Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Caroline Linden Giveaway Winners

Jane — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:39:09 +0000

In all the drama of the week, I forgot to announce winners of last week’s giveaway. First up are the winners of the print version of Caroline Linden’s free book short. You can still download the PDF from this link.. Caroline Linden’s latest release”For Your Arms Only” will be out next Tuesday.

1. Jane O November 11th, 2009 at 12:38 pm edit comment
Caroline Linden is one of my favorite new authors. I suppose I should be honorable and bow out so someone can try her for the first time. But I’m not all that honorable, and I would love a paper copy.
EditMore Options

2. Kim November 11th, 2009 at 3:27 pm edit comment
I like reading paper, so please enter my name in the drawing. Thanks.

3. Lorraine November 11th, 2009 at 3:36 pm edit comment
I’d love a chance to try a new author. Please enter me into the drawing for a paper copy.

4. Susan/DC November 12th, 2009 at 11:00 am edit comment
If the drawing is still open, I too would love a paper copy (I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was little, so perhaps that’s why I don’t mind being a technological dinosaur).

5. Chelsea B. November 12th, 2009 at 1:06 pm edit comment
I hardly ever read ebooks, so count me in for paper. I like to read old school ;)

Also, I promised to giveaway my Harlequin Vintage Address Books (assuming that those that entered still want them). The two winners are:

by KristieJ November 12th, 2009 at 7:34 pm edit comment
For me – without question – the best debut book is Broken Wing by Judith James. It’s not only the best debut I’ve ever read, it holds the numero uno spot on my all time favourite of any book list.

by Ros November 12th, 2009 at 5:54 pm edit comment
I think it’s quite telling that a number of those books mentioned are not actually debut novels after all (The Spymaster’s Lady and Devil’s Bride, for instance). The ‘breakthrough novel’ is probably more important in establishing an author’s reputation. Sometimes, the debut novel is the breakthrough, but not always. And in those cases where it isn’t, the earlier novels are often best forgotten. I recently bought a re-released early Stephanie Laurens and it is truly dire.

No Related Posts

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Friday Film Review: The Swan

Jayne — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:33 +0000

The Swan (1956)
Genre: Historical Dramedy
Grade: B-

Here’s a golden oldie, or moldy oldie if you don’t care for it. The movie is based on a play written by Ferenc Molnar and was filmed twice before this final one was made. It’s Grace Kelly’s next-to-the-last film made before her marriage to a real Prince and she never looked lovelier.

It has always been the overriding ambition of Princess Beatrix (Jesse Royce Landis who also played GK’s mother in “To Catch a Thief”) to see her daughter Princess Alexandra (Grace Kelly) become a Queen. Their family was forced from the throne of their tiny middle European country by Napoleon (whose name Princess Beatrix will not allowed to be mentioned in her presence) and she’s aware that it’s probably their last hope to regain some stature by cementing the ties between their dispossessed family and their cousins, the reigning royal family headed by Queen Maria Dominika (Agnes Moorehead) and her son and heir Prince Albert (Alec Guinness).

[[Show as slideshow]]

When Beatrix gets word that Albert is on his way to visit them, she immediately pulls out all the stops and whips the palace staff, and her family, into a frenzy in order to present Alexandra in her best light. But after Albert arrives for his short four day stay, he spends more time duck hunting, inspecting the modern dairy and with Alexandra’s younger brothers than with the slightly shy Alexandra. What’s a mother on a deadline to do? Use a little old fashioned jealousy, that’s what.

She instructs Alexandra to invite the boys’ young and handsome tutor Dr. Nicholas Agi (Louis Jourdan) to the final night ball in the hopes that it will spur Albert to a proposal. Instead, to her horror, things backfire as Agi, emboldened by this chance of which he never dared dream, confesses his secret love to Alexandra. Now whom will she choose?

As I’ve seen mentioned in other reviews, the plot for this story is obviously dated even by the fifties. The world it depicts was long gone even then – either during WWI or by the end of WWII. But while I’m watching it, I try and lose myself in what it shows as still existing among a people who have no clue that their way of life is in its twilight. And yet, the film does hint at what is to come.

