Later today we will announce the finalists and allow you to start filling out your brackets. For a look at the tentative finalists head on over to DABWAHA.

***

London, 1760

She was going to die!

Searing her fingers on the door, she tested it and found it locked. Heat emanated through the solid wood. Thick billows of smoke filled the room with noxious fumes. It tasted bitter on her tongue, and she closed her lips tightly to keep it out. Shrieks and cries pierced the night. Glancing at the window, she gritted her teeth at the sight of the nails which held it closed. If not for her defiance, and if not for her nightly excursions, it would not be nailed shut. She cursed herself for the night that she had been caught sneaking in. But that still didn’t tell her why the door was locked.
She surveyed her small room. The room that her uncle had given her when she had become his ward several months before.

She shuffled around the bed, a large monstrous thing that took up most of the minimal space. In the mirror, a small pale blonde stared frightened from its depths, her face drawn with panic. Smudges of soot from the smoke that now billowed under the edge of her door covered her dress at the base of her skirt, and a large streak of it was smeared across her face.

This was without a doubt the worst spot that twenty year old Charity Delaney had ever found herself in. Though definitely not the first.

I know I’ve said in the past that I’m tired of vampires, and it would appear many other people would agree. In the YA genre, we’ve seen many a trend come and go over the past couple of years: faeries, werewolves, zombies, and angels. That said, I’ve yet to see one of those supernatural creatures really stick the way vampires have because for all that I (and other readers) complain about overexposure, vampires truly are a perennial hit. To acknowledge that fact, I think it’s fair to say that the general weariness with vampires has less to do with the topic and more to do with the execution. A person can only read so many Twilight clones before wanting something new. So after hearing some good things about your debut that piqued my interest, I decided to get over my vampire-aversion and give it a try.

Solange Drake comes from a long line of natural-born vampires. In her world, there are two kinds: vampires who are born and vampires who are made. The natural-born vampires are rarer. Even rarer are natural-born female vampires. In fact, Solange is the first, and only, female vampire ever born in history. That’s bad enough all on its own. With Solange’s transition fast approaching, she’s become the recipient of many proposals, courtship offerings, and just plain all-around stalking behavior that warrants restraining orders if such things were observed by vampire kind. However, it also appears that a long time ago, someone prophesized the coming of a vampire queen from the Drake bloodline who’d unite the fractured vampire races. Solange, being the novelty that she is, is widely assumed to be said vampire.

But Solange wants nothing to do with that. She’d much rather throw pots and anyway, she’s squeamish around blood, which is an unfortunate trait for a vampire to have. She already has to cope with seven overprotective older brothers. Does she have to deal with vampires who want to kill her because people think she wants to overthrow the current vampire queen too?

What sets this novel apart from other vampire YA of its ilk are the awesome female characters and the great depictions of relationships. I adored the friendship between Solange and her human best friend, Lucy. Because their mothers were best friends since before Solange’s mother became a vampire, the girls grew up together and Lucy has no fear of vampires whatsoever. The contrast between them was great: Solange, daughter of an ancient vampire bloodline and whose mother is a fearsome martial artist that puts those skills to work regularly, who hates blood and Lucy, daughter of peace-loving vegan hippies, who has a violent streak.

I also loved how Solange’s family was portrayed. Solange is very much suffocated by her overprotective family — something that Lucy strives to mitigate as much as possible. Their concern is not without reason, of course, since I imagine most families would be paranoid if people kept trying to kidnap their only daughter so she could bear a score of vampire babies. But despite their paranoia and coddling, it’s obvious those actions arise out of nothing but love and affection. I can’t really emphasize enough how much I loved the Drake family. Coming from a large extended family myself, I certainly know what it’s like to have eccentric relatives with varying degrees of reputation and influence. The only difference here is that many of Solange’s relatives are several centuries old.

The burgeoning attraction between Lucy and Solange’s older brother, Nicholas, was great too. I loved how Nicholas was very much aware of the fact that he’s been in love with Lucy since forever but Lucy was slower to accept the truth. They’re a great example of how stories about schoolyard romance (boy pulls girl’s pigtails) carrying on into adolescence and beyond can have their charm when done well. Solange also has a love interest in a young vampire hunter named Kieran, but I admit I wasn’t very interested in that couple because it’s a dynamic I see more often in these kinds of books. I admit I was more entertained by Lucy’s steadfast refusal to be impressed by Kieran’s mysterious, stealthy vampire hunter background. (I will never stop laughing about how she simply looked him up in the phonebook, called him up, and then proceeded to blackmail him. And then later used the idea of crank calling Kieran to cheer up Nicholas.)

If I have one criticism about the book, it’s that a lot of the background on the vampire races is cursory and not explained very clearly. I know part of that can be chalked up to space but there are two other major types of vampires in addition to the natural-born and standard made ones. If I understood it correctly, they’re variations on the standard made ones but the details can be confusing. I hope these differences get clarified in the next book in the series (of course it’s a series) because judging by the ending, they will play larger roles.

All in all, however, that’s not a major flaw in a book that’s otherwise a quick, funny read. I especially think readers who like snappy dialogue and solid depictions of female friendship and family relationships will like this one a lot. B

My regards,
Jia

| Book link |  Amazon |  BN | Borders |

There is currently no digital format for this book but I’ll update the links if the digital version becomes available.

When I put this in my Netflix queue, I had no idea how truly revolutionary it would be. Even as I started to watch it, I didn’t know what was coming but found myself charmed, delighted and emotionally connected to the story and the storyteller. For, you see, both become entwined as Nina Paley tells of her marriage and its failure along with an abbreviated version of the Ramayana. WTF? you say. Yes TF I say, it’s true. And we also get a healthy dose of a wonderful jazz age singer named Annette Hanshaw whose songs are just perfect to help tell the tale.

Paley uses 5 distinct styles of animation plus some amazing music – including modern Indian as well as jazz singer Hanshaw – as she winds her story together with that of Rama and his wife Sita. All the animation is fantastic and clever but my favorite are the parts narrated by Indonesian shadow puppets. The voices behind the puppets are three Indians from various parts of the country who provide the basic details of the story – though they sometimes disagree on and mess up the details of the complicated tale which leads to some comic moments as they correct each other and worry about how it will make people mad.

And then there’s the Intermission! Yes, the film has an intermission and don’t skip through it as it’s hilarious watching the various characters head to the concession stands for popcorn, hot dogs and drinks. You can even use it as an intermission was intended if you need to.

The DVD I bought, as well as the website, has various subtitles available – including LOL – and I suggest that, at least the first time through, people watch the film with them on since the accents can be hard to understand at times if you’re not used to them. There’s also a commentary track that’s interesting to listen to. For further details on the movie, there’s a FAQ section at Paley’s website for the film www.sitasingstheblues.com. There’s also a blog and a wiki.

