Romance February wrap-up (plus a brief announcement).

All three of these books deserve their own review, because I loved them all; but that's not going to happen for Reasons, so rather than let them slip by unmentioned, I'm giving 'em short shrift here.

The Ruin of a Rogue, Miranda Neville: Miranda's one my faves (I allow myself the presumption of her first name, as we've met briefly in person and exchanged tabby pics on Twitter), and there's more great stuff here, as the titular scoundrel, Marcus Lithgow, woos the wealthy, reserved Anne Brotherton. At first it's a con: he's angling for a payoff from her guardian to remove his unsuitable presence...but when he starts to actually enjoy her company, he finds himself considering the unthinkable: becoming an honest man. Charming, witty, sweet, and hot.

The Luckiest Lady in London, Sherry Thomas: Ms. Thomas can wrench my gut like no one else (with the exception of Joss Whedon), and this one's no exception, although here the queasiness comes more from dark eroticism than pathos. Felix Rivendale, having seen the havoc love wreaked on his parents' marriage, has walled up his heart, plastered over the hollow at his core with perfect politeness. What he feels for Louisa Cantwell--in London for one desperate Season, needing to marry rich to support her family--brings out something fierce and possessive in him. And she finds herself in unwelcome lust at first sight; he makes her want to do things well-bred young ladies do not do, even as she finds his charming facade repugnant. It's messed up, you guys, and it's a testament to Ms. Thomas's awe-inspiring talent that she coaxes an actual love story out of them, and earns a happy ending.

To Charm a Naughty Countess, Theresa Romain: This one's not out till May, but I got an advance copy cause we're besties! (Also, she lent me the previous two books, because my book-buyin' budget is currently nil. Thank you, sweetie.) Her writing just keeps getting better, and her Matchmaker Trilogy for Sourcebooks (of which this is the second) does some unique and important things for the genre. Here, most notably, we have a hero with an anxiety disorder: Michael, the Duke of Wyverne, isn't just shy and awkward, but overwhelmed by crowds, helpless before the niceties of social interaction. He gets headaches, suffers panic attacks, and the heroine, Caroline, can only help, not fix him. Theresa also sets this in 1816, the Year Without a Summer, which seriously needs to show up in novels more often. Good show, m'dear!

ALSO: I've decide to shutter this blog for the time being. I've been writing for five years, and have never been willing to do what's required to build an actual audience; my posts average a couple dozen views, and it's simply not worth the stress. I want to read what I want and then not have it staring at me waiting to be blogged about. I still plan to write the occasional review for F5, and gush about books on my Tumblr. Join me there if you'd like!

A Little Bit Wild (Victoria Dahl)

Oh, Ms. Dahl, thank you so much for writing a sexually aggressive heroine.

We meet Marissa York in the process of losing her virginity and finding it...not quite all she'd hoped. In fact, she'd be perfectly content to pretend it never happened were it not for two things: first, the lover in question, Peter White, apparently deflowered her with an eye towards marriage rather than amusement; and second, her brother Edward walks in on them, making what she'd hoped would be a pleasurable encounter into a family crisis. She must marry immediately, Edward declares, in case she's pregnant. But she flat-out refuses to marry Peter: he "failed to meet even the lowest expectations of performance."

Into the breach steps her brother Aidan's friend Jude Bertrand. Natural son of a duke (his mother a French courtesan), he hovers on the edge of noble society, not enough part of it to worry overmuch about scandal, but with just enough respectability to be a proper match for Marissa. Especially since she's caught his eye every time he's visited the Yorks; he's attracted to her wild streak, the wanton liveliness he can glimpse beneath her polite exterior.

Marissa, on the other hand, remembers him not at all. And he's hardly her type, muscular and coarse-featured, where she prefers pretty boys in tight breeches. She's a leg woman through and through: "Men's legs were just so lovely. Slim and strong and exposed in a way that ladies' legs never were. How could they expect that girls should not be affected by the sight? Gentlemen obviously intended to be admired, the way they flashed their thighs about, hardly covered at all in the tight cloth of their trousers." AUGH I LOVE HER SO MUCH.

I don't recall having read a romance heroine who's this outright horny, and it makes for a very different narrative arc: while Marissa quickly realizes Jude's got the goods when it comes to pleasing a lady, it takes her quite a while to see Jude as more than a piece of meat (strong thighs, talented hands, delicious mouth), and he suffers for it. It's a rare treat to read a gal with such a strong libido, and have her be the one who learns to love someone for more than their body. But Dahl doesn't fudge history either: Marissa's initial dalliance wouldn't be a problem in a perfect world, but in 1847 England, it is--not just for her, either. Her actions affect her whole family, and she accepts her responsibility.

Super duper awesome. Also, a Twitter exchange with the author led to some choice Jensen Ackles gifs, so there's that too.

Pieces of Sky (Kaki Warner)

I really thought I'd enjoy Pieces of Sky. It came recommended: heck, it won the RITA for Best First Book the year it came out! Warner's writing is lovely, especially her descriptions, and the setting (New Mexico Territory in 1869) is the good kind of unusual; but while I did finish it; I ultimately couldn't like it.

I should've listened to my gut and put this aside on page 8, when I found out that the heroine, Jessica Thornton, was pregnant after being raped by her brother-in-law. Her situation is certainly unique among the romances I've read, and could be properly dealt with--after all, rape victims obviously deserve happy endings and loving relationships. But, augh, Warner comes sooooo close to writing a hero (New Mexico Territory rancher Brady Wilkins) who provides Jessica with the patience and gentleness and lack of judgment she needs...and then, less than a year after the attack, he gets mad at her when she tenses up at the prospect of sex, because he's been nothing but kind to her. DUDE. YOU DO NOT GET TO DECIDE WHEN SHE'S READY, AND KINDNESS WILL NOT FIX TRAUMA. They do eventually sleep together, of course, after she decides he's right, and OH LOOK AT THAT SHE'S FINE NOW. Gross.

Brady also has a streak of bloodthirstiness to him that's unsettling. There's a whole revenge plot wherein Sancho Ramirez, the madman responsible for Brady's father's death--the culmination of a long-standing feud begun when the RosaRoja ranch, originally owned by the Spanish-descended Ramirez family, was given to Jacob Wilkins after the Mexican War. Sancho is cartoonishly, over-the-top evil: he sets fire to things! he fantasizes about raping his sister! And while the usual revenge narrative goes something like "character wants revenge, character gets revenge, character discovers revenge is kinda hollow," here Brady gets revenge and the narrative is essentially "WOO-HOO GREAT JOB BUDDY" while he leaves Sancho's corpse to rot where he fell.

