New at H&H: Anne Stuart and My Fair Lady

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Anne Stuart and My Fair Lady.

Years ago, at an RWA conference in Atlanta, I sat down for breakfast with Anne Stuart, and invited Megan Frampton to join us. It was one of many author meetings during the conference, but along with a spot of tea with Linda Howard in her suite and a Diet Coke with Jill Marie Landis in the lobby, it was my favorite. Both Megan and I are Anne Stuart fangirls, and this was initially to be one half of a column, with Megan writing the other half. With all her editorial and writing duties at H&H, she simply didn't have time to do that second half, and because—as usual—my part is quite long enough, it's gone up on H&H by itself today as a solo article.

Click here to read Anne Stuart and My Fair Lady, then post a comment over at H&H.

New at H&H: Anne Stuart and My Fair Lady

New at H&H: Ruth Langan's Strong Scottish Women

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Strong Scottish Women: Ruth Langan’s MacAlpin Sisters Trilogy. It begins:

"A close friend of mine lives in Vermont. I met her at a castle in the Berkshires while she and her family lived in New York. Many months after we became friends, the two of us discovered we have similar taste in books. Sometimes when I pass along what I consider a great discovery, she’s already discovered the author. Mostly, though, my friend is excited to discover my new discoveries. And since we are both Kindle fanatics, when I learned earlier this month that five of Ruth Langan’s Highland series were bundled on sale at Amazon for less than a ten spot, I emailed her in a flash, adding a link to a quick interview I’d done with the author back in the day that compared romances set in the Scottish Highlands to those set in the American West, and just as quickly she wrote back to say she’d read the interview and downloaded the bundle."

Click here to continue reading Strong Scottish Women: Ruth Langan’s MacAlpin Sisters Trilogy, then post a comment over at H&H.

New at H&H: Ruth Langan's Strong Scottish Women

New at H&H: The Light and Dark of Deborah Simmons

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: The Light and Dark of Deborah Simmons. It begins:

"When I talked to Megan about my Hitting the Motherlode article, she suggested I consider writing about Ruth Langan's MacAlpin Sisters trilogy as well as an article—possibly two—about Deborah Simmons, an author I've championed online since 1996.

Perhaps an article about her Regency-set historicals, including The Vicar's Daughter, The Last Rogue, The Devil Earl, and The Gentleman Thief and another on her lengthy De Burgh family series? But what about Simmons' jumping the shark in more recent years, after being dropped by Harlequin before finishing the Medieval De Burgh series?"

Click here to continue reading The Light and Dark of Deborah Simmons, then post a comment over at H&H.

New at H&H: The Light and Dark of Deborah Simmons

New at H&H: Hitting the Motherlode

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Hitting the Motherlode. It begins:

"OMG!

"While waiting an hour and a half for Rihanna to perform Friday night at the American Airlines Center (we thought we were getting Cee Lo Green too, but he’s a diva and cancelled half the tour, so now his ab fab song Fuck You has taken on entirely new meaning), I got a wild hair and typed 'Ruth Langan' while playing around with my Kindle phone app. Imagine my surprise to discover that Amazon was offering a bundle of five (count ’em, five) of her Highland books from the 90s for $9.99, including the three I’d read and recommended multiple times throughout the years at AAR—Highland Barbarian, Highland Heather, and Highland Fire. After that bit of excitement, which included my purchasing the bundle on the spot, I made a date with myself to later check and see what other 90s Harlequin Historicals might now be available digitally.

"This weekend I hit the motherlode..."

Click here to continue reading The Motherlode, then post a comment over at H&H.

New at H&H: Hitting the Motherlode

New at H&H: Interfering Relatives

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Interfering Relatives, which I kick off with a video clip from Auntie Mame, featuring Rosalind Russell as my favorite cinematic Interfering Relative Of All Time.

The idea came to me while recently trying—but ultimately giving up on—a soon to be released historical romance, in which an Interfering Relative played a strong role. But the book didn't compare with other, better romances with far more memorable Interfering Relatives, so I chose my two favorites—one from a contemporary series and another from a Trad Regency—and used them to open up a discussion on other Interfering Relative stand-outs. I'd love to know which fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, siblings, or cousins you remember fondly for sticking their noses into the private lives of friends and relatives, so be sure add your two cents to the comments after you read my piece.

