Even if he didn’t want the scroll and the translation, since it’s written in an ancient language few people can understand, he would be evil and you’d rejoice to see him dead.

The book also features another couple from earlier in the series – Gabriel and his sykensis, or wife, Nicola. Nicola is Kyn, that is, Lynn Viehl’s version of vampires, and Gabriel is a lord, but unlike all the others, they have no court, no territory, and Nicola still hates the Darkyn. She distrusts Simone and this proves a useful way of testing Simone’s desires and her feelings. The regular reader already knows Nicola, and she provides a sounding board for developments in this book. For new readers, she is an interesting and trustworthy character.

The romance between Korvel and Simone is most definitely there, but the story is of equal importance. However, the sex scenes are nice and hot, and the intimacy is of the heart-melting variety. Because of the time scale (short) and the frenetic pace of the action, there is little time for courtship, and not many places it could happen, but there is enough to believe in the developing relationship between Simone and Korvel.

Although Viehl’s world can be complex, it makes sense and is easy to pick up. Viehl does an excellent job of explaining the world, dropping the information in as needed in a natural way, rather than doing it with swathes of backstory or stopping the forward impetus of the story to explain. Many of the Kyn were once Knights Templar, and Viehl’s version makes a lot more sense than Dan Brown’s! It is a completely different legend and is as just as compelling as any other. In Viehl’s version, the Knights and others died, were buried and then dug their way out of their graves to become undead. They believe they’re cursed, but the recent additions to the Kyn believe that it’s more of an infection than a curse, a kind of Great Plague gone wrong (if you look up the dates of the Templars and the Black Death, it plays in perfectly).

Apart from a few short lines, the ARC was in great shape, so the book will be, too. However, it’s “Chaise longue,” not “Chaise lounge” (No it doesn’t, no it’s not, and yes I did). That one irritates me somewhat, but I don’t want a huge discussion about why to obscure or detract from this excellent read. And Viehl does her research. This book features a France I recognize, rather than some wish-fulfillment fantasy or an American-centric one. It’s beautifully evoked, and the American terminology is explained by some of the characters being American, or having spent time there. It makes me want to go back to visit Provence!

So is this the place to start if you’re new to the series? I don’t see why not, especially if you don’t mind a few Gabriel spoilers. She doesn’t give away too much of his book, so I’d say you’d be fine, and she explains the world cogently and well.

The action swept me along from start to finish, and although I had work of my own to do, work that was piling up somewhat, I didn’t want to put the book down until I reached the end. Highly recommended. You have got to pick this one up.

Grade: A

Summary:

The High Lord of the Immortal Darkyn has sent his most trusted warrior, Korvel, to retrieve a coveted scroll that’s rumored to contain maps to Templar treasures and the secrets to eternal life. Uniting with Korvel to recover the dangerous artifact is Simone Derien, the daughter of the scroll’s guardian, and a woman with many deadly secrets…

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of What Happens in Charleston by Rachel Bailey
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 6 Feb 12

Matthew’s wife died a year ago, leaving him with a small son, Flynn. The story starts with Flynn in hospital suffering from an illness that means he might need bone marrow. Matthew’s wife, Grace, isn’t the baby’s biological mother. That’s Susannah Parrish, who needed the money to pay off her mother’s mortgage. However, now, five years later, Susannah is doing well and has a good career. When Matthew calls to ask her if she can help, she takes leave and flies to Charleston.

Matthew is part of a dysfunctional family who are no doubt the subject of other books, but this one pretty much concentrates on Matthew and Susannah. While normally I’d object to this “biological” business, here it’s handled well. Grace was a good mother, and nobody, least of all Susannah, wants to denigrate her right to call herself the mother. However, toward the end Matthew and Susannah make a decision that disturbs me somewhat. Bailey does her best to explain and give reasons, but it does spoil my enjoyment somewhat, because I think it is a “romantic novel” solution and not a good one.

Susannah and Matthew are an interesting couple. Susannah does her best not to intrude, but, of course, they can’t resist each other, and the old “chemical attraction” rears its head, together with the “this can’t last” trope. I find it hard to believe in both of those. Couples who are just in it for the sex tend to want to find out where it leads, unless they are out-and-out fans of erotica or swingers. Since Desire doesn’t have this possibility, I find it hard to believe, especially with the characters involved. And any woman who accepts that kind of proposition is being manipulated. Matthew isn’t a manipulator, and I like that about him.

