Tag Archives: romance

Random Fan Girlness November 2013

25 Nov

HAIYAN

First off I have to admit to being a naughty little fan girl about adding new entries the past couple of weeks. I was so caught up in that awful typhoon that hit the Philippines. My heart goes out to all the victims and their families. In spite of a lot of things that went wrong with relief efforts, the generosity of the human spirit from all around the world was also so beautiful to see.

ARCHANGEL’S LEGION

Another thing that delayed adding to the blog was that I decided to do a review of Archangel’s Legion by Nalini Singh and because I loved it so much I took a lot of time writing the review as I wanted to do it justice. I also have to sheepishly admit that I got so excited about the book while I was doing the review that I had to read the book again (for research purposes mind you). And THEN because I read that book I was reminded of how awesome all the OTHER books were in the series and yup, total romance fan girl moment, read the whole series all over again. FYI there are now 6 full length novels in the series, so you can imagine that this took a bit of time.

COPYRIGHT LAWS

As mentioned earlier, November was a good month for me as a lot of my favourite authors released new books. This brought home a bit of a sore subject with me however- the fact that Australia and New Zealand have delayed releases as compared to the US. There are some books that I can’t even purchase if I don’t live in North America and this is SO FRUSTRATING for me- especially in this age of ebooks. I could understand a delay in terms of shipping actual hard copy or printed books overseas but when a digital book can be ordered, paid for and downloaded in less than 2 minutes I really can’t understand the delay. I know from reading posts that this is due to copyright laws being different for North America and the rest of the world but as a consumer it is maddening. Hmph.

ARCs

I’m really new to the blogosphere but have been following other romance blogs such as Dear Author and Smart Bitches Trashy Books for years and therefore have picked up some of the lingo. One term that I picked up and totally envied is ARC or Advanced Readers’ Copy. A call came out recently for bloggers to put their hands up for ARCs for some Christmas anthologies and thinking it couldn’t hurt, I did and I got them! Total romance fan girl moment! I was absolutely thrilled to bits and can’t wait to read and review them!

BOOKS I THAT I READ WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITING

  • Susan Mallery’s A Fool’s Gold Cookbook
  • Kinked by Thea Harrison
  • Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter Series (again)
  • Sealed with A Curse: A Weird Girls Novel by Cecy Robson
  • A Cursed Embrace: A Weird Girls Novel by Cecy Robson
  • Born Wild: Black Knights Inc by Julie Ann Walker
  • Jagged by Kristen Ashley
  • Play it Safe by Kristen Ashley
  • One Perfect Night by Bella Andre

Reviews to follow!

 

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My Week in Books…

5 Nov

This week seems to be a week of new releases. I finished Nora Roberts’s Dark Witch and Nalini Singh’s Archangel’s Legion over the weekend. Two of my autobuy authors, one weekend- yay me! I also re-read Danielle Monsch’s Stone Guardian and am currently reading Shannon Stacey’s Snowbound with the CEO.

Of all the above books I have to really, really recommend Archangel’s Legion. It was EPIC. I’m still trying to get my thoughts together so I can write a proper review because really I’m still feeling all gushy and ridiculously in love with the book- it was that good. Unfortunately, writing SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE over and over again does not a good review make so that review is forthcoming once I have come back down to Earth.

Dark Witch by Nora Roberts and Danielle Monsch’s Stone Guardian were good books, but not great ones. I’ll write about them and Shannon Stacey’s Snowbound this week. After Archangel’s Legion I’m looking for a really good paranormal romance I can get into. Recommendations anyone?

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Autobuy Authors 1

2 Nov

I started this entry thinking, “This should be easy, I LOVE these authors.” Four days later I have finally come to the realisation that because I LOVE these authors so much I’m having a really hard time writing short blurbs about them when in reality I want to squee like the ridiculous romance fan girl that I am across the whole page. This is just a short and sweet entry on who my autobuy authors are (and this is another reason it’s taking me so damn long I am now stressing out that I will forget a favourite and want to shoot myself AFTER posting the damn piece) and what kind of books they write generally. I’ll probably do recommend pieces on most of them later on. At least, that is what I am telling myself so that I actually finish this list…

Nora Roberts: La Nora is a GODDESS and I will buy anything and everything she writes. This includes her Eve Dallas/ JD Robb books and I have to note that Roarke must be one of my favourite alpha male heroes EVER. She writes mostly contemporary romances although some of her later stuff has her branching out into romantic suspense and romance with paranormal elements. At the end of the day, she is a highly prolific author whose not so good stuff is better than some other people’s good stuff. Enough said.

