Paperback Reader

When Patrick Dugan, the charismatic owner of an old-world bar, fixes Audrey in his sights, some strange alliances are about to be formed. Within a week Audrey talks her way into a job at Patrick's bar and a room in the apartment he shares with a drag queen jazz singer called Basil. The highly sexed roommates are soon getting intimate with each other, even experimenting with games of kinky SM sex. But Audrey soon suspects that Patrick is not all that he seems. Why is he pretending to be gay? And what is he covering up for his father, a pillar of the local community? Audrey is so affected by the enigmatic, dominant barman that she doesn't realise they are connected by a mutual adversary - a cold-hearted man who will take them all down if he doesn't get what he wants.

Armed with the antidote and a suspiciously enigmatic partner—fellow virologist Mac Coleman—Jane raced to the rescue. But with betrayal, time and the Amazon itself working against her, the bookish Dr. Miller would have to tap her inner adventuress to make it back alive….

He was everything her heart warned against—an arrogant scoundrel whose rough good looks spoke of savage pleasures. And thought Kincaid's scorching kisses fired her blood, she brazenly resisted him...until one rapturous moment quelled their clash of wills, and something far more dangerous than desire threatened to conquer her senses...

The new episode in Feehan’s “GhostWalker” series comes “specially designed for comfortable reading.” Other things designed for my comfort are feminine hygiene products. Comfort is one of those elastic words designed to mask a product’s real function – if one were to rely on advertising alone, the true purpose of these products would be lost. This particular book was no more or no less comfortable than any other book I’m reading. It does cost more, drawing me to conclude that comfort means pricy.

This comfortable read tells the story of Iris “Flame” Johnson (quick: guess the color of her hair!) and Raoul “Gator” Fontenot. Yes, the names appeared just like that in the text. This tick carried on far too long; I got it on the first page.

Not good, not good at all. Especially when I consider that these books didn’t have much to recommend them in the first place.

Romance, for all the suppleness it possesses as a genre, rigidly adheres to certain axioms: the heroine must be likeable (the most limited definition possible for this), the story must center on the emerging romance, the ending must satisfy. These elements, while enjoyable time and again, do limit possibilities. They are the creative equivalent of a coloring book versus the wide open space of a blank canvas. This is never more apparent than when another genre of fiction plays around with the elements most traditionally associated with romance, but doesn’t then bother with those axioms. Such is the case with Kim Harrison’s three-books-and-counting Rachel Morgan series. Like any good romance, Harrison’s story is tightly focused on the heroine, but with the freedom found outside the genre—in this case fantasy—Harrison doesn’t waste a single word on making Rachel saccharin likeable, when gritty and downright dirty make for better conflict. There is a romance with a male character who is just that, a male character, not a hero. It’s long in coming and spicy while only accounting for a portion of the overall story, and it isn’t sugar-coated with hard to ground concepts like destiny. The romance never feels buried behind other plot points, but rather blends nicely with the underlying theme of Rachel learning not everything is black and white. Why then do so few offerings in genre romance accomplish all that?

In the past few months the publishing industry has seen scandals that range from the eyebrow raising variety, to the forever-alter-the-way-business-is-done variety. The latter, of course, refers to James Frey’s embellished memoir; the former could be filled by any number of minor disgraces authors and publishers have endured. It wasn’t that long ago, a little over a year, that the book business scandal of the moment was Fordham University Professor Mary Bly’s confession that she writes romance under the nom-de-plume Eloisa James. In the wake of A Million Little Pieces, Bly’s confession hardly seems worthy of ink. There is no true scandal in an academic with degrees from Harvard, Yale and Oxford writing those books. More importantly, James writes with too much elegance to be anything less than an asset to romance.

Emma Holly doesn’t write your mother’s romances. Nor does she write the sort of erotica your bookstore doesn’t carry. Sex and heat aside, what she does write is divergent enough to preclude many expectations about what an Emma Holly novel is. Her backlist jumps subgenres from Regency vampire, to contemporary werewolf, to Scottish shape-shifter, to steampunk (yes, once and for all that is what The Demon’s Daughter was), to contemporaries that are too erotic for traditional romance and too sweet for hardcore erotica. It is the mixture of envelope pushing sexuality with tenderness and a happily ever after that unites Holly’s work. To her latest contemporary, All U Can Eat, Holly brings her trademark heat to the fictional Pacific Coast town of Six Palms and in the process adds another subgenre to her collection: murder mystery.