It’s all about the differences in classes – the old class of royalty who are shown doing little beyond ceremonial duties and being instructed in how to “be royal” and the rising middle class who will take over due to their drive, education and ambition. We see the best and the worst of both classes and are left to decide on our own if Alexandra makes the correct decision or not.

There is a great deal of dry comedy throughout the story which Alec Guinness pulls off in style. But he also shows great tact, after an initial spell of pique, in dealing with Alexandra’s conflicting feelings. Another surprisingly fun character is Symphorosa (played by Estelle Winwood) whose pithy one liners often embarrass Beatrix as she’s trying to make a good impression on Albert. Agnes Moorehead is regally grand and imperious in a role that had little time on screen but which she made the most of.

Landis beautifully balances Beatrix on the knife edge of likability. We can see her as a woman just trying to see to the future of her family – the scene when she offers contradictory advice to Alexandra on how to behave around Albert is quite funny – as well as a pushy, slightly snobby royal who is obviously shocked when one of the lower orders dares to have feelings for her daughter. Kelly floats coolly through her role until the moment when her passions are aroused and she comes to life. There’s a late scene when she lets Albert “have it” for the way he’s acted towards the family and of course the final scene where she comes to terms with the direction her life will take.

The movie has a slightly bittersweet ending. One might wish for it to end another way but given the way Alexandra has been raised her entire life, I wasn’t surprised. I’m not entirely convinced that her protestations of love for Agi are real. Perhaps or perhaps not. As Albert reminds her, she just kept her feelings so controlled and beneath the surface for so long that when they finally burst free, she’s not sure how to handle them.

As far as I can tell, “The Swan” isn’t available on DVD but there are two ways for it to be viewed. Someone has loaded it on youtube (type in “The Swan-part 1″ — note the hyphen is important). I’d love to know which language it’s subtitle in. It’s also being shown on Turner Classic Movies in November (right now it’s scheduled at midnight on the 26th/27th but check closer to the date to be sure).

~Jayne

FTC discloser – I watched this on television.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Mr. Malcolm’s List by Suzanne Allain

Jane — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:10:17 +0000

Dear Ms Allain :

Thank you for sending me this book for review. I am a big fan of the traditional regency which is what I would categorize this novel as. The key to a successful traditional regency is the total immersion of the reader into the time period which is well done in Mr. Malcom’s List. Like other traditional regencies, the hero is not a lord, but a man of great means and the second son of an Earl which, during that time, was sufficient to make him a marital catch.

Selina was a paid companion who was left comfortably well off after her companion’s death. She does not want to return to her vicerage with her family and writes to her old school classmate, Julia, with a request to visit her in London. Julia is living the life of parties with other young people that Selina longs to enjoy. Julia ignores this request for months and then, out of the blue, Selina receives an invitation to visit.

Julia Thistlewaite had her sights set on marrying The Honorable Jeremy Malcolm, second son of the Earl of Kilbourne. He was the catch of the season and Julia was a beautiful, wealth, well connected member of the gentry. But Malcolm has a list of attributes he wants in a woman and Julia doesn’t measure up. (She fails item No. 4 which is “The ability to converse in a sensible fashion.”). Cassie, friend to Malcom and cousin to Julia reports back that she doesn’t meet all the requirements on the list. Julia decides she’ll use Selina to enact a revenge. Selina is to conform to all the list elements and make Malcolm fall in love with her (or at least to request her hand in marriage) whereupon Selina will crush his dreams.

Selina agrees to do this because she won’t get to stay and have fun in London unless she agrees to Julia’s schemes and because Malcolm sounds like a prig in need of being brought down to earth.

When Selina and Malcolm meet, they actually start to like each other quite a bit to the point that Malcolm does indeed think that Selina is the woman for him. When he finds out its all a ploy, he’s angered and hurt. Selina feels badly and tries to explain that she, too, has real feelings for him but he is definitely not interested in listening to her.

I actually thought the star of the book was Julia. I found her really entertaining. She was always scheming even when it went against her own interest and eventually she has to give up her vendetta against Malcolm to get her own matrimonial prize. Selina and Malcolm were a bit stiff to me, particularly juxtaposed against Julia.

Another highlight of the story is the dialogue. It’s snappy, entertaining and humorous. The plot was comedic but it felt a bit forced as the characters carried out setup after setup even until the end of the story. C

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Will the length of a story affect how much you are willing topay?