CL Wilson: If you love your romance with a lot of fantasy then you HAVE to read CL Wilson’s Fading Lands/ Tairen Soul series. Think epic fantasy on the scale of Lord of the Rings with an even more kick ass love story. This is one of my absolute favourite series of all time and has made me such a fan she is on my autobuy list. Be warned though, she is NOT a prolific author and her last book was published back in 2010 (!!!). Her next book is due out late 2014 but trust me, she is SO worth the wait.

Nalini Singh: Both her Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter series are autobuys for me. She has amazing world-building skills and with her Psy-Changeling series in particular, is very good with continuing an overarching storyline through multiple books. Both series are based in alternate versions of our current reality. Her Psy-Changeling series is about shifters and humans and a human like psychically powerful race called the Psy, who have also instituted a protocol called silence (complete emotionlessness) in order to deal with their psychic capabilities. Her Guild Hunter series is about Angels and Vampires and Guild hunters and starts off with the story of Elena, a guild hunter (hunter of naughty vampires in other words) and Rafael, the Archangel of New York.

Christine Feehan: Christine Feehan was probably one of the first paranormal romance authors that I read and I LOVED her Carpathian series before I got all vampired out. She also has a Jaguar Shifter series, Drake Sisters and Sisters of the Heart Series (witches) and the Nightwalker series which is about psychically enhanced super soldiers. I love and buy them all. Her books tend to be quite intense and are not as light hearted as some of the other authors that I have on this list.

Julie Garwood: Although my first ever romance novel was a Judith Mcnaught book, the author who made me fall in love with the genre is Julie Garwood. Her historical romances, especially the Highland ones are HILARIOUS and very very romantic. You’ll find that I like funny, romantic books best of all. My apologies to those who love the darker authors- I’d rather laugh my way through a romance than cry through it. Even though she has moved to contemporaries, and I don’t think most of them are as good as her early historicals, she is still an autobuy for me.

Julia Quinn: Another historical author with tickle your funny bone and pull at your heartstrings romances. I loved her Bridgerton series because I loved the interplay between the siblings but all her books are good. She has a way with funny dialogue and making you believe that the hero and heroine of her novels actually like each other as well as love each other.

NB: This is just part 1 of autobuy authors. I just had to give myself a cut off or I would never end up posting this entry! So many wonderful authors and not enough time to talk about them all!

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Rock Chick Daze

2 Nov

I am in a complete Rock Chick daze. I have lost weeks (WEEKS!) of my life and I blame it all on Kristen Ashley. There are 8 books in the series and as with all series there are some books that I enjoyed a little bit more than the others but overall I loved all the books so much and am recommending the entire series as a whole instead of individual books.
The Rock Chick books are laugh out loud funny, romantic and hot- as in HAWT. I enjoyed the heck out of them and couldn’t put them down in spite of several writing idiosyncrasies that KA has that would usually drive me up the wall. I’ll get the stuff that I didn’t like about her books out of the way first so that I can continue to gush embarrassingly for the rest of this entry.

Most of KA’s books are written in first person. I usually don’t like first person point of view writing as I like getting into the other characters’ heads. In her books KA gets around only getting the main character’s thoughts by breaking all the “rules” and jumping points of views. This is not something I enjoy usually but she placed spaces and sub headings in between the changes in point of view so you’re not taken by surprise. I didn’t like it but it didn’t really bug me too much either. What DID bug the heck out of me was when she would write things like “I was walking out of the room and therefore did not see… (insert action here such as main characters exchanging meaningful looks)”. These lines always left me exasperated. If you didn’t see it then you DIDN’T SEE IT. Period. I don’t get how you can NOT see something and still write about it.