Apparently when the film was first released, there were problems with how it was viewed as a religious story as well as copyright issues with the Hanshaw songs. The songs stuff has been worked out but some viewers might still object to the way Paley chooses to portray the various people of the story. The various versions of the Ramayana are thousands of years old and though Paley doesn’t tell the whole story, what she does tell is definitely from a feminist slant yet some stuff modern feminists might find hard to swallow. But it is what it is and she felt that animating it was a cathartic experience for her after the break up of her marriage.

So, you want to try it? Well, you can rent it, you can buy a copy and it’s available on the internet. Yep, that’s right. Paley has made it freely available to do anything with except copyright it. I know that you can watch it at the Sitasingstheblues.com site as well as youtube and the IMDB. Once I’d seen it, I had to own a copy and gladly paid for it from the website. It’s amazing. It’s funny. It’s inventive. It’s unique and I hope that people check it out and enjoy it as much as I do each time I watch it.

~Jayne

It costs, at a minimum, about $10,000 to get a mildly functional app developed. Whether your App is approved is totally up to an unknown cadre of app approvers. Further, content based rejections are common even if the content isn’t built in such as when Eucalyptus was rejected because the Kama Sutra could be downloaded using the book app.

This is the basis for app rejection:

“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

The fact is that Apple has and will ban content in ways far worse than the episode of #amazonfail. Despite Apple’s concern about the end user and its current quest to seek out and destroy sexually explicit content based apps, Playboy is still a pay option.

For now, though, it appears Apple is ready to let the dirty into their bookstore. Forbes says that there is an “Erotica” category under general fiction and for romance in the iBookstore. These categories may change, however, before launch:

These categories may shift again before the iPad hits stores April 3. Since announcing the device in late January, Apple has changed its classification system several times, says Kastelein. In late February the company listed about 35 top-level e-book categories. It later whittled them down to the current 20.

If you don’t want to contribute to Apple’s desire to control all your media content but you love the tablet idea, be with cheer. Several other companies like HP, Toshiba, and Asus are going to have slate tablets at the end of the year. Here’s a video of the HP one which looks just as lust worthy as the iPhone one. Even better, if it plays iTunes, you can have a lot of the functionality of movies and music, without giving into the Jobsian world rule.

The HP Slate interests me because I am a hulu.com addict and hulu is flashbased. The iPad won’t run flash but the Slate would.

Via Teleread.org.

At Slashdot, a commenter brought up the fact that Amazon’s 1 click patent has been reexamined and will not expire until September 2017. The one click patent has prevented online retailers from providing one click buys with shopping cart model unless a licensing fee is paid to Amazon. Apple is one company that licenses the one click application.

Hachette has had a good year despite Meyer sales slipping out the stratosphere to hover somewhere just below it and well above mere mortals. (Like she is no longer Zeus, just a slightly lesser god). In fact, when Hachette did suffer a decline in sales it was directly attributable to drop offs of Meyer book sales. Meyer doesn’t have anything in the publication shoot and it’s questionable how many tweens and moms haven’t already purchased this book. eBook sales comprised 3% of over all sales and $5 million in December.

For those playing publisher Bingo at home, 2009 was a good year for Harlequin, Penguin, Hachette, and not so bad for HarperCollins. Still to be heard from are Simon & Schuster and Random House.

Denise Rossetti recommended this book to me late last year, but it took Maili ALSO recommending it to me recently to finally make me read it. I think I had about 7 hours of sleep in the three days since I started it. It’s just…brilliant. As I write this review a few days after finishing it, I’m still lost in your world, thinking about the characters, wishing them well.

Dr. Jack Francisco is a maxillofacial surgeon who witnesses a mob murder and is taken into protective custody. He gives up his life and his job (OMG, all that training!) in order to do the right thing and testify about what he saw. But he’s quickly found by a hitman, known only as D, who refuses to kill Jack because he’s been mysteriously blackmailed into taking the hit and can’t bring himself to do it. He’s one of those mythically moral hitman who will only take the hit if the mark “deserves” to die. One might roll one’s eyes at the cliche and might even, in a dorky moment, quote Gandalf (“Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends”), but by this point, your writing and characterization had pulled me in so perfectly, I really didn’t care about quite how much disbelief I was suspending.

D takes charge of Jack (if HE found Jack in protective custody, someone else would too, and in sparing Jack’s life, he felt he’d taken responsibility for it), and they wander around the country, avoiding death from the many people on their tail (mob hitmen, mysterious people after D, Federal Marshals who want Jack back), and falling in love. One thing I ADORED about this book was that they only started noticing each other physically and being attracted to each other and falling in love AFTER the danger was (mostly) over. When they were running for their lives, they were running for their lives and not stopping to fuck like bunnies, or even stopping to make eyes at each other. And yet the sexual tension, the unacknowledged attraction was still there and I’m not sure how you did it. Brilliantly done.

That’s pretty much the plot for half the book. The second half is taken up with trying to keep both Jack and D alive through the trial and then trying to clean things up enough that they could get their HEA. But this bare bones summary does the story such an injustice. You don’t shy away from the moral issues these two men have to face, you don’t shy away from showing their struggles with themselves and with each other. And OMG, you don’t shy away from their emotions. You show Jack struggle with his feelings for a hired killer. You show D’s slow return to emotional life so carefully, so perfectly, I literally couldn’t put the book down:

D shut his eyes, every cell in his body pushing and pulling at him…pulling him toward Jack, pushing him away, a tug-of-war where nobody won. He shuffled forward, slow and hesitant steps that drew him up behind Jack. He didn’t turn from the window although he surely knew D was there. D’s hand rose from
his side, a marionette arm on strings, his breath going shaky and panicked like a spooked horse. Jack didn’t move.

Fuck it. D let his hand fall to Jack’s shoulder. He felt him flinch a little at the contact, but he didn’t turn. The feeling of Jack beneath his hand, warm through his shirt and solid and strong and alive, sent another blast against that vault door, shuddering it on its hinges. He put his free hand on Jack’s other shoulder, his head sagging down. He could feel Jack thrumming, like putting his hand on the hood of a car with the engine
running.

D gave up. He couldn’t fight this, at least not now. [ . . . ]—it was all too much, even for him. He tilted forward until his forehead was resting against the back of Jack’s neck. A great exhale rushed from him and
he found himself hanging on to Jack’s shoulders for dear life.

I’m still drowning in these characters a full day after finishing this book.

Also, the suspense was unbelievably good. I am not a mystery reader and I rarely read suspense, so the fact that I had no idea about the course of the plot might not say much, but I think it was wonderfully done. My heart was in my throat for HOURS on end and I could NOT put this book down. (It might have helped that I was reading on my iPhone — it’s so difficult to read ahead.)