Jane — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:58:43 +0000

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Robin (aka Janet here) wrote a great piece for Access Romance Readers’ Gab blog about value and creative content.

In the commercial world, we are used to thinking of value in the context of price. A “good value” is often defined by some quotient of quality and price, specifically as relatively high quality for a relatively low price. But the value of books, while commercial art and commercially marketed products, is not so easy to define.

I admit to be one of those people who equate value to length (among other things). Going into a purchasing situation, I will be willing to pay more for a longer work than a shorter work even if at the end of the reading both, my positions would have flipped because the shorter work was of higher quality than the longer work. But buying decisions are made on the front end so I balk at paying a higher price for novellas or short stories than I would for full length novels.

Does the length of a story affect how much you are willing to pay for it?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Harlequin Horizons, What’s In It For You

Jane — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:42:10 +0000

Q: I’m a reader and I’ve heard about Harlequin Horizons but I don’t know what it is or what it means for me.

Harlequin Horizons is a vanity press where aspiring authors pay to have their books published and put into stores, whether it is a physical retail location like your local Borders or it is online retailer like Amazon.

Authors using this service may or may not have their books professionally edited. Some authors who are self published have very high quality standards like self published author Moriah Jovan whose epic romance books aren’t well suited for traditional publishing. Other self published authors or authors who use a vanity press will not put as much care into their books as Ms. Jovan. Therefore, the quality that you read from books published through Harlequin Horizons can be very uneven.

Q: What do you mean by traditional publishing?

Harlequin is not the publisher, the author is the publisher and therefore solely responsible for the quality of the content. In traditional publishing, authors go through a rigorous vetting process. First, their works must make it past a person called an agent. The agent then has to sell this book to publishers. Only a very small percentage of writers become published authors through this route. The hope, of course, is that through the traditional publishing process someone is weeding out the poor quality books or improving on the quality before the story gets to you, the reader.

Through the vetting process, however, books that publishers don’t seem commercially viable can be excluded from publication. Some writers become frustrated with this and turn away from traditional publishing.

Q: I am a writer who wants to be published. Is Harlequin Horizons right for me.

Traditional Publishing Route

Only you can answer this. If you want to make a career out of writing, the traditional path is through acquiring an agent and selling to a print publishing house such as Harlequin, Random House, Penguin, and the like. Some writers cannot sell to these publishers because their books do not conform to the guidelines of a traditional publishing house, whether it does not conform for quality reasons or some other concern. Not all publishing houses offer the same advantages in terms of ability to market and sell your book. This is true for agents as well. You will need to do hard research when shopping for an agent.

Digital Press Publishing Route

Another path to making a career out of writing is through digital publishing. Under the digital publishing model, you do not get an advance but in exchange you get a higher royalty. (If you don’t know what these terms mean, please educate yourself by reading up). As with anything you need to do your research to ascertain what are the most reputable digital publishers out there.

Self Publishing Route

A final path to making a career out of writing can be through self publishing. Self publishing is where you, the writer, controls all the aspects of your work and you sell directly to the public or through retailers. There are many self publishing programs out there.

Vanity presses are for the self publisher who wants to pay someone to do the work for them. Vanity presses can be a costly and non profitable form of publishing for a writer.

Please do your research before committing to a venture like this. It is possible that self publishing or vanity press publishing is the right solution for you, but you must do your research. Do cost comparisons. Sit down and figure out how many books you would need to sell to make your investment worthwhile and the likelihood you can sell that number of books.

You can read more about vanity presses at Writer Beware blog or visiting the forums at Absolute Write or Romance Divas.

Some of the commenters also have important information regarding self publishing and vanity press publishing and the dangers therein.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: What Remains of Heaven by C.S. Harris

Jennie — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:34 +0000

Dear Ms. Harris,

I have been anticipating the release of What Remains of Heaven, the fifth book in your Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series, for several months. I’ve come to expect a new book in this series every year, and while I’ve liked some of the offerings more than others, each has been satisfying (with grades ranging from A- to B), and the continuing turmoil in Sebastian’s personal life has held my attention from book to book.

Just a quick note: I think it’s probably going to be hard to entirely avoid spoilers for earlier books in the series in this review, so if you haven’t read the series, intend to, and are fanatical about remaining spoiler-free, you might want to stop reading now.

Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, has rather inadvertently and reluctantly become known as a murder investigator (don’t you hate when that happens?). His imperious aunt comes to him accompanied by her friend, the ailing (but still formidable) Archbishop of Canterbury, to request Sebastian’s assistance in finding out who killed the Bishop of London, Francis Prescott. Bishop Prescott had been summoned to the village of Tanfield Hill one night upon the discovery, in a recently opened crypt, of a body that did not belong there – a long-deceased man found not in a coffin but on the floor of the crypt, with a knife sticking out his back. The Reverend Earnshaw, who had ridden to Lond to inform the bishop of the grisly discovery, is late in meeting him at the crypt and discovers Prescott practically atop the first body, with his skull bashed in.

Sebastian has no particular personal interest in this crime (unlike some of the previous ones he’s investigated), but agrees to look into it because of his regard for his aunt. Bishop Prescott, as it turns out, had any number of enemies (don’t they always?). He had angered many with his abolitionist stance, and the fact that he was being considered for the powerful position of Archbishop of Canterbury may have made some who opposed his views on slavery nervous. One of this group, a foppish aristocrat named Lord Quillian, was overheard threatening the bishop shortly before his death. Additionally, Prescott was see arguing with a butcher the day he was killed (it turns out the butcher’s son has an unpleasant past association with Sebastian, which ends up complicating his investigation), he had had a run-in with William Franklin (a real historical figure and son of Benjamin Franklin, William had been exiled to England for his support of the British during the American Revolution) and there was apparently acrimony between the bishop and his nephew Peter Prescott, an old school chum of Sebastian’s. Things get even murkier with the introduction of a subplot about a mysterious spy who had operated against the British during the revolution 30 years earlier; this thread ends up involving both Prescott’s family and Sebastian’s own (this is another one of those series that makes me wonder if there were only a couple of dozen people living in London in the 19th century, since the same people turn up over and over again).

As with previous books in the series, the mystery didn’t engross me hugely. At times it felt like there were lots of potential red herrings and improbably coincidences thrown at the reader, but those may be par for the course in mysteries, for all I know; I haven’t been a regular reader of the genre since I was a teenager. When I read mysteries these days, I tend to filter out the very same information that mystery fans are probably filing away to see if they can figure out the solution to the crime. I really don’t care about solving the crime myself, and untangling the clues makes my head hurt, so it’s hard for me to assess the worth of this book as a straight mystery, except to say that I was impressed by how neatly all of the pieces fit together in the end. That’s really all I ask of a mystery; other readers may have more stringent requirements. (I guessed one fairly obvious “surprise” early on, but the the ultimate identity of the killer did surprise me.)

Again, as with previous books in the series, my real interest is the setting and the continuing characters. Sebastian remains an intriguing and highly sympathetic hero, one who has been buffeted by a number of distressing revelations over the course of the series. This book is no exception, and while these revelations are fairly melodramatic, even soap-operaish in nature, there was an internal logic to the ways in which the characters were manipulated, I thought.

As in past books, Sebastian’s romantic travails are featured in What Remains of Heaven, but I was a little disappointed that the characters seemed to pretty much tread water for the course of the book. Sebastian’s relationship with Hero Jarvis is complicated by the consequences of their night together in the last book, but while they meet up a number of times in What Remains of Heaven, their conversations have a repetitious quality that frustrated me. (Hero has her own reasons for wanting to get to the bottom of the bishop’s murder; he was a friend of hers and was helping her with a personal problem.) Sebastian’s relationship with Kat Boleyn is rocked by an entirely unshocking shocking revelation, but there are still considerable obstacles between this couple and their HEA (and honestly, I’m more on Team Hero at this point). I would have preferred a bit more balance between the mystery and Sebastian’s relationship drama. I don’t mind the series being drawn out, and I realize that this dictates that things go slowly on the personal front, but I do want to see some progress in the course of a book.

Sebastian’s relationship with his father continues to intrigue; the two have been very up and down in the course of the series, owing to the fact that Hendon was hard on Sebastian as a boy and continues to lie to him about Very Important Things now that Sebastian’s an adult, things that Sebastian has a way of finding out, leading to a fresh round of recriminations and then estrangement. I can’t help but like Hendon in spite of his flaws because he really is a fully drawn character; he loves his son but he can’t seem to stop making mistakes with him. He has functioned at times as an antagonist in the series, but he’s anything but one-note (unlike, say, Sebastian’s sister, whose personality seems to be permanently set on Witch).