So, yeah. Despite glimmers of promise--I like that Brady has a mustache, and that he's actually got legit reasons for being super buff, unlike the usual "duke who's never done manual labor has a six-pack" trope--I couldn't embrace the hero as a character. And without that, there's just no fulfillment to the romance.

Bet Me (Jennifer Crusie)

Been meaning to read Bet Me for years: it's one of Smart Bitch Sarah Wendell's veryvery favorites ("not having read this book is in violation of many international treaties"), and former colleague Bookavore provided the VITAL information that it features a donut makeout scene, which should just be on the cover, right? Somehow, despite that last fact, I didn't figure out it was a farce until the last scene--so I kept thinking "I love this, but I don't buy it" until light dawned. So I'm telling you up front: go into it as farce! Let silly bits slide! Because oh, it is so rewarding.

Min(erva) Dobbs is a zaftig actuary, just dumped by the odious David (srsly, he's the worst)--she's hanging out at a bar with her BFFs, drowning her sorrows and fretting about fitting into her maid of honor's dress at her sister's wedding three weeks hence. Enter Calvin Morrissey, commitment-shy and the hottest thing on four wheels (YES I CAST JENSEN ACKLES IN MY HEAD I'M SORRY IT'S A SICKNESS), who never loses a bet. And David (the WORST) tries to bet him ten grand that he can't sleep with Min in a month. Cal, who is not a horrifying misogynist asshole, refuses outright--but he does wager $10 that he can take her out to dinner that night. They go on the grumpiest first date ever, as Min has no patience with Cal's practiced charm--and she also believes he agreed to David's first (WORST) bet.

Despite their both feeling utterly incompatible, the two find themselves stuck in the same circles, and keep finding themselves on more and more serious dates. She's got massive body image issues courtesy of her awful mother, and he's all "Whatevs, you're hot, allow me to hand-feed you carbs." And he's got an awful family too, and she sticks up for him, and AUGH there's just so much else here, there's a cat, and snow globes, and her sister's wedding, and parallel relationships, and Little League, and Cal's terrible ex Cynthie...it's all marvelously plotted, the dialogue is witty, and the way these two people learn to see themselves through each other's accepting eyes is the BEST. Fun but not inconsequential, frothy without being shallow, Bet Me is indeed a romance must-read.

It Takes Two to Tangle & Season for Scandal (Theresa Romain)

I got to write up Theresa's two latest Regency romances for F5, here!

(FTC disclaimer: I received free copies of these books from Sourcebooks Casablanca and Zebra Books/Kensington, in exchange for honest reviews.)

Readin' across America.

On the last day of May, my husband and I packed up a van with our critters (two cats and a rabbit) and left Brooklyn for my hometown of Wichita, KS. 1400 miles later, we took up temporary residence in my parents' basement, which I'm way more excited about than y'all think (we Perlebergs are a tight-knit, loquacious, loud, weird clan). Five days later, in the wee-est of hours, we boarded the Amtrak's Southwest Chief in the nearby burg of Newton, and went another 600 miles to visit my sister and brother-in-law in Santa Fe, NM. And back, six days later.

What I'm getting at here is: Having traveled roughly 2600 miles in the past two weeks, I have read a LOT of books recently. And I know I'm never going to write them all up individually, but I don't want 'em to go entirely uncommented on, so. Comments!

I started with Jincy Willett's July release, Amy Falls Down, which I loved to pieces--but I'm reviewing it for Wichita's alt-weekly F5, so I'll link to that when it's up.

Basti, Intizar Husain: NYRB Classics sucked me in by describing this as "the great Pakistani novel." And besides, I've only ever read one book translated from Urdu (Naiyer Masud's Snake Catcher). The book follows Zakir through roughly forty years, from pre-Partition British India to the 1971 war that gained Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) its independence. There are also dreamlike, surreal flashbacks to the Delhi of 1857, convulsed by the Indian Rebellion (if you're my dad and know Indian history primarily through British eyes, you'll have known it as "the Sepoy Mutiny" until you made Pakistani friends at work and they're like, "Uhhhh, NO"). The narrative shuttles back and forth in time, space, and culture (the references, helpfully compiled in a six-page glossary, derive from Muslim, Hindu, and even Buddhist religious and folk traditions)--it can be difficult to orient oneself, although Pritchett has helped a lot by adding lacunae between sections and ellipses to indicate fantasy/flashback passages. A fascinating read--like all my favorite translated literature, it makes me want to learn the original language so I can read it again.

Once Upon a Tower, Eloisa James: The latest in James's generally brill fairytale series! This one has elements of Rapunzel (obvy). I lurved the hero, Gowan, because he is Tall and a Virgin and SCOTTISH--his height led me to just picture Sam Winchester (IN A KILT OMGGGGGG) the whole way through, endearing him further. Since I was more into him than her--Edie, a talented cellist trapped in an era when women had to play it sidesaddle if they wanted to do so in public--I thought everybody was too hard on him in the third act. YMMV, as they say.

Pigeons, Andrew D. Blechman: You know, I don't miss much about NYC qua NYC--but I sort of love pigeons. To quote myself from Facebook: "they are honestly really pretty birds, and I think it's cool how well they've adapted to this hyperurban habitat, such that they're most of the wildlife landscape of the city. Plus, during mating season, watching the dude pigeons fluff up their feathers and do their little head-bobbing HEY HEY HEY LADIEZZZZ at the females, who never look the slightest bit interested . . . free entertainment! So hilarious." This book, then, was a goodbye-Big-Apple gift to myself. It's very much in the recent tradition of One-Subject Non-Fic (e.g. Mark Kurlansky's Salt or Victoria Finlay's Color: A Natural History of the Palette), and as such is anecdotal. Blechman visits the racing lofts of Brooklyn, the Westminster Kennel Club of pigeons shows in Pennsylvania, gun clubs that indulge in live pigeon shoots, a pair of CRAZY old ladies moseying around Manhattan dumping pounds of birdseed on the ground for city pigeons...great stuff. AND he debunks the "flying disease factory" myth that has maligned the rock dove over the past few decades: yeah, pigeon poop can breed bacteria and fungi in large quantities. But that's sort of the favorite hobby of excrement in general, isn't it? Handling a pigeon won't get you sick. SO THERE.

