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Things aren't going well for Shanna Whelan, either. After witnessing a gruesome murder, she's next on the mob's hit list. And her career as a dentist appears to be on a downward spiral because she's afraid of blood. When Roman rescues her from an assassination attempt, she wonders if she's found the one man who can keep her alive. Though the attraction between them is immediate and hot, can Shanna conquer her fear of blood to fix Roman's fang? And if she does, what will prevent Roman from using his fangs on her ... ?

Both were wounded in the same train robbery in frontier Colorado and left on Abigail McKenzie's doorstep to nurse back to life.

Gentle, loving David, promising her a happiness she'd lost hope of finding, was all a lady could wish for.

Jesse stood for everything she hated: he was rude, violent, roughly handsome and disturbingly sensual.

But it was Jesse's mocking mouth that troubled her dreams, Jesse who made her feel a hundred things a lady should never know, Jesse who challenged her every waking hour.  She fought him with all the stiff propriety her stubborn will commanded...but in her burned the aching embers of love too long denied--love that would force her to a choice no woman should ever have to make...

I do not wonder this about Awaiting The Moon by Donna Lea Simpson. I have little patience for vampires and werewolves and things that go bump in the night, mostly because most authors strain credulity when trying to make these phenomena plausible. Simpson sucked me in and made believe that, sure, a nice guy with a never-ending list of family problems might also be hiding a werewolf-sized secret.

It’s a given that there is a special level of Dante’s Inferno for book reviewers that reveal key plot points and endings. Generally, Minos’ fierce tail should be avoided at all costs, but there is something special enough about the last few pages of Lara Rios’ Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps that bears exposing: the story is self contained; the heroine’s journey actually ends on the last page. Remember books like that? Books where the plot’s beginning, middle and end could be found between the covers of one book and not a series of books? Remember when it was standard fare to see favorite characters off to their happily-ever-after and know that they stayed there save for possible brief cameos in their siblings’ and friends’ stories? Apparently Lara Rios remembers those books and wasn’t afraid to write one herself. More like her, please.

Wendy: The role of the small press has long been to champion what is overlooked by large publishers, to give readers choices beyond the homogenized products turned out by the behemoths, and to find a niche in the marketplace and fill it. In the last few years electronic publishers have done exactly that for romance, offering not only sub-genres and styles untouched by New York or Toronto, but authors as well. The electronic publishers aren’t the whole story, however; there are traditional small publishers (and next to Penguin USA everyone is small) out there, presses that don’t put out a few books a month, but rather a few books a year. What role are they to fill? Is there something unnoticed that only a small press could bring attention to? If Medallion Press is any indication, the role of this small publisher isn’t a niche market, but direct competition for the Big Boys.

HelenKay: Reunion romances walk a fine line between engaging and annoying. Readers will abandon some measure of common sense in favor of the promise of love triumphing over time and distance. The ultimate romantic notion is in believing people can hold on to a forever-kind-of-love through adversity, family differences and difficulties tearing them apart, only to find each other again years later and still feel that tug and pull. The dangerous ground comes with whatever the awful "it" was that ripped the couple apart. Make it illusory or easy to resolve and - poof - the reader disappears. Lani Diane Rich's storytelling avoids the annoyance trap in The Comeback Kiss with believable motivations and histories for her heroine and hero. Frankly, even if Rich had faltered in this aspect, most would forgive her thanks to the other strengths of the story, including a lovable hero, humorous dialog and strong suspense thread.

Every first novel has an interesting story of its road to publication. Interesting, at least, for the author. Few have a story that would interest anyone else. Of the tens of thousands of works of fiction that come into the marketplace every year, few have a tale like A Confederacy of Dunces which was published eleven years after author John Kennedy Toole’s suicide (a suicide widely attributed to Toole’s publishing failures) and only after the book was championed by Toole’s mother. Once released, it won a loyal and rabid fan base, and went on to take the Pulitzer. In the end, it’s a success story, the rarity of which authors everywhere should be thankful for.

Caitlin Scott-Turner’s journey to publication doesn’t rival Toole’s, but it is worth repeating. Her first novel, The Queen’s Fencer was written two and a half decades ago. At the time, it was very nearly published, only to fall through the cracks. After years of languishing, the novel was self-published before finding its way to the small press Five Star. Yes, more than a quarter century later, Scott-Turner’s novel was published.