Susannah doesn’t want to become a Grace substitute, but when she first arrives in Charleston, she slips into family life, because she knows she’s only there to help Flynn and not to change Matthew’s life. So when she becomes involved with him, it’s hard for her to change that.

This book could have gone two ways, because of the tried-and-true tropes involved. It could have been a tired trek through old country, with sketchy characters going through the motions. In fact, it is a good read, one I enjoyed. That is mainly because of the characters, Matthew most of all. He’s far from manipulative and does his best to understand Susannah, never taking her for granted. Although he uses the “this is only temporary” and “chemistry” tropes, they didn’t spoil my enjoyment, for the most part. He does do something stupid, but I believe in his redemption and the way he realizes the fault is with him. Susannah is interesting, but she does get close to the Mary Sue at times. She is beautiful. She has a good job, she can cook, she gives Flynn up, and her only rebellion in her youth results in a lesson she has learned and no uncomfortable leftovers. I started to wish she had some kind of flaw, but the longer the story went on, the fewer she had. She is endlessly patient, and, oh yes, she’s amazing in bed.

So I really read this story for Matthew, who is the kind of hero I like – not abusive, thoughtful, and with flaws that make him interesting.

Grade: B-

Summary:

Money has always given Matthew Kincaid whatever he wanted. Yet now his son needs something even his millions can’t buy. The widower’s sole recourse is the surrogate who gave birth to his child—for she is also the boy’s true biological mother.

Susannah Parrish needs no prodding to offer her assistance—a child’s life is at stake. But to their mutual surprise, the minute she’s back in Charleston and residing in Matthew’s home, passion consumes them. Is this a relationship doomed by deception? Or is it the one chance at a love they both secretly crave?

Read an excerpt.

I’ve been feeling a bit out of sorts with the romance market recently, so I’ve kept to the authors I enjoy and lines like the Harlequin category romances that I tend to enjoy. I write and read paranormal romance, but more and more, the ones I’ve been reading have gone into action/adventure and that’s not what I read them for. Historical romances have turned into complete fairy tales, with very little history in them. It took me a while to work out what was going on, but I’m getting there.

A couple of years ago, every agent and editor was looking for something called High Concept. It’s such a nebulous idea that it’s easy to get it wrong, because it seems to be different according to who tells it, but, basically, it’s an idea that can be described in one sentence, such as “Godzilla meets Cinderella, and Godzilla wins” or “Mr. and Mrs. Smith in the Regency.” (I’m not making one of those up). That kind of stuff. It’s led to books that are high on ideas, low on character and execution, and I think that’s what my problem with the romance market boils down to.

I’m a romance reader. I love a bit of difference, of excitement, of external plot, but not to the exclusion of the romance. I want that romance to be the centre of the action, not something that happens somewhere along the way. And I’m missing that. The concept is all very well, but I want more. I want a story that makes sense, one that gives the characters a chance to exist, to be themselves. Not one where they’re forced into action, where we don’t see the development of the romance, where we can believe that they are falling in love. More and more, it’s a succession of hot sex scenes with an “I love you” tagged on at the end.

The ancient Greeks had it right. In their tragedies, the tragedy arises from a flaw in the main character’s psyche, something he doesn’t believe or does wrong. He lies, and a whole series of actions arise from that. All external actions happen offstage. In Oedipus Rex, Jocasta dies offstage, Oedipus blinds himself offstage, because the point isn’t that part of the story, it’s the characters and how they react that’s important. In modern storytelling, it’s often the other way about. I wouldn’t have cared about Jocasta had I not learned to like her beforehand. Similarly, Oedipus isn’t just a badass warrior and great king, he’s a badass warrior with deep internal flaws and concerns that haunt him throughout his life. That’s what makes him really interesting.

Subsequent storytellers followed that convention, and in a play like Hamlet, everything is about character flaws, a succession of wrong choices and failures until the final action leads to a tragedic triumph – that is, Hamlet eventually wins, but at the cost of his own life. His flaws interact with the others in the play. So Claudius isn’t a completely bad man, but he falls in love with the wrong woman and behaves with a Machiavellian deviousness that eventually leads to his own undoing. He is also a good king (it’s in the first scene, that he’s doing the job well) and a loving husband.

