lisisjulia asked Hi I just followed you, your blog is great! I was wondering if you could recommend any other blogs that are similar to yours, I would really appreciate it. I want to follow more blogs that review or just talk about romance books, but they are proving hard to find lol.
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is the authority for romance blogs, and Sarah often posts thoughtful articles in addition to hilarious reviews. Her friends over at Dear Author are also pretty great.
Also, they’re not strictly romance as their name implies, they’re YA), but Forever Young Adult is absolutely hilarious. I often look at their reviews and wonder, “How can I be more like FYA?”
Thanks for following, and sorry for the late response! I’ve been out of town.
samjeet asked Who are some of your favorite contemporary romance authors? I'm in a major romance reading lull and need a good pick me up. So I turn to you, oh great one.
NORA ROBERTS. Seriously, you can’t go wrong. And while I’m on the subject, has anybody read The Key of Light trilogy? I’m considering that after the book I’m reading now. Anyways, my favorite Nora so far is Three Fates, although the Chesapeake Bay series was really lovely.
Jennifer Crusie is also terrific. I don’t think she’s as GOOD as La Nora, but Welcome to Temptation is excellent.
And finally, she’s not quite romance, but Marian Keyes is like, Queen of Chick Lit in my book. Sushi for Beginners has a really sweet romance, angle, but not really any detailed sex.
READERS TO THE RESCUE!
tnphotochicken-deactivated20130 asked Perhaps you could help me. I'm looking for a story where the hero isn't an arrogant alpha-male jerk. I feel like that's an apt description of the leading guy in the past 20 books I've read! Got any suggestions for hot beta male heroes?
Are you looking for ANY kind of romance? Because I’m currently reading Vision in White by Nora Roberts, and the hero is a geeky English teacher and still totally sexy.
Readers, any suggestions?
auniqubeing asked Just ran into a message you received regarding Riley Jensons series by Keri Arthur. I have all her books & read them; I must say I really enjoyed them. Yes there are reviewers that may say it's not the best book, but only you can be the judge of that. =) Give her first book a shot and see if you like it...I recommend her books. If not, I would recommend Mary Balogh's series as well. Check her out if you haven't!
How about YOU give me a review of one of her books? SEE HOW THE TABLES HAVE TURNED HA HA HA HA HA
Seriously, though, I love guest reviews, and I have been lacking a bit recently. I’m sure you guys all got shiny new e-readers and books for the holidays, and the submit button is right over here.
the-satisfied-fool asked hey, have you read any Susan Elizabeth Phillips? i agree Julia Quinn can be a bit blah, Lisa kyelpas in my opinion is one of the most quotable romance writers on the scene but SEP is well up there.
I have not! She seems to have a pretty big following. Is she contemporary or historical? Where should I start?
thebattleofwits asked Hello! I've been searching for historicals that feature the "downstairs" side of a wealthy household (fans of Downton Abbey know what I'm talking about!) and I'm looking for book recommendations in that same Upstairs/Downstairs vein. I'm particularly fond of the Bates/Anna relationship from DA, as I'm sure many others are, but I can't seem to find any romance novels that feature servants (I guess they're all too busy for some extra-curricular lovin?). Does anyone have recommendations? Thanks!
What the HALE, my email notifier has been on the fritz. I’m so sorry if this has been waiting in limbo for a long time.
ANYWAYS, aren’t you so totally stoked that Downton is coming back on tonight? I watched the whole first season in about four days last month, and it was just fabulous. It was everything I was hoping it would be, and bitchier.
This does not answer your question at all, and unfortunately, I don’t know that I have a good answer. Most of the historical romance I read is about rich titled people fucking other rich titled people. I read an exception about a year ago, in which a rich titled person fucks a poor fortune teller (Proof by Seduction, by Courtney Milan) (I didn’t like it THAT much, honestly), so we will have to look to the peanut gallery for better suggestions.
That said, if you haven’t seen Gosford Park, drop everything and go watch it right now. Honestly, that’s not a bad suggestion even if you HAVE seen it.
missworded asked FYI, RAGNAR AND JULIET will be available from Amazon for the Kindle, but not on release day, Sept. 12th. On the 12th it'll be available via PDF from Liquid Silver Books (my publisher), and Amazon probs 2-3 weeks after that, and from AllRomance (. com) at some point after the Sept 12 release, too. So on 9/12 go to LiquidSilverBooks (. com). I'll be annoying that day with the promo, so I'm sure you can just look at my Tumblr that week and get many links :)
PSA! Don’t forget to get you some!
paranormaladdiction asked So as i have been reading your blog for at least 45 minutes cause i can't get enough of your "lovely" reviews about sex and many other things, haha haha, well anyways i searched through your posts and was wondering if you had read the Riley Jenson Gaurdian Series by Keri Arthur? Starts out with Full Moon Rising. And since you like to see "Magical" covers i thought you might like these. Where the main character is rubbing her own neck on all of the covers. hmmm hmmm anyways.......
One of the reviewees states that.....
Sexy vampires, randy werewolves, and unabashed, unapologetic, joyful sex- you've gotta love it. Smart, sexy, and well conceived, full moon rising left me wishing i was a dhampire -Kim Harrison
Who knew Kim Harrison wished she was a Dhampire? Hmmmmm contemplating the weirdness. Anyways i loved this series and i thought hey maybe you might have something fun to say about it :D
Hope you enjoy it :D
I have heard about that series … but not a lot of good things, I have to admit. I’ve looked at the Amazon reviews and decided against it before because it sounded suspiciously like Sherrilyn Kenyon Goes to Oz, or, even worse, Anita Blake.
That said, I do love getting reader recs, and I am in the market for a new paranormal series. Has anybody else given these a shot?
Thanks for reading!
katalysis asked Hi! I recently read your review of When the Duke Returns by Eloisa James, and you mentioned that you have read (and not quite liked) Jemma's story. If James' intention was to prolong the resolution to that story until hJemma's own book, she succeeded because I really wanted to read it. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the subject, and why you didn't like it. A review like the one I've read would be very, very interesting and appreciated. Thank you!
Hello! And thanks for reading!
It’s been such a long time since I read Jemma’s story, but I will do my best to give an idea of why it didn’t appeal to me. I think the simplest answer is that it was just not interesting. Is it because I’d been following Jemma and Elijah for several books and I felt like I knew how it was going to turn out anyways? Maybe. We also follow Villiers for the entire series and he remained fascinating and a bit ~*~mysterious~*~ and his book ended up being my favorite.
But I think the real problem is this: Elijah is, how can I put this delicately, so fucking boring I almost fell asleep every time he was onpage. I couldn’t get a sense of what he looks like. Even now I remember Villiers has the skunk hair (trust, it’s sexy). Lord Strange has dark hair and a hawkish nose. Fletch is dark and superhandsome. Griffyn has brown hair, blue eyes, and a mischevious smile. Simeon looks vaguely Italian and is ridic buff. Elijah is … golden? Has aristocratic planes on his face? Many romance novels use that descriptor and I have to be straight with you, I have no fucking idea what it means.
But honestly, it’s not how he looks, it’s that he’s just so … good. He made one mistake many years ago and he even made that mistake because he’s so kind and good-hearted and angelic and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Excuse me, I must have nodded off. Give me a man with a sense of humor and a bit of mischief any day over some golden angel with aristocratic planes on his face and a sensuous mouth. And while Jemma provided a lot of that excitement, she completely loses her teeth when it comes to Elijah. Ugh.
Of course, this is all a taste issue, your mileage may vary.
One final thing: I can’t spoiler it, because it’s a huge plot point, but there is a total deus ex machina at the end and it left me going, “Really? Really? Fuck this book.”
However, if you’re sold on Jemma and Elijah, you should go ahead and read it. I’d love it if you’d review it for ME, actually.
beresbel asked Hey, so I was wondering: Got any stories that are kind of like Ever After? (The movie with Drew Berrymore, which, yes, I am currently watching.) I am just curious, because, damn. Could be a really great book. With, you know, more than kissing.
Ha, I love that movie, even though Drew Barrymore’s accent makes me want to punch a baby.
Anyways, Cinderella stories are plentiful in Romanceland, but my favorite is A Kiss At Midnight by Eloisa James (I typoed at first and said A Kill at Midnight, that sounds like a Bond movie, doesn’t it?).
I know, contain your shock. Me recommending Eloisa James. Stunning. But I love this book, and I even reviewed it for Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Rest assured, they do more than kiss.The slipper fits very well, if you catch my drift. There is hot princely dick. They have sex with each other. If you know what I mean.
My other favorite Cinderella adaptation is a YA book, and is one of my favorite books OF ALL TIME: Ella Enchanted. There is nothing more than kissing in this book, but everybody in the world should read it because it’s so wonderful.
Readers, any more Cinderella stories?
