Archive for the ‘Romance reading’ Category
Friday, November 30th, 2012
While I was reading a book last week – a good one, one that I was really enjoying – I found myself reacting in an unexpected way. The book was swimming merrily along, with a hero and heroine I liked and a plot I enjoyed. Then they are caught in a somewhat compromising position, and the hero proposes. The heroine doesn’t say yes immediately, and that’s where I lost it. While I hesitate to compare myself to someone who spent a year in combat and then hits the ground when there’s a loud noise…well, that’s almost where I was, metaphorically.
All I could think immediately was: “What? Is she really going to say no to him, even though she’s attracted to him and down to her last guinea? You’ve got to be kidding me! I can’t handle this anymore!” If I’d waited two seconds, I’d have found out that she soon says yes. She reasons out her response, thinks it out, weighs her options – and says yes. (more…)
Tags: All About Romance
Posted in AAR Blythe, Romance reading, Uncategorized | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012
This month’s TBR Challenge read gave me a choice between romantic suspense and paranormal romance. I read a fair amount of suspense (romantic and otherwise) anyway, so I decided to dig into my little stack of romances with random creatures. I came up with Edge of Hunger by Rhyannon Byrd, a 2009 HQN release. This book is first in the ongoing Primal Instinct series. I found it an engaging but rather strange read. I enjoyed the steamy romance and the paranormal worldbuilding is a bit of a twist on the shapeshifter idea. I could spot elements that reminded me of other paranormal series I’ve read, but the author definitely puts an original spin on her world. However, there’s more than a little bit of the crazy and cliched worked in there, too. While I did enjoy parts of this book, I also spent way too much time rolling my eyes and/or cracking up over some of the overwrought wackiness, so in the end I think I’d give this a C+.
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Tags: All About Romance, Rhyannon Byrd, TBR Challenge
Posted in All About Romance, Lynn AAR, Romance reading | 3 Comments »
Monday, September 24th, 2012
My workout playlist runs to guilty pleasures, and Whatever You Like is among the guiltiest. I prefer this more indie, Joan as Policewoman version to the TI original. In case you’re not interested in listening – or unfamiliar with the words – the message in a nutshell is “I find you attractive and want to sleep with you, so I will buy you stuff. Expensive stuff.”
I got to thinking about this during the summer when I read two books with uber-rich heroes back to back. Both of them are household names: Roarke from the long running J.D. Robb series, and Johnny come lately Christian Grey from Fifty Shades. Roarke is of course the classic. He owns half the planet and plenty of stuff off the planet. In the earlier books, he was always working, wheeling, and dealing. Lately he seems to have enough time to own the world and serve as expert consultant, civilian on Eve’s cases. It’s a nice gig, if you can get it.
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Posted in AAR Blythe, Heroes, Romance reading | 31 Comments »
Friday, September 14th, 2012
My very first romance novel was Lord of La Pampa by Kay Thorpe, an old Harlequin Presents title. It starred a naïve British girl and an arrogant Argentinian cattle rancher. She had come to Argentina for a dancing job and instead found herself facing the possibility of working at a less savory profession. He had to be married in the next three days in order to inherit some land. The two make a bargain to marry without love but at some point – well, I’m sure you know what happens from there.
So it’s no exaggeration to say that romances with Hispanic characters have always been a part of my reading, even if some were drawn in somewhat stereotypical fashion. For many years Harlequin was my primary source. Along with novels by Kay Thorpe there were literally dozens of others published every year by authors like Anne Mather, Kim Lawrence, and Lynne Graham. As I began reading single titles, these characters stayed with me. From older books like Judith McNaught’s Tender Triumph to newer books like Regina Jennings’ Sixty Acres and a Bride, I’ve been able to enjoy excellent novels that celebrate the diverse cultures that make up the Latin American world.
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Tags: All About Romance, Caridad Piñeiro, Carla Kelly, Jill Sorenson, Kay Thorpe, melting pot challenge, Tracy Montoya
Posted in Characters, Maggie AAR, Romance reading | 16 Comments »
Thursday, September 13th, 2012
Remember the early days of eBooks? I do. I was so excited about my Kindle. No more waiting until the books were shelved. I could just wake up on the release date and there it would be, ready to read. Except it wasn’t that way -so many of my favorite author’s books weren’t available as a digital release. Sometimes I had to wait a couple of weeks, and sometimes months. Then when that issue was resolved, I had to deal with the fact that I could buy the paper copy of the book for less than the digital copy. Now that these issues are getting taken care of for the most part, I have another request, simultaneous book release dates. Oh, I know it a pie in the sky wish right now, but surely it can be done.
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Posted in Books, Leigh AAR, Romance reading | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012
A report was just released that revealed that in Washington, DC, the childhood poverty rate is higher than that of Mexico. In Washington, DC, my former home and our nation’s capital, more than 30% of children are growing up in impoverished families. Thirty percent.