I want that back in romance. I want a Maddy (Flowers From the Storm) who is brave enough to step outside her community, but whose inner narrow-mindedness won’t allow her to accept Christian’s solution for his problem. I want events to come from the inside. It’s how Jane Austen made a story about a set of perfectly ordinary sisters come to life, and it’s why we remember Charles Dickens’ characters years after we’ve closed the books. We imagine them having a life outside the books.

This is why I’m looking forward to the next Cecilia Grant book.  A Lady Awakened didn’t entirely work for me, but it’s still the most interesting debut I’ve read for years. It isn’t the beauty of her writing or the accuracy of her history, it’s because the action springs from the characters and not from outside them. It didn’t work for me because I didn’t like the heroine, but that, in one way, is a triumph because she made me believe in the heroine and have an opinion on her.

A writer like Linnea Sinclair writes rocket ships and cool weaponry, but she never forgets the characters. You don’t want goodies to triumph over baddies, you want that hero to win because you care about him. Games of Command remains one of my favourite books and the characters stay with me.

So please, less of the high concept. It’s resulted in some truly awful books and some extremely average ones. Let’s get back to the happy sigh on the last page, as the reader is given something satisfactory and heartfelt. Give me the romance back.

LynneC’s review of Darker After Midnight (Midnight Breed, Book 10) by Lara Adrian
Paranormal Romance published by Delacourte Press 24 Jan 11

I wanted this book because it’s Sterling Chase’s book, but while the first part keeps the reader on the edge of her seat, the second half descends into a big wtfkery, as Adrian sets the scene for what will probably be a new series. There will be spoilers in this review, however I’ll mark them for you, but the first part won’t have spoilers as such. However, we know certain things, and I don’t really consider them spoilers, such as this is a romance, so it has a HEA.

Sterling Chase is the hyper-controlled Breed male who joined the Order after giving up the Agency. Some of the best parts of this book are when Chase returns to his old Darkhaven and muses about his previous life, what he wanted and how he’d been mistaken. We actually get insights into his character and what makes him tick. But other parts of Chase’s character aren’t carried through properly. We know at the end of the last book that he has succumbed to bloodlust and so he’s doomed. He has to go cold turkey, or maybe he doesn’t, maybe he can just fight it. Bloodlust is described as an addiction, but Chase doesn’t behave like an addict. For one thing, he falls in love and puts that person above his addiction. Addicts don’t do that. It weakened that part of Chase’s character. And (spoiler) the resolution. What resolution? We just see lurve beating all, we don’t see him kicking his habit. It’s an important part of Chase’s character, until it stops being a part of his character. Until it’s not needed anymore to move the story forward. I want more about Chase and less about the badass villain.

Dragos has been the villain through the whole series. He has never been more than two-dimensional, and here he doesn’t disappoint in that respect. He’s a megalomaniac. While other megalomaniacs had quirks (Blofelt had a cat, Goldfinger had a third nipple), Dragos doesn’t even have that. He just wants to rule the world and is prepared to create chaos while he does so. Like a spoiled child wanting a toy, he doesn’t really know why he wants it or what he’ll do with it once he gets it.

As usual, we get destruction and mayhem, but some of the story threads lead nowhere and others come out of the blue. (spoiler alert). Atlantis? Really? And when Dragos dies, it’s over so fast and so easily, that you wonder why they bothered waiting so long. Dragos’s master plan is so ridiculously simple, I don’t know why he didn’t do it earlier, before the Order had a chance to fight him.

The heroine of this book is Tavia, who is more than she thinks she is at the start. And here’s another break with the rest of the rules of the series. I feel kind of cheated when I discovered what Tavia is, because, although the explanation is plausible, it negates some of the other earlier books. Tavia starts the book as an interesting character in an interesting job, but that dissipates as, before our eyes, she turns into a Mary Sue. Everybody loves her, except the villain, who wants her, and she makes everything all right. She cures addiction, she fights, she Saves The Day, and we are meant to believe that where a group of experienced warriors fail, a scheme that the aforesaid Blofelt could have spotted with one eye closed would succeed? At the end, she does something so stupid that I lost respect or interest for her.

Originality, this book has none. I don’t mind that so much as some readers. For instance, this series is about a bunch of otherworldly, vampiric badass warriors who all live together in a great big house and find their mates. Yep, definitely been there before, again and again for that matter, but the women are more proactive and interesting, and the writing is less simplistic than others in similar vein. What’s more, the characters, especially in the first three books, are far more involving, less ciphers, with motivations that make sense and story arcs that go somewhere. For me, the series started to fall apart when she turned Andreas Reichen into a totally different character for Ashes of Midnight, but I kept reading, hoping the series would turn. At some points, it did, but this last book is one of the weakest in the series, which is a real shame, as I loved Chase in the earlier books and I wanted to read about him, not some weird outer-space-meets-mythology mashup.