Niggles: Jack had a doctor’s bag and it had stuff in it. Do doctors REALLY have doctor’s bags nowadays? Especially specialists like Jack? If they do have doctor’s bags, would he really still have it all through the many transfers of protective custody? And if he DID keep it with him, would it really have medicine in it? And syringes? Really?

Also, Jack’s profession is not fully integrated into his character. He chafes a little at losing it in the protective custody, but considering how what D does is SO much a part of who he is, in comparison there’s no discussion of WHY Jack chose to do what he trained for. It’s part of his Type A personality and it’s used to discuss moral issues:

“How about deciding whether you’re going to treat the woman with the head trauma or the drunk driver who mowed her down? Or whether to let a man die of gunshot wounds because you know he shot a cop on his way down? How about treating a woman who’s been beaten nearly to death and having to watch her walk out the door back to the husband who nearly killed her while she tells you that he didn’t mean it, not really! Don’t you fucking talk to me about hard choices, and harsh reality. Just because I didn’t tote a rifle around Kuwait and never put a bullet between someone’s eyes doesn’t mean I live in some world of sunshine and rainbows, D. I live in a world where I spend months putting a four-year-old’s face back together after her own father smashed it in with a bowling ball. You think you’ve got it so hard, and maybe you do, but the shit is tough all over. Fucking suck it up, man.”

But his career is not as brilliantly a part of him as being a hit man is part of D. But that’s really an “in comparison” niggle rather than anything else. If D hadn’t been so brilliantly done, I don’t think I would have noticed this about Jack.

D’s “dialect” is…slightly annoying. When he’s thinking to himself about whether or not to kill Jack:

Just do it. Fuckin’ do it. You can live with it. You cain’t live with what’ll happen if you don’t, and that ain’t no figure a speech. Only takes a second. Two shots. Shut them eyes a his lookin’ at you like they see through ta yer bones. Fucker; why does he keep lookin’ at me like that? Most folks look away. Look at the floor, at the ceiling, at their own hands, anywhere but at me. Biggest damned eyes I ever saw on any man, and bluer’n the sky down in Bryce Canyon. Big enough ta hold all the life in him so’s I can see it, the life they want me ta take, the life I’ll hafta stand here and watch leave him. Stupid motherfuckers killin’ their own and makin’ me clean up for ’em like they fuckin’ branded me.

It’s part of him. It’s perfectly sustained throughout the book. But it’s never explained by where he came from (either geography or class). And it slowed down my reading sometimes enough to be mildly irritating. But not enough to stop. Never enough to stop. Did I mention I couldn’t put this book down?

And finally, there’s a 15 page Epilogue that should have been cut completely. Even before the Epilogue, you’ve got two endings. I’m glad you went beyond the first ending to the second ending, but then adding the Epilogue as well was just too much. And the short stories on your webpage are just…sad? I understand another sequel’s coming, but don’t give Jack and D problems before they’ve even settled into their happy ending.

That aside, your writing is amazing. The individual words you choose surprised me in a good way. The sentences you string together flow beautifully. The paragraphs you make are perfect:

With his shorn hair and stubble, D’s head looked like it had been sandblasted and weather-stripped. Jack had spent most of his professional life cutting people’s faces open, and his surgeon’s eye showed him the bones beneath D’s skin, although his seemed much closer to the surface than most people’s. His jawline was like a flying buttress, his brow like one of the table mesas that lurked on the horizon. His skull was geologic in its architecture. One could only imagine the seismic events and plate tectonics that had gone
on in his life to shape him into this…whatever he was.

The story as a whole is still glowing bright in my mind. I would pretty much read anything else you wrote, no matter what. I’m torn how to grade this book. Logically, looking at all the niggles I had, it should get a B+ or even a B but the book FELT like an A- book, so I’m going to go with my gut.

Grade: A-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

| Book link (no excerpt) | DreamSpinner Press | Kindle | Amazon

| Fictionwise | BooksonBoard

I thought, why not?  Romance readers read across genres and love to read good books.  So without further ado, here is the following from Ms. Hirt:

Welcome to the forthcoming books giveaway from G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Riverhead Books!

We’re thrilled to be joining the Dear Author community and have the opportunity to connect with a new group of readers.  Putnam and Riverhead publish a number of books across all genres, and have highlighted several titles that we believe you’ll find compelling.  We invite you to visit us on Facebook (Putnam and Riverhead) to keep track of other upcoming books and to let us know what you think – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

March 2010:

CREATION OF EVE by Lynn Cullen (Putnam 3/23/10):

Embark on a trip back to the Golden Age in Spain thanks to the talented hand of Lynn Cullen in THE CREATION OF EVE.  This story deftly combines mystery, romance and history as one young painter becomes embroiled in a love triangle involving the Queen, the King, and the King’s illegitimate half-brother, Don Juan.  This novel asks the question: How well do you really know those closest to you?  And can you ever truly know another person’s heart?

“Intrigue, jealousy, misplaced love, escape and escapade–what could be more tantalizing?” —Susan Vreeland, author ofLuncheon of the Boating Party and Girl in Hyacinth Blue

April 2010:

THE LOST SUMMER OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT by Kelly O’Connor McNees (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam 4/1/10):

As a personal fan of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel LITTLE WOMEN, this is the book for which I have been waiting.  Louisa taught us how to love through LITTLE WOMEN, but who taught her?  Debut author Kelly O’Connor McNees deftly mixes fact and fiction as she imagines a love affair that would influence Louisa’s writing career for the rest of her life – a wonderful story that explores how she so deftly portrayed young love and heartbreak, but did so at a cost none of us ever knew.

“A wonderfully imagined, lively novel of first love…” —Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Wednesday Sisters

BURNING LAMP by Amanda Quick (Putnam 4/20/10):

Don’t miss this second novel in the Dreamlight Trilogy from New York Times-bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz, writing as Amanda Quick.  The Arcane Society was born in turmoil, and now psychic power and passion collide as a legendary curse comes to a burn…

“Fast-paced and cleverly constructed, the tale perfectly balances lively adventure, passionate romance, and the paranormal against an elaborate and refreshingly original background. Arcane Society fans will be thrilled, and new readers will find this stand-alone story very accessible.” – Publishers Weekly

MY WIFE’S AFFAIR by Nancy Woodruff (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam 4/15/10):

Have you ever gotten something you wanted, but somehow, still wanted more? Georgie Connolly has. Narrated by her husband Peter, a failed-writer-turned-businessman, My Wife’s Affair is about infidelity, passion, duty, and about finally getting what you want and then wanting still more.  Don’t miss this smart, sexy novel about a woman’s search for her former self on the London stage.

