Dear Ms. Thomas,

Book two and all is still well between us. Keep this up and I’ll stay a happy woman and keep writing you nice reviews. I used to think I didn’t care for Victorian era historicals - something about the facial hair of the men and hairstyles of the women - but you’re still luring me into parlor palms and antimacassars.

I’ll admit that when I started the book, I wasn’t too sure for a while exactly what was going on. The heroine is a fallen Lady who cooks divinely, yea even unto making English people sit up and notice. I got that. She’s got an illegitimate son but he’s in a good home and being raised to be a gentleman. So far so good. Her employer just keeled over during the soup course and, what’s this?, they’d had an affair and he refused to marry her after she thought he would? And then she remains his cook for 10 years? Even after she had a ‘one night to remember all my days’ with his illegitimate half brother. Oh my. What’s going on here?

And the half brothers who used to …

Dear Ms. Mallery:

July, August, and September sees the release of your Keys’ Bakery sisters series. The series begins with Claire, a piano virtuoso. Claire has been estranged from her family since, well, almost forever. When she was 3 years old, she walked up to a piano and started playing and her life changed forever. She began lessons and practicing and at age 6 left the home with her grandmother to start her career as a classical pianist. When she was older, her mother left her family to be with Claire. Nicole and Jesse were left behind and Nicole, at age 12, had to be mother, daughter, and bakery worker. Jesse was the irresponsible one. They both blamed Claire for the failure of their family and want nothing to do with her.

But then Jesse calls and tells Claire that Nicole is going to have surgery and that Nicole wants Claire to come and help. Claire thinks this is a chance, an opportunity to reconnect with the only family she has. She’s also got some performance issues so running off to help her sister is …

Dear Ms. Carlyle,

Well, after my last letter to you, I bet you never thought I’d be writing another. I dare say you probably wanted to give me a total body paper cut and then pour lemon juice all over me. But I’m a sucker for Jane saying, “No, really, it’s good. You should read it. She didn’t back out of having Kieran be a real rake, didn’t dumb him down, didn’t pull his claws.” And as I found out, Kieran actually has a real reason for his self-destructive behavior instead of just sulking and being melodramatic for no good cause.

I did have to get past the prologue which I found to be terribly overwritten and filled to the brim with adjectives. And the fact that except for a few phrases thrown into her speech here and there, the ‘raised in France’ heroine doesn’t sound very French. I thought it odd that Xanthia would haul off a guest during her after dinner party for a private chat instead of circulating as a good hostess should. The conversation between Kieran and Gareth during the first scene at Tattersalls made me think to …

We’ve been invited to engage in a Q&A with NYT Bestselling Author, Suzanne Brockmann. Her latest TroubleShooter book is on shelves now (and is being offered with 100% micropay rebate at Fictionwise). According to the press release (which I am too lazy to rewrite), Into the Fire is “[b]rimming with thrill-chasing action, suspenseful kidnappings, and no-holds-barred passion and features Vinh Murphy who has ” been off the job battling booze, blackouts, and bumming it from shelter to shelter since an assignment left his wife, Angelina, dead. His saving grace, though, is Hannah Whitfield, an old friend and the only person from his “old” life that he turns to.”

This actually sounds interesting although I’m a bit worried about the name Vinh. Are all characters going to be having extra “h’s” in their names? I am digressing here. What I need is help with questions. Interesting questions. Not questions like “where do you get your ideas” because I know that it has been asked and answered before.

Maybe questions like - what do you think of John Edwards and the fact he was caught in the Beverly Hills Hotel visiting his secret …

Dear Ms. Medeiros:

Although I have Heather and Velvet sitting on a bookshelf in my house, I have not yet read it. In fact, Some Like It Wicked is my very first Teresa Medeiros book. That may have been a good thing, as I really had no expectations, but it also turned into a disappointment, because the book did not at all wow me.