Red Shift, Alan Garner: THIS BOOK. Guys, I don't even know what to say about this book. It threads through three different times--Roman Britain, the English Civil War, and 1970s England--connected by a place (Mow Cop, a village on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border) and an artifact (a stone axe, 3500 years old, hidden and found between the timelines). But they're also bound by madness, and mysticism, and one of the strangest narrative flows I've ever muddled through. And I don't mean "muddled through" in a bad way, somehow--and when I say "I didn't get it, but I'm not sure there's anything to get," I don't mean there's nothing there, simply that confusion and immersion and a feeling of slipping through consciousnesses that you can't quite get a hold of are absolutely what the reader's supposed to feel. What Garner wants. It's crazy good.

Guarded (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9, Volume 3), Andrew Chambliss & George Jeanty, Jane Espenson, Drew Z. Greenberg & Karl Moline: Picked this up at Santa Fe's adorbs comics shop, Big Adventure Comics (along with the first issue of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga, which I will be reading more of POSTHASTE). I'd previously purchased Volumes 1 & 2 (Freefall and On Your Own respectively), and I've liked this season so far; it's MUCH more grounded than the whee-no-cable-budget insanity into which Season 8 devolved--and, in fact, shows Buffy finally dealing with the fact that she's never become an adult, that despite how well she handles herself with Bad Badness (in the aftermath of magic's banishment, vampires are cut off from their demonic source, and have become feral, indiscriminate butchers), she's terrible with responsibilities like jobs and rent and all the trappings of maturity. Me too, lady, me too. (The second arc features a bait-and-switch storyline that maddeningly shies away from a serious and heartbreaking decision she's faced with--and I totally understand that it was the last straw for some fans--so be forewarned. Me, I'm sort of a helpless Whedon apologist, so I'm willing to press on.)

Back in Wichita now, I'm halfway through Elizabeth Gaskell's 1865 Wives and Daughters. More to come!

Season for Surrender (Theresa Romain)

Once again, I find myself in a quandary: how to celebrate a friend's book while maintaining my (perhaps over-scrupulous, judging from book-world example) bloggeristic ethics? For high school bestie Theresa Romain's second Regency romance, Season for Surrender, is even better than her first! But if you can't take my word for it, well, it's the November book club pick at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, an honor that ain't nothing to sneeze at.

It picks up where Season for Temptation left off, continuing the story of shy, sweet Louisa Oliver, who's recovering from the scandal caused by her erstwhile fiancé-of-convenience's love match with her sister, Julia. She's surprised but secretly delighted to be invited to Lord Xavier's infamous Christmas house party; she doesn't know at first she's the subject of a wager between the notorious rake and his equally dissolute cousin--ten pounds on whether the proper young lady can be induced to stay the full two weeks without fleeing aghast at the other guests' antics. Xavier knows the bookish miss won't be able to resist the lure of his large but disorganized library--but Louisa also sees a chance to escape her sedate lifestyle before it solidifies into staid spinsterhood.

So much good stuff here! Books, cryptography, parlor games, a mistletoe-gathering contest, spouse-swapping, a cigarillo-smoking Italian opera singer, the return of Louisa's snarky Austenish aunt, Lady Irving--and a rake who's begun to chafe at his role, and a timid girl tired of fading into the background, slowly connecting and creating their truest selves. And books! And LIBRARY MAKEOUTS. LIBRARY MAKEOUTS. I need to find my husband a frock coat, pronto.

P.S. Yep, I'm aware it's been a month since I've written, and I've decided to just let the interim reads fall by the wayside (though they're all recorded and reductively rated on my Goodreads page). Here are my excuses, in order: illness. Wedding. Honeymoon. Hurricane.

Five-star romances: The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton (Miranda Neville) & Ravishing the Heiress (Sherry Thomas)

I keep intending to branch out romance-wise--read some contemporaries or some classics of the genre (like, people say Nora Roberts is actually good? Who knew?)--but more often I just wanna read Miranda Neville and Sherry Thomas forever and ever. I fear they have spoiled me for all others, for very different reasons.

Exhibit the first: The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton, Miranda Neville: Third in the linked Burgundy Club series (after previous fave-raves The Wild Marquis and The Dangerous Viscount), this one takes up the amatory fate of Tarquin Compton, fashion plate and bringer of Regency snark to those who don't measure up to his sartorial standards. Celia Seaton once found herself the victim of his jibes, and blames him for the dashing of her chances with the London ton marriage market, which doomed her to life as a governess. So when they are thrown together by violent circumstance (and in deshabille) on the Yorkshire moors, and she discovers he's suffering Plot Device Amnesia, she can't resist telling him he's really her country-bumpkin fiancé. Needless to say, things get complicated when she finds herself falling for this un-dandified version of Tarquin--especially when a naughty book she discovers in his belongings (a real example of 18th-century pornography--as Neville says in her research notes, "It's okay, you know, if it's historic, especially if it's in French")  gives her ideas she's never imagined.

For me, Neville's greatest strength is her humor, ranging from sly to slapstick, not just in her characterizations (I've read quite a few books where the hero/heroine were described as "witty," but she writes them telling actually funny jokes, which of course I would quote if I were a better reviewer, but alack), but in the goofy joy of eroticism itself. And, of course, her background in rare books is a constant delight.

Exhibit the second: Ravishing the Heiress, Sherry Thomas: And then we have Ms. Thomas, my greatest love for whom is reserved for her ability to be just gut-wrenching, my goodness. Ravishing is an example of perhaps my favorite romance subgenre, the Arranged or Unhappy Marriage Becoming a Passionate Meeting of True Minds (see also her Not Quite a Husband or Eloisa James's An Affair Before Christmas); this one's got even more unspoken despair to it, as tinned-goods heiress Millie fell head over heels for impoverished earl Fitz the moment they met, only to learn that their marriage requires him to leave behind the woman he loves. Eight years later, after an unconsummated union where they've become best friends and business partners, Fitz learns his lost love Isabelle is newly widowed--Millie, ever outwardly practical while she nurses her constantly broken  heart, grants him permission to pursue happiness with the other woman. But first, they need to conceive an heir.

Ravishing is so sad, you guys, all about making do with the life you have while trying to set aside what you really want, and then omigosh what if you had what you wanted all along? I just kept tearing up, and yelling at the characters about how their marriage is so perfect by modern standards--but they wouldn't know that, it's 1896! And they were married as teenagers, so goodness knows they were idiots! Oof. I teared up so many times reading this book--the last time with joy.

(FYI, Ravishing is the central entry in a trilogy about the Fitzhugh siblings. The first, Beguiling the Beauty, tells the story of Fitz's sister Venetia, who revenge-seduces a studious duke on an Atlantic crossing, never letting him see her face, as punishment for using her as an example of perfidious pulchritude. I liked it, especially the couple's shared interest in paleontology and its partial American setting, but it didn't resonate as deeply as this one. Still worth a read--and the third installment, Tempting the Bride, is coming with my on my imminent honeymoon!)

Old-school frantic catchup post.

So sometimes, I've got seven books waiting in my to-be-reviewed pile, and they all deserve a full write-up, but I've been horribly fatigued and ache-y for weeks again (the doctor thinks it's fibromyalgia), and it's just not going to happen. So rather than skip over the books, I'm gonna give them woefully short shrift in a "HERE I READ THESE I LIKED 'EM" post.

The Ugly Duchess, Eloisa James: I'll admit, while I connected to this latest entry in Eloisa's brill fairytale series on a gut-and-heart level, I found parts of the narrative kinda silly . . . i.e., the hero becomes a pirate for a while. But y'know, I feel like romance is best measured in emotional terms, and gosh I ached for the heroine, Theo, a super-smart lady who's heard from meanies all her life that she's ugly, her breasts too small, her features too large. Specifically, they say she "looks like a boy." (Yeah, this resonates like crazy, since I weathered the same insults for a good chunk of my own experience.) Her worst fears are realized when she learns that her childhood friend, James Ryburn, has married her to cover up his wastrel father's embezzlement of Theo's fortune. She throws him out, and hears nothing from him for seven years, when he barges triumphantly into the House of Lords during the proceedings to declare him legally dead--sun-browned, scarred, and savage. He's determined to prove to her that it wasn't just mercenary motives that led to his proposal, but there's bitterness and mistrust on both sides to overcome. I do like reconciliation plots in romance, but I kinda thought it was a tragedy that young, sweet James had to become so growly and alpha-male to win back his Daisy.

The Fantasy Hall of Fame, edited Robert Silverberg: A found-on-the-street coup, this is a mammoth (500+ pages) anthology of fantastic tales, selected in 1996 by the members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. I'd only read two of the stories before--"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" (Borges) and "The Lottery" (Shirley Jackson), both of which obviously bear rereading; the rest cover fifty years of imaginative writing, wildly divergent in prose style and subject matter. A lot of the authors were new to me, particularly the early ones (H.L. Gold, L. Sprague de Camp, C.L. Moore), and many were familiar names who I shamefully haven't read but now must all the more: Poul Anderson ("Operation Afreet"), Peter S. Beagle ("Come Lady Death"), Gene Wolfe ("The Detective of Dreams"), Roger Zelazny ("Unicorn Variations"), Robert Silverberg ("Basileus"). Weirdly, it seems to be out of print, but super-easy to find used. Or waiting on the sidewalk for a sharp-eyed fiancé, a gift from the city!

A Contract with God and Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood, Will Eisner: Speaking of pivotal genre figures, Eisner's one of the pioneers of the modern graphic novel--heck, the biggest American comics award is named for him. Both these titles are set on a fictional Bronx street; Contract contains four related tales set in the 1930s, among the mostly Jewish, working-class denizens of a single tenement. Here I had my usual problem with sequential-art-lit, which is that I read it too dang fast, so it ends up feeling slight, which I hasten to blame on my own text bias and not the medium itself. I liked Dropsie Avenue more, finding its historical ambition and Tolstoy-numerous cast much easier to follow with the aid of art. It follows the street from 1870s farmland through urban growth and sprawl and decay and renewal, through successive waves of immigrants, each in term weathering bigotry from the established inhabitants until they become the establishment: Dutch, English, Irish, German, Italian, Jewish, Hispanic, African-American, Romani . . . the grand sweep doesn't keep him from telling tiny stories as well. It's a great work of historical fiction.

Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, Arthur Conan Doyle: Between trying to kill off Sherlock Holmes in "The Final Problem" and resurrecting him by popular demand in "The Adventure of the Empty House," Doyle spent ten years writing these charming comic tales of by Etiénne Gerard, Napoleonic soldier of great bravery and mustache, who, like Harry Flashman's good twin, manages to meet a litany of important figures and be privy to the real stories behind what the historical record believes. Gerard is delightful, a wonderful mix of full of himself and genuinely courageous and skilled, and as Flashman's chronicler George MacDonald Fraser says in his introduction, it's subtly subversive that Doyle's hero is from the wrong side of the Channel, allowing him to satirize French and English alike--Gerard's oblivious misreadings of English sport are particularly hilarious. We've got the zillionth iteration of the Holmes-Watson pairing hitting CBS this fall; surely someone can spare the time to make a miniseries with Doyle's second greatest creation? I'd love to see Thomas from Downtown Abbey with luxuriant whiskers . . .

The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets, Kathleen Alcott: Loved the writing in this first novel! It hits my literary-fiction sweet spot where the Big Themes (family, memory, identity) don't overwhelm the relentless and ephemeral details of everyday life and personality.

Among Others, Jo Walton: This having won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards this year, I feel confident in not belaboring the praise--sci-fi/fantasy is way better than literary fiction at deserved awards. It is, as fifteen-year-old Morwenna would say, brill, both a great fantasy in its own right and a paean to dozens of the best writers (several of whom appear in The Fantasy Hall of Fame), books, and short stories of the genre. Thank Zeus for the Internet--someone with more stamina than me has already compiled a list of every book mentioned!

The Wild Marquis (Miranda Neville)

Been a few months since I read a straight-up romance novel--actually March, whoa! But Miranda Neville's The Wild Marquis reconfirms the genre as one I'll keep coming back to.

I had to read this first in the series of which The Dangerous Viscount is a part after learning the heroine is a bookseller. I do so love historical heroines with jobs, and one so close to my own is nigh-irresistible. Juliana Merton is a widow who's struggling to keep her murdered husband's rare book shop open despite the London bibliophiles' prejudice against a woman in the trade. She learned about books at the feet of the man who raised her as his ward, whom she believes to be her true grandfather. He drove himself to ruin buying expensive volumes, and sold off his collection to the unscrupulous Sir Thomas Tarleton, whose recent death has left his vast collection at auction to settle Tarleton's own book-driven debts.

The showpiece of the collection is the Burgundy Hours, a fifteenth-century illuminated masterpiece--and the Marquis of Chase is mystified as to how it ended up in Tarleton's hands, since it was an heirloom of his own family. Ejected from the house of his fanatical and cruel father at the age of sixteen, Chase has led the proverbial life of dissipation, boinking actresses and hiring former prostitutes as servants. But now he's inherited his father's title and wealth, and one of the things he wants to do with it is get the Burgundy Hours back. To this end, he hires Juliana to represent him at the auction.

This book is great! There are mysteries to be solved (Joseph Merton's murder, Tarleton's acquisition of the hours, who tries to frame Juliana for theft by hiding a volume from the auction--a Romeo & Juliet folio she believes belonged to her mother, Juliana's true parentage), two wounded leads, believable misunderstandings--and my favorite, some laughing during lovemaking. I love couples that can be goofy together even in amorous circumstances; it's such a good sign for a relationship. And of course, there's tons of book talk and interesting facts, bolstered by Neville's real-world years in Sotheby's rare books department (man, there's a job, huh?). Excited for the other two titles in the series--The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton (AAH BEST TITLE) and Confessions from an Arranged Marriage--already sitting happily on my shelf. (And, thanks to my co-worker Stacey, signed by the author!)

Briefs: To Wed a Wild Lord (Sabrina Jeffries), Pink Smog (Francesca Lia Block), The Thief (Fuminori Nakamura)

Three books I don't have much to say about, but deserving of mention nonetheless:

To Wed a Wild Lord, Sabrina Jeffries: Decent Regency pairing up a reckless horse- and carriage-racer, Gabe Sharpe, with Virginia Waverly, who blames him for the death of her brother in a race years before. Fourth in a series wherein Sharpe's grandmother, worried about him and his siblings, gives them all a year to marry or be disinherited. There's an overarching plot here about their parents' deaths: conventional wisdom holds that their mother shot their father when she mistook him for an intruder and then turned the gun on herself (I KNOW, HEAVY), but their recent investigations point to an even darker truth. I liked the mystery aspect, and Gabe and Virginia were eventually a sweet couple, but I think my lack of interest in horses (yup, never went through that phase as a little girl) kept me from really digging it.

Pink Smog, Francesca Lia Block: I've been regularly disappointed by Block over the past decade, but I couldn't resist this Weetzie Bat prequel because, hey, Weetzie Bat prequel. Here, she's thirteen years old, still Louise, suffering the departure of her father, Charlie, and her mother's increasing retreat into alcohol. It seems to be set in the 1970s (Block herself was thirteen in '75), but it never quite places itself explicitly in time despite the cultural references being dated, which is somewhat confusing. And Louise/Weetzie's conflict with a witchy black-haired neighbor is pretty derivative of her later/previous (prequels to 23-year-old books make temporal adjectives difficult!) clash with Vixanne Wigg (their names are even similar). Too, the prose just isn't as dynamic as WB's, which inspires me to wear boots with skirts to this very day. The novel has a vulnerable, aching heart, however, and I imagine it'll resonate with girls of that age. Probably the ones who read Rookie. Those lucky, lucky girls.

The Thief, Fuminori Nakamura: Japanese thriller about a pickpocket whose participation in a seemingly simple robbery pulls him into an underworld far crueler than his own. It's a dispassionate noir without a lot of twists, but well done. And I adore that it won the 2009 Kenzaburo Oe Prize: not a mystery/thriller award at all, but one given out by the Nobel-winning author to the best "literary" novel of the year! Perhaps there's more genre fluidity in Japan than there is Stateside?

The Duke is Mine (Eloisa James)

So I'm finishing up Eloisa James's "Princess and the Pea" riff, The Duke is Mine, and our orange tabby kitten (Brains is her name! Middle name Amelia, after fellow ginger Pond) starts chomping on the back cover! "NO," I admonish. "Books are not for eating. Undaunted, she takes another bite, leaving delicate little fang marks on the last few pages. The thing is, Little Miss Feisty has never chewed on a book before. Can't blame her, though--I sort of wanted to eat it up myself. This book is yummy.

The ingredients:

• Olivia Lytton, reciter of dirty limericks, overindulger in meat pies, betrothed from her childhood to the son of her father's friend, the Duke of Canterwick. She's rebelled at every step by her parents' lifelong quest to make a perfect duchess out of her.
• Said betrothed, Rupert, brain-damaged by lack of oxygen at his birth and hence not exactly the mate Olivia dreams of. (Rupert is a really risky character, especially for the genre, and especially during an early scene where the two's respective parents more or less force them to attempt intercourse to cement their engagement. It's a sign of James's talent that he's ultimately a nuanced and sympathetic character, though he's not the official hero.)
• Olivia's twin sister, Georgiana, who took to heart the "duchification" lessons of their youth, and is sweet, polite, and struggling to make men notice her. Her lack of family and fortune will be remedied by Olivia's marriage--at least that's the plan.
• Tarquin, Duke of Sconce (sconce sconce sconce! I wonder if there's a Duke of Wainscoting or an Earl of Crown Molding lurking about), wounded by his first wife's infidelity and the death of their son. He's allowing his formidable mother (ah, the formidable mother trope! I loves 'em. Not in real life) to choose his next spouse--she believes Georgiana will fit the bill, but Quin has immediate hot pants for Olivia, who shows up on his doorstep in a rainstorm.

And those hot pants just get hotter. There's a scene in a treehouse that I started reading over lunch at work--I was interrupted by back-to-the-salt-mines duties and was ever so distracted at the register that afternoon! The passion is paired with a lot of torment, of course, as Olivia risks her engagement and her sister's love, and Quin worries that her tempestuous nature and unwillingness to toe the lines of polite society warn that she'll be a repeat of his disastrous first marriage. These obstacles have satisfying conclusions . . . and there's a scene in a meadow of bluebells that makes the treehouse look positively prim.

Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)

Astute observers will remember that Diana Gabaldon's Outlander was part of Romance February Part Deux. Astute observers will also note that it is now March. Ehn, I read it anyway. It was pretty great

This was my first time-travel romance: heroine Claire Beauchamp Duncan, on a belated post-WWII honeymoon with her husband Frank, walks through a split standing stone in the Scottish countryside and finds herself in 1743. So it's also my first Highlander romance! (I mean, not counting the movie Highlander, which I also just watched recently, and which was also pretty great.) And oh, what a hero! Jamie Fraser is red-headed and brave and sweet and virginal and seriously, I'm all swoon-y, I'm gonna stop with the adjectives. I love his relationship with Claire--she's trained as a combat nurse and keeps patching him up; with her sexual experience, this gives her a physical dominance of him that's very novel and very erotic. They have adventures and English-Scottish-intrigue and whatnot, but really, it's about their Love That Transcends Time *shiver*. And no, Claire doesn't forget about Frank. Her emotional turmoil at being trapped away from him and outside of her own time is very real. In fact, all the emotion is very well-drawn, and the sprawling cast of characters is smoothly handled. Even at 845 pages in mass-market format, it's a quick and enjoyable read.

