Fresh Meat: Rhyannon Byrd's Rush of Pleasure

Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers

Fresh Meat: Rhyannon Byrd's Rush of Pleasure (excerpted below)

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At the conclusion of my Fresh Meat on Rhyannon Byrd’s Rush of Darkness, the seventh in her Primal Instinct series, I wrote about my hope for the series' end sooner rather than later. Turns out that Rush of Pleasure, the eighth in the series, is also the last...and now I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s true that I missed the middle three books in the series, and that there were problems with Rush of Pleasure. But now that it’s over, I kinda wish for more, and am glad that on Byrd’s website she mentions Deadly Is the Kiss, an April 2012 release from HQN about Ashe Granger, a secondary character in the series. It’s somehow a stand-alone, even though Granger figured in at least three of the series’ installments. After eight books in a relatively short period of time, August through April seems a long time to wait, but I can do it.

Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Feel free to comment on Rush of Pleasure, Rhyannon Byrd, and/or the entire Primal Instinct series at H&H once you've read it.

Click the label for Rhyannon Byrd below for more entries at Toe in the Water, including my review of Touch of Seduction, fourth in the Primal Instinct series.

Fresh Meat: Rhyannon Byrd's Rush of Pleasure

New at H&H: A Makeover of a Different Kind

I think that subconsciously, watching Will Farrell's hilarious appearance on Conan O'Brien's show in early May gave me the idea for my new article at Heroes & Heartbreakers. It reminded me of a joke I heard back in the day. The joke kicks off the article. Feel free to watch the clip below in its entirety, but it's between 1:20 and 1:55 minutes in that it all started to gel in my head.

Putting a piece out there of on a topic such as this (you'll see when you read it) was not something I took lightly. I mentioned last week that I had a blast writing it, but that it took a lot of effort on my part to get to and maintain just the right tone...to write about a delicate matter and keep it light so as to be funny yet not be prurient, and to be revelatory enough while not exposing myself too much in the text. Hopefully I succeeded.

Because of the subject matter's delicacy, I feel a little squirmy knowing that people will actually read the article. On the other hand, I'm kinda proud of myself for tackling the topic in a funny way. Did I succeed? Please let me know by posting a comment at H&H after you read it.

New at H&H: A Makeover of a Different Kind

New "Fresh Meat" at H&H, and the Art of the Review

Fresh Meat: Rhyannon Byrd's Rush of Darkness

My newest blogging at Heroes and Heartbreakers just went online (5:00 p.m. eastern time). My sub-title for the piece is Dysfunction junction...come on, gimme a little smile. Drop by and give it a read, then post a comment over there.

I thought I'd share with you why I don't seem to be blogging much these days. It's simple. I'm spending all my time reading and writing, either reviews for PW, or pieces for H&H. I've got another spec piece in draft status, with another just written yet not submitted, and in the last week, in addition to reading and writing about Byrd's book, I read and reviewed two books for the magazine (not including the review I turned in this morning). Never has it felt so good to be under such a time crunch, although having to write ten drafts (yes, you heard right, ten drafts) between last evening and my eleven o'clock deadline this morning for my most recent PW review was not exactly a barrel full of monkeys.

Why were ten drafts necessary for this particular review? Well, the book was nearly 500 pages long and had four sub-plots, three of which melded together. It's part of a long-running series that I've not read in its entirety, with a tremendous number of fans who are as unhappy with review errors as I am. If the facts in a review aren't right, the entire thing—analysis and all—lacks credibility. Because these are short reviews, there's no margin whatsoever for error, and with a book readers are ready to devour, the pressure is more keen than usual.

I write for two PW editors; my mass market editor requires reviews to be no more than 170 words, including page cites. My fiction editor allots up to 300 words (with page cites). This was a review for my mass market editor and the first draft was too long by half. By the time I'd cut it down enough, I'd not only gone through nine more drafts, I'd very nearly rewritten the entire review several times.

For me, the hardest part of self-editing to meet a word count is giving up ownership of my writing. In this review, for instance, I'd written a particularly brilliant sentence fragment. It lasted from draft five through draft nine. Ultimately I cut it because the sentence directly following it subsumed my point. I should have been able to let it go a couple of drafts sooner, but it took further editing to determine how I could cut the fragment and replace it with an entire sentence. Other writers, who are more skilled than I am, no doubt find this easier to do, but even after sixteen years of reviewing, I struggle.

I've got six books to review for PW between now and early May, and I've committed to writing at least two more Fresh Meat pieces for H&H. In addition to the spec pieces I've submitted or finished writing, I plan to write more. And, I'd like to fit in a little reading simply for the pleasure of reading. Not that I'm complaining; I'm glad to be busy and hope everything I write that's published pleases readers and my editors. While you can't update me on my success at PW (I can tell you that I had one review among the 86 published today, but can't be more specific than that), I hope you'll give me feedback on my H&H articles.

New "Fresh Meat" at H&H, and the Art of the Review

Still Reading After All These Years

When I finished reading Anne Stuart's The Wicked House of Rohan and Ruthless, it occurred to me that she is one of a very select group of authors I've continued reading since discovering the joys of romance novels in 1993. Of the select group of others, most fell by the wayside immediately or almost immediately. I read 23 books by 13 authors the first year I read romance, and Anne Stuart is the only one I continue to follow oh-so-closely. I don't read all of her romantic suspense, but have read every one of her Ice books and nearly all of her historicals (and have TBR some of her very old category titles). Lisa Kleypas and Teresa Medeiros are nearly auto-buys, but much less read.

Rather than going year by year, let me list my most frequent romance DIK authors (from most to fewest multiple DIKs), whether or not I continue to buy and/or read them, and if not, how long they lasted. It's not a tremendously large list, so it shouldn't take that long.

Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, with 11 DIKs, the 11th added just last year with 2009's Promises in Death: I discovered Roberts in 1997 but didn't read her as J.D. Robb until 2006. I continue to read her as the latter, not so much the former.

Julie Garwood, with 9 DIKs: I read Garwood's 1993-published Castles in 1994, beginning a string of DIK reads. Sorry to say, but I gave her up when she moved into romantic suspense in 2000. She wrote another historical a couple of years ago, and though I bought it, it remains unread.

Catherine Coulter, with 5 DIKs: Coulter was among the thirteen authors I read in 1993. While her quality varied from terrific to horrendous - and some sub-genres went off-limits quickly - I continued to read her Regency-set historicals long after most, stopping after Pendragon, with 25 books by her under my belt..

Kathryn Lynn Davis and Anne Stuart, both with 3 DIKs: If Kathryn Lynn Davis hadn't stopped publishing with Somewhere Lies the Moon, no doubt I'd have continued to read her. As for Stuart, she continues to amaze me.

Connie Brockway, Christina Dodd, Jillian Hunter, Mary Alice Monroe, Julia Quinn, Deborah Simmons, and Katherine Sutcliffe, all with 2 DIKs: I have several of Brockway's books TBR and will probably buy her again. As for Dodd, I continued to read her long after she and her closest attacked my integrity, and that of AAR, but at some point I realized I could no longer give any author business if she actively tried to destroy my website. Eventually that extended to Julia Quinn, whose behavior was more subversive. She was the only author contacted in 2007 to participate in AAR's 10th anniversary who refused, and unless she hears of this, she probably has no idea that I know why. (Hey, as a private citizen, I'm no longer obligated to take the high road.)

I continue to buy and read Jillian Hunter, even though it's been two years since reading Wicked as Sin, which I thought was only slightly better than average. I only fell in love with Mary Alice Monroe in 2002, and until last year's Last Light Over Carolina, she'd consistently blown me away. I look forward to her next book.

Deborah Simmons only recently returned to publishing after a hiatus, and I continue to buy her books, though it's been a while since I've read one. Finally...Katherine Sutcliffe, who stopped publishing in 2005. I stopped reading her after My Only Love, which I liked, mainly because her books' premises stopped interesting me and I knew she was capable of some real clinkers. Then too, she became the poster child for Bad Author Behavior. I felt she was misunderstood and tried to help her navigate what was at the time uncharted territory, and it exhausted me.

What other authors have been published for a very long time whom I continue to read today? The first who comes to mind is Mary Balogh. I didn't "get" Balogh until 2001, but my favorite book by her to date was just published this summer: A Secret Affair. She's been published since 1985, so...wow. Linda Howard is another long-published author to have thrilled me fairly recently - with her Blair Mallory books. Though I only first read her in 1999, she was first published in 1982, so again...wow.

Other authors published way back when whom I read for quite a while, even if none of their books ever earned DIK status: Let's start with Loretta Chase, whose 1995 "classic," Lord of Scoundrels I only first read in 2006. More than a decade after publishing LOS, she published Your Scandalous Ways, which I truly enjoyed, and I happily look forward to reading both back-list and subsequent releases as time permits. Chase's first book, btw, was published in 1987. Next up: Patricia Oliver, who died several years ago. She's the only Trad Regency author I "got" for many years, and deserves mention simply for that reason. Also, Lorraine Heath and Leanne Banks - both of whom I continue to buy if only rarely read - and Elizabeth Lowell, Ruth Langan, and Jill Barnett, all for whom I have multiple books TBR, even though I stopped buying them some time ago.

I'm sure I've left out many authors I'll later wish I'd included, buts it's time for the flip side, and a few long-time authors I eventually gave up on. Obviously there are many, many, oh-so many I can't possibly list them all, but these three came to mind for three different reasons, so I'm listing them: JAK/Amanda Quick, Marilyn Pappano, and Elizabeth Bevarly. I read many books by each of these authors, and gave up on Krentz/Quick when she eventually became derivative of heself. As for Pappano, while I have many from her backlist, and even am a fan of books following Season for Miracles in her Bethlehem series, once I subsequently read SFM, I was turned off so strongly that I never bought another of her books. With Bevarly the reasons are many, and not all are book-related. Apparently I do hold a grudge. 'Nuff said.

After writing all this, it amazes me that Anne Stuart, Mary Balogh, and J.D. Robb continue to thrill after so many years in print. I look forward to additional greatness from them, others on my list, such as Loretta Chase, Linda Howard, Lisa Kleypas, and Terersa Medeiros, and still others - from Madeline Hunter (whose first book came out a full decade ago!), to Elizabeth Hoyt to Rhyannon Byrd to Cherise Sinclair - whose careers are not yet as long-lived. And if Sinclair's name comes out of thin air, know that I rarely write about the erotic romance I read, although that will likely change in the very near future.

Still Reading After All These Years

Touch of Seduction by Rhyannon Byrd

Touch of Seduction

Rhyannon Byrd

Grade: B-

Urban Fantasy Romance

Touch of Danger, the fourth in Rhyannon Byrd's Primal Instict series of urban fantasy romances, follows the first three books by nearly a year, and that is its primary flaw. The first three books were released one per month for three months, so there wasn't a problem getting up to speed and retaining momentum as the world-building increased in complexity and scope. I've been a big fan of the author since discovering her at Ellora's Cave many years ago, and reviewed the Edge of Hunger, the first Primal release, for Publishers Weekly (click here to read it on book's Amazon page). I graded it B+ and its two follow ups straight B's. If not for the state of confusion I more than occasionally found myself in while reading book four, it would have earned a straight B as well, if not a B+. Instead it earns a B- and a suggestion that readers skim book three - Edge of Desire - prior to starting Touch of Danger. Book five, btw, is already out and book six is scheduled for fall.

A war has secretly begun as dangerous paranormal creatures long ago sent to hell join forces in order to escape their prison and kill all those who stand in their way of ruling the world. Standing in their way are various "clans" of other paranormals, including witches, vampires, shapeshifters, and combinations thereof. Among the "good guys" are the Watchmen, a secretive group, comprised mainly of shapeshifters who heretofore have only watched and recorded paranormal goings-on. Byrd owes a boon to Anne Rice's Talamasca and the Highlander franchise for the Watchmen, and I can see influences from Marjorie Liu, Angela Knight, and Lora Leigh in the Primal Instinct series. This is not a condemnation or accusation; it's actually a compliment since I'm a fan of Knight's Mageverse, Liu's Dirk & Steele series and Leigh's Breeds, As I'm now also seeing comparisons between Byrd, Knight, Liu, Showalter, and Leigh in Lori Handeland's Phoenix Chronicles and Sarah McCarty's Shadow Wranglers series, it occurs to me that it makes sense for preternatural creatures to face an existential enemy of either human or paranormal origin. Armageddon tends to really up the ante on action, you know?

Perhaps I tend to like these series better than other urban fantasy/urban fantasy romance series because there's a larger purpose at hand, a fight that will effect the world as a whole. Come to think of it, this may also explain why I think Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries have, for me, finally run out of steam; in Harris' series the preternatural are warring each other, but not with an overall plan to rule the world...and humanity.

In Touch of Seduction, tiger-shifter Aiden Shrader is tasked with protecting the human woman Olivia Harcourt, who acts as guardian to her young niece Jamie, whose mother was killed by Casus baddies. Olivia was the sole human in a family of witches, and Jamie is half witch/half Merrick, which makes her quite literally irresistible to the Casus. The extreme sensuality Byrd was known for in her EC books was somewhat muted as this series began; in this book it's back in full force, even though there aren't more than a couple of full-on love scenes. The book actually begins when Aiden goes to rescue Olivia and Jamie in advance of a Casus attack. The moment he sees and scents Olivia, he realizes he's in deep shit. He cannot help himself and they end up in a raunchy clinch in which Olivia is a full participant. Though she's human, she calls to Aiden in a primal way. Trouble is, he can never trust a human, particularly a human woman and vows to be immune to her temptation.

As for Olivia, she sees herself as plain, mundane, and meek, and cannot fathom the gorgeous shifter's attraction in her. She's far more accepting of the weirdness that surrounds them once they hit the road on their way to the Watchmen compound (they cannot fly due to Jamie's inner-ear issue). Olivia's self-image doesn't seem to match how Aiden and the two watchmen traveling with them see her; her being cheated on by an ex-boyfriend cues in the reader that she's been a doormat and that perhaps she has some allure visable only to those with special powers.

The very young Jamie seems to take everything in stride, which both Olivia and Aiden find unnerving; this preternatural calm will serve her well as the story reaches its climax in a battle with the baddies, who now also include a race of Death Walkers. At the start Aiden gives her a Dark Marker to wear in order to protect her from the Casus, but as the story progresses, the Watchmen learn there's an unintended consequence, a downside to using the Dark Markers. To say more would give spoilers. In fact, to say much more about the storyline would detract from reading it. Even though I got lost in world-building, hopefully you'll take my advice, skim the previous book, and more fully enjoy the wonderfully tortured love story between Aiden and Olivia, their erotic love scenes, and the playfulness Jamie brings out in those charged with protecting her. The Casus and Death Watchers are indeed frightening and once you're up to speed on the various clans and hellish species and can fully enjoy the ride, I think you will. As for me, I'm going to start Touch of Surrender and will cross my fingers that by the time book six comes out later this year, I'm not once again confused.

Touch of Seduction by Rhyannon Byrd

April Book Buys

Of the ten books on my wish list, four were available digitally. Looking at AAR's list of releases for April, though, reminded me of one other book I wanted, which supplanted one of those four (Bulls Island). Here then are my ebook downloads for April.

I also downloaded a digital copy of Metrophage, Richard Kadrey's first book. It, like Butcher Bird is available for free...just go to Kadrey's site. I don't know anything, really, about these books, but was such a fan of Sandman Slim that I thought I'd grab 'em while I could. Meanwhile, Kill the Dead, the Sandman sequel is set to be released later this year...I think in October.

I'm most anxious for a copy of Chaos Bites, but the two earlier books in Handeland's series were delayed digitally, so I may give in and buy the print release to read as soon as this special review project for PW is complete.

As for the others, well, I do have Changeless in manuscript form. An unacceptable version, to be sure, which at some point I'll need to rectify, but at least I've already read it.

And now I'm off to finish reviewing the second special project book (read it yesterday)...three to go with the clock running out.

April Book Buys