HelenKay: For years romance readers have complained about the too-stupid-to-live (TSTL) heroine. This is the woman who acts in ways that defy common sense and reality. The nonsensical decisions they make come both in the face of true adversity and in reaction to mundane problems. Many times this TSTL woman is too insecure to make a life decision without the approval of her mother or father or grandparent or priest or neighbor or 4th grade teacher or someone in an equal position of power. Despite this, somehow and without explanation, she can take on a McGyver-like quality and diffuse a Tomahawk Missile with her barrette using only the knowledge she gained while growing up on a Kansas farm.

In spite of, or maybe in reaction to, these TSTL heroines comes the kick-ass heroine. These ladies don't need family permission to take a job or a caucus of friends to pick which man to date. Many can shoot, run, kill, diffuse and fight. Unfortunately, many of these ladies also defy common sense and reality, mostly because of their ability to morph from "normal" to superhuman with little explanation. In those cases, the contexts of their kick-ass natures are wrong. But there are others. Silhouette Bombshell promises from the outset a "strong, savvy, sexy heroine who always saves the day." A reader goes in expecting a kick-ass heroine with specialized skills and an attitude to match. The worry isn't that the reader will encounter a TSTL heroine. A kick-ass heroine is guaranteed. The worry then is that the kick-ass heroine won't convince or stay true to who she is and her surroundings. Wendy Rosnau overcomes all of these worries and delivers on the Bombshell promise with the compelling romantic thriller The Spy With The Silver Lining.

Erotica or erotic romance: that is the question. All playing hard and fast with Hamlet aside, there are a lot questions, still, about what erotic romance is, where the boundary between romance and erotic romance is, and where then the dividing line between erotic romance and erotica exists. Questions abound; definitive answers, do not. Divisions, categories and labels create a slippery slope for who gets to decide what fiction belongs where. Does Reader A’s opinion supersede Reader B’s if they don’t agree on what level of sexuality is too much for a simple romance label or what level isn’t enough for an erotic tag? It’s a quagmire for certain, one that Black Lace has stepped into with its re-release of Pamela Rochford’s 1997 title Dangerous Consequences.

HelenKay: Books centered on kidnapped children know no genre boundaries. Missing and endangered children are as plentiful in fiction as they are in life. Mysteries and thrillers are logical places to find these fictional children in peril. Romantic suspense and literary fiction often provide fertile ground for this plot as well. While some books like Lovely Bones explore this subject from a fresh angle, many others travel the same path. This relative sameness drains some of the emotion from the suspense aspect of the read. Kate Pepper avoids the read-this-all-before feel in her book One Cold Night by focusing less on the kidnapping than on the desperation and uncertainty of those left behind. The result is a full and engaging exploration of loss, love, deceit and faith.

There is a crux in fiction, a contract between the author and the reader regarding the suspension of disbelief. Readers are willing to step into fictitious worlds and accept the reality presented within and in return authors make those fictitious worlds feel real. What readers are willing to buy into ranges from the impossible to the highly unlikely. In Steam Punk, readers accept a Victorian setting with modern day technology. In Science Fiction, readers accept that humans—or human like species – populate the vast reaches of the universe, traveling and communicating through means that are purely speculation on the author’s part. In romance, readers time and again believe that a playboy will give up his multiple bed partners for that one special woman or that a prince will marry a peasant girl. To aid this disregard of reality, fiction must be couched and grounded in something plausible: readers accept the implausible 200 year old vampire, Louis, in Ann Rice’s Interview With The Vampire because despite Louis’ drinking of blood, rising with the moon, and immortality, he is mired in emotions so human every reader can relate. When fiction is burdened with characters and storylines that strain credibility on top of asking for the usual suspension of disbelief, fiction is doomed to failure. Such is the case with Colleen Thompson’s The Deadliest Denial.

Harlequin’s new imprint Spice, is the stalwart publisher’s entry into the hot, and increasingly bloated, erotic fiction marketplace. If erotic fiction and Harlequin—the publishing home of countless 30 year old, virginal heroines and conflict that can always be resolved in a precise number of pages with a ring and a pregnancy—seem an unlikely and uneasy partnership, that’s because they are. Spice’s aim is to offer the women clamoring for super hot, non-traditional reads, erotic fiction that isn’t bogged down with all that sex. The result is a line of books that shines bright lights into shadowed corners, smoothes out the rough edges, and generally feels like a favorite strip club that is now run by Disneyland.