When we first meet Catriona Kincaid, she is dropping in - literally - on her cousin’s clandestine seduction by dashing young Naval officer Simon Westcott. Catriona is a ragged 15 year old who must suffer the cruel bullying of her cousin Alice, but who will gladly endure all the pinches and insults in the world for another moment with Simon, for whom she spends the next five years secretly pining, all the while growing into a lush and plucky Scottish beauty. Having been sent to live with her uncle and aunt after her parents were killed in Scotland by the English, Catriona harbors two secret dreams: returning to the Highlands and assisting her older brother in reclaiming their family heritage and land, and marrying the beautifully wicked Simon …

Dear Ms. Denison:

I think I read a Janelle Denison book before. Maybe in a category format? I can’t recall. Wild for Him is the seventh book in a Wilde series. The previous six books featured Wilde family members and this one starred Ben Cabrera, a friend of Joel Wilde. I did wonder why it was Wild instead of Wilde given that all the other books had Wilde in it. I’m thinking that it had to do with Cabrera not being a Wilde family member but I confess to spending some minutes pondering this in my mind.

Ben Cabrera is a former marine who is part owner of the Elite Security Specialists bodyguard firm. Nathan Delacroix is a gubernatorial candidate who receives a threatening letter that if he doesn’t drop out of the race, the thing most precious to him will be harmed. Nothing is more precious to Nathan than his twenty-seven year old daughter, Christine. He calls on ESS to provide 24/7 bodyguard service for Christine until the election date.

Christine isn’t thrilled about the 24/7 babysitting service but she understands her father’s desires to …

more cat pictures

1. Label the books in a series either on the spine or on the front or both (preferably the spine if that is the only place). I.e., Kresley Cole’s Hunger Like No Other is Book 2 in the Immortals After Dark Series so it should have #2 on the spine or on the front. The first story is The Warlord Wants Forever which is part of the Playing Easy to Get anthology.
Readers need to know these things so that when they go on a glom, they can easily pinpoint the books that they are missing in the series.
2. Include a relationship chart in the beginning of every book. Most books published today are series books, all somehow related to one another. It would be very helpful if, at the front of the book, all the books in a series are identified in the way in which they are related to one another and what characters appear in which books.
I.e., in Meljean Brook’s series, the first full length story features Hugh and Lilith in Demon Angel. …

I’m doing some maintenance on the DearAuthor bookshelf for the iPhone and it will be inaccessible until further notice. Thanks guys!

Dear Mr. Bonnamy,

My fellow reviewers know I’m always on the lookout for historical romances that utilize the rare and unusual setting. “Hero, the Amazon” certainly does that as well as give us an Amazon for a lead character. It’s filled with adventures centered not only in and around the Mediterranean but also ranging as far as prehistoric Britain. But I have to be honest and say that it’s not what the typical female romance reader is probably looking for.

Did Amazons really exist? Lots of characters in the novel are surprised to meet one and more than one states s/he thought Amazons were only a legend. I think you do a great job of portraying how one might have acted and what her background could have been. Hero is proud of her heritage, her training and her abilities yet she also accepts the reality that she was captured in battle and has now been a slave for a decade. Life as a slave isn’t great but she’s adapted, works hard, follows the rules and has hopes for the future.

She knows she was lucky to escape death after raising …

Over at the Smart Bitches, SB Sarah blogged about the workshop that Courtney Milan is doing about wills. The workshop will take place on July 30 as part of the Beau Monde conference. This conference is in San Francisco so it fits neatly into the RWA conference schedule.

Among other things, Courtney Milan will tell you why you can’t condition the money in a will bequest on marrying another person. While this is a historical romance conference, it affects contemporary romance books as well. If I don’t see another “You must marry x person or you will not be given the millions in my estate” plot, I would be pathetically grateful.

Will related plots are possible the worst offenders of the law out there (although poorly written sports romances are right behind it). If you are thinking about writing a book featuring a will plot device, please go to this workshop and be educated.