Since I’ve been having good luck with contemporary British authors lately, I decided to check out your latest book, “Starting Over.” Things were bubbling along nicely until right at the end when…well, we’ll get to that in a minute.

Tess Randell is starting over. Her fiance dumped her by email just days before their wedding, she miscarried then suffered physical after effects for months while living with her smothering parents – who also seemed to have more sympathy for the bastard ex-fiance then they should have. While driving to her newly purchased country cottage, she rear ends a wrecker and damages her car. Life just keeps getting better. < /sarcasm>

The owner of the wrecker tows her into town then helps her lug her stuff to her house after which Tess starts to try to assimilate into her new life. New town, new house, new people around her but same old friction with her parents and, amazingly, old fiance showing up looking contrite. Will Tess take him back, settle for just being friends with a new possible someone or dare to try one more time for love?

Even though this initially sounds like a first person Chick Lit book de jour, it turned out to be very different. It’s not first person and there’s no immediate hero in sight. Plus Tess and the person who does turn out to be the hero don’t either instantly love each other or fight an attraction by pretending they don’t like each other. I was a bit stunned as the narrative flows on and months pass with no romance in sight. Yet I was enjoying watching Tess fit herself into her new life so much that none of this bothered me. In fact, I was tickled to be reading something different.

I also like that Tess isn’t in some dead end and boring job she hates. She’s actually a talented illustrator who is in demand and respected for her talents. And then there’s Ratty – Miles Arnott-Rattenbury – though one would never know it at first glance. The tattooed owner of a very successful garage dealing with vintage cars hides his posh background well. But then Ratty’s not posh in either attitude nor actions. He’s more a working class man whose father just happens to be a solicitor. The fact that you have the authorial guts to let time slide by without forcing sparks or attraction between Ratty and Tess delights me. And there’s no sudden about face at the end of the book with Ratty being elevated in status. No long lost Duke nonsense at all. Ratty is as he is and stays that way.

I mentioned in my review of Rosy Thornton’s book, “Crossed Wires,” that I like seeing a different country through a book. I like reading about petrol, bonnets, boots and the M5, village life, pubs and fetes, ticking things off lists, ringing people and wearing knickers. It’s nice to feel like I’ve actually traveled to a different place even if it’s just though the pages of a book.

Another good thing is that neither Tess nor Ratty are wholly likeable characters. Both of them do things which make me want to bash their heads. Ratty can be, as his mother warns Tess, very manipulative in getting his way and Tess tends to take off and flee when the going gets tough. This made some of the reading hard going but I can say that neither character bored me. Nor did I feel that this was a book I’d read a thousand times before.

I feel I need to talk a bit more about the above paragraph though. What is done to precipitate the romance does initially make me see red – as it does Tess. But I end up accepting it, as does Tess, because it gets her what she really wants and it shows how much Ratty wants a relationship with her. Plus I like that you don’t have Tess flounce off in a tiff as would happen in so many romance books.

Tess’s actions, when a past event threatens their romance, also initially makes sense given what her ex-fiance put her through. But the extent of it before she wises up and heads back to face the music put a damper on my enthusiasm for the book as a whole. She ends up way past a reasonable response and deep into selfish territory. What gets her back in my good graces is she does face what she’s done and she’s not let off lightly by those she hurt.

Good onya for writing compelling characters who are engaged in a complex relationship. While it doesn’t totally work for me, as I outlined above, I still found it fascinating and so different from the norm that I hope readers will be willing to sit back and go with the slower pace of this story to discover its nuances and charm.

~Jayne

| Downloadable Excerpt | Smashwords |

| Book Depository | Amazon UK |

Proviso: Smashwords is having a huge sale because it is International eBook Week (or something like that). Anyhoo, this book is 50% off right now which makes it all of $3.00.

A reading friend initially recommended your series to me last year with the book, Big Bad Wolf. I am a big shifter fan and was looking forward to reading this release. (It crept up on me). There were two things I particularly liked in this story: the mystery and the courtship. Ironically (or not), components of those two factors also bothered me the most.

Josie Barrett is Stone Creek, Oregon’s veternarian. She took over her father’s practice upon his retirement. Her single minded focus on becoming a veternarian has left her little time for personal relationships. At least this is the excuse given for the fact that Josie has never before recognize Eli Pace as a sexual being.

Eli Pace is the sheriff of Stone Creek, a town that is comprised primarily of Others, mostly shapeshifters. Why Eli is there is a question that is raised but never really answered. He, too, has been ignorant of Josie’s charms until he barges in one night carrying a gun shot wolf.

I liked that this was a departure from the previous book which was more urban in setting and involved pack politics. This was more of a scientific whodunit. The wolf that Eli brings to Josie is really Lupine (shapeshifter) and to her surprise and dismay, the wolf does not heal nor can she shift. Worse, once the wolf’s mate is found, he, too, shows signs of a mysterious Lupine illness which is resulting in an unexplainable high white blood count.

I really enjoyed seeing Josie use her training and skill as a veterinarian as she tried to ascertain the source of her patient’s medical problems. Her employment was an integral part of the storyline. Having no medical background myself, I can only say that the medicine sounded right and added a layer of realism to the paranormal setting.

I liked their courtship which included the sudden realization of the other as a sexual and attractive being and then the banter and flirting which followed. Unfortunately, the characters move from not even knowing the other existed to true love within five days. Love is faster than a speeding bullet in this book. The rapidity of Josie and Eli’s feelings for each other were disappointing because it seemed like care had been taken to create a basis for their relationship that extended beyond the common “mate bond” that so often fills these books.

This build up and then disappointing denouement to plot points happened more than once. For example, much is made of Josie’s levelheadedness. She promises not to interfere with Eli’s investigation, after all she is human and he is preternatural. But she violates this promise to her detriment in a kind of silly way. Eli thinks about the best way to bring the villains to justice, such as considering what testimony he will need to get a conviction but then violates basic probable cause requirements (i.e., you can’t just go breaking into someone’s home to make your case). The scientific mystery held my attention for most of the book and the resolution seemed so over the top that, again, the careful planning that went into it seemed for naught.

Paranormals have a tough time catching my attention these days so that fact that I read this in one sitting, even despite some of the disappointments, means I’ll be on the look out for the next Other book. B-

Best regards,

Jane

| Author Website | Kindle | Amazon | Nook | BN | Borders |
Fictionwise | Books on Board

Proviso: This is a St. Martin’s Press book thus the current ebook price is listed at $14.00. Also, no nook link because apparently BN isn’t selling the ebook even though its subsidiary, Fictionwise, has it.
Second Proviso: I have no idea what is going on with Warren’s website

Ms Banks blogged about her experience and it’s pretty moving:

But my speech had gone out of my head! Things I’d wanted to say—like telling the President how I took my father’s tie and my mother’s ring into the voting booth with me because they didn’t live to see him get elected… or how my daughter had just turned 18 years old and how she and I went together early in the morning to vote for her first time by pulling the lever for him. I didn’t get to say any of that. It was an amazing, ephemeral moment that went by in a flash like a dream.

