So you say you want to give romance novels a try?

You've always wondered what all the fuss is about ro nos, right? I mean, the romance business is BOOMING. Of course you've always thought those books in the drug store were terrible and people reading them were airheads. But then you caught your boss reading something racy at lunch...and your doctor mentioned that she was tired from staying up half the night finishing a great ro no. And you're starting to wonder if everyone else knows something you don't know.

You're right. We do know something you don't know. There are some AWESOME ro nos out there in the world and you could be very happily reading them instead of watching TV, reading magazines, or sleeping (let's be honest, sometimes you just have to know what happens next). Whenever one of my lady friend shows even the most mild interest in reading a ro no, I quickly suggest my #1 go to book: Yours Until Dawn. It is great - interesting, sexy, well-written and hard to put down. If they like that, I suggest Lord of Scoundrels or the Last Hellion (probably the latter because I loved it so much I bought it and then I can just hand it over). At this point, they're likely hooked and I can steer them to the Regency post in this fine blog, or we can discuss how their tastes might diverge.

If my imaginary friend would like something modern, I suggest Bet Me. Something charming and old fashioned and sweet: The Secret. Something more sci fi/fantasy: the Fever series. If she would like something quite racy, I suggest some delicious Highlander books. Something racy AND sci fi/fantasy: the Black Dagger Brotherhood. If she wants something REALLY racy (hey, I don't judge!) I suggest Billionaire Bad Boys Club.

These are my go-tos to get people into the genre and hopefully they succeed. I love having more people to discuss ro nos with!

You can't judge a book by its cover...unless we're talking about a ro no

Back in the day before either of us read ro nos, our mother swore up and down that the cover of a romance novel was not designed to appeal because there was a hunky dude but because there was hidden imagery of genitalia. Seriously. I have not forgotten this hilarious tidbit and I often do find super special "folds" in dresses, backgrounds, and carefully arranged anatomy.

Aside from muscle-bound Fabios and suggestive folds, the cover of a ro no can give you a good idea of what to expect with respect to plot, writing quality, and sexxxxxiness. These are just my general impressions, so if your experiences run contrary, please comment!

Cover hint #1: The double cover

Kindle readers don't get to appreciate all the effort that goes into a good double cover. You've got the demure outside, likely of a pretty lady in a massive ball gown, and then the same lady half naked and getting felt up by a swarthy pirate type on the inside cover. These books will probably bring it both in plot AND in sex. This convention is primarily used in historical romance. Case in point: A Rogue By Any Other Name, by Sarah MacLean:

Cover hint #2: Headless hottie
All you see is the dimly lit torso of a man with some crazy awesome abs. These books may have good quality writing, but that is secondary to the steaminess! Also, these are often paranormals and sometimes have some violent scenes. Case in point: Lover Mine by J.R. Ward (pretty much all the covers in her Black Dagger Brotherhood series are variations on this theme).

Cover hint #3: Publisher
In general, I think the stuff published by Harlequin is terrible. Even if the sexiness is there (which it hardly is) the plots are so thin and the characters so one dimensional that it is a total snoozefest. Harlequin publishes under something like 30 different names, but the key is in the little H in a diamond on the back cover. Let's just say that unless it is in the name of research, I am NOT voluntarily reading anymore ro nos by Harlequin! I do like a lot of what Avon, Dell and Signet publish.

For more info!
In researching this blog post I stumbled across this wonderful website documenting all sorts of issues related to ro no covers. There are heated debates about covers with couples clinging to one another, and in depth reviews of the artists who paint those lovely head shots of heroines (I'm thinking of your stuff, Loretta Chase). You poor Kindle readers had no idea that there was so much cover intrigue out there!

Karen Marie Moning's Fever series

The Fever series really blurs the lines between ro no and sci fi/fantasy. KMM created a modern, paranormal world so engaging you actually read FIVE books before your HEA. Proceeding from the world of the fae that Moning introduced us to in her earlier Highlander books, Darkfever kicks off when the fae are really taking over and things are heating up in Ireland. MacKayla Lane, our naive, bimbo heroine, sets off to Ireland to avenge her sister, and quickly becomes the only hope for the human race. She also quickly morphs into much more than a bimbo, and she encounters some hunks who are much more than your run of the mill ro no heroes. There are a lot of Irish words I pronounced in my head very differently then they should be pronounced. Unlike other series posts, I will only list the order of the books here, and send you on your way. A mini summary would have to include spoilers, and the way the plot unfolds in this series is so amazing that I don't want to do anything to mar your enjoyment of it! Each book continues the story and progresses the romance between MacKayla and the various potential suitors in her life (one of KMM's strengths is that you never know quite which hottie you're rooting for). I found these books deeply satisfying - enough that I've read the series a few times. That said, if you're not hooked by the first book, this series isn't for you.