This story starts really well and I couldn’t stop reading, but at a certain point, it changed, and I just wanted to get to the end. Then I wish I hadn’t. Here followeth spoilers, but I’ll try not to make it too bad.

At one point toward the end, I groaned aloud. My daughter, who was in the same room, asked me what was wrong, and I said one word. “Atlantis.” She hasn’t read this series, didn’t know what I was reading, but she groaned, too. Oh dear. It’s like having a joker in the pack or playing a black two and then saying, “Oh, by the way, black twos are wild.” It came out of nowhere and it didn’t work. For that matter, the whole interpretation of dreams subplot didn’t work for me. I was tempted to skip, but I read, hoping it would come together at the end, but it didn’t.

The end of the book is one big Harlequin Presents ending. Couples cuddling and babies. Omg the babies! Sweet as sugar.

And the speech to the world? Absolutely unbelievable. I mean I didn’t believe it. It’s like a Godzilla film, with people rushing around screaming and school buses falling off high bridges, and the everything is all right, and “We’ll build a new world together.” Nu-uh. Not for this romance reader.

The book is a bit like a torn sock. All nicely knitted and working toward something interesting, and then lots of threads and tangles and an ending that doesn’t make sense.

Adrian has obviously set up a new series here, one that reads far more like urban fantasy, but I’m a romance reader. I want characters, their dilemmas and how they overcome them, drawing on resources inside themselves. I don’t want plot-heavy stories with characters who do as they are told. So this is where we part company, but the first three books of this series remain firmly on my keeper shelf.

Grade: C

Summary:

The climactic novel in Lara Adrian’s New York Times bestselling Midnight Breed series–and her hardcover debut–Darker After Midnight invites readers to enter a thrillingly sensual world where danger meets desire.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

LynneC’s review of  The Secret History of a Good Girl by Aimee Carson
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents  7 Feb 12

Aimee Carson is a new author to me, with two Mills and Boon/Harlequin books under her belt. I settled down for a good read, and on the whole I wasn’t disappointed.

Alyssa is an events planner, and she’s pitching for an important contract with the Samba Hotel. One thing I don’t understand is why these women with little experience get the big jobs in these books. What’s more, she has a secret, something she doesn’t tell prospective employers, but one, I would have imagined, that people in a position of trust must reveal. Why didn’t they know? But when she confesses to Pauolo later in the book, it comes as a complete surprise to him.

I know that realism isn’t a hallmark of Presents/Modern, but I do expect to be able to believe the setup. There are a few WTFs in this book, but I let them ride. The most successful of this line don’t depend on generalizations and vague explanations to tell the story, and while Pauolo and Alyssa are vividly drawn characters, some of the situations and internal thoughts I feel I’ve read before and didn’t really read like those of individuals.

Pauolo is the macho, tall, dark, handsome male who doesn’t believe in marriage. He’s been married before, and it ended badly. However, Pauolo loved his wife, and she divorced him to marry his brother. I don’t understand why, at thirty-three, Pauolo has given up. True, the loss of his wife six years before would have marked him, but he is young enough to consider another long-term affair, unless he is immature enough to think that once is it, and to do him justice, he is not the immature type. He left his father’s business and set up his own, leaving his brother in sole possession. He rides a Ducati and he never wears a suit and tie, though I wasn’t sure why. He just does. I’d have liked a little more background to give Pauolo more depth, but some factors of his personality are left hanging.

There is one scene that made me laugh aloud, when Pauolo gives Alyssa a chance to ride his motorbike. I’m assuming that the Ducati is one of the big ones, but it sounds more like the cute girly ones in this scene. I did enjoy imagining her on one of the beasts Ducati produces. I do ride motorbikes, and twisting the throttle will find you on your back on the ground, probably with a ton of metal on top of you, unless you know precisely what you’re doing. You don’t have your first motorbike lesson on one of those.

Pauolo is interesting, but he opens up to Alyssa a little too late in the book. I do like the way he treats her fairly, but the contrivances that keep her from being his employee are a little much, since she has an office in his hotel and works exclusively for him for most of the book. His stubbornness is irritating, but it is part of his character and probably meant to annoy.

