by SB Sarah • Thursday, March 04, 2010 at 12:43 AM
Lisa writes:
I’ve been looking for this book on and off for the past years - the problem
is compounded by the fact that I first (and second, and third, and
fourth…) read it in its translated to Swedish Harlequin incarnation, so
have no idea what it might have been called in the English original.
At the beginning, the woman is working as some kind of showgirl in Paris,
when she meets this guy who’s been watching the show. Turns out he’s her
step-brother, and he’s come to find her cause her mother, who by all
accounts was a selfish bitch (and not in a good way), managed to persuade
his father before her death to bequeath half of the inheritance to the
daughter, to spite the son.
So naturally the step-brother thinks she’s a golddigging bitch like her
mother, but despite this takes her to the chateau she now owns half of (or
something like that). I remember that they together discover some hitherto
unknown cave paintings on the estate, and that she manages to get lost in
there, but he finds her and declares his everlasting love.
Would you be able to help me find? I don’t know why this one has stayed
with me, but I’d really like to try and read it again!
Given how much the titles change in translation, this would be hard to locate in English, I think. Anyone read this one?
by SB Sarah • Wednesday, March 03, 2010 at 12:35 AM
Our Grade:
Title: The Naked Edge
Author: Pamela Clare
Publication Info: Berkley March 2010, ISBN: 9780425219768
Genre: Romantic Suspense
When I first finished this book, I didn’t think I’d liked it. Well, that’s not exactly correct: I knew I’d adored the heroine, and I was terribly moved and desperately scared by the ending, but the hero took some time to mellow in my brain to the point where I felt I fully understood and appreciated him. I think the biggest obstacle to this book for many will be the degree of redemption that the hero requires, and the depth of selfishness from which he has to redeem himself.
Gabe Rossiter is a park ranger, with enormous understanding and respect for the land he patrols, but an absolute lack of respect and understanding of himself and most women. He’s intelligent, dedicated, and you see glimpses of noble behavior but early in the book, the reader gets a very frank examination of his character.
He’s a slut. A big old man whore like a rake in historical romance, only without the charm and heavily-layered sympathy. It takes awhile to unearth why Gabe is the way he is, and even then, the issues behind his behavior may not be enough for some readers to accept him as a hero.
But his struggle with behavior and morality are balanced on a huge swinging pendulum - you see him act so honorably one moment, like when he comes to the heroine’s rescue after another police officer way oversteps his boundaries, and then you see him act like a callous, heartless self-absorbed dickbag and wonder how it can be the same person.
Because of the callous heartless self-absorbed dickbag behavior, my biggest fear was that he would not ever be worthy of the heroine. She is amazing. She is struggling to find herself and discover her identity while being so heavily informed by her gender, her heritage, her profession, and her personal history.
Katherine “Kat” James is a Native American, and it’s not just dark hair, dark skin and a tendency to speak of the Great Spirit. Her cultural identity moves through her at every moment, and her beliefs and her values form a core of strength that sets her apart - she’s admirable, strong, intelligent and a talented investigative reporter for a Denver newspaper, but that core also isolates her.
Gabe is terribly attracted to Kat, and she’s very blunt that she’s not interested in casual premarital sex, and that she knows he is likely after exactly and only that. He dismisses her, tries to put her down, and she won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt her. Once an investigation into the desecration of Native American lands leads to a murder, Kat and Gabe find themselves teamed up to try to solve the mystery while avoiding being the next target of the killer. Their close proximity means trouble. Gabe slowly learns to value Kat. Kat struggles with her tempting attraction to Gabe. Their relationship and slowly developing appreciation for one another rests on a very deep similarity of understanding and an absolutely opposite collection of values.
The major reason I had such a hard time grading this book is best summed up in two words: “Sweet muff.” Gabe is very blunt in his descriptions of how much he desires Kat, and at times his comments to her are so brusque and crude I’m amazed she didn’t run out the door screaming. It was like watching a porn star recite dialogue from “Down in the Rumpus Room” with an actress reciting “As You Like It.” It made no sense to me initially: Kat is a class act, and Gabe is so crude. I honestly worried that he’d never be worthy of her. Nearly 2/3 of the way through I wasn’t sure I’d ever warm up to him. I wanted to beat him senseless at times and wasn’t sure why Kat didn’t beat him down herself.