New at H&H: Interfering Relatives

Historical Romance Hiatus

Yesterday I tried to read an upcoming historical romance release. I gave up fairly early on, realizing that unless such books are written by specific authors, I've totally lost interest in reading them. Last night at dinner I told my husband and he was shocked. Historical romance occupied a good deal of my life for several years to the exclusion of other reading, and though I slowly began adding other genres of books to my reading repertoire, the idea of [mostly] going on a Historical Romance Hiatus for the foreseeable future is for me a Big Deal.

I still plan to read a select group of releases from authors like Mary Balogh—who wrote a DIK historical last year—and Anne Stuart, who wrote another, but for now, unless an author passes the DIK litmus test, I'm going to pass. Wow...I really said it.

That Mary Balogh is one of these authors kinda surprises me as for years I was in the I only read her trads camp. Then came A Secret Affair, which blew me away, all the more so because it was the end of a series I'd never begun. The Secret Mistress, which comes out early this summer, is actually a prequel to More than a Mistress and No Man's Mistress, and I've never read those either, but look forward to it regardless. As for the Anne Stuart, I can't wait to read the fourth full-length House of Rohan book. I don't expect her to top Breathless, but after having enjoyed the entire series to date...and because she's, well, awesome...I'm hoping for a good one.

Speaking of which, I won't be doing a Fresh Meat on Shameless because I've already declared Anne Stuart to be awesome on H&H, but will probably write about it here, openly declaring my fealty to her altar of awesome-ality.

Historical Romance Hiatus

Breathless by Anne Stuart

Breathless

Anne Stuart

Grade: A-

Stuart's House of Rohan series marks a spectacular return to the level of historicals she wrote in the 1990s, only with darker heroes, stronger heroines, and more divine love scenes. That last - the love scenes - concerned me a little because a lengthy seduction took a large chunk out of Reckless' word count and I worried that Breathless might over-do it. I have nothing against a well-written love scene of any length, but in too many series the love scenes get out of hand with each successive installment. Not to worry...while sex plays a large part in the storyline and there's lots of frank language, this book actual dials back the lovemaking, leaving more delicious spider/fly, cat/mouse action.

Read this review in its entirety at Amazon. It is not a Vine review; I received a digital copy from the publisher.

Breathless, btw, is my fourth Anne Stuart DIK, which moves her up on my list of multiple DIK authors. Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb has earned the most, with eleven to her credit, followed closely by Julie Garwood, with nine. Next is Catherine Coulter, with five, although she earned all five from me in the first year or so that I read romance. Very nearly the same can be said for Julie Garwood, which means that of my most-favored authors, only Stuart and Roberts/Robb continue to make this list grow.

Breathless by Anne Stuart

Reckless by Anne Stuart

Reckless

Anne Stuart

Grade: B

I liked Anne Stuart's Reckless perhaps more than I ought to have, given that the hero's ruthless rakishness desn't completely pass the smell test, but the heroine's inner core of strength, which increases as the book progresses, more than makes up for it. Stuart includes, as she is wont to do, a secondary romance in this late Georgian-set historical, and it's among her best, on a par with that in 1994's To Love a Dark Lord. Stuart has seriously ratcheted up the raw sensuality of her writing in this series, and each book features successively more lovemaking. Some might find this gratuitous - for me the term is "delicious."

Read this review in its entirety at Amazon. It is not a Vine review; I received a digital copy from the publisher.

Reckless by Anne Stuart

Tracker's Sin by Sarah McCarty

Tracker's Sin

Sarah McCarty

Grade: B/B- (and aren't I glad I am no longer required to get more specific!)

Tracker's Sin, book four in Sarah McCarty's Hell's Eight series, worked for me better than books two and three (Sam's Creed and Tucker's Claim). Sam's Creed was more than a little purple prosey, particularly in terms of a rather outlandish love scene on horseback, and I had problems understanding the heroine in Tucker's Claim. This fall's outing is a more worthy follow-up to Caine's Reckoning, book one in McCarthy’s frontier historical series for Harlequin's Spice imprint. Given that it also resolves a major plot-line running through the earlier books - which I grant needed to be done - I wonder how McCarty will avoid jumping the shark with book five, which I imagine will detail the life of Tracker's twin, Shadow...how he will fall in love, and whether or not he'll make use of the same sort of cream Caine's wife Desi oh-so-helpfully, and more than a little creepily, provides to sister Ari on her on her wedding night.

Read this review in its entirety at Amazon. It is not a Vine review; I received a digital copy from the publisher.