There are some pleasant developments, not least when Alyssa decides to discover more about Pauolo’s first marriage. She does something I don’t like her doing, but in the process discovers that (gasp) Pauolo’s ex-wife isn’t a complete bitch and has a mind of her own. That I enjoyed. Alyssa annoys me sometimes, but she’s a bearable heroine, and she works hard for her happy ending.

The last scene doesn’t work for me at all, I’m afraid, but I’m venturing into spoiler territory here. I think I know what the author was trying to do, feature a facet of Pauolo’s personality that had proved significant to his character, but when he does the right thing, Alyssa responds with baffling stubbornness and that leads to another scene, which, let’s say, isn’t a bit romantic.

And the pop references drive me a bit nuts. They seem to be all the wrong things for my taste, and that is a risk you take when you use such references. Comparing the hero to Taylor Lautner doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t work for me a lot. I’m a David Bowie girl, George Clooney, even Brad Pitt, but no, not Lautner. Not even his chest does it for me (too much make up). And discussing a Lady Gaga concert as if I’d actually like to attend one—gah! Radiohead or nothing, I say. Constant comparisons until the book is about three-quarters overstrained the narrative a bit, without adding colour. While it’s nice to have modern references, in a year, maybe two, the book will be outdated (whereas Clooney and Radiohead will go on forever, lol!) Phones are always “cellular phones,” and not the more familiar “cell.” That might be an editorial decision, though. It did stop me once or twice.

The sex scenes are fairly standard, not too hot, and many are described in narrative or after the event. I wondered if Ms. Carson is comfortable with writing scenes at that level of heat, and euphemisms and the softer phrases are used in place of the more explicit. However, there’s no doubting that these two are into each other.

I did enjoy the read, but it isn’t a book that I’ll remember for too long. And please, (and this is addressed at the whole line, not just Ms. Carson) enough with the event planners already. We’re in a recession, so how many event planners can there be these days?

Grade: C+

Summary:

Play with fire…

Miami hotel tycoon Paulo Domingues knows that beneath his events planner’s southern priss, Alyssa Hunt is all sass. Little Miss Prim has Paulo’s inner rebel roaring to life – he’s determined to seduce the fire out from behind it!
And you might get burnt!

Tough-cookie Alyssa hasn’t fought tooth and nail to shake off her past to be blindsided by one smooth-talking boss. Until, punch-drunk with desire, she succumbs to temptation and realises what she’s been missing out on! But will Miami’s most wanted bachelor run when he discovers the real reason behind her good-girl façade…?

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of More than Perfect by Day Leclaire
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 7 Feb 12

I enjoyed this book, not quite as much as the first in the series, but it’s still a good, solid read. It is still more Desire than Presents/Modern, with the millionaire more human, a touch less alpha, and the heroine older and more independent minded. I enjoyed it despite the cute kid. I’m not a big fan of cute kids in romance novels.

After a one-night stand with his ex-girlfriend, she tells him she’s going back to his best friend, Geoff. Lucius thinks she’s a bitch, but she tells him he is just as bad and marries Geoff. They are killed in a train accident, leaving their small son in Lucius’s care.

Angie is Lucius’s PA, and secretly in love with him.

Get the setup? Read it before? Probably. But you haven’t read this book about this couple, and that’s what makes Day Leclaire special. While she uses stock plots, she doesn’t use stock characters.

I would love to write a series of books with the same beginning point and the same tropes but with different characters to see how they cope with it, and this, to a certain extent, is what she does.

Lucius finds the perfect PA, Angie, after consulting the program developed by Praetorius and his young assistant. Now he’s using the same program to find a wife, because he wants  someone for little Mikey and as a partner. Unbeknown to Praetorius, Angie and said assistant tweak the program a bit, so she appears to be the perfect wife candidate. I like that, instead of mooning around, she answers him back and she does something to get what she wants. So the conflict is set up. What will Lucius do when he discovers her tinkering?

Meantime, Angie and Lucius set about falling in love and fighting for custody of Mikey, when the baby’s grandparents sue. While feeling sorry for them, both Lucius and Angie are appalled by their cold, analytical nature. So they have another reason to stay together.

Lucius is bone-headed, powerful, strong, but he also has a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at himself. So I like him, and I could understand why Angie falls for him. Angie is fully aware of her folly in falling for him, but she won’t take too much from him and she will answer back, so I ended up liking her, too.

