It’s been an exciting year for those of us who have been actively following and participating in the Australian Women Writers Challenge. Throughout the year, the challenge has been cited in literary magazines and media both within Australia and internationally. (You can read some of the highlights here.)

In total, I reviewed 18 books by Australian women writers this year. This seems a fairly low number, considering romance fiction authors are predominantly women. (In my defence, I read much more than than 18 books, but I only listed the ones I reviewed.) I also wrote a piece on romance fiction and feminism at the AWW blog, which you can read here.

I’m signing up again for 2013, but with a couple of differences:

1. The AWW blog will become more collaborative in 2013, and I’ve volunteered to be the contributing editor for romance fiction. This means I’ll be doing monthly round-up posts around romance titles reviewed for AWW.

2. I’m aiming to double the number of AWW reviews I post—so my aim is to review at least 36 books. In fact, I’ll be trying my best to review every AWW-eligible title that I read next year (with some overlap in 2012, as I’ve already read advanced copies of 2013 releases, plus I’m playing catch-up on a few reviews).

With the explosion of locally published and authored romance titles, I have a feeling I’ll have my work cut out for me.

And as this will be my last post for the year, I’d like to thank you for supporting Book Thingo, whether you’re a commenter, a lurker or a Twitter-er. Blogging is a little like talking to a brick wall, and even though we’ve been blogging for a few years now, it still kind of amazes me when I meet people who actually read what we write. So thank you so much for coming back for more. :-)

I hope you have a wonderful start to the new year, and may 2013 bring you joy, peace and an abundance of literary delights.

The plot is just complex enough to keep you guessing, and the characters reveal just enough to make the story interesting. The romance still requires suspension of belief, but I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.

This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.

When Australian author Shannon Curtis Twitter crowd-sourced the plot for her free Christmas short story, we came up with some fairly over-the-top scenarios. Many of them were tongue-in-cheek, but Curtis rose to the challenge and not only included many of our suggestions but most importantly, she included a vomit scene.

Seriously, she is awesome.

Nick Marshall is SAS on medical leave after injuring his arm in Afghanistan. As his brother’s best man, he’s on an errand to pick up the wedding rings when ‘five Santas, with white beards and wigs, streamed into the [jewellery] store, brandishing guns’. Holly Maxwell is the lead negotiator when the call comes through that there’s a hostage situation.

But there’s something strange about the case. The negotiations aren’t following the normal pattern. It’s up to Nick and Holly to free the hostages and figure out what the Santas are really after.

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For fans of Julia Quinn, Eloisa James or Connie Brockway. If you’re a first-time reader of their work, however, consider one of their full-length novels instead.

One whiskey-fueled Christmas night, Taran Ferguson of Finovair decides to take matters into his own hands and kidnaps a bunch of women so that his heirs can have heirs and his line doesn’t die out. So Taran and his clansmen hustle over to the Earl of Maycott’s, grab a bunch of heiresses —and, accidentally, a Duke—and take them home, where they will be trapped for a few days since snow has since covered the pass. Taran is hoping that love will blossom between the girls and his two heirs (via his sisters): Byron Wotton, Earl of Oakley and Robin Parles, a French count with no real title. Everyone is both horrified and amused by his crazy antics, and of course, they all fall in love.

There are three interlocked stories in the novel, featuring Byron, Robin and Duke. I would love to give you a summary of each story but part of the fun is finding out whom they end up with, so I will not kill three fairies! Instead, I’ll describe the girls for you and maybe you can guess.

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A slow-paced, almost old-fashioned story with a conventional romance set against somewhat unconventional circumstances. This isn’t your ordinary secret baby story.

This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.

I seem to be on a category romance reading kick lately, and for some reason I’ve been picking up the sweeter lines. Award-winning Australian romance novelist Barbara Hannay’s story about a heroine agreeing to be a surrogate mum to twin babies caught my eye, primarily because ever since I had twins, I’ve been very interested in the way twin pregnancy and birth are represented in romance fiction.