The prose is mostly smooth, marred here and there by a lack of subtlety and a tendency to over-explain (Hero at one point thinks that it’s tedious that as an unmarried female the rules of society dictate that she can’t visit a man she wants to question in the murder case; I would think the vast majority of readers would understand enough about the mores of regency society that they would not need to have these circumstances pointed out to them so explicitly). My enthusiasm for the series really does rest mainly with the characters; Sebastian, Hero, Hendon, Kat and a few others are sympathetic enough to make me care about them and faceted enough to keep me interested from book to book.

My grade for What Remains of Heaven is a B+.

Jennie

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

No Related Posts

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: The Husband She Couldn’t Forget by Carmen Green

Janine — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:00:46 +0000

Dear Ms. Green,

I had heard about your book, The Husband She Couldn’t Forget, back in September and made a mental note to myself to purchase it, partly because I want to encourage more diversity in the genre, and buying a Silhouette Special Edition that features African American protagonists is a good way to do that, and partly because I have a soft spot for amnesia stories.

Unfortunately, like many mental notes I make to myself, this one went astray, and it wasn’t until your book was mentioned again during our recent discussion of cultural appropriation in romance that I bought the book and began to read it.

In the book’s prologue, we are introduced to Melanie Bishop. Melanie is holding a pregnancy test stick bearing negative results when her doorbell rings. She opens the door to be served with divorce papers. Melanie’s husband, Deion, has left her.

Melanie and Deion have been trying for years to have children, without much luck. Deion has done very well in an investment firm, and he and Melanie have all the trappings of success, but the emptiness of their home has made Melanie miserable. Melanie has sacrificed a lot for the marriage, having even cut off her siblings, so she is devastated by Deion’s decision to end their relationship. She tries desperately to get a hold of him so as to plead with him to give her another chance, but when she can’t locate him, she finally signs the divorce papers and leaves their big house in the care of their housekeeper.

When we next meet up with Melanie, some time has passed. She has gone back to using her maiden name, Wysh, and is working as a therapist at the Ryder Rehabilitation and Spinal Center where she is assigned a patient named Rolland Jones.

Rolland suffers from TBI (traumatic brain injury) as a result of a car accident. After twenty days in comatose state, Rolland awakened with a powerful determination to get better. He underwent surgeries and was given a beautiful face, and he worked very hard at his therapy. His condition when Melanie meets him, three months after the accident, is described this way:

His physical recovery had been nothing short of miraculous, except for the resulting symptoms from TBI. He knew how to write alphabetical letters and words, but he couldn’t write numbers anymore. He reversed things, his shoes occasionally, words, which hand to shake with. He had image memories of his past, but not of the past six years. Sometimes things had to be defined for him. He didn’t know his name, his age, but he thought he’d been married. He confused right and left and didn’t have a mental edit button. Whatever he thought came right out of his mouth. He still suffered with balance problems and he sometimes got lost.

It’s not stated exactly what kind of therapist Melanie is, but from what I gathered it seems she is neither a physical therapist nor a psychotherapist. Rather, her job is to prepare Rolland for life in the real world. She is to teach him things like how to use a compass, how to write numbers, and how to cook.

When they meet for the first time, Rolland is quickly smitten. Melanie is the first woman he remembers being attracted to, and he knows that he wants her to be more than his therapist almost from the very beginning. But Melanie, who doesn’t want to lose her job, refuses his advances because he is her patient and because she is afraid to risk her heart a second time.

Gradually it becomes harder and harder for Melanie to resist Rolland’s sweetness and sincerity, and it gets even more difficult when a fire makes the Ryder Center uninhabitable. Most of the patients are transferred to other facilities, but because Rolland is so close to recovering, the Center’s director decides that Rolland and Melanie can stay in his empty summer home while they finish the last three weeks of Rolland’s therapy.

Will Melanie be able to withstand Rolland’s honest and heartfelt declarations of his feelings? What will happen to her if she can’t? And what about Rolland? How will he feel when he discovers his true identity?

