Paperback Reader

I’ve been suffering from a bad case of the reading blahs lately. Nothing – name the genre, the style, the whatever – captures my attention. Thus, there has been more than the usual amount of picking up books only to set them aside due to lack of interest.

It was only inevitable that I’d eventually return to Stephanie Laurens’ What Price Love? (A Cynster Novel), what with the continual casting about and giving discarded novels a second chance. You know what they say, if you can't read ‘em, review ‘em.

Oh, where to start? Ah right. Nothing like a brief synopsis to get the reviewing juices flowing. Let me attempt to capture this story in a few pity phrases. So Lady Priscilla Dalloway, the most beautiful woman to walk the planet, is desperately seeking her missing twin brother. He’s gone missing and, based on his last correspondence, he’s on the trail of Something Bad.

For quite some time now we have covetously read Wendy Crutcher's reviews and wondered: how do we convince her to review for PBR? Turns out, all we needed to do was ask her! If we'd known it would be so easy, we would have asked ages ago.

We are delighted that Wendy (or SuperWendy as we've taken to calling her) has agreed to grace us with her crisp articulation, nuanced perspective, and passion for the genre.

Welcome SuperWendy!

Feel free to check your pulse kids, because what we have here is an honest-to-goodness, straight-up contemporary romance. No vampires. No werewolves. No kinky sex involving chandelier-swinging. No suspense sub plot. Simply put, Cathie Linz offers up what is fast becoming an endangered species in the current romance market place. Boy meets girl with some zippy banter and steamy chemistry. So it’s really shame that it all gets buried under a mountain of wackiness.

UNMASQUED is an erotic novel of The Phantom of the Opera. It is not the 1910 Gaston Leroux story. It is not Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical interpretation. It is not even the film version starring Gerard Butler as the mysterious Angel of Music. Yet all the things it is not are all the things the author must contend with as readers bring their preconceived notions to the reading of the book.

The Christine Daaé of UNMASQUED lost her virginity at sixteen after coming to the National Academy of Music at the Paris Opera House at twelve. Along with the rest of the girls under the tutelage of ballet mistress Madame Giry, she has learned how to “select a good protector who would not be physically cruel in the boudoir and who would otherwise treat" her well. And though she is known as one of the Madame’s most virtuous girls, she too has been instructed in using her feminine powers to the best of her ability, and in making certain she is “not gotten with child, and what to do” if she should be.

Remember. UNMASQUED. Not Leroux, not Webber, not even Gerard.

Credibility is often treated as a plastic medium in genre fiction; something that can be twisted and molded to conform to larger-than-life or fantastic storylines. The byproduct of this is that the very things that should inspire belief in the reader are the very things that destroy a work’s hope of ever ringing with truth. Such is the case with Decadent, the second book from Shayla Black, a work built on the conceit that a virgin would seek out a man she hasn’t seen in five years to guide her into a world of ménage à trois so that she will be prepared for life with another man, the rock star she is in love with. The catch to this, naturally, is that said virgin wants a sexual education that will leave her virginity in tact. Plausible? Not in the least. But, there is no need for the reader to even try to grab on to threads of plausibility, what follows is a symphony of stupidity.

We asked and, as usual, you delivered. We were looking for a few erotic romance recommendations...or whatever you want to call the genre. Now, a few of you picked out a book we had already planned to review - DECADENT by Shayla Black. We decided that sort of mind reading ability deserved a prize and randomly picked Zara to get a book of our choosing. Congratulations!!!

The winner of the actual contest with the recommendation of CAINE'S RECKONING by Sarah McCarty is: Rosie!!! Several of you chose this McCarty bookas well, so we could not resist trying it. Rosie won the random drawing from those suggesting it. Congratulations!!!! Rosie gets copies of Trouble by Sasha White and Return to Me by Julia Templeton.

Zara & Rosie - email us at pbr@paperbackreader.net so we can get those prizes out to you.

To everyone else - The Halloween Contest starts soon... Check back for details.

As I’ve mentioned, sometimes we have secret Paperback Reader conversations about Important Topics. Like the fact that every freaking book on the shelves these days has either an overt or covert vampire thing going on. And that all we really want from life is a nice, straightforward contemporary romance.

Really, is it so hard to eat, drink, and breathe in a U.S. city without the dawn of the dead striking gloom and doom over life? Does romance really require so much woo-woo? Do all the women have to be kicking every butt in sight? Whatever happened to romance, the old-fashioned way? You know, where the hero and heroine fall in love like normal people? Normal book people, I mean.

These are not rhetorical questions.

In Lani Diane Rich’s Crazy In Love, we have your basic ne’er-do-well daughter of a rich property development dude. Flynn Daly has vowed to make it without her father’s help. Her big problem is that she’s edging up on thirty and still hasn’t found that one special career she knows is out there for her. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your perspective), her great-aunt Esther dies, leaving her historic (George Washington slept here) inn to the Daly family.

For more than a decade Lisa Kleypas has entertained her readers with historical romances filled with strong men and women who find love, true love, with one another. Recently she changed direction, penning Sugar Daddy, a contemporary women’s fiction novel with a first person narrative. This departure from her nineteenth century third person past had many fans wondering whether she would continue to also write historicals or simply depart to contemporaries complete.

Well, fear not, fans. Kleypas’s new book, Mine Till Midnight, is not only a historical, but it appears her sojourn writing about contemporary Texas was just what she needed to return to nineteenth century England with a tale as fresh as it is page-turning.

About a month ago we decided to do something a little different. We ran a special contest, one that required work from a few of you. Yeah, you instead of us. Some might call that lazy. We thought it was brilliant. Make you guys do the work while we watch.

See why that's so smart?

Well, whatever you want to call it, many of you took up the challenge and agreed to read a book and give us your thoughts. Brave souls... Now we kick off those guest reviews with one by Alyssa.

Thanks Alyssa!!

Where has Karen Ranney been all my life? I suspect she’s been in the world of romance for quite some time, but I was over here behind my rock and failed to notice. Hardly surprising as I’m always the last woman on board, perennially late to everything, including fabulous authors. I shouldn’t admit this publicly, but I only ‘discovered’ Loretta Chase last year. Now, I’ve discovered yet another new (to me) author and I’m absolutely delighted. It appears from the inside cover of this book, Ms. Ranney has a largish backlist – how lovely! I’ll be spending some cash at the bookstore in the very near future. But enough about me missing boats. On to the review.

It is only fitting that a book releasing near Halloween about a woman who sees dead people provide readers with a touch of the unexpected. The title, cover and back blurb all point to a part-romance, part-chick lit bit of fun. Dead Girls Are Easy delivers on that score. Then it goes a bit farther.

What at first appears to be a very competent addition to the light-and-fluffy paranormal offerings out there turns out, instead, to be a book rich in spirituality. Not one that bangs the reader over the head with religion. Rather, one that toys with the concepts of "do unto others" and grand design. Even more compelling is the fact Garey does not pretend to answer the questions she raises.