Round-up of (mostly) romance-related events coinciding with Valentine’s Day around the country. If you have an event or even contest that I missed, feel free to pimp it out in the comments.
National Year of Reading official launch
NYR is launching today across Australia. Check out their events calendar to see if there’s a launch in your area. It’s going to be a fantastic year for reading.
Mills & Boon’s chiselled cherubs
Mills & Boon Australia has organised for some hunktastic cherubs to give away free books today outside Dymocks on George Street. No word on what time they’ll be there, but I’m fairly certain they’ll be hard to miss once they’re there.
Avon Australia blog relaunch
Avon Australia is relaunching their blog today, starting with round-ups of the ARR awards and Romance Reading Day. They’re also looking for someone to be their guest reviewer for the year, which budding and seasoned historical romance reviewers might want to check out.
Read the rest of this post.
Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife by Lynne Graham (Pregnant Brides, Book 2)
There’s nothing earth-shattering about this story. I didn’t hate the hero or the heroine, but that might be damning with faint praise.
Back in my 20s, I would have loved this book. This may be spoilery to some readers—although if you regularly read in this Mills & Boon line it would amaze me if any of this surprises you—but Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife features a tycoon hero who borders on misogyny, a contract marriage, a virgin heroine, an accidental pregnancy and a Small Misunderstanding.
But as far as these things go, Lynne Graham does a decent enough job with the plot. Sergei Antonovich was saved from a troubled childhood by his grandmother, and as she gets older he wants to give her what he knows would make her happy—a grandchild.
As you do when you’re insanely rich but scarred by a money-grubbing first wife and young hotties forever flashing their cleavage in exchange for your wad (of cash, people!), Sergei sets up a business arrangement to acquire a wife and child.
Read the rest of this post.
With This Fling... by Kelly Hunter
This book proves that finely tuned character development and emotional honesty can turn even the most maligned clichés in romance fiction not just into an enjoyable read, but a story worth savouring.
The more I read Kelly Hunter’s work, the more I admire how well she’s able to make each couple and each story fresh, interesting and fun.
With This Fling… features what seems to be Hunter’s favourite type of heroine—a rich one. Charlotte Greenstone invents a fiancé to reassure her dying godmother that she won’t be alone. When said fiancé fails to turn up at the funeral, Charlotte concocts a story in which he’s killed in the wilds of Papua New Guinea.
But in series of spectacular coincidences, she finds herself in possession of Grey Tyler’s, well, office. Her fictional fiancé is not only not dead, he’s back from PNG, he’s hot and it seems he may just have need of a fictional girlfriend of his own.
If you’re looking for an elaborate external plot, you’re in for disappointment. With This Fling… is romance distilled.
Read the rest of this post.
This week’s mailbag is a bonanza, thanks to Mills and Boon Australia, who sent us a box of assorted titles (though I detect a distinct YA bias). Some of these are series books, so I’m torn on reading them or catching on the series first. I’m particularly keen on the Rachel Vincent, after reading her Soul Screamers series. (If you’re a fan of this series, would you recommend starting the series properly, or can I just jump straight in?)
All of these titles will be out in Australia in July.
For Maria V. Snyder fans, don’t forget that she’ll be in Australia in August. From what I’ve gathered, the tour will focus on meeting her younger readers, but there may also be a few opportunities to see her with a more adult crowd. (This is not say I don’t like mingling with younger readers. But as an oldie, I don’t really want to barge into an author event that’s focused on school kids!) I’ll post more if and when I know the details.
Read the rest of this post.
Australian authors Marion Lennox and Kelly Hunter have been named finalists for the 2011 RITA Awards, the Oscar equivalent for romance authors.
Marian Lennox is nominated for her Christmas with Her Boss (Sweet Romance). Kelly Hunter is nominated for Red-Hot Renegade (Sexy). They will competing for the 2011 RITA for Contemporary Series Romance.
Hunter was at the Australian Romance Readers Convention when the finalists were announced. She was recognised by Anne Gracie in front of a very appreciative convention audience.