Lorraine Heath’s Promise Me Forever was a PBR reader suggestion, and since I’ve never read Heath (how is it that I’ve read more romances than the average soul, yet managed to miss so many big-name authors?), I eagerly volunteered. Sheesh, now I’m telling whoppers before I start the review. I volunteered because I love a challenge.

As teenagers, Lauren Fairfield and Thomas Warner fell in love (as only teenagers can do) despite their different stations in life. Then Lauren was whisked off to live in London and Tom took up cattle ranching. Now Lauren’s a proper lady who still mourns her first-and-only love – and, conveniently, Tom is now a long-lost earl (also conveniently filthy rich) arriving in London to take his proper place in society. One can only guess at the odds that Lauren and Tom will somehow reconnect and rekindle and reunite.

Have you heard? Chick lit is dead. The plucky heroine? Over. Tales of life among the single in the big city? Gone the way of Studio 54; the business records have been seized and threats of jail time for tax evasion loom. Variety, a publication devoted to reporting about the film industry, said so. They even used phrases like “as out of style as last year’s Jimmy Choos” and “jumped the shark.” The focus of contemporary women’s literature, Variety claims, is a more grown up, post-Sex and the City phase of life, the literary equivalent of “disco sucks.” Can any of this be true? Is it safe to trust a Hollywood publication’s take on publishing? Sure, if you don’t mind following pronouncements that are so far behind the curve that what they declare as old has had time to become new again.

It is into this 70s-like hangover that Liz Ireland’s The Pink Ghetto arrives complete with its plucky twenty-something heroine, who lives in New York, works as a book editor and is chronically unlucky in love. It’s almost like the “chick lit is dead” memo didn’t get wide circulation, or more likely well written stories continue to be published in defiance of trend watchers.

HelenKay: With so many paranomal offerings following the lives (or undead lives, as the case may be) of vampires, witches, werewolves and other nightstalking creatures, a reader can find anything from funny to horror on the shelves. Paranormal reads of the vampire variety range from the more harsh, like Kassandra Sims' The Midnight Work, to light and charming, like Kerrelyn Sparks' How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire. Recent witch/Wicca stories tend to fall more on the humorous side, but the not-so-funny are available, too. If the quest then is to find something new, to set one paranomal apart from the one read before, what happens if an author combines funny with serious and vampires with witches? Tate Hallaway provides the answer in Tall, Dark & Dead. She even throws in the Goddess of Evil, and witch hunters who get their orders straight from the Vatican.

In order to succeed, fiction must have story sustaining conflict that keeps characters’ backs against the wall as they fight against the bad guys, against themselves, against god, against whatever can be thrown at them. Conflict needs to rise as the story progresses, but it also needs to rise in believable-in-keeping-with-the-story fashion. A man, for example, who wakes to find a price on his life, might then flee only to have every avenue of escape cut off: his car gone, his back accounts drained, his network of support suddenly vanished. It all follows and makes it harder for the character to fight his way out of a bad situation. What wouldn’t make a lot of sense, or remain in the story vein, would be for that man to then start worshipping the pack of purple rhinos that materialized on the corner of 8th and Main. Purple rhinos would make an interesting facet of another story but this man on the run, trying to save his own life, has his hands full. Conflict is only good if it’s believable and cohesive, and it’s the lack of believable cohesion that plagues Susan Grant’s Your Planet, or Mine.

Lorna Freeman and I both worship happily at the altar of Georgette Heyer. We discovered this the usual way. You know how it goes...you enter into casual conversation with a new friend, "Hey, wow, so you like Regencies?" She says, "I've been known to read a few in my day." You look at the ground and say shyly, "So, read any Heyer?" She's far cooler than you, but not quite sure where the conversation is going. "Some."

You grow bold. This is a rare moment. Probably not to repeated in this century You say, "So, wanna co-review Black Sheep with me?"

Much to your surprise and happiness, she agrees. Eagerly. You have found a soul mate. Which is good, because Black Sheep is all about soul mates. The good kind, the you-honestly-believe-these-people-are-meant-for-each-other kind, the you want this romance to go on forever kind. Black Sheep is romance at its best. Trust us. We've hardly every lied to you.