I have read other reviews of her books where the reviewers complained about the amount of detail that KA goes into when describing the clothes that her characters are wearing. I didn’t mind this at all and while I agree that there were times that I would skim over some of the lengthier descriptive paragraphs, I found that I actually liked knowing what my favourite (which was whoever I was reading about at that moment) rock chick was wearing. In fact, what they were wearing was an important part of who they are such as Dolly Parton look alike Daisy or high maintenance Roxie. The Rock Chicks as a group are strong, quirky, attractive women and I believe that their choice of clothing added to their individual quirks/personalities.
The Rock Chick books I believe were originally self-published so there are a few typos here and there but nothing like some of the other self-published train wrecks that you can get via electronic publishing.

These Rock Chick books are my favourite kind of contemporary romance because they are FUNNY. Like laugh out loud, scream and cover your face FUNNY. The humour is similar Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series in that the girls get up to all sorts of mischief by accident and by design. The things that come out of their mouth are both cringe worthy and hilarious. Some of the funniest moments come from conversations between the girls and their hot guys especially in the beginning when they are still fighting being together. Jet and Eddie’s whole racist episode down to the ex-boyfriend showing up will live forever in my mind. Ava’s time by herself in the afternoon that necessitated the cameras being turned off is another scene that made me scream out loud then burst out laughing.

The funny, light-hearted bits were a good balance to the more serious life and death/abuse situations that the chicks found themselves in a lot of the time. KA touched on some pretty serious issues in a couple of her books but managed to keep the books from becoming too heavy or depressing. I liked the fact that while the Rock Chicks all had their own physical life or death issues that they had to work out, they also had to spend a lot of time working out their internal issues and insecurities. Themes of not feeling special, not being good enough or not being worthy are all issues that I would think would resonate quite strongly with women as a whole regardless of background.

Following the whole internal work theme, I have to mention that probably my favourite thing about these books was the very strong theme of family/friends that run through the series. While reading it and certainly at the end of the book you WANT to be part of the Rock Chick family or something similar. You WANT these people to be your friends. Seriously. They always had each other’s backs, both the guys and the girls. The shared camaraderie and history really came through in the books and were very nicely backed up by the epilogues. I love me a good epilogue, especially in books where I get so attached to the characters that I want to know more about their happily ever after. KA does this really well. Nope, no short two page cryptic/ cliff hanger epilogue for the Rock Chicks, KA goes all out with a full chapter long visit to the couple and the group. Stella and Mace’s epilogue and Ava and Luke’s stood out for me especially as giving readers the reassurance that yes, they really WILL live happily ever after.

We cannot talk about the Rock Chick series without talking about their men, the Hot Bunch. Going back to the comparison with the Stephanie Plum series, imagine a whole bunch of Rangers and Morellis and… yup… sigh. The difference of course being that the Rock Chick novels are truly romance novels and while in some of the books there is another guy showing interest just to make things interesting, the stories are really about one guy and one girl falling in love with each other. The men in these books are either cops or part of a private investigation agency with the exception of Ren but in the end all the men are bad asses with a soft spot for women and really isn’t that a perfectly drool worthy combination? These alpha guys have their not so perfect moments (I believe that the term speak in Asshole was mentioned in one of the books) but KA always manages to pull them back before I ended up disliking them intensely. This is also something that she is good at- pushing characters to the limits of unlikeable and then pulling them firmly back into the likeable category (at least for this series. I had major problems with Knight which is in her unfinished hero series and to be fair she does warn readers that her heroes in that series are not the usual).

At the end of the day and all analysis aside, I couldn’t put down these books. I have read other more technically proficient books that I was able to put down and forget about. But with this series I was a total addict, even sneaking pages in at stoplights when driving home! This is not the one bite of beluga caviar that you nibble on daintily at a cocktail party. This series is a pint of Ben and Jerry’s or a bag of Cheetos puffs that you just gobble voraciously and keep eating because you can’t stop even though you know it’s not good for you. The books are in no way perfect but they made me laugh, they made me cry, they made me believe in family and love and deep meaningful connections to other people. The Rock Chick series is fun escapism at its very finest which is why this is definitely a series that I would recommend.

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So What About Those Sex Scenes?