As our regular readers know, every now and then we like to have a little love fest -- a favorite book, a favorite author, a favorite book by a favorite author. It's also a great way to break in new victi--reviewers. Since I've been long convinced that Wendy and HelenKay have missed the magic that is Nora Roberts, when I discovered that new PBRer Lorna Freeman is a Nora fan, I thought, "Cool. It's time for Carnal Innocence."

Carnal Innocence is your basic small-town mystery: someone's killing the fast and loose women of Innocence, Mississippi in particularly brutal ways. Caroline Waverly, a world-renowned violinist comes to Innocence after inheriting her grandparents' home. Her goal: peace and rejuvenation. Of course, with a serial killer on the loose, peace is tough to come by. Enter Tucker Longstreet, known lazybones and the richest dude in town (and possibly the state). Not only is Tucker, uh, well-acquainted with the dead women, he's also impossibly charming, the backbone of his family, and all-around ladies' man. I mean that as a compliment.

Back when Dante was imagining the circles of hell, they hadn’t invented high school. Otherwise, there would have been a special place devoted to cliques and pimples and headgear. They say that college is where you learn independence; high school is where you learn to survive.

Not that the heroine of Serena Robar’s young adult novel, Braced2Bite, has any problems with the high school scene. She’s the top of the cheerleader pyramid, an honors student, and gunning for the man of her dreams. Okay, so she’s also a vampire, no, half-vampire. Genealogy is a tricky thing.

According to the buzz at RWA’s annual conference this year, sex continues to sell like hotcakes (I don’t get the reference either) and the hotter the story, the better. Before erotica/erotic romance became the darling of publishers everywhere, Harlequin pushed the boundaries with their Blaze line.

You know, sexy premise, sexy story. And I’m going to admit it – I fell for a marketing pitch. I picked up Cara Summers’ Two Hot! Based on back cover copy alone. Part of Blaze’s “Forbidden Fantasies” flash, the book promised me a journey into fantasy numero dos – two men, one heroine.

The best writers are not, necessarily, those with the best ideas; they’re they ones with the best execution. Richard Russo’s Empire Falls is simply a re-telling of Great Expectations. Russo certainly isn’t the only one to undertake that very common idea, and yet there is fine-spun brilliance in every line of Empire Falls and that is why the book won the Pulitzer. Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation is the story of a big city girl from the wrong side of the tracks and a small town boy whose family runs the town. Romance has seen that setup time and again, yet Crusie slipped magic and subtext into the tale and a finer poor girl/rich boy story cannot be found. The ideas aren’t worth much, but the achievements are priceless

Michelle Rowen’s sophomore effort, Angel with Attitude, sounds like a great idea: the heroine, Valerie Grace is an angel, and the hero, Nathaniel, is a demon. It stacks up to be the ultimate good girl/bad boy story: she’s just wants to get back to heaven and he wants to coax her to hell. This is delicious. What common ground could such a couple have? How far will she fall? Can he be redeemed? The answers don’t really matter. It is how those answers unfold that prove whether the setup succeeds or fails. Like all ideas, Angel with Attitude comes down to the execution.

The greatest strength of paranormal romance is the opportunity it provides for diversity in the genre. The boy-meets-girl-loses-girl-wins-girl-back formula can be told with infinite variations when things such as five-hundred-year-life-spans are thrown into the mix. Unfortunately, paranormal has largely proved more homogeneous than hetero: he’s a vampire too noble to drink blood; she’s a good witch; he/she is a werewolf willing to chew off his/her own paw rather than bite a human. Limiting paranormal to a few constructs, a few worn out mythologies, constricts the subgenre to the strangling point and robs it of its most interesting aspect. One niche of paranormal romance that has yet to be winnowed down is science fiction. The opportunities for worlds with alternate histories, futures and presents that are populated with humans – or human like characters – are infinite and authors like Nalini Singh make a fantastic argument for more sci-fi romances.

Some books defy easy definition. These books may best be described by what they aren't. A promise of a suspense not met. A romance focused only on the chase and not on the catch. A vampire tale less about vampires than about societal pressures. If a book isn't as suspenseful as advertised, or isn't really a romantic as hoped, disgruntled readers tend to rise up and complain of missed expectations. But, other times a book has just enough of everything to be enticing. Kimberly Raye's Dead End Dating falls into the latter category.