Rolland was a wonderful character — caring, trusting, devoted to Melanie, and completely guileless. I loved the way his unedited frankness sometimes made him say embarrassing things, but also revealed how much he cared. Here’s an example, from a scene in which Rolland and Melanie are discussing Melanie’s ex-husband:

“What I should have said is that he didn’t really know you. There’s fire in you. I felt it in your hands the first time you touched me. My arm tingled. I felt it again when we kissed. So if he divorced you, that’s his loss.”

She still looked doubtful and he knew what the other therapists had told him to be true. Only time would make him speak faster and not exhaust him. And only time would make Melanie understand her husband hadn’t been worthy of her love.

I loved Rolland, but I was less keen on Melanie. In most ways she was a nice person, but I feel that the instant she recognized her feelings for Rolland or his for her, she should have asked for Rolland to be assigned to a different therapist. It helped that Melanie at least worried about the ethics of the situation and understood that she was doing something unethical, but I was really uncomfortable when Melanie and Rolland finally had sex, because of the patient/therapist relationship.

In many ways I feel that this is a problem with the book’s premise, but it comes off in a way that makes me less than happy with Melanie’s character, and not entirely sure about Melanie’s happy ending with Rolland. There was also a point in which a neighbor helps Rolland woo Melanie, knowing that the two were patient and therapist, and I wondered what this neighbor was thinking.

Late in the books, there is a discussion of an insider trading investigation and a resulting court case. I’m neither a lawyer nor an SEC investigator so I don’t know if the legal details are accurate, but I was somewhat doubtful when I read the scene.

Some of the dialogue was a bit stilted, but a lot of it was affecting. I really felt for Rolland and sympathized with Melanie’s dilemma, even though I think she should have handled things differently, and I would have liked to see even more fallout from her actions. Had Rolland been any less wonderful, I think I would have been very annoyed with this book, but I liked him enough that I was able to enjoy it despite my problems with Melanie’s ethics.

In the end, my feelings about The Husband She Couldn’t Forget are mixed. C+ for this one.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Malle Vallik, Harlequin’s Digital Director, Answers Questions on Harlequin Horizons

Jane — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:21:53 +0000

I emailed Malle Vallik to ask her three questions which pertained the biggest question I had about brand dilution:

Will the books be sold through the eharlequin store?
Will there be any HH branding on the book, either on the cover or in the copyright page?
Are you (Harlequin) concerned about brand dilution?

This is Ms. Vallik’s response. She said she would be around to answer a few questions.

1.       The books will not be branded Harlequin.

2.       The books will be branded HH (see nice logo on website) attached

3.       The copyright is not associated with Harlequin.

First, why is Harlequin launching a self-publishing business? Bowker reported in 2008 that more titles were published through self-publishing than traditional publishers. Self-publishing is a fast growing and vibrant part of the publishing industry today. Harlequin has decided to provide a romance focused self-publishing business for those that choose to go down the self-publishing road.

Brand – Harlequin put its name on the Harlequin Horizons site to clearly indicate this is a romance self-publishing site. The books published through Harlequin Horizons will not carry traditional Harlequin branding. The self-published author will be the brand and the Horizon double H logo will appear on the spine of the book. Harlequin is the gold standard in romance and that will not be compromised. Readers will not confuse Horizons books with traditional Harlequin books.

Distribution – Self-publishing has a different distribution model than traditional publishing. Horizons books will not be carried nor appear in traditional Harlequin distribution. The self-published book will not appear next to a traditionally published Harlequin title.

The Harlequin Horizons site very clearly indicates it is a self-publishing business and that those who choose to publish with Horizons will not receive the traditional Harlequin distribution and marketing support.

Many authors are choosing to self-publish. There are a number of reasons to select self-publishing including as a way to see their work in print – to give copies as gifts, to have a bound copy to help in finding an agent, or simply as a keepsake. Harlequin is providing a service to those choosing to self-publish with a leading organization in this field, Author Solutions.

To recap, self-publishing is an option for those who want to put their story into print. The Harlequin brand will not be on these titles. The Harlequin Horizons site is very transparent that it offers self-publishing services.

Is Harlequin still publishing aspiring authors: Of course we are! We remain committed to reading and acquiring manuscripts from aspiring authors.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Submission Times Two by Claire Thompson

Joan/SarahF — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:00:51 +0000

Dear Ms. Thompson.