This is how to do a Desire right, and while it won’t shake the romance world to its foundation, it is a satisfying, enjoyable read. Together with Day Leclaire’s smooth, accomplished writing style, it makes for a pleasant hour or two.

Grade: B-

Summary:

When billionaire Lucius Devlin inherits his best friend’s child, he needs a wife. Preferably one who fulfills his every need. So he checks out the Pretorius Program, since it had once found him the perfect assistant.…
Angie Colter can’t understand who wouldn’t want to spend time with the sexy, caring and utterly compelling Lucius and darling baby Mikey. Then she discovers his goal. With a few tweaks to the program—and to her appearance—Angie will be the perfect wife! But what if Lucius finds out the truth about his nearly perfect fiancée?

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of Stud (Cat Star Chronicles, Book Eight) by Cheryl Brooks
Futuristic Romance published by Sourcebooks 7 Feb 12

I haven’t read any of the Cat Star Chronicles before, and I plunged right in with this book, Book Eight of the series. I had few problems picking up the world and the characters, and I enjoyed the read. However, it isn’t everything I hoped it would be. I was in the mood for something different and this book certainly delivered that for me, but even though I don’t read much SF or fantasy, some of the customs were familiar to me.

The hero, Tarq, is a cat-person, and he is good at sex. Very, very good, and it helps that he has—extras. Long blond hair and pointy ears don’t usually turn me on—even when it’s Legolas—but he did have some interesting quirks, like his inability to read the menu. Not to mention his Magic Peen. He’s a very wealthy whore, who no longer charges for his services. After his world was destroyed, he is doing his bit to increase the numbers of his kind. He thinks the only thing he is good at is sex, because he’s dyslexic. The word is never used, but from the first page it’s obvious what his problem is, when he admits he can’t read the menu. I like the way Tarq copes with his problem, and it does seem realistic – learning ways around confessing his problem and thinking of himself as stupid because of it, but I don’t like the way it’s left hanging, with Lucy realizing what it is but little else.

The heroine, Lucy, is a waitress when we first encounter her, and she works in her father’s diner alongside a down-to-earth alien cook and a hermaphrodite, who is too lightly drawn for my liking. The hermaphrodites were by far the most interesting aliens for me. The beginning reads like a waitress in a category romance, with the father who shouts a lot, a notebook, albeit an electronic one, and the diner atmosphere that would be worthy of anything in the USA. She doesn’t recognize Tarq at first, but realizes her mistake when she sees an ad on the TV for his services. He works in a brothel and has produced hundreds of children. With his race under threat, it’s his duty as well as his pleasure. I think Tarq’s character is a little thin. Apart from his magical, athletic peen, which seemed to produce gallons of lubrication and ejaculate, here called snard, which tastes of chocolate and cream – which is described in huge detail and often – I find Tarq a bit of a cipher. His motivations are a little too straightforward, for a person who has lost his homeworld.

Lucy is a tiny bit irritating. At first she is a Cinderella, straight out of the story, and she only decides to run away when she gets pregnant. Her pregnancy doesn’t impinge much on the story, apart from a bit of morning sickness, and most of the story is, in fact, a road novel. She and Tarq decide they can’t stay together, even when circumstances change, and I feel that conflict becomes progressively weaker as the story goes on, and less believable. It turns into a big misunderstanding before it’s finally resolved.

There isn’t a romance and courtship in this book. Tarq recognizes Lucy as his mate from page one, and Lucy is dazzled by this glamorous, famous creature, famed for his prowess with sex. I don’t know why she falls in love with him and I’m not entirely convinced that she does.

This is a light read, an amusing one rather than anything involving or angsty. One or two things niggled me from the start. Lucy? Really? This book is set thousands of years in the future and they’re still using American-style diners? Furthermore, some of the cultural references are closer to our time than they are to anything futuristic. Kentucky Fried Chicken and the diner culture, together with some inconsistencies in the world-building. No communicators clipped to belts? With the ubiquity of cellphones, I would have put them in, but then, the second half of the book wouldn’t have been possible.

However, this is a fun read and light read, one you don’t have to concentrate on to find out what a tflwt is, or how F’rty is related to the clan Yu’oki. One for the long flight or the train journey. Or, as I read it, a late-night read before going to sleep.