If you pick up this book and you wonder whether it’s worth it to read to the end - keep going. The villain is unexpected, the slow and scorching hot attraction between Kat and Gabe is never easily resolved, and the role of Native American culture and ritual is moving to the point that I took deep breaths and sighed as I read. The ending is chilling and powerful.The amazing final scenes stick with me even today - they’re haunting and scary and powerful and brought tears to my eyes. The finale reflects the beginning and underscores the feeling that without each other, Kat and Gabe would be hanging by a very thin support, alone and without the impetus to take the risk to climb higher. Because of each other, they do more than anyone, including themselves, expects, and achieve more personal growth and joy than they could have predicted. Both characters grow in measurable amounts, and their happy ending is beautiful, and so incredibly satisfying.
Naked Edge is available at Amazon, IndieBound, Book Depository, and Powell’s.
« Was it good for you?
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, March 02, 2010 at 05:19 AM
It’s time once again to highlight contemporary romance, which I love, and promote a book I really enjoyed - as did Jayne at Dear Author, and Rowena at Book Binge, Sabrina at Fresh Fiction, Stacy at Stacy’s Place, and Lea at ClosetWriter.
Head on over to Save The Contemporary.com to get the details - books, an iPod Touch, and a fine bottle of red wine are up for grabs if you help us spread the word about Julie James’ Something About You and contemporary romance.
Good luck!
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, March 02, 2010 at 12:51 AM
Our Grade:
Title: Something About You
Author: Julie James
Publication Info: Berkley 2010, ISBN: 9780425233382
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Three years ago, U.S. Attorney Cameron Lynde worked closely with Jack Pallas on an investigation that went totally FUBAR. His career was in the toilet, and he blamed her for totally screwing him over. He ended up in the remote wilds of some place that wasn’t Chicago nursing a big old asshurt over how wrong things went and doesn’t expect to see her again - until she overhears a murder in a hotel room next door to her own, and Pallas is assigned to the case.
I don’t think I can do justice to how freaking fun this book is. Something About You is a perfect storm of awesome. From first impressions to the last page, it’s worth shaking your tail feather over.
Part Awesome the First: Cover is unique, hot, and also eye-catching. And in fact, the cover art reflects a dress that the heroine wears - how in the world did James pull that off? I suspect chickens and voodoo were involved.
Part Awesome the Second: from the first scenes, the dialogue is dry champagne crossed with poprocks. (That’s a good thing.) It crackles, it’s funny, it makes you laugh, and it isn’t ever fake or cliche or completely unrealistic. These are smart, intelligent people who speak like normal humans and don’t ever mouth cliches unless they’re using one to tell the other off.
Part Awesome the Third: there’s plenty of conflict for the plot, between the history overshadowing Cameron and Jack, and the murder she heard overnight in the hotel room next door, and the mystery of who did it, and who completely screwed up that other investigation three years ago. But James excels at writing characters who are so real they bring understandable and realistic conflict to the story that isn’t ever too much to believe. It’s not top-heavy, and the mystery of what happened in the hotel isn’t more or less important than what happened three years ago, or a few days prior between Cameron and Jack. The characters themselves are so vivid and real, and so interesting, the plot could have revolved around the typesetting of the phonebook for HoHoKus, New Jersey, and I’d have been reading page after page.
Part of James’ deft character building skillz include the redevelopment of traditional and expected character roles. The best friends are real, and if there’s a potential for cliche, it never goes where I expected it to. She updates and then redeploys the expected trope, and makes each character, not just Cameron and Jack, into amazing people. There was real emotion for each, and no limited role for any character.
For example: meet Cameron’s best friend Collin is something of a local celebrity. He’s also gay, with relationship problems of his own, and not once does he veer into stereotypical typecasting as “Ye Olde Gayye Best Friendde:”
“And I haven’t even told you the twist,” Cameron said. “Jack Pallas is one of the agents handling the case for the FBI.”
It took Amy a moment to place the name. “Wait—Agent Hottie?”
“Agent Asshole,” Cameron corrected her. “Agent Hottie” had been her former nickname for Jack, one long since dropped. Ever since he accused her of accepting bribes….
“That is a twist. How is Agent Asshole these days?” Collin asked dryly. As Cameron’s best friend, he was de facto required to exhibit animosity toward Jack Pallas as well.
“More important, how was it seeing him after all this time?” Amy asked.
“We traded sarcastic barbs and insults the whole time. It was nice, catching up like that.”
“But is he still just as hot?” Amy exchanged a look with Collin. “Well, one of us had to ask.”
“That’s kind of irrelevant, don’t you think?” Cameron managed a coolly disdainful look as she took a sip of her wine. Then she swallowed too fast, nearly choked, and coughed while gasping for air.