Book Order
Darkfever 2007
Bloodfever 2008
Faefever 2009
Dreamfever 2010
Shadowfever 2011

The book Iced, 2012 is part of the Fever world but features Mac's sidekick, Dani. A 13 year old girl. In the Fever world. It is...uncomfortable. At first KMM said Iced was a young adult book, but when it came out she backtracked considerably - this book is still as graphic and sexy as the rest of the Fever series! Dani is more sex-adjacent than I felt entirely comfortable with, but I wholly admit I am a prude about teenagers and their sexuality. You've been warned!

E Rating: 5 stars      H Rating: 5 stars

Stand out book: Shadowfever

What is so appealing about YA?!

Just a general kvetching post about how our favorite authors are heeding the call to write Young Adult - what jerkwad is making that call?! I think there are plenty of YA authors, ladies, get your pens back to writing ro nos for the adult woman! Authors guilty of this sin include:

• Kresley Cole Arcana Chronicles
• Sherry Thomas The Elemental Trilogy
• Sherrilyn Kenyon Chronicles of Nick

It is starting to feel like a creepy conspiracy. You don't have to be the next Stephenie Meyer if you already have a fan following!

Regencies: How much time do you really want to spend in England?

I have gotten into a total rut reading Regencies. It isn't hard to end up in this rut; an estimated 17% of ro nos are historical, and many, MANY are Regencies. There is something nice about England in the 1820s. A war with Napoleon just ended, so there are plenty of solider heroes; there begins to be some blurring between classes; and money is even more of a motivator for marriage among the 'ton.' The  manners and cultural mores are strict! If you're going to do it in the drawing room, make sure it is nighttime and your host/butler/ward is not nearby! Mostly, though, the recurring theme in this period is witty repartee between our fated lovers. Write that stuff well and I'll read it all day long.

These authors fall into the Earl Grey of books in the Regency subgenre (they are nearly all series. Maybe this is another convention of the times?):

• Loretta Chase has penned more than a few and is one of my favorite authors. Start with Lord of Scoundrels, move quickly into Last Hellion, and then celebrate the adorable Carsingtons in Miss Wonderful, Mr. Impossible, Lord Perfect, Not Quite a Lady, and Last Night's Scandal. Rupert, from Mr. Impossible, is my all-time favorite hero. WHAT A STUD. Loretta's other stuff is satisfying, but not delectable as the aforementioned tomes are. I like her recent Dressmaker's series (not sure these are actually Regencies in terms of when they occur). Definitely avoid her earliest books - she has become popular enough that they are coming back into print, but you'd be wasting your time reading any of these: Isabella, Devil's Delilah, English Witch, Viscount Vagabond, Sandalwood Princess, or Knaves Wager (this one was so terrible my sister said it almost made her hate Loretta's entire oeuvre! So, you know it is bad).

• Oh! The Bridgertons! I'm so glad you had so many children so that Julia Quinn had to write a book for each one of you and I could enjoy a very happy month of reading. My sister and I are in love with 90% of these books; the first one violates the tenet of good coupling. Thankfully it is an anomaly. Just skip it and read the rest of the series, or read it and keep in your mind a great big asterisk that JQ would write a plot like that. Ugh.

• Not a series, per se, but Yours Until Dawn is an awesome regency ro no (her other books? Not so much, but good if you're desperate).

• I discovered Sherry Thomas in 2013, and I loved the Fitzhuh series (these occur too late to be Regencies, but I'm listing her here because several of her other books do fall in this decade, and because several of the plots involve events from that time period). She is a talented writer with vividly realized characters - makes me realize how flat so many of the ro no heroes and heroines are. My sister wasn't so into this series or her other books (Private Arrangements was brilliant, in my opinion). While the elements are all there, these stories can involve some really mean behavior, although the witty banter is definitely still there! Thomas has a tendency to rely too heavily on flashbacks to tell a story - this was especially annoying in Delicious, so I recommend you skip that one. 

• Eloisa James is a genius (and a professor of Shakespeare!). She's written a number of regency series, but without a doubt the best is Desperate Duchesses. These five books MUST be read in order! I'm not sure I've read anything that really unfolds across several books and manages to deliver the classic HEA while describing flawed, human, lovable characters. And, to make all her fans deliriously happy, she wrote a sixth book, Three Weeks with Lady X, that may very well be her best book ever.

• The Spindle Cove series by Tessa Dare is proving to be a real winner! The first book was just fine, but the second book was good and I was totally hooked by the time A Week to Be Wicked came out. I read the most recent book, Any Duchess Will Do, in a day. The Spindle Cove series features a number of charming novellas, which tides me over while I wait for the next book!

• Romancing the Duke, another Tessa Dare (part of her new Castles Ever After series) was outstanding. I was blown away by how good it was. The story seemed to just begin with now background or introduction and you're suddenly just THERE with these two people meeting at a rundown castle. And then the story and the romance and the history all come together and it is just perfect. I had a goofy grin on my face half the time I was reading this book.