I’ve had numerous people recommend your books to me as examples of good BDSM romances. When James Buchanan recommended you yet again, I broke down. I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed Submission Times Two and look forward to reading more of your books.

I started with Submission Times Two because how could I not?! It hit all my buttons: menage, m/m, and BDSM. But especially the menage. Cam and Ethan are desperately in love with each other. They’ve been living together for just under a year. They’re committed and focused on making their relationship work no matter what. The problem is, they’re both submissive, and unable to dom each other convincingly. So they’ve worked out a deal: on the weekends, they each go to different clubs, scene with doms there, get their pain-play needs met that way, and then go home and fuck like bunnies. So far, it’s been working out for them. Then Ethan hooks up with Maestro and starts thinking about how he needs more than just weekend scenes — he needs a full-time dom, which of course starts getting in the way of his relationship with Cam.

“Maestro” is actually Andrew, and he’s sort of semi-stalking Ethan. He had a huge crush on Ethan back in high school, when Ethan was the so-closeted-even-he-didn’t-know-he-was-gay quarterback who everyone adored, and Andrew was Andy, nerdy and completely forgettable. Andrew finds Ethan through Facebook, and figures he can finally make a dream come true when he figures out that not only is Ethan gay, but he’s submissive. He goes into the relationship figuring he’d steal Ethan from his partner, only to change his mind when he meets Cam.

Cam, of course, is pretty upset when Ethan starts keeping things from him, but what I loved about this story more than anything else is that no one huffs off in a Big Misunderstanding. They all TALK with each other, and work things out, just like real people in committed relationships should do. If they do go off half-cocked (harhar), they get their heads out of their asses pretty quickly and figure things out.

Although the story is only 100 pages, all three characters have emotional arcs, all three characters fall in love with each other, all three characters make it work together. And the BDSM aspects of the story are wonderful. You obviously know what you’re talking about and the BDSM is about the sensation and the psychology, as it should be. You show how intimate it can be, how mind-altering and relationship-changing. It’s also not for the faint-of-heart. The BDSM is pretty heavy at times, definite pain-play, not just submission with some slap-and-tickle. So readers should be warned.

I loved the actual story, the BDSM was fabulous, the emotions were strong and made my stomach all swirly. But…but two things: characterization and writing.

The characters weren’t 100% differentiable (if that’s a word). When you’re dealing with three men, more has to separate them from each other than their names. While Andrew was obviously different from the other two because he was a dom, Cam and Ethan were less distinguishable. They had different backgrounds, of course, and difference relationships with Andrew, and different needs. But I couldn’t tell them apart by speech. I couldn’t figure out whose head I was in without a name marker. The dialogue was great, the banter well done, the conversations good. But the characters didn’t sparkle and because they weren’t instinctively different from each other, I kept having to consciously remind myself that Cam was the one who ____ and Ethan was the one who ____ and that was a little distracting.

For those in my “How not to write BDSM” mega-review who said they didn’t want a BDSM manual while reading, this book was proof both that something that reads like a manual at times can be hot and that it can also be slightly tedious and preachy. I don’t know if it was just that I was super-sensitive to the issue, reading the story as I did while also dealing with the debate in my last post, but at times I felt like Ethan, Cam, and Andrew were reading from a “How to do Safe, Sane, Consensual BDSM” script, rather than organically moving through the story. But I also felt it was better to have that than not. The book did a great job depicting BDSM and the extra little preachy bits were just slightly too sticky-sweet icing on the cake.

But overall, I think the preachiness is a result of the biggest problem I had with story. The writing was inelegant. I’ve thought long and hard how to say this, and I think that word is the best choice I could make. The writing has no sparkle; there are no surprises. Every cliche is milked for all it’s worth. If a situation happens, I just knew what phrase was going to be used to sum it up. The story and emotions and characterization were all mostly solid. And although there was nothing terrible about the writing — with the actual stringing of words into sentences — it was pedestrian, sometimes even boring, although the story itself wasn’t boring. At times this annoyed me, at times I could ignore it and sink into the story. I loved the story and these guys, but the writing was, well, inelegant.