Also? I found it quite endearing that she refers to Facebook as “Face Book.”

I guest blogged at The New Sleekness about how editors and publishers could participate at a greater level in reader communities. Have you got some other tips?

Sarah Weinman writes about Borders financial troubles. It laid off over 164 employees a month ago and is continuing cutting its workforce:

According to multiple sources, on March 4 — a date employees are already referring to on internal message boards as “Black Thursday” — Borders instituted a company-wide layoff of all inventory supervisors, and also let go an unspecified number of part-time employees.

Is there anyone left? A $42.5 million loan is due in April. If this loan cannot be refinanced, it might doom Borders.

The good news is that Amazon is looking to develop a good browser for the Kindle. The bad news is that Amazon’s desire to build a warehouse in Canada (thus making fulfillment of Canadian orders easier and less costly) is being opposed. More states are seeking to tax affiliate programs causing Amazon to withdraw those affiliate programs. Will this mean less sales for Amazon? More from Shelf Awareness and Daily Finance.

Not content with the nook or the Plastic Logic Que or the partnership with Iliad, Barnes and Noble opens up its bookstore platform to yet another eink reader. This time it is Samsung and it’s a stylus based touchscreen with a pull out navigation system. A year ago, I may have been excited about this but at the $299 price point, it’s a complete yawner to me.

Entertainment Weekly takes a look at self publishing and suggests that if a number of big name authors validate this alternative publishing model, the landscape of publishing could change a great deal.

Courtney Milan is doing a three part series on copyright and authors. It’s instructive for readers too. Parts 1 and 2 can be read now. We are awaiting Part 3.

Seeing the title of your book, I couldn’t WAIT to find out exactly why a modern woman in a paranormal would still be a virgin. Anecdotally, I’ve found that virgins in paranormals are rare, and finding one is like hitting the lottery, even more so if the reasoning behind the retention of virginity is plausible within the construct of the storyline. This one worked for me…sorta. This is the eighth book in the Love at Stake series and I haven’t read any of the previous books.

Olivia Sotiris is an FBI psychologist that’s been sent on a forced vacation to the Greek island of Patmos. She’s staying with her grandmother and attempting to forget a serial killer that has fixated on her, threatened her, and scared the daylights out of her. But since he’s in solitary confinement, it’s nearly impossible for Olivia to get her FBI colleagues to believe that the killer is the one psychologically toying with her. So she agrees to escape to Patmos, suffer her grandmother’s attempts at matchmaking and try to forget about her job and her troubles.

Robby MacKay has been sent to Patmos by his great-grandfather (?) to regain his strength and get out of his own way after his capture and torture by the Malcontents (which I believe happened in the previous book). Robby is so focused on killing Casimir, the leader of the Malcontents, that he could end up putting his family and friends in jeopardy. He’s refused any sort of help, so MacKay Security & Investigations has shipped him off to Greece to cool his heels.

Robby and Olivia meet on the beach at night (duh) and he is immediately taken with her. Olivia is both fascinated by and suspicious of Robby because he’s the first person she’s never been able to “read”. Olivia is like a human lie-detector, a psychic trait that has been passed down through generations (her grandmother has the same ability), and works for the FBI to ferret out killers, bad guys, and what have you. And here’s my problem: this vamp/psychic mixture comes very close to the Sookie Stackhouse books. However, TVATV is written in a completely different style from the Stackhouse novels, so I made an effort to overlook it.

Earlier, I noted that this was the eighth book in the series. There were secondary characters that had definitely had their own books in the past, but the way the book was written allowed it to stand on it’s own. While I enjoyed reading about Robby and Olivia’s relationship, there were a lot of fits and starts due to Olivia’s suspicion growing since she couldn’t read Robby’s truthfulness and Robby’s efforts to hide his Vampirism from her. I also spotted the bad guy as soon as the charater showed up in the book. This book felt a bit like “Vampire Lite”. So many of the paranormal books I’ve read have been heavy or dark with incredible amounts of worldbuilding. This was written more like a contemporary but there were a few curveballs, one of which is that some of the characters were Vampires and Weres. Vampire Lite isn’t a bad thing, but there was nothing compelling me to return to MacKay S&I and the Malcontents. C

~Shuzluva

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Fictionwise | Books on Board

Here’s my hypothesis: The romance genre is about the one true love. The one true love is most obviously displayed in the soul mate stories that abound in the paranormal subgenre. In historicals and contemporaries, the trope is evident in the failed past relationships of the protagonists. How many widows and widowers have had a marriage that was miserable? How many heroines have never had an orgasm before the hero? How many heroes have had the one evil woman in his past that made him eschew real relationships?

I’m not being critical of this. I think I read the genre for the idealized form of the one true love, the O’Henry sacrifice, the idea that love can be so deep and abiding that it lasts for all time.  I recently read a book that challenged the one true love concept and I had a hard time buying into the HEA. The male protagonist had been in love with two women and choose one. The relationship ended badly and he took up with the other woman. He tells the second woman that he would have loved the first woman until death do them part, but for relationship problems.

When writing this piece, I thought of the Jennifer Haymore book, A Hint of Wicked, a story centered around a true love triangle. The heroine, Sophie, believed her husband to have died. After a period of mourning, she remarries her husband’s best friend and heir. Her husband returns, seemingly from the dead, after eight years.

During the story, Sophie is torn between the old husband and the new husband, loving each man and struggling up until the last couple of chapters between either one. Sophie says that the one that she is left with is the one “who understood her, who made her happy. Who completed her.” She kissed him “with a thousand times more need and passion than had ever occurred between himself and [her].” Did Sophie choose the one true love? She loved both men and was happy with both of them. One reader at Amazon commented:

Hopefully, the next woman will be the REAL love of his life–and I hope Haymore delivers a fantastic love story for him. After what he’s endured and suffered for so long, I just want him to find the happiness that he truly deserves.

Sophie’s decision left one man out in the cold, one man without his true love. He believed that Sophie was his true love. In the next book, he will likely acknowledge that the feelings that he had for Sophie do not match those that he has with the heroine of “their” book.

In romance, there doesn’t seem to be room for a character to love, fully and completely, more than once. Upon meeting the true mate, the character must justify past feelings for another as not as complete or full or passionate.