Ever since Mattie Carey was dumped via text message by her long-distance fiance, she hasn’t had any meaningful relationships with men. So when her best friend, Gina, loses her ability to carry a baby, Mattie offers to be a surrogate. To prevent awkward questions in her small country town, Mattie goes to stay in Gina’s brother Will’s apartment in Sydney, but when she gets there she finds a temporary guest already there. Jake, Will’s best friend, is on a short break from work as a environmental scientist with a mining company in Mongolia.

Although Mattie tries to keep her distance from Jake, he’s pretty hot, not to mention a decent person, and they end up sleeping with each other on his last night in Sydney. They keep in touch via email until one day Mattie stops replying, and the first chance he gets Jake pays her a visit to make sure she’s okay. What he discovers is that she’s pregnant.

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A quick Christmas read that pushes all the right buttons and won’t leave you looking puffy and red-eyed on the train.

This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.

When Dean Hall agreed to help his best friend Talli Jarmen with a photography gig, no one said anything about wearing tights. And when Talli sees Dean in a ridiculously skimpy (read: several sizes too small) elf costume, she notices parts of him that she hadn’t really noticed before.

When certain lines are crossed between friends, there’s just no going back, and Dean knows he has to make a move and risk their friendship. Talli, too, feels a new sizzle between them and has to decide between keeping the status quo or going for broke.

Australian author Rhian Cahill does what she can with the limited word count—my ereader showed 66 ‘pages’, although the story only took 40 and the rest were excerpts from other Escape titles—and Christmas Wishes is a fun read even if it doesn’t quite get to the emotional highs and lows that I love in my romance.

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A call to authors and publishers to identify category romance imprints.

A recent conversation in the ARRA loop has raised an issue that I’ve been struggling with for some time now: How is category romance defined?

The answer used to be easy, because, well, that was pretty much the many flavours of Mills & Boon. Now, however, with new romance imprints popping up or being resurrected, and with the greater flexibility afforded to digital imprints, it’s become difficult to identify exactly which books are categories and which books are not.

Some of the issues that came up include:

- Word count limits (minimum and maximum)
- Imprints with specific story guidelines rather than simple subgenre branding
- Whether or not a publisher has to identify a book as a category romance in order for it to be considered as such

Although these questions stemmed from a desire to set guidelines around book awards, I think it’s a broader discussion worth having. My experience of category romances has been that while the shorter word count is a characteristic of these books, what makes them category romances are the set of reader expectations and writing conventions that form part of the line. So although we tend to lump these books together as category romance, in fact comparing them may be just as difficult as it would be to compare paranormal romance and historical romance, for example.

So there are a lot of things we can talk about when it comes to defining category romance, but for now let’s start with something easy: If you’re an author or you work for a publisher of category romance, I’d love it if you can identify which imprints publish category romance by commenting on this post. If you prefer, feel free to send me the information via email.

My goal is that once we have a definitive—though by no means static, as imprints tend to come and go—list, we can use it as a starting point to talk about the differences and similarities between the imprints, and also if how publishers define category romance is changing. More practically, I’m hoping that such a list will at least help ARRA when it comes to determining whether or not nominated books are eligible to be called category romances.

Keeper. New auto-buy author. Need I say more?

This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.

Most of the books I read nowadays are romance, so it’s not often that I find a one that makes me feel like I’m reading something new in the genre. Until a book like Grease Monkey Jive reminds me that, yes, this genre is more than capable of surprising me in all the right ways.

Grease Monkey Jive opens with ballroom dancing instructor and performer Alex Gibson having a bit of a moment with dance partner Dan Maddox, and as I read the first chapter, I settled down for a lovely, comfortable read. Little did I know.

It turns out that this is only a teaser, and the story flashes back to introduce the characters and the plot. We see Dan and his mates—Mitch, Fluke and Ant—going through a typical Friday night, drinking at a club and picking up chicks. Dan is the babe magnet who leaves with the most beautiful woman but is hard-pressed to remember her name the morning after. It’s an aimless existence, and he begins to question if there’s more to life than picking up random girls, surfing with his best mates and working at McMurty’s garage—particularly when he finds himself in strife after making out with Fluke’s younger sister.