9 Aug

I love romance novels. I love them sweet, but I especially love them steamy. Give me a virile man hungry for his woman and I am one happy romance fan girl. Sad to say though that some sex scenes can be WTFery fodder like no other. There are plenty of stock standard sex scenes that have me shaking my head and thinking ugh, no. There are others that really just defy the laws of gravity and biology. Here are a few of my (not-so) favourites:

Everyone goes on and on about morning breath in morning sex scenes. I on the other hand think about having to wee. Because really people, isn’t that the first thing that you do in the morning?! I can’t think of anything worse than being bounced on with a full bladder. Shades of Gray aside (and oh my, will THAT series get another little entry of its own) I can’t see how a full bladder is conducive to sexy feelings. Enough said.

Speaking of bathrooms… how about the shower sex scenes? Now well written shower scenes can be romantic and (pardon the pun) steamy. But I have to admit that when the scene isn’t written particularly well my undisciplined mind does take a wander down the practical path and thoughts like ‘don’t the tiles hurt their knees?’ and ‘How does that work if the girl is a whole foot shorter than the massive 6’4 man pounding into her from behind’ start to intrude. And Oh my God, how about the one where the poor girl had to hold her breath underwater to pleasure her man in the tub?

The whole getting out of the shower without drying off and then getting rowdy soaking wet, in the bed, IN THE MIDDLE OF A SNOWSTORM without feeling cold at all because hey, heat of passion and all that also elicits snorts of disbelief from me. And isn’t it funny that the hot water runs out and turns icy cold JUST when the deed is done? Because no one has ever had hot water run out on them in the middle of a sex sesh. Really.

All this talk of soaking wet sheets does bring to mind another thing that can bring me out of a great story- the implication that there will be a lot of very annoying housework to do after the fun is finished. You know, it’s the soaking wet sheets that have to be changed, the sex play with chocolate syrup on the carpet (!!!) and some people’s favourite- the big dramatic sweeping of crockery/paperwork/other breakables off the table so that they can have very energetic sex ON said table. I know that these are all supposed to be swept away by passion type moments but sometimes all I do is wince through these scenes thinking of the hellish clean up afterwards.

There was one book where the hero and heroine spent the whole day tromping around in boots all day and then at night the hero sucked the heroines toes as foreplay after removing aforementioned boots that made me cringe. There was also that one book where the hero and heroine made love on a moving horse. ON. A. HORSE. As it was galloping along. Need I say more?

And then there are the ménages. If done well a ménage scene can be seriously hot… and there are the other ones where I actually catch myself tilting my head and book to the side while reading as if that would help me figure out who was touching what and where! Cirque de Soleil anyone?

A really good love scene can make my heart flutter in my chest, cause tingles and generally adds to the overall experience of the book. Even though the scenes above take me out of the story more often than not, a really skilful writer can get me so into a story that I don’t care about the hows and the whys. One of my favourite books of all time had the hero and heroine making love “in Spirit only” and underwater (and no they were not mer people of any sort). Another one had two angels making love in the sky, WHILE FLYING. How’s that for improbable? But that particular author wrote the scene so well that my mind didn’t wander off to what in the world would happen if a 747 should pass by. Talk about in flight entertainment.

What are your favourite/ least favourite sex scene tropes?

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Review: Angel in Chains by Cynthia Eden

9 Aug

This is a book review that was originally published on the Smart Bitches Trashy Books website as part of their RITA Reader challenge where they asked their followers to review RITA nominated books. This book got a B- grade from me.

I put my hand up to review this book because I got excited by the summary posted on Amazon. Hot and angry Angel of Death saving a girl from snarling panther shifters? For the love of all that is paranormal, batman, sign me up! So I bought the book, put the kids to bed and got ready to stay up all night reading. Only, I didn’t. I was actually able to put it down after 3 chapters and go to sleep! This was my main problem with this book. Even though it had so many things going for it and I really wanted to like it, I never got into it the way I do with the really good books. You know the maybe I’ll just sneak a couple of paragraphs at the stoplight good.

Here are the things that I DID like about the book. It was an interesting premise and I liked that it started out exciting right away with big and bad Az saving Jade in the first chapter. The rest of the book is basically Az and Jade and a few other secondary characters along the way running away from and plotting to kill Brandt, a psycho panther shifter who is Alpha of a pack and is also crazy (as in CRAY CRAY) obsessed with having Jade as his mate.

This was the first and only book of the series that I have read and even if I read it out of order I was able to pick up the story and not get confused which was another thing that I appreciated.

I liked that the world building was interesting and just a bit dark. The whole idea of Fallen Angels is in turns fascinating and vaguely horrifying. It is a completely different take on Angels than Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series where Angels are not from Heaven or have any sort of religious convent school like undertones to them. Cynthia Eden’s Angels have the whole heaven, hell, redemption theme going. There’s even talk of the different kinds of angels: punishment angels, death angels and guardian angels which brings to mind early childhood catechism classes.

I liked that it wasn’t one of those stories where they were fated and therefore fell in love with each other automatically. At the end of the day Az and Jade made the choice to believe in each other and be together, no one else made the choice for them.

One of the biggest things that I DIDN’T like about the book was the main characters. They just weren’t all that likeable. Jade is feisty and has been through hell and back running away from Crazy Brandt who kills everyone that is close to her. She is tough and can take care of herself, as she has been for years but all of a sudden has a blind and total faith in Azrael even if people are telling her he is using her? Just a little hard to swallow. I should have liked her but for some reason I didn’t.

Same goes with Az. One of the best things for me about reading a romance is being able to secretly swoon about the leading man. Az had all the elements but didn’t quite get there for me. In most of the novels that I read authors usually use italics to show the inner thoughts of their characters. This third person omniscient point of view of writing is my favourite because I like being able to read the thoughts of all the main characters of the book, but I found some of the writing of Az’s thoughts really weird. There’s this one scene in particular written from Az’s point of view that was pure WTFery for me:

Her legs curled around his hips and her neck arched as Jade choked out his name.

Thrust. Thrust. He couldn’t get deep enough. (p.105)

So… he is lost in the moment and thinking to himself Thrust. Thrust?! And then later on down the passage the author uses it AGAIN.

Az never wanted to let her go.

Couldn’t.

Thrust. Th-

At which point I thought to myself, Laugh. Laugh.

It totally spoiled the scene for me.

My other major dislike in the story was Brandt the bad guy. He was your totally cookie cutter crazy mad baddie. He killed people left, right and center including those most loyal to him but wouldn’t kill Jade no matter what she did. One of the most unbelievable parts of the story was when he killed his second in command for making a remark he didn’t like. It just didn’t make sense to me at all but then again that may have been the point so who knows?

I really wanted to like this book and give it a higher grade but I couldn’t. Would I read another Cynthia Eden book? Definitely. It was entertaining, the world building was really interesting and the storyline was exciting. Was it a great book? In my humble opinion, no and this probably just comes down to personal taste. Jade and Azrael unlike Eve and Roarke, Rafael and Elena, Rain and Ellysetta are not a couple that I will remember very clearly or with particular fondness.

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The beginning of the love affair

2 Oct

Hello world! Here I am having my first go at blogging about one of my absolute favorite things in the world, romance books!

I started reading romance books at a pretty young age after being more fascinated with the relationship between Ned Nickerson and Nancy Drew than with the mysteries that the girl detective from River Heights was solving.

I remember reading the short romance novels that were published in my mom’s Good Housekeeping magazines. After catching me reading all her magazines (and realizing that banning me from reading romances was futile as I was sneaky and determined) my mom gave me a few Mills and Boons books that she had and a Judith McNaught book and that started my love affair with love affairs.

Since then I have literally read hundreds (if not thousands my poor beleaguered husband must be thinking) of books. Getting a kindle two years ago has just made the habit worse as storage space is no longer a problem (whee!!!).

Romance books are my escape, my treat to myself, my drug of choice. They have helped me survive graduations, the first job, the first boyfriend, the inevitable first break up, migrating to a different country and now being married and having 2 children under the age of 3.

My favorite authors for now (the list continually grows) are Nora Roberts, Nalini Singh and CL Wilson. I want to write a blog that will help other romance fans like me discover the books and authors that I absolutely love. It was a couple of other romance review sites (thank you Dear Author and Smart Bitches) that helped me discover 2 of my all time favorite authors and I hope to be able to do the same.

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