Amy smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Cameron dabbed her watering eyes with a napkin and turned to Collin for help.
“Don’t look at me—I’m staying out of this one,” he said.
“I would like to remind both of you that the jerk embarrassed me on national television.”
“No, the jerk embarrassed himself on national television,” Amy said.
Cameron sniffed, partially mollified by this. “And I’d also like to point out that because of him, virtually every FBI agent in the Chicago area has carried a grudge against me for the past three years. Which has made things tons of fun, considering I work with the FBI on a near-daily basis.”
“You don’t have to see him again, do you?” Collin asked.
“If there is a god, no.” Cameron thought about this more seriously. “I don’t know, maybe if there are some follow-up questions they need to ask. But I’ll tell you this: if I do see Jack Pallas again, it will be on my terms. He may have caught me off guard last night, but next time I’ll be prepared. And at least I’ll be dressed appropriately for the occasion.”
“What was wrong with the way you were dressed?” Amy asked.
“I was wearing yoga pants and gym shoes.” Cameron scoffed. “I might as well have been naked.”
“Certainly would’ve made for a more interesting interrogation.”
Collin sat back in his chair, all haughty manlike. “You and your high heels. You’re lucky you weren’t still in your underwear. Between that and being interrogated in your gym shoes, which would you prefer?”
Cameron thought about this. “Do I still get to wear high heels in the underwear scenario?”
“That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You have a problem,” Collin said.
Cameron smiled. “So I like to vertically enhance… I’m a five-foot-three-inch trial lawyer. Cut me some slack.”
There’s no “As you know, Bob,” crap, nor is there any tired dialogue that says nothing and takes up space. It’s hilarious and awesome. Cameron, Jack, Collin, and Jack’s FBI partner Wilkins are never stupid or mean or boneheaded. If there’s fighting - and between Cameron and Jack there’s some fighting, there’s enough of a clue from a gesture or a momentary expression to reveal that their tempers get the best of them for a very hot reason.
The plot also reveals the villain and spends some time in his head - but it doesn’t become fearsome or tiresome, or an exhaustive list of How Psychologically Fucked Up Is That Guy OMGWTFKITTENKILLER.
My lone point of discomfort was how very, very neatly and bow-wrapped glittery perfect the ending was, with every loose end tied down and each piece of perfect lined up flawlessly. It had an overwhelming fairy tale aspect that didn’t fit with the realistic honesty of the characters and the plot.
Jayne mentioned in her review at Dear Author that Cameron and Jack listen to each other - oh, yes, they do. They professionally and personally listen to each other, because they’re adults (and because they have to listen to make sure the next verbal gauntlet hits the mark). I’ve been disappointed by some contemporary romances lately because the characters are so even, so rational, so dead boring grown up that there’s no conflict. Here, the characters are grown ups who lose their tempers and act in anger, but who can carry themselves professionally and apologize to each other. (That is some hot sexy right there). What I enjoyed most was that this book featured a heroine I admired and learned from, and a hero I admired and learned from. This is a contemporary romance well worth savoring, and laughing over, and reading all over again.
This book is available at most book retailers including Amazon, IndieBound, Book Depository, Powell’s and All Romance Ebooks.
« Was it good for you?
by SB Sarah • Monday, March 01, 2010 at 02:29 PM
Jim Hines sent me a link to a survey he’s doing that examines first time authors and how they broke into the market, and he asked if some of you might be interested in taking it:
We talk a lot about how to sell that first novel to a major publisher, but it’s hard sometimes to draw any real conclusions on the best way to break in when all we’ve got is a lot of anecdotal data. Everyone’s path is different. The experience of someone who broke in twenty years ago might not match the realities of publishing today. For that matter, the experience of someone who broke in today might not match the realities of someone else who broke in today.
So, taking a page from Tobias Buckell and his first novel advance survey, I’ve put together a survey about selling that first novel. I would love it if anyone who has sold at least one novel (any genre, including tie-ins — there’s a question where you can enter genre) to a professional publisher (for at least a $2000 advance**) could take a few minutes to click the survey link and answer about a dozen questions. If you don’t have exact numbers, please give your best estimate.
**The minimum $2000 advance is an arbitrary cutoff point, which I took from SFWA’s guidelines for professional publishers.
Hines has collected many responses from SF/F authors, since he’s a fantasy author himself, but he wanted to hear from authors outside just one genre, so if you have a moment, many thanks for your time, from Jim and from me. Additional details are at his site, as well as a link to the survey itself, which can also be found here.
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