Romance has long been accused of suffering from a general sameness: same characters, same plots, same endings. That is an arguable point, but looking at the new release table laden with vampires, werewolves, and erotica, and then more vampires, werewolves, and erotica, readers might think the effort put into the argument is wasted. The market is rather striking for its current homogeneity, so much so that titles offering the least bit of variation stand out. Jodi Thomas’ new release, Texas Rain, is immediately intriguing for that very reason. The story doesn’t have a paranormal element. Nor does it feature characters who define themselves by the quick, easy sex they have, or the quick, easy sex they want to have. In fact, there isn’t any sex, to speak of, in the book. Texas Rain is a pre-Civil War-set-Western and different enough in both approach and content that, at first blush, it seems like a revolution might be brewing on the new release table.

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard is a deceptive book. On first glance it looks like one of a million Gossip Girl followers with its shiny, attractive girls on the cover and its high society setting. When I picked it up during a lunch break at work, I was expecting something light and commercialistic, what I found instead was a Twin Peaks-esque story line where instead of trying to figure out who killed Laura Palmer I was left wondering if Alison DiLaurentis was even dead.

I can't explain why I am sometimes compelled to go into the scary place that is my garage and root around in boxes in search of a specific book. It's like a chemical reaction that I can't control -- I wake up and nothing will make me happy except for that one specific book (generally that one specific book is also located in a box under a zillion other boxes, meaning I work up a sweat before I get to read. Beats hitting the gym.).

A couple of weekends ago, I woke up with a powerful need to read Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Dream A Little Dream. It turns out that I get this urge about once a year, give or take. I love this book. I love this book despite the fact that I spend a good three quarters of my reading time in tears. Please do not tell anyone about that -- I do not cry easily (what is the old saying? There's no crying in reviewing?). But this book does me in. Every. Single. Time.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, I have a real love/hate relationship with continuing series. I adore them more than words can say, and I hate it when a favorite series jumps the shark. I don’t believe every book needs a sequel, I don’t believe every character needs to be expanded into his or her own full-fledged novel, but I do believe that authors should have the grace, dignity, and, well, objectiveness to stop a series at the right time.

I’m also sure that you’ve noticed that even when I swear off a series, I sometimes relapse. For me, breaking up really is hard to do, and sometimes I realize that it wasn’t the series, it was me. Like when I thought I was done with the J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts – the secret was poorly kept to begin with, and that’s clearly Nora looking mad, bad, and dangerous on the back covers of recent books) “In Death” series.

Pop Quiz:

The best romantic suspense villains exhibit which of the following traits:

• Shadowy, mushy goals and motivations which make sense only because the author says they do.
• The ability to hide their thoughts so well that the reader is more often perplexed than not.
• Violent, sometimes sadomasochistic tendencies that have appeared for no good reason.
• Clear, well-defined goals, motivation, and conflict.

When I was seven, I spent the summer eating tuna fish sandwiches on French bread. And by spending the summer, what I mean is that I created an appropriate mix of tuna and Miracle Whip (we were not a real mayo family) and cut a baguette (or the 1970s version thereof) into little baby slices, then I parked myself on a chair at the kitchen table, propped up a book, and read and ate my way through the summer.

Man, I miss those days: reading and eating all day long without gaining a pound. Life was good when I was seven.

I have, naturally, exhibited similar obsessive-compulsive tendencies throughout my life. Like, well, you know, reading every single Harlequin Intrigue I could find (this was back in the olden days when I didn’t have emotional problems about buying used books). I’d purchase bags of books and read, read, read. This time without the tuna and French bread. You gotta accept reality at some time.

In her paranormal debut, Slave to Sensation, Nalini Singh introduced romance readers to a crisp cyber punk universe where the emotionless, computer-like Psy race was juxtaposed to the beast-within-the-man race, the changelings. The result was entrancing and stunning. A fresh and unique take on the staid boy-meets-girl genre. In her latest, Visions of Heat, Singh revisits the Psy-changeling cosmos with Faith NightStar, an F-Psy designate, and Vaughn D’Angelo the lone jaguar changeling in the DarkRiver leopard pack. Together, they are pressed into action when another Psy serial killer – further proof that the Psy’s way of life, Silence, is crumbling – emerges. The world Singh builds is, again, stellar and continues to captivate, even when the romance and storyline buttressed by that world limp along.