The Romance List

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I've been reading off this list from The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List--specifically the Fantasy List and the Literary Fiction List. I was finding I enjoyed the recommended books so much, I decided to tackle the Romance List, since I've never had much success with that genre.

My impression honestly is almost all much of the

Comments

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Whitney My Love is one I never read, but I get the creeps from the fact that the hero and heroine were named after her son and daughter. Try writing THAT sex, Mom. Ick.

I read it on silburygirl's rec as an anti-Twilight. I think one thing I loved about it was that Aislinn doesn't go for the gorgeous glamorous immortal fae prince, but an ordinary boy. Also--fae, elves, etc--I usually find them staid, boring--I was impressed with the danger Marr imbued them with--and I remember liking the style--these books--almost every single one of them the style was utterly wretched.

Thoroughly agree about DuMaurier and Mary Stewart, though. My favorite of Stewart's is probably The Ivy Tree.

I haven't read that one--though I can tell you know I will. I'd read and loved Stewart's Arthurian books, but somehow had never gotten around to her gothic romances. I was startled just how good the style was--the prose was freakin' gorgeous--and so vivid in giving you a sense of place.

I remember reading my way through Victoria Holt in my teens and still sell bits of it in the shop, but so much of it was forced seduction (mostly off stage) that I got a pretty warped view of Empire and Victorian eras' sensibilities.

Mistress of Mellyn isn't forced seduction. It's very similar actually on a lot of plot points with Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting--and I left Stewart and Holt to the end, expecting both to be good. Holt's was good--but she just imo couldn't hold a candle to Stewart.

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I've never read Stiefvater or Black. Most fae I've read are the kinds that make you think they fart rainbows--Tolkien fey that speak in near Elizabethian language. So Marr was refreshing that way. I rather wish I could read more takes on fae--I've begun to feel so burned out on Vampires I may plunge a stake into the next book I see--yet I like urban fantasy--just sick of the fanged ones...

Some of Stewart's books are better than others. I prefer the ones set in England to the ones set in Greece, for example, but I always liked her prose and her somewhat unusual heroines. Books grounded in reality, I thought. And at the time I wasn't finding a lot of romantic suspense that wasn't historical. She was one of the few first-person authors I didn't mind reading.

What? You too? My friend Renita is one of those--in fact she flat out refuses to read in that point of view. I love it--both as a reader and writer--it comes naturally to me and in fact all the first person books on this list were my top-rated. Du Maurier was first person too.