Two things I didn't care for, though--but they are so very, very spoilery I'm gonna hide them in white text. You should read the book anyway.

One, the villain of the piece--Frank's ancestor, Captain Jonathan Randall, didn't really have to be from the *Depraved Homosexual school of character, did he? (Warning: that asterisk leads to a TV Tropes link. Which, as they say, will ruin your life.) I mean, I understand that sadistic, villainous gay men exist--but it makes me uncomfortable when a fictional character's violence and cruelty is so inextricably linked to his same-sex desires. (Although it's kind of a nice change of pace that the hero gets raped. I mean, not "nice," but interesting from a "consumer of narrative" viewpoint. Also, that TV Tropes link claims it's averted in later books in the series. Hmmmm.)

Also, it's LAME that the book ends with Claire pregnant, when she was having trouble conceiving in the 20th century. Babies are boring in sexytimes books, so there.

Not Quite a Husband (Sherry Thomas)

I think Sherry Thomas is my favorite.

Not to say a word against Eloisa or Miranda or Gail or Meljean, of course! I heart those ladies with muchness of the heart. But Ms. Thomas's Delicious was one of the highlights of last year's February romanceathon, and after reading Not Quite a Husband, I'm just in awe of her originality and her ability to work the Angst and Misunderstandings without being manipulative.

I love the premise and the principals of NQtH so, so much. Bryony Asquith is a freakin' lady doctor, guys! In 1897! On the northwest frontier of British India! (It's now Pakistan; she's tending Muslim women who can't see male doctors.) Oh, it's delicious. (And yes, she did do her research.) What is an English gentleman's daughter doing so far off the beaten path? Fleeing the memories of her unhappy marriage, annulled three years previously. But her former husband, Leo Marsden (four years younger! and a mathematician! I loves him so moishe) tracks her down after a frantic message from Bryony's sister that their father (whose relationship with Bryony isn't great either) is deathly ill. And the thing is, he doesn't know why their marriage failed. And it broke his heart. And he's still crazy in love with her. Then they get swept up in a local anti-British uprising!

Gosh, I'm being exclamatory. It's just that it's such a great setup, and it's inhabited by such well-drawn, relatable lovers. I was rooting for them from page 1, and as their story developed and their backstory was filled in, I really felt the emotional weight of how they'd hurt each other, the real, human psychological work that they both had to do to repair themselves and their relationship. Leo's got the most amazing lines towards the end, saying "Trust is a choice. I choose to trust your love and your stalwartness. I trust that should there be a day when either the past or the present overwhelms me, you will be there to guide me past that dark moment." How . . . mature.

Oh, yeah, and the sex is great too. ;)

(P.S. Before this, I'd attempted Maggie Robinson's Mistress by Marriage, but just could not deal with it, as the protagonists, another unhappily married couple, seemed to actually hate each other, but kept bangin' anyway. I mean, the heroine thinks in the first chapter something about how she doesn't miss him at all, but she does miss his penis. Gross.)

The Dangerous Viscount (Miranda Neville)

Thank you, thank you, Ms. Neville, for answering my plea for a nerd hero! AND he's a virgin, who learns how to please a lady by reading 19th-century sex guides! The Dangerous Viscount is, in fact, the second book in a series centered on a bunch of literary collectors (the author once worked for Sotheby's rare book department). And in the first one, The Wild Marquis, the heroine is a bookseller!!!!! AIEEE!!!! I don't even care that the eponymous hero is another incorrigible rake.

OK, deep breaths. Let's see if I can eke out a plot summary through my excitement: we have Lady Diana Fanshawe, widow, member of an inconveniently unconventional family--inventor father, hunting-dog-breeding mother, little sister determined to become a diplomat. She's decided to marry again, and settled on handsome and titled Lord Blakeney, eventual duke (even though he's the Regency version of a dumb jock). Then she meets his bespectacled, socially awkward cousin, Sebastian Iverley. Seriously, dude is almost Asperger-y, prone to grunting in lieu of conversation, except when he's holding forth on bindings and folios and the like. She bets Blakeney she can get Iverley to kiss her . . . and we're off!

There's a throw-our-lovers-together twist I'm not crazy about, but I found this one almost entirely delightful. Neville is the funniest romance novelist I've read, and Sebastian is a dork girl's dreamboat. Thumbs up!

A Night to Surrender (Tessa Dare)

Liked but didn't love Tessa Dare's A Night to Surrender. Fantastic first chapters, and I really dig the setting for the series of which this is the beginning: Spindle Cove, a tiny seaside town that local gentlewoman Susanna Finch has turned into a haven for oddball ladies from all over England. Some are too smart for gentlemens' social comfort, some are sickly and made sicker by Regency medicine (bleeding and leeches and mercury, oh my!), some are fleeing bad relationships; all are thrilled to find this enclave, nearly all female, and dedicated to just letting them be themselves, whoever that should be.

Of course, this can't last--there wouldn't be a story otherwise! And so Lieutenant Colonel Victor Bramwell, still limping from a knee shattered by a French bullet, comes to town with his corporal and his ne'er-do-well cousin, Lord Payne, hoping Susanna's father, gunsmith Sir Lewis Finch, can use his influence to get him back commanding in the field--the only life he's ever known, and the only life he's ever loved. They meet with a literal explosion--Payne's novel idea for scaring a flock of sheep blocking their path--as Bram tackles Susanna out of harm's way, and then can't resist stealing a kiss.

Both main characters are strong and opinionated--so of course there's some good verbal sparring in between the smoochin'--and Susanna's unconventional and fiercely protective attitude towards her bevy of misfit maidens makes her immediately likeable. Oh, and Bram acquires a pet lamb named Dinner, which is obviously awesome. There were just a few things that kept me from being completely swept up: first [SLIGHT SPOILER], I didn't care for Susanna's father's feet of clay; second, I know there's no romantic way of describing coitus interruptus, but "[i]n some primitive way, it satisfied him to mark her"? EW. And I'm grumpy about the couple being set up for the next in the series, A Week to be Wicked (out in March!), because the lady is an impetuous, bespectacled geologist prone to carrying around a reticule full of interesting rocks, whereas the dude is . . . an incorrigible rake. HE DOES NOT DESERVE HER. MORE NERD HEROES PLZ!!!!