In C.L. Wilson’s Lord of the Fading Lands, the hero, Rainier vel’En Daris had one mate, Sariel. When Sariel was killed, he went insane and torched the land, killing thousands. His love for Sariel is commemorated in song and art. “Ellie couldn’t count the number of times she’d stood in front of Fabrizio Chelan’s immortal Death of the Beloved and wept at the unspeakable anguish the great master had depicted on the face of Rain Tairen Soul as he held Lady Sariel in her death swoon.” Yet, even Sariel had not been his truemate. “Sariel had joined her life with his, even knowing their souls would never follow where their hearts had lead.”

In The Arrangement by Joan Wolf, Gail is a widow. She loved her husband and they created a wonderful world together but after his death, Gail falls in love with the Earl of Savile. “This had never happened to me before. Making love with Tommy had been sweet, but I had always been content to let him be the one to initiate it. Much as I had loved Tommy, I had never burned for him the way I burned now for the Earl of Savile.” When Gail decides that she is going to leave the home that she made with Tommy.

Tonight, as I stood alone in the middle of the place where we had once been so happy, I realized that the girl I had been when I married Tommy was buried here along with him. I was a woman now, a woman who had learned to rely on her own capabilities and strengths because she had a child depending upon her and no one else to turn to.

I’d like to think that if Tommy had lived, the two of them would have matured together and the Earl of Savile would have gone on to marry someone else. That Sophie would have been happy with either man. I’m not convinced that she had one true love.

Can there be equal love a second time around, only different? Can a previous marriage or previous love been good and still make you believe in the HEA of the next, second love? What books can you think of that glorified the past relationship, making it the equal to the current one? Does the romance genre

Ever since you revealed that your next book would be about Jae Sun Kim, the hot, sarcastic, misanthropic doctor from Collision Course, I have been yearning for this book. Yearning, I tell you. The problem, of course, with wanting a book so hard is that when it comes, it might suck and all that yearning is transformed into disappointment more crushing because of the depth of the yearning.

This book doesn’t do that. This book is worth every ounce, every drop, every last millimeter of yearning. In fact, this book is about one of the most perfect romances I’ve ever read.

Jae Sun Kim is a trauma surgeon who finds himself on a live-on dive cruise vacation for a week because he’s running away from the fact that his careful plans to move from his residency in Jacksonville to a fellowship in Seattle have collapsed through no fault of his own. He desperately wants to put the continent between himself and his homophobic parents in Orlando but has no idea what to do now. Shane is the dive master on the cruise, very much a rolling stone determined never to grow any moss. Much to Kim’s disgust, he and Shane end up rooming together in a tiny cabin even though he booked a single cabin. And the cherry on top of his loss of control is an unexpected sea-sickness that Shane helps him through.

I love the first description of these two men:

The guy might have been giving a lesson on a dude ranch. The lilt in his voice made cactuses and Stetson hats tumble out along with his words. Which in a less stressful situation might have been nice, because a tall guy in boots, a hat and dusty jeans, drawl pouring sweetly from a wide mouth, was the kind of thing Kim had been known to bookmark on his laptop. Especially when that cowboy parted with the dusty jeans and boots in the first thirty seconds. He could leave the hat on for the ride.

It tells us so much about Kim — workaholic extraordinaire — and about his perception of Shane, one that Shane does nothing to dispel.

While Kim and Shane enjoy some really great sex in their time together on the boat, sea-sickness aside, they are really drawn together when the boat abandons them during a dive. This extended scene of survival reads like an adventure story, but tells us a lot about the characters. In fact, everything tells us about the characters. You are, to my mind, the undisputed queen of Show, Don’t Tell, and these two characters are so brilliantly constructed, they felt like they should have walked off the page into my living room (I wish). I was grinning like a fool as I watched Shane stumble toward the realization that Kim is a top and only a top and that pocket-sized Kim expected tall, muscle-bound Shane to bottom. And I had an even bigger smile on my face when he did and loved it:

Kim wrapped a hand around Shane’s neck and pulled him down. Fuck if the bastard hadn’t been right about Shane’s wiring, because the weight of Kim’s hand on that spot had Shane’s knees starting to bend. He took a deep breath when he realized all Kim was pushing for was a kiss. Shane spread his legs until they were a little closer in height and met him halfway.

After the life-and-death situation, Shane follows Kim to Jacksonville, and it’s in the relative peace and quiet of everyday living that their flaws come out and threaten the relationship. But I love how unabashed both Kim and Shane are about their character flaws. Shane is perfectly happy being a fuck-up, following his traveling itch, moving to make sure he doesn’t get bored. He thinks to himself once:

His conscience always took a back seat to the fact that he was a slut for pleasure and that wasn’t going to change any more than the fact that everything he got involved in turned to shit.

He tells Kim during their final fight:

“I’m not a fighter, Jay. I don’t have the patience for it.”

But he’s not an asshole because of it. He’s just…Shane. Just as Kim is just…Kim, completely unable to understand emotional entanglements, completely uninterested in having relationship conversations, frustrated and embarrassed by them:

Kim couldn’t begin to understand what he wasn’t understanding and he hated it. Confusion was as unfamiliar as it was loathsome, and he remembered why, despite the human propensity for pairing off, he had successfully avoided being befriended. For the most part. Unwilling to expose more of his efforts at communication to ridicule, he folded his arms and leaned back against the couch.

The ending is…just sublimely perfect. I always squint my way through my first reading of the ending of a highly anticipated book (yes, I read the end first) because it just might not live up to expectations. And if it’s good, I then kind of wince my way through reading the book because it might not live up to the ending. But this ending is perfectly suited to both characters and to the rest of the story. I adore the fact that Kim doesn’t come to a sudden realization about love — although he and Shane definitely get their Happy Ever After. I love that Shane is so ready to quit…and yet not. I love how they don’t change because of their love, that their love, instead, shows them being more themselves. Kim’s despair and actions, and the way you bring the imagery and themes of the whole book together in the final few scenes is incredible.

I have learned to live with the fact that I can’t turn off my literary critic. I might want to at times, just so I can settle in and enjoy a book without thinking about it, but I can’t, so I deal with it. And it’s books like this one that makes all my training worthwhile. Watching how the symbolism of Kim’s tattoo and the imagery of death and the theme of impulsive actions weave themselves throughout the book was a wonder to behold. It’s done so smoothly, I think, so unintrusively, that it’s not obvious to any but the most obsessive reader. But it’s there and it layers the book, drawing everything together to make everything just make sense by the end.

And it’s unintrusive because you trust your readers to get it. You trust us to get the desert dry humor of these two men, their flaws and foibles and fucked-up motivations. You trust us to understand and in doing that, present us with an amazing story because you’re letting the characters speak for themselves without any unnecessary explanatory narration.

I’ve read this book twice straight through and probably another two times in bits and pieces, rereading for the good stuff — which usually means reading most of it because it’s all good. And I can’t find any flaws. Even the inclusion of Joey and Aaron from Collision Course is integral to the story and well-done and readers don’t need to have any previous knowledge of them to understand their role in this story. I didn’t know if you could top Collision Course, but you absolutely did. This is a perfect romance with stunningly vivid characters, a beautifully constructed plot, and a brilliant emotional arc. Everyone should go and get a copy. Right now!

Grade: A (FWIW, I’ve been reviewing for Dear Author for 18 months now — wow, really? — and this is only the fourth straight A review I’ve given. That’s how good this book was.)

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

| KA Mitchell’s Website | Samhain | Kindle | Nook |
Fictionwise  | Books on Board

When it comes to careers, neither the hero nor the heroine of Lorelie Brown’s Jazz Baby have quite “found bliss.” Micah is a Prohibition enforcement agent, disillusioned by the realities of his job; Kate runs a swanky speak-easy she inherited rather than chose.  It’s a set-up for a star-crossed lovers story, Jazz Age style, complete with rolled-down stockings and ticked-off mobsters.  Sound like thoroughly modern fun?  Thanks to Samhain Publishing, we have copies to give away, so leave a comment for a chance to win.

What were the original “triggers” or inspiration points for Jazz Baby?

A 9^th grade production of Anything Goes. It took 14-year-old me a few years to realize that Anything Goes was actually written in 1934, and by then it was too late. I was already in love with the 20’s.

Later in life, I was piddling around with my writing. I’d write one chapter, back up, edit the heck out of it, post it on critique boards. Rewrite it. Repeat, ad nauseam. Get fizzled out on a project.  So when I finally decided I was going to get serious about this writing thing, I realized I’d need a project that would hold my interest for a good long while. The Twenties seemed like a natural decision.

A six-word memoir for your protagonist:

Micah – Lies for greater good don’t count.

Kate – I don’t trust too-handsome men.

An unexpected research detour you made while writing the book:

Coffee pots. At one point, a character pours a cup of coffee and I realized I had no idea what they looked like in the 20’s. Somehow I ended up spending nearly a day researching the different ways coffee was brewed. But I guess that’s why I ended up writing historical romances – I love the little details you learn about how people lived.

At one point, your hero Micah makes a very romantic gesture via postcards.  How did that become part of the story?

My husband is in the Army and he’s been on three deployments, the shortest of which was seven months. So I’ve got a particular affinity for the little, quirky truths that come through when people communicate through the written word. I’ve got one email my husband sent me saved in five different places, and I peek at it whenever I need a little lift.

Your favorite line or moment in Jazz Baby:

I actually can’t answer this without giving something huge away. Suffice it to say, it’s a line by Patrick, Kate’s brother.

Patrick ends up having a pivotal role in the plot, even though he’s a frustrated writer and alcoholic at the beginning. Did you know from the outset where his character was headed?

No, Patrick was a little bit of a surprise. I knew he was there, and he was a large factor in who Kate is at the beginning, but every time he popped up it was like some little new kernel of information appeared about him. He’s a complicated guy. There’s definitely more to his story, as he’s still keeping secrets – even from me.

When will readers get the rest of Jake and Susie’s story?

If they want it! LOL. Jake and Susie are next on my agenda, after what I’m currently working on. She’s going spin him head over tail. It’s great.

From page one, draft one to the “sold” call:  How long?

Twenty months.

Number of manuscripts you wrote before Jazz Baby sold:

You mean that I actually finished? None. Remember that piddling I’d mentioned? That being said, I had written (and rewritten) probably hundreds of thousands of words.

Your oddest or most reliable writing ritual/habit:

Jazz Baby was written long-hand, in top-bound notebooks with Uniball Vison pens. It was like once I’d gotten going, I was scared to change anything for fear of breaking my mojo. Thank God I’ve been able to leave that behind. Now my only ritual is needing a laptop to get away from my desktop. The internet seems much more shiny and distracting when it’s on a large screen monitor.

Writing advice you’re glad you followed or ignored:

“Unusual historicals won’t sell. Are you sure you don’t want to write a Regency?” All it takes is one editor, such as lovely and fabulous Lindsey Faber, who’s willing to take a chance.

Three sources of inspiration for you:

I read like a maniac, of course. When I finish a project, my favorite way to decompress is to run for my toppling TBR pile. Otherwise, when I’m actually writing, I usually tune into a specific genre of music. For Jazz Baby, I discovered Ma Rainey, an amazing artist. Then there’s dance – I watch So You Think You Can Danceobsessively with my critique partners, Carrie Lofty, Kelly McCrady, and Patti Colt. It’s two-minute story telling! Brilliant.

Your paying job pre- and post-publication:

Pre-publication I was a Management Assistant for the Department of the Army. It’s a fancy name for secretary. Post-publication I’m a housewi – ahem – full time writer. My husband was stationed in the Southwest, and we naturally followed. Dang economy.

Your favorite book when you were 10:

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

An author or book you recommend again and again:

You don’t know the danger you’ve wandered into with this one! I’m that person you see in bookstores accosting perfect strangers. “Oh, you like historicals? Why don’t you try Carrie Lofty. You’d prefer something paranormal? Meljean Brook is fabulous. Something sexier? Then you need some Joey W. Hill.” Seriously. Give me a category and I’ll go on at length.

Jazz Baby is available now at Samhain Publishing, and you can find Lorelie on-line at www.loreliebrown.com Alyson H. does the Intro Interviews for Dear Author; you can contact her at daintrointerview AT gmail DOT com.

You created a splash in the subgenre of historical mysteries with the “Silent” series and now move on to something a bit different. The era is still Victorian but the place is the depths of Transylvania where the strange is normal and things are believed which defy the imagination of other countries.

With little to hold her in Scotland, Theodora receives a letter from an old school friend which will change her life. She’s been invited to the friend’s arranged wedding to a relative, Count Andrei Dragulescu. So off Theodora goes, with everything she owns, to a Carpathian castle which seems mired in the past and a family which borders on Draconian.

Theodora feels as if she’s in a totally different world from anything she’s ever known, a place where the bizarre is accepted, a land where no one questions the existence of werewolves or vampires and everyone keeps their windows shut tight at night. Can she survive this alien place and find love or will its secrets claim her very life?

This literally has almost all the elements listed for a gothic novel. I looked. You must have looked at numerous sources and checked off each element as you worked it into the plot. The parts makes a satisfying whole yet there is almost nothing new. The book isn’t a parody of gothics, it doesn’t use those standard elements as a springboard to something different, it merely tells a story which has been told many times already. It’s told well, it’s readable, it uses the usual gothic features to convey what you want but unless the status quo is what a reader wants, I’m afraid fans of the genre will find themselves on autopilot to the finish.

I do like that there are explanations for all the supposed supernatural events described. And that the explanations make sense both in the story and in a historical context. I like that the heroine is a strong enough character to go about doing some of her own saving. Even if at the end, she still needed to rely on others for her final salvation, she wasn’t totally weak and fainting. I like that the hero appreciates a smart woman and reading and writing woman even more. There’s a great dog. I even like that both Theodora and Andrei compromise their life goals at the end in order to work towards their HEA.

Yet I found parts of the story to lag and drag and noticed that my reading pace varied markedly throughout the book. After a certain amount of time stuck spent reiterating the same things, my mind would drift a bit and I’d have to wrestle it back onto the subject. Built in reading breaks became a necessity instead of breathlessly turning pages to discover “what’s next.” For some reason, the relationship between Andrei and Theodora lacked “oomph” for me. Maybe because it sticks so closely to the established stereotype in gothic novels thus not allowing for any surprises along the way.

The imagery of the countryside, the peasants, the castle – all were nicely done. And if you’re going to write a gothic novel, where better to set it than Transylvania? And what better nationality to use to counter all that gothic-y-ness than a Scotswoman of English descent. No offense to either country but both have an image of solid implacability and sound sense. There is Theodora with her stout walking shoes and plaid wraps, ready to face anything that overblown Transylvania might try and throw at her.

I’m not sorry to have read the book and I felt almost certain that with your name on it, the book would prove to be well written. But it didn’t turn me into a fan of the genre though it served as a nice change from my usual fare. B-

~Jayne

| Book Link | eHarlequin.com in print | eHarlequin.com in digital |
| Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders |
Fictionwise | Books on Board (couldn’t find)

• Jo O
• blodeuedd
• Candace
• Polly
• Sand (Stlady)
• Ammarylis
• Jessica
• Sandra
• Carol Thompson
• Stephanie K
• Catilin
• Lori
• Marg
• joanne
• katieM
• Ashley C
• Rebecca
• Cindy in Kansas City
• Caitlin Peterson
• Cathy
• S Muha
• Lorraine from CA

Except 217 was apparently a spammer so I went to the next number which was 94: Robin Nuttall

I’ve emailed all the winners so make sure you watch your spam folder.  For those who didn’t win, we’ll be having a Berkley/Jove Giveaway and a Penguin Putnam Giveaway (think Nora) in the next two weeks.

What would you ask them? Is pricing the most important topic for you? Is it availability (geographic or just generally digitized)? Is it DRM? Is it ownership? The right to share? How about resale? Is timing of the release? Is it quality?

For me, it’s a number of factors. First, I definitely want quality. I want the digital book to be as good as the paper book and even more, I want the digital book to avail itself of digital features like searchability, multiple bookmarks, annotations, organization. I want pretty little section breaks and the graphics included in a print book, optimized for the digital book.

I want all books available in digital that are available in print. I want the digital books to be available at the same time as the print books. I will concede that there will be no resale but in exchange, the price of the digital books must be some percentage less of lowest comparable print book.

I would like to share a book but if I can’t share it then I want the price to be lower, again, than the print version.

In order to reduce costs of digital books, I want publishers to decide on one universal format and one DRM that allows for cross platform availability. Reducing the number of formats and different DRMs will substantially reduce the cost of producing the digital book. If publishers are going to insist that there is no difference in the production and delivery of a digital book from a print book, they are going to have to be far more transparent.

Because listening is just as important as speaking. If we consumers are ignorant or presumptuous or sound entitled, then explain why and provide evidence. Don’t speak in conclusory statements about how if we only knew.

As for speaking with publishers, I am not sure who I want to talk to and in what setting. What I do want to know is that they are listening. John Sargent posted about pricing on the Macmillan blog entitled “Macmillan Speaks” and he responded to one comment that I left asking for clarification. Ami Grecko, formerly of Tor and now with Adaptive Blue (GetGlue) says that the time for heavy lifting for Macmillan and other publishers begin. But we can start the conversation.

I want to hear from you. What would you say, if you had the opportunity and to whom would you want to speak?

In a way “Steal Away” is a major departure from the previous books of yours I’ve read. Yet in others, it’s very similar. Here there’s no paranormal element, at least not that I noticed. But you reprise the use of two men and one woman as the main characters around whom the drama unfolds. As well, there is an immediacy to the story that makes me feel that I’m there, right there, with the characters.

During Prohibition, Twilight Amery has dreams that she refuses to let die. She’s going to escape rural Alabama and get to Harlem where a young woman with a voice can sing at the Cotton Club. But even after years of scraping by, she doesn’t have enough money for a train ticket. So, dodging Pinkerton men, she hops a northbound train and encounters two very different men. Courtly Hector with his deep, booming voice and Daniel Stone, who is initially as hard as his name, are unlike any men she’s ever met with a relationship unlike any she’s seen. Together they’ll backtrack across the South then end up in an Atlanta whorehouse where they pick up a deadly foe before finally reaching Harlem. But once there, will Twi achieve her dream, will the three of them work out their relationship and can they escape a deadly enemy determined to track them down?

The sex is hawt but it doesn’t overpower the story nor is it included in inappropriate places. I don’t usually care for or read menage books but you’re one of the few authors who can entice me to do just that. Yet this one has a twist from your usual m/m/f books in that there is a bisexual character, Hector, who has relationships with both a man, Stone, and a woman, Twi and often in the same bed while the other character watches. Okay, so add voyeurism onto the list of things I don’t generally read but which I will from you. And doesn’t that sentence sound strange?

When I read your novels – I’m there. I feel surrounded by the atmosphere you create and immersed in the action. This is something I look forward to in your novels and you don’t disappoint. I can feel the tension as Twi waits to jump a train, the heat in the upstairs room of Miss Beu’s house, the tenderness with which Hector removes Twi’s face paint, the nonstop action on the streets of Harlem. The period detail is wonderful and I never once thought I was reading 21st century characters in Prohibition era clothing.

At Loose-Id this is listed as a novel length story but it’s shorter than the usual Harlequin category novel by my ereader page count. So I wasn’t too surprised when the final conflict was resolved mostly off page. I was bummed that some of what happened isn’t explained at all – how did the injuries occur? how was the rescue carried out? how was the escape made? will there ever be a resolution or will these three really have to watch their backs from here on? But, on the other hand, I like the open ending of the relationship of Stone, Hector and Twi.

An unusual setting, coupled with three dimensional characters, mixed with hot sex makes me happy you offered me the chance to read this novel. Since you took such care with the action throughout most of the book, I was sorry that the ending seemed slightly truncated but overall it’s still a B read for me.

~Jayne

| Author Website | Loose Id |