This is not meant to be a political blog (though how sad is it that just stating childhood poverty rates can become a political debate?). Rather, I present this information as a reality that many of us don’t want to face: some Americans are poor. But reading romance novels – particularly contemporary ones — won’t let you in on that fact.
I’m not talking just the richest of the rich that are far too common in romance novels — the Roarkes, the movie stars, the billionaire bosses — but also the extremely healthy upper-middle-class that it seems almost everyone in romance novels belongs to. No one is living paycheck to paycheck. No one is working two jobs to make ends meet. No one has eschewed vacations in favor of paying school loans.
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Tags: All About Romance, finances, Julie James, Nora Roberts
Posted in Jane AAR, Romance reading | 40 Comments »
Friday, August 31st, 2012
How do we define romance? On a romance blog, one might as well ask what is life. It’s one of those broad, overarching topics susceptible to endless debate. We see authors offering endless variations from the most conventional to the most edgy and subversive. And yet, at the end of the day, we expect our lead couple to end up happily ever after – or at least happy for now. Though I still get irked with market restrictions from time to time, I have appreciated in recent years that we’ve been seeing a market full of change, choices, and great authors. And then I went to RWA 2012 in Anaheim.
The Elimination of Novels with Strong Romantic Elements as a RITA category
At the general meeting in Anaheim, Romance Writers of America(RWA) announced that it had decided upon a plan to reconfigure the RITA awards. (more…)
Tags: All About Romance, Barbara O'Neal, Deanna Raybourn, Mindy Klasky, RWA, Susanna Kearsley, The Ruby Slippered Sisterhood
Posted in Defining Romance, Lynn AAR, Romance reading, RWA, Uncategorized | 15 Comments »
Wednesday, August 15th, 2012
The TBR Challenge theme for August is hot, steamy reads. In a sense, the book I chose, Megan Hart’s Dirty, published by Harlequin Spice in 2007, fits the bill. The story contains plentiful sex scenes, and they certainly are steamy. However, that’s not what stands out most about this book. This story contains some of the most intense plotting and interesting characters I’ve read in ages, and it tackles issues not often encountered in romance of any subgenre. I don’t know why I let this book sit in my TBR so long, but it was an amazing find, and I’d give it an A-, Desert Island Keeper status.
Part of the story’s intensity comes from its narration. The heroine, Elle Kavanaugh, tells her story, and the twists and turns of her complex mind by turns draw sympathy, interest, and sometimes frustration from the reader. (more…)
Tags: All About Romance, Megan Hart, TBR Challenge
Posted in Lynn AAR, Romance reading | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, July 24th, 2012
I have never read a book by Tana French and the first time I saw her name was in the Eagerly Awaited August Books where both Dabney and Lynn indicate that they are looking forward to her new release Broken Harbor. Then while surfing the Web, I came across her name again. She wrote an article for Publishers Weekly outlining her writing tips.
A few of them didn’t resonate, but this one did:
There’s no such thing as ‘men’ or ‘women’. There’s only the individual character you’re writing. One guy emailed me asking me how to write women, and I couldn’t answer, because I had no idea which woman he meant: me? Eleanor of Aquitaine? Lady Gaga? If you’re thinking of ‘men’ or ‘women’ as a monolithic group defined primarily by their sex, then you’re not thinking of them as individuals; so your character isn’t going to come out as an individual, but as a collection of stereotypes. Sure, there are differences between men and women on average – but you’re writing an individual, not an average. If your individual character is chatty on the phone or refuses to ask for directions, that needs to be because of who he or she is, not because of what he or she is. Write the person, not the genitalia.
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Tags: diversity, tana french
Posted in Authors, Books, Characters, Heroes, Heroines, Leigh AAR, Reading, Romance reading, Settings | 7 Comments »
Thursday, July 19th, 2012
When I wrote my post for the TBR Challenge yesterday, one of our commenters brought up a good point – it’s hard to find a gothic where the heroine isn’t a doormat. Nowadays, gothics are pretty hard to find anyway but even in their heyday, they seemed to have more than their fair share of childlike, frequently fainting heroines. Growing up, I remember my mom loved gothics and while I enjoyed some of the old books she picked up at library sales, there were definitely some helpless idiot heroines out there. And while The Jade Pagoda, the book I read for TBR Challenge yesterday, didn’t feature a completely spineless heroine, it still isn’t one I’d put on a list of recommendations.
After seeing the request for good gothic suggestions, Barbara Michaels immediately came to mind. Though better known today for her Amelia Peabody books written as Elizabeth Peters, under the Michaels name she has written a number of novels full of creepy Gothic goodness. (more…)
Tags: All About Romance, Barbara Michaels, Catherine Gaskin, gothics, Mary Stewart, Susanna Kearsley, Tiffany Reisz
Posted in Heroines, Lynn AAR, Romance reading | 25 Comments »