I have just read the recently posted review by my fellow Heyer worshipper, Kassia, where she ponders the question of when a lengthy series reaches its “use by” date. This problem is not limited just to romances. In all the genres, storylines can span anywhere from two to an infinite number of books. The most common is the infamous trilogy with a single story stretched out over three books, à la Lord of the Rings. While there are longer single-story series (like Robert Jordan’s massive Wheel of Time, which at last count is up to book eleven, not including the prequel), usually those that go beyond three are “stand alone” where each book is complete in itself, such as JD Robb’s In Death or Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series.

So, in the course of my work on the RomanceWiki (yes, that was a shameless plug!), I noticed a pattern. One book was consistently a reader favorite, repeatedly noted as an influence, and considered a classic of romantic suspense. It did not escape my notice that, typically, I'd somehow neglected to devour Linda Howard's Dream Man, and I resolved to fix that problem, well, you know how it goes when you have more books than time.

One of the worst-kept secrets at Paperback Reader is that we love to force our personal favorites on each other. I won't bore you with the behind-the-scenes process, but somehow this is one of HelenKay's favorites...so it makes sense that L.J. and I are reviewing the book.

There are some books written to be savored and pondered, thought about and argued over long after the final words have been read. There are others that do not aspire to such lofty heights. Instead they seek to momentarily entertain, asking only that the reader step into their pages and go along for the ride. Most of romance is the momentary variety; disposable even. Read it once, enjoy it or not, and then there isn’t a need to think on it again. Cheryl Holt’s newest historical romance, Too Wicked to Wed, should be of the fleeting sort. The romance is engineered to be light reading, the plot is not complicated enough to inspire deep thought. The result is strongly crafted diversionary entertainment. On that front, Too Wicked to Wed succeeds at what it sets out to do. On the whole, however, it is not as ephemeral as it should be. Holt makes story choices that feel uncomfortably like moral judgments and the discomfort generated lingers beyond the fiction and ultimately overshadow the romance.

I’m going to confess yet another reviewer secret: it’s the medium books that are the hardest. Loving a book is easy. Hating a book is pure reviewer joy. Enjoying a book for all the wrong reasons is a delight. But the lukewarm books are killer.

This is my second go-round with Rachel Gibson’s True Confessions, and it’s almost weird that my second reaction largely mirrors the first: I had a good time, but not enough to remember it a year from now. Which is a shame, because this time, as I read, I kept thinking, “Man, she’s a good writer.”

wd: Since PBR came into being, the most debated books have been Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation. Apples and oranges for certain and a testament to our divergent tastes. Unlike the Crusie title – for which Kassia and I were eager, but for too long lacked the time to discuss – the talk about Outlander wasn’t of the sort that implies fervor. The deliberations went a bit like this:

Me: Let’s do Outlander.

Anonymous fellow reviewer: I’d rather be staked out on ant hill and covered in honey.

Repeat ad infinitum with the occasional substitution of torture method and you get the idea. While it’s been frustrating to want to talk about a book and to not find that desire reciprocated, the polarization that Outlander has caused here is endemic of the schism it has created in the larger romance community. There are those who passionately love Jamie and Claire’s story, and those who hate the very idea of the books. I have to admit that I am addicted to the Outlander series…while I’m reading it. When I’m not reading, I ardently wish I’d never picked the books up. The never-ending-series that it has become weighs me down and dampens my excitement for the story.

(lf: Let me horn in here to say that as a fervent fan of Ms. Gabaldon’s, I too look askance at each new entry in the series. I’ve had Breath of Snow and Ashes on my shelf since it was published last year, working up the gumption to take a running leap at it. The Outlander books demand a huge investment in time and emotional energy and are not for the weak.)

Nonetheless, when Lorna joined us I knew the discussion that I was so impatient for would soon be underway. Years ago, the first conversation Lorna and I had – beyond, hello nice to meet you – was about the Outlander series. We were united in our general passion for all things Gabaldon while being divided by our thoughts on specific points. That seemed a lovely place to begin a discussion, and it was with great enthusiasm that Lorna and I launched into Outlander. We quickly found that our conversation about Jamie and Claire and all that happens to them, to be completely overwhelming. It’s nearly impossible to discuss Outlander while leaving all those other books and continuing storylines untouched; but we managed to, mostly. What follows is our very long chat about Outlander.

As I confessed in a previous review, there is a certain element of randomness when it comes my book selection process. I judge books by covers, by clever synopses, by really bad synopses, and, sometimes, by guilt. For example, let’s say someone sends me a book for review and I haven’t gotten to it, then I get an email reminding me that this book is in my possession, and guilt nudges me, saying “You should at least open the package.”