No one turns down a Darjeeling on the menu!

• Lisa Kleypas' Hathaway series is one of my sister's favorites, although I found several of the books pretty meh. It felt like Bridgerton-lite, but I think it is just because I was looking for a JQ replacement when I found the Hathaways? One of my favorite books is in this series - Love in the Afternoon. Awww, so sweet. 

• Mary Balogh wrote the charming Slightly series and it was irresistible! The five Bedwyn siblings are adorable people. The final book with Wulfric was so good I wish I could go back in time and discover the series again. I wish I liked her other books as much. The Mistress books about the Dudley siblings were also good, but no comparison to the Bedwyn books - although I did find another hunk for my top 10 list (Jocelyn in More than a Mistress). Her characters often cross series, and those who inspired the other series in her catalog were my least favorite characters in her books! I tried the Huxtable series and couldn't get into it. Alas.

• Eloisa James' fairy tales are a bit hit or miss. E and I both ADORED the Beauty and the Beast book (When Beauty Tamed the Beast) but the Rapunzel story was meh and the Sleeping Beauty story (The Duke is Mine) was silly. She did a creative job reinterpreting all the classic fairy tales, so she gets some credit! And, really, the Beauty needs to be added to my heroine list stat. She's a hoot.

• Elizabeth Hoyt's Maiden Lane series is another that starts off sort of meh but has some really good books in the mix. The books should be read in order, but there is not a lot of continuity between the different stories aside from their fixation on very poor section of London called St. Giles. Scandalous Desires may be one of E's favorite books! And we both adored Thief of Shadows. I was also partial to Lord of Darkness. Regretfully, Duke of Midnight was terrible and coercive and just icky. UPDATE - Darling Beast came out Oct 2014 and I did indeed read it, but was only skeptical at the beginning. It was decent.

• The Rules of Scoundrels series by Sarah MacLean is great. The first book, per the norm, is a bit of a snooze fest, but the series picks up pace nicely, and the third book was not only awesome, it has left me very excited for book #4.  I love when an author seems to get better and better the more she writes, and that definitely seems to be true for Sarah MacLean! UPDATE - fourth book was absolutely worth the wait!

Sometimes you're just in the mood for a tasty herbal blend- not as good as the good stuff, but passable.

• Jennifer Ashley's MacKenzie brother's series falls into this category for me. Some of the characters are unique, memorable, and pretty damn sexy. But the plots get confusing and the endings are all a little *too* tidy. I never trust an author who relies heavily on epilogues to tie things up (that is a blatant lie. I love a good epilogue. I just like to write "I never trust a..."). She actually managed to write a whole new short novel (Mackenzie Family Christmas) that comes between one of her other books and an epilogue!

• Anne Stuart's House of Rohan series is Regency-era, but definitely not your typical Regency fare. We wrote about it here. 

• The Gamblers series by Lisa Kleypas is a bit of a snore, but well written. Some people are OBSESSED with Then Came You, the first in the series, and I enjoyed it well enough. I have a hard time with books that involve small children possibly being hurt. Since I didn't like the character in this book who took the lead in the sequel, I didn't read this whole series, but my sister liked it.

• Sarah MacLean's Love by Number's series is about the Ralston family and the characters are a little uni-dimensional but the story lines are interesting. The last book is sweet and the relationship is hinted at in the first two books, so that holds the series together nicely. If you're going to read the Rule of Scoundrel's series, these books come first. This author has a way with titles that is a bit too twee for my taste (did you enjoy my alliteration there?) and a few of the sex scenes were too long and kinda boring. I blame it on the underdeveloped characters.

And, tragically, sometimes you want something hot, anything will do, but you're left unsatisfied with a bad taste in your mouth. The Bargain by Mary Jo Putney is a perfect example of all that is totally boring, cliché and predictable about Regencies. She is a real Lipton author, sad to say. She is in good company; my sister and I have both tossed books aside because we can't get through them. These include Christine Merrill's The Inconvenient Duchess and Lisa Kleypas' Stranger in my Arms. If you're going to write a lame book, at least add some spice! I have to add to this list the Duchess Quartet series by Eloisa James. It is a shame given some of the amazing books she has written, but this series is TERRIBLE. I especially recommend that you avoid it if you're trying to stay away from books with contrived pregnancy storylines. You will thank me.

Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark (IAD) Series

IAD is another para ro-no series that includes its own glossary and alternative world (the Lore) hiding in plain sight around all of us humans. Kresley Cole started the series strong, and is losing ground over time, IMO. But I'm sucked into the general plot enough that I will keep reading. The books all suffer the same contrivance - these paranormal species are drawn to each other through a force beyond their control. Thus, they MUST mate, but they may in fact hate each other. It is a good way to ensure you have plenty of sex scenes from start to finish, all while the actual love story unfolds. As a result, many of her romances have some coercive/violent sex scenes that rub me the wrong way. She gets around this by making all the characters super powered so we're not supposed to care too much that they sometimes beat the crap out of each other. All the same, this is the weakest thing about the series (oh, along with the titles. These are some of the worst titles EVER!!!!). Most of them feature this little gang of Valkyrie who scream a lot, drink, swear, and play video games. Fun times.

Series Order

The Warlord Wants Forever - a great kick-off to the series, buried in a collaboration called "Playing Easy to Get." E's husband is still mad for making him pick this up for her at the library. The rest of the stories in the anthology are awful. Nikolai Wroth, the human turned vampire, falls hard for Myst the Coveted, a pretty (lame) valkyrie.

A Hunger Like No Other - Emmaline the half vamp-Valkyrie and Lachlain MacReive, the head of the werewolves meet, do some violence to each other, and then fall in love.

No Rest for the Wicked - Yowza Sebastian Wroth! And Kaderin is pretty fun, too.

Wicked Deeds on a Winter Night - Sexy werewolf meets sultry witch (Bowen & Mari).

Dark Needs at Night's Edge - Another Wroth brother meets his match. Sadly, not great. Featuring Conrad and snoozefest Neomi the ghost.

Deep Kiss of Winter - This is an anthology that includes the story Untouchable - The last Wroth, Murdoch, is mated to an Ice Princess Valkyrie, Daniela. Meh. Not critical to the series, but entertaining.

Dark Desires After Dusk - Cadeon & Holly - demons! Valkyrie who think they're human!

Kiss of a Demon King - Sabine the sorceress & Rydstrom the demon king - HOT HOT HOT. Also, an oddly appropriate title.

Pleasure of a Dark Prince - Lucia the Valkyrie archer, and Garreth MacRieve, another werewolf. This was just ok.

Demon from the Dark - Malkolm, a vemon, and Carrow, a witch, face off in this surprisingly tender romance. I was desperately awaiting the Regin book, and then KC threw this one in the mix. And then it turned out to be way better then the Regin one.

Dreams of a Dark Warrior - the beloved Regin the Radiant, a valkyrie, and Aidan, the Berserker that has stalked her through a number of reincarnations. I anticipated this book for a long time, and was disappointed with how it played out.

Lothaire- by this point, KC is getting stuff into hard cover, and it is too bad that Lothaire had such a huge release and was SO bad. Lothaire is with some human who is possessed by a demoness? Seriously off the rails...

Shadow's Claim - this book starts a series within the IAD series, the Dacian Chronicles. My expectations were low and it definitely did NOT exceed my expectations, so you know what that means. Features Trehan Daciano and Princess Bettina.

MacRieve - Chloe Todd, a human (and then some) and another MacRieve, a tortured and prejudiced werewolf get together and show each other how love can overcome bigotry.

Dark Skye is coming in August 2015 and I'm excited (it takes a long time to shake my loyalty!).  Thornos and Lanthe, characters we've been hearing about for awhile, are finallllllly getting it on. Hopefully some loose story lines will resolve AND we'll get some steamy romance!

E Rating: 4 stars      H Rating: 4 stars

Stand out book: No Rest for the Wicked

Putting the kibosh on baby talk

Can we talk about what's up with the standard fare ro no recipe?

(sexyhottie + beautiful-but-available damsel) x high-drama situation possibly involving threat to damsel's life -> BONING = BABY

I get it. Ro Nos are written by women for women, and women want babies. Thus, a clever ro no author will craft a hero "whose cock hardened at the thought of her belly swollen with his child" etc., etc. ad nauseum. To this formula, I say "what the WHAT?!" It is sooooo common that when I see that plot line arise (conflicted couple must stay together for the sake of the bebe!!) I yawn and want to toss it over - even if I actually really like the story. I know that men and women make babies together and I know that for most women the idea of a happy ending can only exist when the couple's true love leads to fetuses. BUT I feel like it's an overly contrived plot gimmick that dumbs down the ro no genre. [And as someone who struggled quite a bit to make the bebe in her love match, this was a hard pill to swallow]

Of course I'm dying to make a list of the most offending books taking advantage of this approach, but I don't dare risk spoilers. I'll just say this: so far I don't believe these authors have ever pulled the baby blanket over my eyes mid-read:

Anne Stuart
Kresley Cole
Loretta Chase

Fellow readers, I think you are safe with the above list, but I strongly caution you when reading other ro no authors. And, rest assured, love is not the only ingredient in the baby making recipe (and it's not even necessary - see "Teen Mom," Kevin Federline, etc.). It's just a silly ro no gimmick and try not to let it interfere with your enjoyment of a sexy read OR your escapism