reading update: more romance novels
I seem to be reading almost all romance novels this month(actually, I think all actual novels have been romance novels)
Anyway...
A Little Bit Wicked by Victoria Alexander: Of the Julia Quinn/Stephanie Laurens spawned plethora of regency and victorian era romance writers get past their first few books, most either turn as one-note and tedious as Laurens(reading the same characters 4 books in a row was tolerable, but I drew the line at a 30 or so page love scene...though it did make reading the book go by faster) or stay nice and enjoyable if cookie cutter like Quinn. Alexander is one of the few to take baby steps into something less marginalized, with some degree of success, though she still plays it safe as much as is possible. She makes the heroine a widow who loved her husband, but still follows the formula of eventually revealing that the husband was unfaithful, unstable, and, at the end, abusive. While the heroine has taken several lovers since her marriage(and is the former lover of a hero in another novel) we learn that it's only been a very few and that her reputation from the other books was exaggerated (which I thought was unnecessary, as she had been portrayed as very discrete and discriminate and in no way an "other woman," but not willing to wilt away just because her husband died when she was 20~, but I suspect editorial only just agreed to a heroine who had taken on several lovers through out years for pleasure, as opposed to necessity or any such) I would have liked it if Alexander hadn't ended up almost bending over backwards to purify the heroine(who didn't need it) but it was nice to read something in the genre that wasn't about a pristine debutante or spinster, or a widow scarred to all men by a terrible husband who must be "Fixed."
True Blood by Patricia Waddell: Yet another reason to make offerings to Susan Grant for changing the futuristic romance genre from barbarian sword and sorcery with spaceships to structured, intelligent stories set in the near or different future that don't appear to be a sheer regression of society(there were some good ones before she came along, but they were the exception, not the norm) This is about an ambassador, Danna MacFayden, who's assigned to work with Cullon Gavriel(with him effectively serving as her bodyguard) to investigate deaths related to his race's former monarchy. The book was my first by Waddell, and a good mix of intrigue, scifi and romance. And on a COMPLETELY shallow note, the anigravity sex amused me( clearly a "WHY don't more writers have this?" thing on Waddell's part.)
Eye of the Beholder by Merline Lovelace: I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it was good. On the other, I have rather high standards for Lovelace's contemporaries, and this didn't meet them, I think largely because she stayed largely out of the military and played around in archeology, and one of her strengths is writing about what she knows. This one is about and officer on leave after an operation that resulted in the death of her lifelong friend and occassional lover whose father claims she abandoned him, as part of a plot to screw her out of her family property(through a method that makes sense in the book but takes more time to explain than I care to devote to it) he makes a huge donation to a nearby university that's contingent on their authenticating runes located on her property, bringing her into conflict with the man heading up the operation. As both a contemporary romance and a roimantic suspense, it met my expectations and requirements, it just didn't meet my normal expectations for Lovelace.
Only A Duke Will Do by Sabrina Jeffries: Jeffries falls into the "Quinn" category mentioned earlier-enjoyable cookie cutter, but little else. I was very curious to see what this book would be like, as in a previous book the hero used the heroine to further his political ambitions, despite having feelings for her. The author didn't try to justify or excuse it, or say it was a misunderstanding, but simply stated that it was something her regretted, which I appreciated, but gave him a super-angsty background to compensate for it.
Anyway...
A Little Bit Wicked by Victoria Alexander: Of the Julia Quinn/Stephanie Laurens spawned plethora of regency and victorian era romance writers get past their first few books, most either turn as one-note and tedious as Laurens(reading the same characters 4 books in a row was tolerable, but I drew the line at a 30 or so page love scene...though it did make reading the book go by faster) or stay nice and enjoyable if cookie cutter like Quinn. Alexander is one of the few to take baby steps into something less marginalized, with some degree of success, though she still plays it safe as much as is possible. She makes the heroine a widow who loved her husband, but still follows the formula of eventually revealing that the husband was unfaithful, unstable, and, at the end, abusive. While the heroine has taken several lovers since her marriage(and is the former lover of a hero in another novel) we learn that it's only been a very few and that her reputation from the other books was exaggerated (which I thought was unnecessary, as she had been portrayed as very discrete and discriminate and in no way an "other woman," but not willing to wilt away just because her husband died when she was 20~, but I suspect editorial only just agreed to a heroine who had taken on several lovers through out years for pleasure, as opposed to necessity or any such) I would have liked it if Alexander hadn't ended up almost bending over backwards to purify the heroine(who didn't need it) but it was nice to read something in the genre that wasn't about a pristine debutante or spinster, or a widow scarred to all men by a terrible husband who must be "Fixed."
True Blood by Patricia Waddell: Yet another reason to make offerings to Susan Grant for changing the futuristic romance genre from barbarian sword and sorcery with spaceships to structured, intelligent stories set in the near or different future that don't appear to be a sheer regression of society(there were some good ones before she came along, but they were the exception, not the norm) This is about an ambassador, Danna MacFayden, who's assigned to work with Cullon Gavriel(with him effectively serving as her bodyguard) to investigate deaths related to his race's former monarchy. The book was my first by Waddell, and a good mix of intrigue, scifi and romance. And on a COMPLETELY shallow note, the anigravity sex amused me( clearly a "WHY don't more writers have this?" thing on Waddell's part.)
Eye of the Beholder by Merline Lovelace: I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it was good. On the other, I have rather high standards for Lovelace's contemporaries, and this didn't meet them, I think largely because she stayed largely out of the military and played around in archeology, and one of her strengths is writing about what she knows. This one is about and officer on leave after an operation that resulted in the death of her lifelong friend and occassional lover whose father claims she abandoned him, as part of a plot to screw her out of her family property(through a method that makes sense in the book but takes more time to explain than I care to devote to it) he makes a huge donation to a nearby university that's contingent on their authenticating runes located on her property, bringing her into conflict with the man heading up the operation. As both a contemporary romance and a roimantic suspense, it met my expectations and requirements, it just didn't meet my normal expectations for Lovelace.
Only A Duke Will Do by Sabrina Jeffries: Jeffries falls into the "Quinn" category mentioned earlier-enjoyable cookie cutter, but little else. I was very curious to see what this book would be like, as in a previous book the hero used the heroine to further his political ambitions, despite having feelings for her. The author didn't try to justify or excuse it, or say it was a misunderstanding, but simply stated that it was something her regretted, which I appreciated, but gave him a super-angsty background to compensate for it.