Rest assured that this latter scenario rarely happens. But a week or so ago, I received a friendly reminder from a publicist suggesting that I should have received, read, and loved Elizabeth Hoyt’s The Raven Prince. Whoa there, I thought, you think I get around to this stuff in a day or two? You don’t know me.

And of course I’m also thinking that I’m going to show this publicist. You get all “you’re gonna love this book” with me, and I’ll show you. Take that and that and that.

Through what can only be viewed as a quirk of fate, I found myself in a situation where there were only two books on my desk. Setting aside the fact that someone cleaned my personal space without my express permission – I am now unable to find anything – I was in a quandary. It was time to select my next review vict— book. Choices? A book called Viva Las Bad Boys! versus a book called Scoop.

For professional as well as personal reasons, I went with the latter book.

You know how it goes -- I read a gazillion books a year. Sometimes they blur together, especially if I go on a bender. Things can get weird when that happens. Like when I (accidentally) pick up a Linda Howard book in the grocery store. Honest, I meant to get orange juice, but I went in the wrong entrance.

I digress. So, being a good citizen (I have a badge in Book Buying), I read the back cover. Okay, this was mostly because I never know who might be reporting back to my husband, and I wanted to create the impression that thought went into this purchase. And I'm reading and I'm thinking and I'm trying to remember, "Did I read this before?" Then, being of sound mind and marginally okay body, I realized the book was a sequel.

Hallelujah, purchase!

Eloisa James is a fine writer, a sharp crafter of words, and a good storyteller. Her latest release, the fourth and final installment of the Essex sisters’ stories, Pleasure for Pleasure, is a first-rate example of each of those points: the narrative is charming, the dialog is rapier swift, and the telling both elegant and engaging. It’s odd then to also find, amongst all that good writing, little in the way of cohesive plot. Odder still to make that claim of a four hundred page book. But, the fact is, there’s not a lot of there there in Pleasure for Pleasure. And oddest yet, the book is thoroughly enjoyable despite it.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire and Jack Frost nipping at your nose make the holidays, and curling up with a good book, all the better. The same goes for romances; there is always the hope that holiday themed romances will deliver a seasonal magic and the burden of disbelief will be lessen in the season of miracles. Or, at least, that’s the wish. In the case of Sugar and Spice – an anthology featuring Christmas themed romances from Fern Michaels, Beverly Barton, Joanne Fluke and Shirley Jump – that’s not entirely the case.

There’s little room for surprise in the clockwork art that is genre fiction. What is expected of the formula is, after all, the expected. But fiction, good fiction, needs the element of surprise, some bit of plot or character or device that isn’t as expected. It is in the unanticipated, the unforeseen, the unpredicted that talent shines brightest and readers are given something memorable. Debut author Colleen Gleason has neatly sidestepped the issue of triteness with The Rest Falls Away, by stretching and straddling genre boundaries. The result is a story that isn’t strictly a romance or strictly a paranormal or strictly a Regency. It’s a romance without a central love story, a paranormal that never looses sight of the fact that vampires are monsters, and a Regency whose heroine has something besides the ton on her mind. All that makes for a read that surprises.

Julie Garwood is a member of my personal romance pantheon. While she’s written some clunkers, she’s also given me many hours of reading pleasure (oh my, do I just adore the heck out of Castles). That makes this a difficult review to write. Because Shadow Dance isn’t a bad book...it’s just not the book it could (or should!) be.

Since making her move to romantic suspense (I know, HK, I know), Garwood has also been name-checking two previous series – the “Roses” series and, for lack of a better name, the “Medieval” series. To achieve this feat, she has brought together a descendants of the Claybornes from the Roses series, and the Buchanans (see Ransom. among the other Medievals) and the MacKennas (who apparently didn't appear in any of Garwood's previous books -- fact-checkers will be working overtime to verify this -- but they've been feuding for centuries with the Buchanans). This will all come together, I swear.

On the cover of DIRTY by Megan Hart are these three word: An Erotic Novel. Published by Spice Books, the story makes no claim to be an erotic romance, nor does it pass itself off as a work of women’s fiction with erotic elements. It simply states that it is an erotic novel. The question that might then follow is whether or not the story in an erotic novel should succeed or fail based on its level of eroticism. In other words, does the tale that is told need to turn on a vital erotic component, or is it enough that it offers readers detailed scenes of explicit sex?