Meanwhile, Alex decides to enter the Australasian Dance Theatre Championship, despite feeling resistance from her mother and her boyfriend, in part because she loves to dance but also because she could really do with the prize money. Due to what she perceives to be her mother’s issues relating to having been a single mum, Alex feels pressure to put away her dancing shoes to pursue a career in business and settle down with her stable and financially secure boyfriend.

It takes a while for Alex and Dan’s stories to converge and come back to where it began in the book, but it’s a fabulous journey—more so Dan’s than Alex’s, to be honest. Although the supporting characters around Alex sometimes surprised me, Alex herself rarely did; her issues are familiar in the world of romance. In contrast, Australian author Ainslie Paton displays an affinity for Dan’s voice and Dan’s world that had me completely wrapped up in his story.

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If characters recovering from cancer aren’t a trigger for you, then this is an enjoyable romance with a slow build and a lot of lovely moments in between.

This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.

It’s rare to find a story where the heroine looking at herself in the mirror and describing what she looks like actually has a purpose. (I know you’re already thinking of ditching this post after that, but stay with me.) Blair Macintyre is recovering from breast cancer treatment and she’s sick of people treating her as, well, the poor woman with breast cancer. Her strategy: bluffing.

One of Blair’s key strategies is to look normal—thus, the need to spend time in front of the mirror, applying make-up, putting on false eyelashes, and ensuring her wig is on properly:

She pulled the wig on over her scalp, tugged it into place, and then turned back to the mirror to make whatever adjustments were necessary. Adjustments that would help her look normal. Adjustments that would help her look whole and healthy. Adjustments that would hopefully ensure people started treating her like a fully functioning adult again.

The scenes with the mirror serve a double purpose, because by turning away from it as she puts on her prosthesis, Blair shows that she doesn’t actually feel normal and whole.

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For people who have an appreciation for beauty, illustration and a touch of quirkiness. Just don’t get it as an ebook.

Also known as: how reading a book in the wrong format can completely change the effect.

I requested an e-galley of this book because I love memoirs, coming of age books and travelogues, and thought this was a perfect combination of all three. It certainly had all the elements and I wanted to like it, but in the end, the beauty and spirit of the book were ruined by reading it on a Kindle.

This memoir begins when Stephanie LaCava, in her early teens, moves to the outskirts of Paris because of her father’s work. Hers is a charming, well-off (and well styled!) American family growing up in the 90s, and I could easily relate because I grew up in the same era. I got all the musical references and even the 90s clothes. (Jelly shoes, OMG!) You could tell straight off that LaCava was an unusual child for that era, preferring solitude and collecting bugs and other things. Part of the way the story is told is through her childhood collection, and involves a lot of notes.

Kindles are not freaking designed for endnotes.

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Erotic romance readers who are weary of porny positions and situations may find this book a refreshing change. I just wish there had been more space for the world and the romance to develop.

This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.

Lissa, Princess of Horvald, fall in love with her slave, Devadas, who apparently perishes in battle. Ten years later, she learns that not only did he survive, he has come back to conquer Horvald and take revenge on the princess who abandoned him to the whims of war.

This story really needed to be longer or to have started at a different place. There just isn’t enough space in a novella to show how Lissa and Devadas move from master/slave to lovers, then to conqueror/slave to equal partners, while also dealing with secondary characters and antagonists. I think I would have preferred to start at the point where Devadas returns to take his revenge and have the backstory fed to me in bits and pieces.

Author Keziah Hill builds an intriguing world—although warring kingdoms are fairly common both in historical and fantasy romance, Lissa and Devadas also come from very different cultures whose views on sexuality are almost at extreme ends of the spectrum. As well as providing much fodder for sexier scenes—and this book is pretty hot without going over the top—Hill touches on the way in which women have power in both types of communities.

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