Heart of Steel (Meljean Brook)

See, here's a prime example of why "romance" is less a genre than an attitude: one could easily classify Heart of Steel and the preceding novel Brook set in this world, The Iron Duke, as sci-fi/fantasy, specifically steampunk/alternate history. (This is a universe where the Mongols had nanotech, and used it to stomp the heck out of their enemies (soon, subjects) for five hundred years.) They'd be marketed differently, of course, and there would be fewer abs on the covers (to stay with tired old stereotypes, you could just stick the heroines in leather on the front instead)--but I don't think the content would need to change a bit. Romantic plots and subplots abound in SF/F! Hell, even Perdido Street Station has a love story in it. Not that it ends well. (Boo, now I'm sad.) Wherein would lie the difference, I suppose--that all-important Happily Ever After.

That said, I liked Heart but didn't love it like I did Iron, not through any fall-off in writing quality, but just cause I wasn't as into the central couple, both of whom appeared in the previous book. Yasmeen is an airship captain--though she loses her Lady Corsair, and its crew, to assassins unknown early on here--with badass, acrobatic fighting skillz and slightly tufted ears, plus a murky past. I don't think she's any less of a Type than flinty policewoman Mina Wentworth was in the first installment, but I just didn't like her as much. Archimedes Fox is a treasure hunter and star of a series of pulp novels by his sister, Zenobia, last seen when Yasmeen abandoned him in zombie-infested Venice. (Oh yeah, did I mention mainland Europe is pretty much overrun with a zombie plague? That's pretty important.) Maybe I just can't forgive her for this? Though he certainly does, and I do love his soft, squishy romantic's heart, a great contrast with his swashbucklin' exterior. Together, they set off on an expedition searching for Leonardo da Vinci's clockwork army, dodging Horde soldiers and mysterious enemies all the while; along the way, trying deuced hard not to fall in love.

There's a lot going on here, and Brook does a swell job keeping all these balls in the air. She's clearly got this world more fleshed out in her mind than she will ever need to commit to print, and goodness, she knows her way around escalating sexual tension. More telling than all this verbiage? I will totes pick up the next in the Iron Seas series. Her website says late 2012.

Gold Rush Groom (Jenna Kernan)

I figured, hey, if I'm gonna write a Gold Rush romance, I should know what else is out there, right? Hence: Jenna Kernan's Gold Rush Groom, also my first category romance (Harlequin Historical for September 2011). Somehow, despite having it on hold at work for weeks and then on my to-read shelf for a similar while, I did not notice until the moment I picked it up to read that it's set in the Yukon Gold Rush, not the California: 50 years later, totally different terrain. Oh well.

Still, I enjoyed the book. The heroine, Lily Shanahan, is believably plucky and adventurous (like the Modern Major General): when we meet her, she's been idling on the Alaskan coast for months, having traveled there determined to lead life on her own terms, escaping the States' proscribed, subservient roles for the daughter of an Irish immigrant. But now she needs a partner with whom to make the dangerous trek to the Yukon gold fields, and the men who come through mostly laugh at her. This wild frontier, too, circumscribes its women.

Jack Snow, on the other hand, comes from a once-privileged Connecticut family, ruined by his father's irresponsibility. He's come to Alaska armed with half a degree in mechanical engineering, confident he can use his skills to improve mining efficiency and earn the fortune necessary to buy his mother and younger sister back into society. He realizes quickly that he, too, needs a partner--Princeton has left him utterly unprepared for this frozen, mountainous landscape.

So they join together, BUSINESS PARTNERS ONLY OK, and set out, along with Lily's adorable Newfoundland mix (I know that a loyal pooch is a quick trope to establish a character as caring and trustworthy, but gosh, it's effective. Works much better for me than doting on a kid), braving rapids and hunger and exhaustion. Oh, and falling madly in love, obviously, and agonizing over the difference in their social stations that means they can never be together. OR CAN THEY?

Gold Rush Groom was a perfectly pleasant read (OK, except that Jack says "You're mine" during sex. I guess there are ladies who don't find that disturbing?), with hard-working and resourceful characters, easier to relate to than heiresses and nobility, I have to say. There was some odd stuff with time in the narrative--I'm sure that the trip from the coast to Dawson City really did take six months or more, but I found it harder to believe that nothing advanced in the relationship during the narrative lacunae. I also thought Lily's making money hand over fist as a cook and a singer was a little much. Category romance is, I think, supposed to be more ephemeral than single-title: yep, this fit the bill.

Heiress in Love (Christina Brooke)

All right, there are going to be a couple of reviews here where I’m kind of “ehn” about a book BUT have to stress that this is wholly subjective and not really critical of the book qua book. Sometimes things don’t strike my fancy, you know?

Such was Christina Brooke’s Heiress in Love, the beginning of a series which will be guided by the Ministry of Marriage—a group of wealthy and powerful British aristocrats cold-bloodedly planning alliances without regard to the feelings of the parties involved. Jane, Duchess Roxdale, recently rid of one loveless marriage, now forced by her late husband’s cruel will into contemplating another arranged match, with notorious roué Constantine Black. She’s got to overcome her disgust with Constantine’s infamous immorality, and her own repugnance with the matrimonial act. Luckily, he’s got the patience and expertise to help with the latter, and as she gets to know him, she realizes the former doesn’t tell the whole story.

The only reason I didn’t adore it—because it is marvelously written, with a lot of striking metaphors—is that I’m just not into rakes. Lord Horndog is a common hero in romances, and I get it. First of all, he’s got the mad skills born of practice with which to pleasure the heroine beyond distraction. And there’s vicarious satisfaction in the Earl of Sexington’s being seduced into swoony monogamy.

But I don’t like it, particularly in historicals, where so much of the rake’s sexual proficiency stems from encounters with prostitutes, servants, and lower-class mistresses  with elements of both (I should note that this is not the case in Heiress in Love, which I appreciated). There’s an unequal power dynamic that squicks me out. And I sometimes yearn to read about a heroine who has actually had great sex before, so that the HEA is less founded on hot and cold running orgasms. I’m perfectly aware that virgin heroes and experienced heroines exist in romance, and I just need to read more of them. (Also writing one—my heroine is a widow whose marriage was loving and affectionate, and the hero’s . . . well, I need to do more research on the sexual mores of the Chinese merchant class during the Qing Dynasty. But he’s not gonna have much of an amorous history.) Suggestions are welcome.