Grade: C

Summary:

Even for a Zetithian, Tarq Zulveidinoe’s sexual prowess is legendary. Believing it’s all he’s good for, Tarq sets out to perpetuate his threatened species by offering his services to women across the galaxy…

BUT ONE FORCE CAN BRING THEM TOGETHER…

Lucinda Force is the sensitive dark horse in a self-absorbed family, repeatedly told that no man will ever want such a plain woman. Lucy longs for romance, but is resigned to her loveless lot in life-until Tarq walks through the door of her father’s restaurant on Talus Five…

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of Reckless Night (Dangerous Trilogy, Book 3.5) by Lisa Marie Rice
Contemporary Romance ebook novella published by Avon 29 Nov 11

This story is an epilogue to a book by Rice, something I didn’t realize when I started to read it. It reads well as a standalone, and Rice is a competent storyteller, but I thought the story really needed to be in context to its novel.

Viktor (“Drake”) Drakovich and his wife Grace are living under new names and a new location. As far as the world is concerned, Drake died when his office complex exploded, but with a bit of plastic surgery and a lot of money, he’s been able to start his new life.

Grace gives Drake beautiful gifts that she’s made herself. Exquisite gifts, and her latest is a painting of his hand in front of a vase of flowers. This is described so beautifully that I wanted to see the painting, not just read about it. Strange how most artists in romance novels concentrate on traditional techniques and figurative images, but at least this painting sounds like an interesting one. I’ve read about paintings in romance novels that I’ve been glad I couldn’t see, the gaudy, sentimental kind of painting that I would gladly see on the top of a bonfire, but in few other places. Not so here. Grace does sound like a woman happy with her talent, capable of creating beautiful paintings and craft items and who loves her husband. I didn’t read that Grace was unhappy in her new life or that she regretted changing her lifestyle so drastically. That’s Drake, feeling guilty about dragging her away, not Grace.

Since this story is so short, it’s hard to discuss it without spoilers. Suffice it to say that Drake plans a surprise for her that goes somewhat awry, and the end of the story we’re wondering – what? Why? I’d have been much happier had the story ended with Grace and Drake learning to live their new life. The ending read like an intrusion, something that shouldn’t be there, that turns the whole situation on its head and means that they are left in the same slightly unsatisfactory position that they had at the beginning. There’s no progression, although there are moves towards it, and then something happens to stop it.

I do like Grace and Drake, and I can see where Rice is going with the main story. Drake is immensely wealthy, was an arms dealer with more money than he can count, and used to be surrounded by security stronger than any President. Grace is a free spirit, an artist who enjoys walks and her more relaxed lifestyle. The initial story must have been interesting, but now I’ve read the outcome, I can’t say I want to read it, because Drake and Grace are in a limbo of their own making, a well-protected beautiful island where they must exist, rather than progressing and getting on with their lives. Without that shock ending (don’t worry, it’s a romance, she doesn’t commit the ultimate sin of killing off her main characters!), it would have been more satisfactory and would have made for a happier ending. As it is, we’re left wondering – so what happens now?

My other problem is that half this book is a lengthy extract from the main book, the one I no longer want to read. I do think this story spoiled the main one for me. The story is 30 pages long, so there’s another 30 pages of extract and adverts. If you buy this book on Kindle, it’s currently $3.16, but if you buy it on B & N, it’s $0.99 – I don’t know why there’s a difference or why Amazon has allowed it, but I know which price I’d rather pay. Too expensive at $3.16, fine at $0.99

Note: While I do share a publisher with Lisa Marie Rice, this book isn’t published by our mutual publisher, and Lisa Marie is not a special friend, so I felt it was fine to review this.

Grade: D

Summary:

What do you give your beautiful wife when you’ve got all the money in the world but can’t spend it?
Victor “Drake” Drakovitch used to run a criminal empire, but he gave it all up for the woman he loves. Grace, an accomplished artist, abandoned the life she knew in order to be with the one man she could never live without.
Exiled to an island far from their former lives, the two stay safe from the watchful eyes of Drake’s many enemies. This Christmas, Drake wants to show Grace how much her sacrifice means. But what can he give a woman who shuns gold jewelry and diamonds, furs and expensive cars? Grace doesn’t want fancy things; she wants what Drake can give her—unquestioning devotion, fierce protection… and the best sex a woman has ever had.
Until terror strikes and Grace realizes that the best gift of all is a dangerous husband.

Read an excerpt.