Read the rest of this post.
Harlequin author Paula Roe talked to an audience of romance readers and aspiring writers at Penrith Library about the glamorous life of a romance author, from royalties to rolling over in Russia, before taking questions. And we had a LOT of questions.
This is not a word-for-word transcript of everything Paula said. I had to paraphrase and summarise just to keep up, but I tried to keep the spirit of what she said. Any mistakes are mine.
Paula started off with a few facts about the genre. Romance is the largest selling fictional genre in the world. Australia doesn’t keep many statistics, so we have to rely on the American figures. There were 9000 romances released in 2009, and readers spent $1.3 billion on them.
Harlequin Enterprises is largest romance publisher in the world, releasing 110 books per month in 28 languages over 106 continents.
Read the rest of this post.
Somehow, a vampire snuck into my Blaze. I am so outraged. An open letter to Mills & Boon.
Dear Mills & Boon,
I heart your category romances; you know I do. I love some of your authors like a sheikh loves his billions.
But Harlequin, we have a problem.
Last week, I had nothing to read, so I decided to open one of the many ebooks sitting in my Reader, waiting for just this moment: the in-between TBRs decision dilemma*. I had a bunch of titles from Mills & Boon’s Everyone’s Reading website. I was surfacing from a historical romance binge, so I was eager to get into Kimberly Raye’s Cody.
I didn’t read the blurb when I downloaded the ebook. It was a Blaze. I thought it would be safe to assume a few things about the book.
When I open a Blaze, I expect a contemporary story with a bit of drama, a bit of humour and, more often than not, urban lifestyle issues. I can usually relate to the characters’ conflicts, secrets and insecurities.
But this one? The first page is set some time after the US Civil War. And the hero? Well, he’s a vampire. Yes, a freaking vampire!
Let me take a deep breath and calm down, because…
Read the rest of this post.
My Soul to Steal by Rachel Vincent (Soul Screamers, Book 4)
Heavy in angst and light on closure, this book should have fans in delicious agony as they wait for the next instalment in the Soul Screamers series.
My Soul to Steal is the fourth book of Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamers series. I was excited yet apprehensive about this book because I knew—and the blurb implies—that there would be some kind of relationship triangle between Kaylee, Nash and Nash’s ex, Sabine.
Kaylee and Nash are in relationship limbo a few weeks after My Soul to Keep (book 3). She refuses to resolve anything between them until Nash is free of frost, the demon’s breath drug that he became addicted to, due to an accident caused by Kaylee. Meanwhile, Nash’s ex-girlfriend, Sabine, has moved into the area and tells Kaylee upfront that she’s there to take Nash back.
Sabine is a mara, a non-human parasitic species who feeds off people’s fears. At night she kind of sleepwalks and gives people nightmares so she can feed off them. When teachers start dying at school, Kaylee is convinced, despite Tod and Nash’s reassurances, that Sabine is behind it all.
Read the rest of this post.
Once Upon a Mattress by Kathleen O'Reilly
An endearing heroine makes up for an underwhelming hero in this fun, sexy story.
This novel revolves around Ben MacAllister, whose family owns MacAllister Beds, a mattress company, and Hilary Sinclair, who’s an executive at the firm. Let’s get my biases out of the way: every time I’m reminded of the mattress company—which is most of the time—I think of those dodgy Captain Snooze ads. Sexiness factor: zero.
Moving on.
Ben’s parents are in the middle of getting divorced, so he’s home to help out with the family business: ‘He’d never cared much about the company; his family was the reason he was here instead of completing number thirty-seven on his “list of things to do before I die”.’ But when his dad starts talking about selling the firm, Ben is determined to prove he has what it takes to keep the business in the family.
Hilary is getting over a seven-year relationship that went nowhere. She’s in a new city, having bought a charming new place (read: needs work), and the job at MacAllister Beds is a chance to prove she make it on her own two feet.
Read the rest of this post.