Season for Temptation (Theresa Romain): Interview and CONTEST!

Season for TemptationBack around the turn of the century, I landed my first summer job, at a Goodwill thrift store. It was great: first pick of all the clothes, 25-cent paperbacks . . . and I worked with my BFF Theresa Romain. One of our favorite pastimes was flipping through what I'm now aware were old-school romances--real bodice rippers--giggling and highlighting the naughty bits (or bits we could make naughty by highlighting selectively).

A decade-ish on, she's just published her first Regency (and thoroughly modern) romance, Season for Temptation. It's a delightful read, the story of Viscount James Matheson’s making a prudent engagement to kind, shy Louisa Oliver…before meeting her headstrong, scatterbrained stepsister, Julia Herington, who find herself as unexpectedly--and inappropriately—taken with him as he with her. The joy of reading a good romance is in knowing who will end up together but being mystified as to how; Season skillfully strings the reader along with moments of genuine anxiety and an impudent wit, largely exemplified by Louisa’s formidable aunt, Lady Oliver—who ranks with Jane Austen’s most redoubtable secondary characters.

I am pleased and proud as punch about her achievement! To celebrate, I had to do something special-er than just a review, something I'd never done before on this blog. Then it turned into TWO things: first, an author interview! I wrote a piece about her for her alumni magazine (Wichita State University), but there was so much great stuff I didn't get to put in, so it's publishing here in its entirety. Second, as part of her blog tour (oh these modern authors!), Theresa's graciously providing a copy of Season to one of you lucky readers. The procedure for entry? Just be a romance writer for a day! Comment below with your very best plot idea. I'll roll a d-something to pick a winner on Saturday at noon.

Without more ado from me, here's that interview. It's a good one.

So you've got this wonderful string of degrees [psychology, English, public history, all three from WSU]. Tell me about why you got each, what fascinates you about each discipline, and how/whether they're useful to your writing.
There was nothing systematic about what I studied, but I do think each field is useful to my writing. I started off studying psychology, because Plan A was to become a therapist. In my last semester before graduation, I suddenly became horrified by the idea (probably because I took a class in which I had to practice therapy and I realized how draining it was). So I studied English instead, just because I’ve always loved reading and I didn’t know what else I wanted to do. From there, history was a natural leap since it’s so intertwined with literature—every writer is influenced by the social and political atmosphere in which they live.  And really, all three degrees are just different ways to snoop into peoples’ lives. That’s my ultimate goal: literary snooping and story-telling.

When did you start writing Season? How long did it take? Favorite scenes/characters?
I started writing Season for Temptation soon after finishing a nonfiction book, about 3-1/2 years ago.  The first draft took me nine months, though I didn’t know it was my first draft when I finished because I’d never written fiction before. I’d spent years writing scientific articles and even a biography, and unfortunately that first draft of Season sounded eerily like a scientific article too. I tinkered with it for a while, then after months away from the manuscript due to a house flood (ulp) I saw it with fresh eyes and revised the whole thing.

I like all the main characters, because they have traits I admire but don’t possess. Julia, the heroine, is optimistic and outgoing; James, the hero, has a dry wit. Lady Irving, the aunt and matchmaker, says whatever is on her mind—who wouldn’t love to do that?  And Louisa, the heroine’s sister, is socially insecure and bookish. OK, maybe she’s kind of like me after all.

Tell me about the agent/editing/selling process.
My first sale happened kind of backwards, because I actually had an offer before signing with an agent. I’d been querying agents with Season for a while, but I also entered some first-chapter contests sponsored by state chapters of Romance Writers of America. Not long after we finished the clean-up from the house flood, I got word that I’d made the finals of one of these contests, so I sent in my newly revised book for the final judge—an editor—to read. She loved it and made an offer soon after. I called my dream agents and gave them the scoop, and one agreed to take me on as a client after reading not just Season, but my other works in progress. An agent isn’t in the relationship for one deal, but for an author’s career.

What surprised you about "the writing life?" What would you want other struggling authors to know?
This might sound common sense, but it’s a good starting point: authors should treat a writing career as professionally and systematically as they would any other career.  For example, think of query letters as resumes; think of each agent as someone you’re interviewing for a job, and choose only “candidates” who work in your field (that is, agents who represent the type of work you write). Also, follow query and submission guidelines when sending your work to agents or publishers; this alone will set you apart from the crowd. And when you’re online, be professional—no public bad-mouthing. 

 

Are you planning to write more novels? Will they also be Regency? (If so, why this period? What does it have over other "old-timey" eras?)
I’m in this for the long haul, I hope. I’d love to make writing my full-time career, and I do write every day (well, ok, almost every day). Everything I’ve written so far has been set in the Regency. I think a lot of authors and readers get hooked by the Regency because of Jane Austen’s novels. I got intrigued by that world through her work, and the more I researched it, the more it appealed to me.  The Regency era in England is the last gasp of the pastoral, pre-industrial society, so in that way it’s very exotic to a modern reader—and yet the styles and fashions of the time appear very elegant to our eyes today. Playing the manners of the time off the expectations of modern readers is all part of the fun.

 

I also meant to ask about your social media presence. Can you explain to a non-industry insider why it's so important for an author to do this these days?
A social media presence—blogs, Facebook, Twitter—is an author’s supplement to a publisher’s marketing arm. Strictly from an author’s or publisher’s perspective, the goal of social media is to create awareness about a new book/series/genius-must-buy-writer. But the real purpose of social media is to connect with people, and it’s essential for an author to keep that in mind. Readers will be put off by a presence that’s just about self-promotion.

Most open-ended of all: why romance? Here's where you get to Bust Stereotypes and Defend Awesomeness. Can't wait.
Romance is fun to write and to read because it’s optimistic—yet it’s realistic, too. At its heart, a romance novel is a story about how a couple works together to overcome obstacles to a healthy relationship. It’s rarely easy, and it often involves struggle. I think the popularity of romance shows that this type of plot is something we can all connect with, because we all struggle sometimes with our own relationships (whether romantic, friendly or professional) and want a healthy, hopeful resolution.

The best romances I’ve read are among the best books of any type I’ve ever read. Unfortunately, the romance genre gets a lot of snark, mainly from people who haven’t read a modern romance novel. I’m not sure why that’s the case, because pretty much everyone likes romance, even if they don’t know it. For example, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies had romance subplots. What’s not to like about people working out their problems and supporting each other?

Indeed.