Tracker's Sin by Sarah McCarty

Ruthless by Anne Stuart

Ruthless

Anne Stuart

Grade: B

Historical Romance

If you're old enough to remember the 80s, you might recall the Eurotrash excess of those wacky Germans, the Prince and Princess Thurn and Taxis. For a decade now now I've considered the hero of Gaelen Foley's Prince Charming the historical romance version of modern Eurotrash. It's time for Prince Rafael de Fiore to move over...you've been replaced by Francis Rohan, le Comte de Giverney, from Anne Stuart's Ruthless.

Read this review in its entirety at Amazon. It is not a Vine review; the publisher sent me a digital copy.

Ruthless by Anne Stuart

The Wicked House of Rohan by Anne Stuart

The Wicked House of Rohan

Anne Stuart

Grade: B-

Historical Romance

In The Wicked House of Rohan, the prequel to Anne Stuart's House of Rohan series, the author continues to push the boundary of "appropriate behavior" in terms of her heroes, whom I've for years argued define Heroes on the Edge. I read the e-book as a free download, which it continues to be as of this writing at Amazon for Kindle, and it served its purpose well as an appetizer by whetting my appetite for the series, which begins with Ruthless, on sale just a few days ago. I've already read it and you can look for my review shortly.

Read this review in its entirety at Amazon. It is not a Vine review; the publisher sent me a digital copy.

The Wicked House of Rohan by Anne Stuart

Lists

Anyone who's known me online for any period of time knows that I love lists. AAR's Special Title Listings, for instance, grew out of the original Laurie's News & Views (which eventually became the At the Back Fence column). The Lists, along with those original columns, were the basis of The Archives of Laurie Likes Books - along with the Castle of the Week and a smattering of Desert Isle Keeper Romances - all of which formed All About Romance after I left The Romance Reader.

I've popped in and out of Amazon over the years as a reviewer, and in recent months have become fairly active. It wasn't until I read my profile, though, and realized the "about me" description was woefully out of date that I noticed the original two Listmania Lists I'd created were equally old and needed to be reworked so that the books listed therein weren't all a decade old, or worse, out of print.

As of today I have four Listmania Lists: Ten Romance Desert Isle Keepers; Ten Non-Romance Desert Isle Keepers; My Favorite Urban Fantasy/Dark Fantasy Novels; and My Top Urban Fantasy/Dark Fantasy Romances. And, as of today, two of the lists have once again been over-hauled. Since one of my goals with these lists was for them to be "top ten" lists, I'm happy to report that I've achieved that now with the newly renamed Top Ten Urban Fantasy/Dark Fantasy Novels list by adding Lori Handeland's Chaos Bites, which I've written about extensively here and in my Amazon review.

The list most changed, though, was my Ten Romance Desert Isle Keepers. Another, more crucial goal with these lists are to keep them timely and to include as many sub-genres as possible to help as many readers as possible. Well, that list already had ten titles, so when I added Mary Balogh's A Secret Affair, I had to remove an existing title. One of the titles is from a book old and esoteric enough that Amazon doesn't have a cover image of it, so it was my choice to be removed: Velvet Bond by Catherine Archer. (The image I've shown here is the only one readily available online. It's the Spanish language cover and it's close enough to the English cover that I decided not to scan my copy's cover.) And yet...since removing it left my list bereft of any Medievals, and because by adding A Secret Affair I was including another European Historical, I decided to also replace Madeline Hunter's The Rules of Seduction with Judith McNaught's A Kingdom of Dreams. True, Hunter's book is Victorian and Balogh's is set in the Regency, and I've already represented the Regency, but...oh well.

Thank you for indulging my inclusion of this bit of mental masturbation with you. My real reason, though convoluted, for doing so was to learn about some of your top tens...either via comment or link. Granted, it's much easier to do a top 50 or 100, but unless you've ranked them, it's just too simple, and I don't roll that way.

Lists

A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh

A Secret Affair

Mary Balogh

Grade: A-

European Historical Romance

Amazon Vine just posted my review of this book, which begins...

Nearly a decade ago I finally "got" traditional Regency Romances, and fell in love with Mary Balogh. Not her single title historicals, but trad Regencies such as The Ideal Wife, The Obedient Bride, The Plumed Bonnet, and The Temporary Wife. Before "getting" trads, I'd tried one of her early single title historicals - it left a bad taste in my mouth. While I have bought the earlier entries in her Huxtable series because a good friend called them great examples of Regencies in Disguise, I've not yet read any of them. After being enthralled by A Secret Affair, I'll be moving them closer to the top of my massive TBR pile...

Click here to read the rest of my review for Amazon

A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh