All About Samhain

This week from Samhain:

• Let Me Love You Mary Wine. Category. Historical western romance.
• California Cowboy Maggie Casper. Category. Contemporary romance. Red hot.
• Damage Control Elisa Adams. Category. Contemporary romance.
• Lost But Not Forgotten Mackenzie McKade. Novel. Contemporary romance. Red hot.
• The Seraphim: Setheus Rene Lyons. Novella. Paranormal romance
• Trust and Dare Shelli Stevens. Novella. Interracial romance. Red hot.
• Ladies! Meet Red Hot Alaskan Men Nancy Lindquist. Short story. Contemporary romance. Red hot.
• One Night on a Balcony Samantha Lucas. Short story. Contemporary romance. Red hot.

Best sellers at My Bookstore and More:

1. Fantasmagorical by Annmarie McKenna
2. Watch Me by Shelley Bradley
3. View to a Kill by Mandy M. Roth

From last week, Zandia and View to a Kill made the list.

Reviews:

Sybil gave Last Chance, My Love by Lynne Connolly an A-.

While Mrs. Giggles gave high marks to:

• One Night on a Balcony by Samantha Lucas 85.
• The Last Thing I Wanted by Heather Rae Scott 83.
• Reversing Over Liberace by Jane Lovering 78.

Thursday links

Angela has an interesting post about historical and paranormal romance.

Nowadays, the paranormal market is squeezed, and I’ve seen many a post where an editor or agent advises unpublished authors aspiring to break into that market to work on their world-building. However, nowhere do I see agents or editors advising authors who want to break into the historical market to do this. Mostly I’ve seen them emphasizing cultivating a unique “voice”…

So, yeah, why doesn’t historical romance appear to have the same world-building demands? Because it’s considered a given? Because paranormal is still somewhat rooted in today’s world? Because a paranormal can have a contemporary voice whereas a historical needs to give a sense of a time gone by?

I find it very interesting. The rest of the post is good, too. For example:

When it comes to moving from era to era, I would dearly wish the actions of the characters matched the setting. If I see one more militant suffragist heroine prior to 1905, I think I might cry. Or a hero in the Victorian era who is an out and out rake, and is accepted willingly into the homes of society… The Victorian hero is not going to sleep in the nude: he is going to wear a nightshirt, and later, pyjamas. Stop making your servants the best-friends of the aristocratic characters.

I’m not widely enough read in historical romance to have a take on this. And if the author can engage me, I don’t really care. But honestly, the author is more likely to engage me if she gets the historical details right.

All About Samhain

Bit late here, but this week from Samhain:

• Hunk of Burning’ Love Veronica Wilde. Short story. Paranormal romance. Red hot.
• Last Chance, My Love Lynne Connolly. Novel. Historical romance.
• View to a Kill Mandy M. Roth. Novella. Paranormal romance.
• Dirty Little Lies Tawny Taylor. Novella. Romantic suspense.
• Zandia Tilly Green. Category. Futuristic romance. Red hot.
• One Night in Boston Allie Boniface. Novel. Contemporary romance.

Best sellers from My Bookstore and More:

1. Fantasmagorical by Annmarie McKenna
2. Honeymoon Castaways by Dawn Halliday
3. Nut Cream by Jade Buchanan

All from the Midsummer’s Night Steam anthology! From last week, Show Me and Fireflies are on the list and from this week, A View to a Kill.

Deathly Hallows

No spoilers here.

Finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was okay. Too much action which I took to skimming. Everyone else in my household liked it a lot better than I did.

But, now I don’t have to worry about running into spoilers.

10,000!

I realize this is small potatoes, but I still enjoy seeing that my blog hits have reached 10,000!

So who else is going to be up past midnight while their kids lay their hands on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? We’ve been lucky enough to have our kids grow up with Harry Potter. I think it’s been a fun phenomenon and I’m kind of sad it is ending this summer.

All About Samhain

This week from Samhain:

• Fantasmagorical AnnMarie McKenna. Short story. Contemporary romance. Red hot.
• Show Me Jaci Burton. Novella. Contemporary romance. Red hot.
• Reversing Over Liberace Jane Lovering. Novel. Contemporary romance.
• Beyond the Night Sharon Long. Novel. Historical romance.
• The Last Thing I Wanted Heather Rae Scott. Novel. Contemporary romance.
• Fireflies Ally Blue. Category. Gay fantasy romance.

Best sellers at My Bookstore and More:

1. Here Kitty, Kitty by Shelly Laurenston
2. Take Me by Mackenzie McKade
3. Nut Cream by Jade Buchanan

From last week’s releases, Fantasmagorical, Starkissed, Adrienne and Watch Me made it onto the bestseller list.

The Leopard Prince

This isn’t really a review, although if you’re interested, there are a couple of links to reviews below.

I just finished The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt. I love Hoyt’s voice, I enjoyed The Raven Prince, and I am very much looking forward to The Serpant Prince. I also adored Harry, the hero, who was sexy and compelling.

But—did it sound like a but was coming?—I had some suspension-of-disbelief issues which interfered with my enjoyment of the story. What’s a little weird is that for The Raven Prince, I didn’t find the story particularly accurate historically, but simply decided to think of her world as alternate history and went with it. But here, I had more problems. I think because the story starts out with there being a real social barrier between Lady Georgina and her land stewart, Harry Pye. And by the end, it appears to be a slight social difference that all right-minded people would barely notice anyway. I don’t think it should be both in the same book. I found the latter undercut the earlier tension in the book.

But, I loved Harry. I was also quite disturbed by the bad guy, which I thought effective storytelling. I believed that in her world there could be powerful, not-quite-sane people capable of damaging many people’s lives.

So, recommended.

Jane of Dear Author and Kassia Krozser of Paperback Reader liked it. Kate Cuthbert at AAR gave it an A-, and AAR has an interview with Elizabeth Hoyt.

Romance Junkies!

Romance Junkies reviewed The Strength of the Pack. Thank you, Robin Snodgrass!

THE STRENGTH OF THE PACK is filled with love, sorrow, danger, and thrills. Jorrie Spencer has created a cast of characters packed with human strengths and shortcomings. THE STRENGTH OF THE PACK is so expertly written that I experienced the characters’ pains, joys and needs right along with them.

All About Samhain

This week from Samhain:

• Nut Cream Jade Buchanan. Short story. Gay werewolf romance. Red hot.
• Honeymoon Castaways Dawn Halliday. Short story. Contemporary romance. Menage. Red hot.
• Adrienne D. Renee Bagby. Novel. Fantasy romance.
• Meagan’s Chance L.C. Monroe. Novel. Inspirational romance.
• Blood Moon Rose Marie Wolf. Novel. Paranormal. Book Two of the Moon Series.
• Starkissed Lanette Curington. Novel. Futuristic romance.
• Watch Me Shelley Bradley. Novella. Contemporary romance. Red hot.

Best sellers from My Bookstore and More:

1. Take Me by Mackenzie McKade
2. Here Kitty, Kitty by Shelly Laurenston
3. The Wolf’s Heart by Jenna Leigh

Here Kitty, Kitty, Nut Cream and Honeymoon Castaways were released last week and are now on the list.

Reviews:

Some good ones from Mrs. Giggles of late:

• Skin to Skin Dionne Galace 82
• Where One Road Leads Ceri Hebert 88
• Immortal Protector Ursula Bauer 91
• Hunk of Burnin’ Love Veronica Wilde 83

Sweat update

Well, two days in and it’s working. To my delight, I have eight pages of the novella. Spent a bit of time figuring out who the hero was. Uh, yeah, I’m a bit of a panster. I still want to do the superwoman/boy-next-door match-up, but this isn’t it.

This is going to be a couple of shapeshifters.