However, I’ll be looking forward to reading the other books of yours that intrigue me, because, inelegant writing aside, you’ve got nice situations, pretty good characters, and solid, even hot BDSM scenes. Oh, and can I just say: Predicament bondage! OMGyum!

Grade: B-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format (this vendor is unknown to us).

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: The Bargain (Finding Home Book 1) by Catherine Stang

Jayne — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:51:43 +0000

Dear Ms. Stang,

Me loves a good American Civil War novel but unfortunately, most publishers today don’t agree with me so pickin’s have been slim lately. So when I was perusing the new ebooks at Fictionwise a few months ago, I decided to buy your book and give it a try.

With her three older brothers gone for soldiers, Cassandra Beaumont has taken charge of the family plantation. She, her younger sister Rachel and her sister-in-law Ellie are the only adults there. Things are grim and looking to get worse when a troop of Union soldiers arrives with orders to commandeer the place for use as a hospital. Cassie makes a bold but thwarted stand against Major Joel Bradshaw before realizing she needs his medical expertise to help deliver Ellie’s breech baby. Needs must and the two work out an agreement: his help with the delivery for her help as a nurse once the hospital is set up.

Baby Joel James Beaumont is delivered, everyone settles into the arrangement and the wounded begin to arrive. A Colonel who dislikes the fact that the Beaumont women are still there arrives too and Joel makes a hasty offer of marriage to Cassie which will allow the ladies to stay. Facing eviction and having no brothers on hand to help her, Cassie agrees. But as their feelings for each other develop, is there hope for this marriage bargain made in the final days of the war?

Let’s see – what I liked. I liked the characters and the fact that no one is a villain. No foaming at the mouth, scenery chewing bad guys to arrive in the last act. No one does a 180 character change and for the most part, everyone acts honorably.

But I felt that a lot of issues were skated over with little depth. This is supposed to be the site of a wartime hospital but precious little time is spent on page dealing with the wounded and I never got the feeling that this aspect of the novel was anything but peripheral. The extent of Cassie’s nursing is described – in past tense – as wrapping bandages and handing Joel surgical instruments. Joel’s activity is described – also in past tense – as a few operations and making his morning rounds. I didn’t see the blood, hear the cries of the wounded or get wound up in any emotional life or death scenes because there weren’t any.

Now for my main problem with the story. There’s lots of potential external conflict: We’ve got North vs South, Cassie and Joel working out their marriage, the Colonel poking his nose into whatever is going on, Cassie’s Confederate doctor brother who sneaks back to the plantation to see his family, his problems with his wife Ellie, sister Rachel and Joel’s second in command who clash but…little of this is carried through into internal conflict.

Everyone is so darned nice and polite and accommodating that whatever conflicts arise in the story are quickly dealt with in a matter of a page or two. To me, it made the characters seem flat. Oh, Cassie does something that Joel doesn’t want her to. No worries because he won’t stay mad or really do anything about it. Rachel defies Joel or Scott’s demands that she stay inside. Not a problem because a short discussion with her will turn her contrite. Ellie is mad that Jamie never answered her letters. Wait, here the letters miraculously are and all is forgiven. Usually my complaints are that conflict is dragged out past believability but with this book I was longing for a good show down. I needed something to build the tension and get me to madly flip pages to see what would happen next. Instead, after a little while, I could easily predict how these people would neatly resolve everything.

The next book in the series also promises an era little used in recent years, that of Reconstruction. I’m interested enough in that time frame to give it a shot and will cross my fingers that I find it more emotionally engaging than I did this book. C+

~Jayne

This book can be purchased at Whiskey Creek Press in ebook form.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Caroline Linden Giveaway Winners

Related Posts:

Friday Film Review: The Swan

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Mr. Malcolm’s List by Suzanne Allain

Related Posts:

Will the length of a story affect how much you are willing topay?

Related Posts:

Harlequin Horizons, What’s In It For You

Related Posts:

REVIEW: What Remains of Heaven by C.S. Harris

Related Posts:

REVIEW: The Husband She Couldn’t Forget by Carmen Green

Related Posts:

Malle Vallik, Harlequin’s Digital Director, Answers Questions on Harlequin Horizons

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Submission Times Two by Claire Thompson

Related Posts:

REVIEW: The Bargain (Finding Home Book 1) by Catherine Stang

Related Posts: