I strongly believe that everyone should be able to read what they want, when they want, without fear of judgement. The reality of society, however, says that there are certain readers of certain genres who are looked down upon--among them, the romance...
It started with The Woman Left Behind, and then I reread/skimmed, in no particular order:
Up Close and Dangerous
Prey
Veil of Night
Ice
Dream Man
Shades of Twilight
Kill and Tell
Heart of Fire
Mr Perfect
Open Season
Cry No More
Killing Time
Cover of Night
Burn
I just really like Linda Howard, okay?
Also, summer reading has started at the library (woo-hoo!) and I’m helping plan a system-wide quiz-bowl-type contest, so I’ve also been reading children’s and YA books and writing questions for those. This is all a roundabout to say “This is why I’ve been MIA recently” and “This is why I may be sporadic for a little longer”.
Last week, as I read the latest issue from one of the two major superhero publishers, I run into a problem common in my comic reading: the action was terrific, the villains were compelling, but the relationships between the characters needed work—especially the romantic ones. It's not that the (m
I desperately want all of these authors to write ALL of these comics. Yes, please. Now. Thank you. Here is my wallet.
I’m trying to read Jayne Ann Krentz’s Promise Not to Tell, and I just can’t get into it! The problem is completely with me, though, because the only book I WANT to read right now is Linda Howard’s The Woman Left Behind…which doesn’t come out for another three days!
@misfit-librarian, I’ve only just reached the taco bar party scene and already this may be one of my new favorites by her! I’ve been cackling like a maniac for the past two hours!
I’m trying to read Jayne Ann Krentz’s Promise Not to Tell, and I just can’t get into it! The problem is completely with me, though, because the only book I WANT to read right now is Linda Howard’s The Woman Left Behind...which doesn’t come out for another three days!
It’s like a Hallmark movie on steroids! Aaaaaall the shojo cliches, cranked up to eleven!! It’s glorious.
Feast your eyes on the joy of So Cute it Hurts!!, by Go Ikeyamada:
Via VIZ.com:
The Kobayashi twins, Megumu and Mitsuru, were named after historical figures, but only Megumu has grown up with a taste for history. So when Mitsuru is in danger of losing his weekends to extra history classes, he convinces his sister to swap clothes with him and ace his tests! After all, how hard can it be for them to play each other! But Mego can’t rely on just her book smarts in Mitsuru’s all-boys, delinquents’ paradise of a high school. And Mitsuru finds life as a high school girl to be much more complicated than he expected!
So far I’ve only read the first three, but I accidentally spoiled the ending for myself when I checked out the Wikipedia page to find out how many volumes there are in the series (15), and whether or not it’s completed (yes!!). However, I’m not the least bit disappointed because I’m fairly certain this anticipated wild ride will be worth every moment--now to convince my library to buy the rest of the series...
Things I love so far, in no particular order:
JFC the sheer amount of blushing--I’m thinking back and trying to remember if there was a single spread where someone wasn’t blushing and I just can’t remember?!
Soap-opera levels of family dynamics--and again, I’m only on volume 3!
Mego’s love interest, Aoi Sanada, will pass out when he gets more than two feet close to a girl HAHAHA I CANNOT MAKE THIS UP I LOVE IT!!
Japanese Sign Language! Mitsuru’s love interest, Shino Takenaka, is deaf, and Ikeyamada includes panels teaching her readers how to sign various words in JSL
“The Confession’‘ cliche!
So many flowers and lights around the panel borders
Ludicrous Japanese school shenanigans, such as: Aoi Sanada is “The Strongest Student” and battles the other students to be Number One?!
“I Vow to Protect You!” cliche!
Tsundere* stereotypes!
Basically, the whole thing lives up to its name, and I, for one, am lapping it up.
* A tsundere character is one who is alternately cold/hostile and sweet/loving. Think Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer after he develops a crush on her, or Lucy from Peanuts.
For the half of you who clicked on this article thinking, “That’s…oddly specific. That can’t possibly be a thing,” I’m here to tell you that bear shifter romances are most definitely a thing. A really good thing. Heck, even a fairly popular thing. Bear shifter romances may be few and far between, but they are pretty sought after. Kindle Unlimited is chock full of male bears in small towns just looking for their (preferably curvy) mate. Sound strange? Perhaps. I get it, though. Bears are big and brawny and their larger massive body can dwarf any woman regardless of her size. They are majestic and are usually found in pretty remote places. Seclusion and forced proximity are good for romance, and bears, by their bearish nature, can definitely harness that energy into a pretty seductive romance.
For those of you who clicked on this article thinking, “YASSSSS”: Don’t worry, I’ve got you.
Well, it’s not romance--it’s not even prose!--but y’all, I must have spent an hour laughing at the poems in Chris Harris’ I’m Just No Good At Rhyming (And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups). The poems were written without Shakespeare, and illustrated by Lane Smith, whose artwork you may recognize from The Stinky Cheese Man, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, and It’s a Book.
(My co-workers, in turn, were laughing at me, seeing me get so tickled!)
Via Amazon:
Meet Chris Harris, the 21st-century Shel Silverstein! Already lauded by critics as a worthy heir to such greats as Silverstein, Seuss, Nash and Lear, Harris's hilarious debut molds wit and wordplay, nonsense and oxymoron, and visual and verbal sleight-of-hand in masterful ways that make you look at the world in a whole new wonderfully upside-down way. With enthusiastic endorsements from bestselling luminaries such as Lemony Snicket, Judith Viorst, Andrea Beaty, and many others, this entirely unique collection offers a surprise around every corner: from the ongoing rivalry between the author and illustrator, to the mysteriously misnumbered pages that can only be deciphered by a certain code-cracking poem, to the rhyming fact-checker in the footnotes who points out when "poetic license" gets out of hand. Adding to the fun: Lane Smith, bestselling creator of beloved hits like It's a Book and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, has spectacularly illustrated this extraordinary collection with nearly one hundred pieces of appropriately absurd art. It's a mischievous match made in heaven!
It’s a children’s book, but honestly, this book is excellent for all ages! (...except, maybe, 11-and-a-half-year-olds*...)
The poem that really got me going was “The Good-Child Test”:
And while it took me a moment, I also loved “The Duel”:
Some poems referenced themselves; the very first poem is titled “The Door”, and we get subsequent poems titled “The Poem That’s Titled ‘The Door’”, “The Poem That’s Titled “The Poem That’s Titled ‘The Door’””, etc. At least one poem complains about the illustrator, who responds with a very unflattering picture of Harris. And the joke I eventually figured out about the page numbering...!
And every now and then, we get a sincerely lovely poem, such as “The Valleys Shape The Mountains”--I can’t find a good picture, so here:
The valleys shape the mountains.
The shadow shapes the crescent moon.
The chill of Late December
Shapes the warmth we feel in June.
So next time that you’re crying,
Just remember this small rhyme;
Your sadness shapes the happiness
You’ll feel again in time.
Also contained in the book: an “Outdex” (titles that didn’t make the final cut), acknowledgements (arranged in order of those Harris is Most Grateful for to those he’s Not Very Grateful At All for), five dedications (by three different people), and one glaring lie in Lane Smith’s bio.
Overall, a book that reminded me strongly of Shel Silverstein, and one I thoroughly enjoyed!
As I read along a romance book I noticed: all romance books I’ve read have supported the woman being small and curvy while the men are huge and practically dwarf them. Where are the books with short guys and tall girls? Need to see me some of that.
I can’t think of a single one. I’ve read some where the heights match, I’ve definitely read romance novels with tall women, but I can’t think of a single one where the hero is shorter than the heroine.
Love*Com (a.k.a. Lovely Complex), by Aya Nakahara, is a high school set romance between the tallest girl (Risa) and the shortest boy (Otani) in the grade. It’s one of the few manga that, when it was done (and it is finished, it’s not on-going) I wished that it would go on longer; not because it had storylines that needed to be wrapped up, or because the ending was rushed, but I just loved the characters so much and wanted to know more of their story beyond high school!
It’s funny and heart-warming, a friends-to-lovers story (though being a shojo manga, I guess it’s more friends-to-dating), where they bond over karaoke and their various difficulties being unusually tall/short.
(LOOKIT THAT HEIGHT DIFFERENCE!! (Canonically, I think he’s supposed to be ~7 inches shorter than her...?))
The manga was also turned into an anime (which I haven’t seen, so I have no idea how well it was done) and a live-action film (which was really well-done, considering they were condensing 17 volumes into 90 minutes!).
Anyway, pardon the excited yelling, but this is easily one of my all-time favorite manga, and I highly encourage you to pick it up!
Hey! I was wondering if you had sci-fi or fantasy romance recommendations?
Hello hello, and sorry for late reply!I do know some! They tend more towards fantasy than romance, in terms of prominence, but still. I’m particularly keen on Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories series – mind you, only the first one, Shades of Milk and Honey, is more of a romance. Then there are Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer’s Cecy and Kate series, again of which only the first has strong romantic element, titled Sorcery and Cecilia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. There books are for slightly younger readers, but I find them to be a lot of fun! Again a first in a series, but Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate has romance in it, the first book is Soulless. Carriger has also recently written a few actual romance novellas! I haven’t read them yet, but for example Poison or Protect is a romance! And of course – and again I’m only making my way through them veeeeery slowly – the Vorkosigan series by Lois MacMaster Bujold! You can’t go to an SFF Rom panel without someone bringing up Bujold. I’ve only read the first two, and apparently the later ones get more romancy, like A Civil Campaign (clearly based on Georgette Heyer’s A Civil Contract).
Do paranormals count here? I feel like they are a separate affair from SFF romances but if you want recs for those I cna do that too!
I’m sorry to say I don’t really read this cross much because usually when I want romance I want it purely that, and if I read fantasy I like romance kept to a minimum. Hope this helps a little bit anyway!
Fellow romance and SFF readers, feel free to jump in!
Highly, HIGHLY recommend Elizabeth Vaughan’s Warprize for fantasy romance. To save her people, Lara agrees to marry the warlord Keir, and is stripped of all her possessions and sent to live with him. There’s culture clash and miscommunication and romance GALORE.
I am a comics fan, so I was excited to hear about Fresh Romance, which is a graphic novel anthology of romance comics, some of which were complete in one story and others that were “To be continued...” (grrr!).
Via Amazon:
The critically-acclaimed anthology FRESH ROMANCE is finally available in print! Have you been wondering what the fuss is all about? FRESH ROMANCE is an exciting collection of romance comics from some of comics’ most talented creators, including Kate Leth, Arielle Jovellanos, Sarah Vaughn, Sarah Winifred Searle, Sarah Kuhn, Marguerite Bennett, and Trungles. From unhappy historical marriages to covert teenage romances, there’s something for everyone in FRESH ROMANCE.
(Wow, I hadn’t noticed until now how much that description sucks...)
There are five stories here, some of which I enjoyed more than others, which is to be expected. This gets superlong, superquick, with lots of pictures, so here, have a jump!
The first story is “School Spirit”, written by Kate Leth, illustrated by Arielle Jovellanos, colored by Amanda Scurti, and lettered by Taylor Esposito. This is a paranormal romance set in a high school, and let me start by saying I love the artwork by Jovellanos and Scurti! Each character was very individualized, nobody was grossly out-of-proportion, and characters’ facial expressions would change with mood. Yay!
This is also the story with a queer couple, only since it’s contemporary there’s the usual drag about family members not accepting who they are, and that’s really the root of the issue(s) I had with this story. You see, to make sure that Justine and Malie’s parents don’t find out that they’re gay, they both pretend to fight over quarterback Miles, who’s actually dating Corrine, which also has to be kept secret because her dads (warlocks, natch) don’t approve of her dating mortals! Only because this is a short story in an anthology, it’s one of those “slow-reveal” things, which made me think for about 20-odd pages--of a 60-page story, mind--that I was supposed to feel empathy with a supposed group of “friends” who were all secretly banging each other behind everyone’s backs. Not my cuppa, thanks!
(Side note: why pretend to be dating in the first place? I would think that the drama of a potential love triangle would bring more attention which I’d imagine is the opposite of what you want when you’re trying to keep a relationship a secret...?)
On top of that confusion, it also took about 3/4 of the way through before I managed to get all the characters’ names straight, especially since Corrine and Miles have a secret rendezvous at Justine’s house and the maid calls for Justine when she suspects someone is in the house...
Overall, this story works much better on a second (or third, or fourth) re-read. On a first go-around, however, I think it could have done better to have a few more pages.
Also, I got weirdly invested in the Prom Committee characters...
Second, we get “Ruined”, a historical written by Sarah Vaughn, illustrated and colored by Sarah Winifred Searle, and lettered by Ryan Ferrier. The artwork here reminded me a bit of paper dolls; this is also the only story where we get full-frontal, which I found a bit amusing.
This was the quietest of the stories, for lack of a better word: there are entire scenes with little or no dialogue, or sound effects, and there’s no “go-go-go!” action that frequently appears in comics.
(Look at that beautiful artwork! Look at it carrying the scene without dialogue!)
Which is not to say that nothing is happening, or that I found it uninteresting! Catherine and Andrew have entered an arranged marriage, only Catherine has (recently, maybe?) lost a lover she was having an illicit affair with and rumors have apparently been circulating for a while about her. And there’s something going on with Andrew’s family...only we don’t know what, because this is To Be Continued! Yes, I will absolutely be picking up the next volume in the series, if only to find out what happens with Catherine and Andrew!
For our third story, we have “The Ruby Equation”, written by Sarah Kuhn, illustrated by Sally Jane Thompson, colored by Savanna Ganucheau, lettered by Steve Wands, and the logo by Sonia Harris. (Lotta people worked on this one, whew! Also, this is the first time I’ve noticed “logo” as a credit in a comic, ngl.) Here we have another paranormal romance, though this time it’s set in a coffee shop instead of a high school. The artwork here is...kinda webcomic-y? Does that make sense? No? Hnnngh, I dunno how else to describe it!
Non-human Ruby (probably a fairy of some sort) is working as a waitress in a cafe, and is using her position to magically match up patrons. Once she’s matched up a certain number, she can go back to the homeworld and do something “cool”! Only most of her matches get invalidated because she’s been matching with logic instead of feelings because she doesn’t understand love! Now, if only she can match up someone “who’s given up on love entirely” then she can go home right away; and whoooo could that beeeeeee???
Don’t get me wrong, this story pleases me immensely. The only reason why this story gets second place in terms of favorites instead of first is because I’m DYING to know the rest of Catherine and Andrew’s story.
(There’s also a running joke in here about wombat love, which immediately made me think of the anime Cute High Earth Defense Club Love! HAHAHAHAhaaaaaa...there’s an alien wombat leader in that anime. Yeah.)
The fourth story is your obligatory Beauty and the Beast tale, “Beauties”, written by Marguerite Bennett, illustrated and colored by Trungles, lettered by Rachel Deering, and the cover by Kris Anka. It’s a bit of a typical fairy tale, with a whole lot of narration and little actual dialog; it’s also the most moralistic, expounding on what makes “true love.” The artwork is very pretty to look at...but overall, I’m kinda disappointed. Normally I’m all over Beauty and the Beast tales like white on rice, but I really felt like I was being preached to. No thanks!
Finally, we have have a very short, 4-page comic called “First, Last and Always”, by Kieron Gillen and Christine Norrie. This would also be paranormal romance, and a little bit surreal. The artwork changes between past and present, which is cool. This is supposed to be a dialog between two people, but we only ever hear her voice. The gist? Whenever she kisses someone, she simultaneously experiences their final kiss. Interesting premise, no? There’s a lot packed into a mere four pages with an ambiguous ending--but I certainly know how I would like it to go!
Eliza Cummings fought free of a monster who terrorized her when she was an innocent teenager and helped put him away for good. She took a job with Devereaux Security Services and devoted every hour to taking down the very thing she’d nearly become. No one, not even those closest to her, know her darkest, shameful secrets. But now the killer has been set free on a legal loophole and it’s only a matter of time before he comes for her. Eliza's only choice is to run and lead the monster away from the people she loves.
Wade Sterling has always lived by his own rules, a law unto himself who answers to no one. He’s never professed to be a good man, and he’s definitely not hero material. Wade never allows anyone close enough to see the man behind the impenetrable mask—but one woman threatens his carefully leashed control. He took a bullet for her and the result was more than a piece of metal entrenched in his skin. She was under his skin and nothing he did rid himself of the woman with the courage of a warrior and who thinks nothing of putting her life before others.
But when Wade sees a panicked and haunted Eliza he knows something is very wrong, because the fool woman has never been afraid of anything. And when she tries to run, the primal beast barely lurking beneath his deceptively polished façade erupts in a rage. She may not know it, but she belongs to him. This time, Eliza isn't going to play the protector. She was damn well going to be the protected. And as long as Wade breathes, no one will ever hurt what is his.
There’s really not much to say here. I really enjoy Maya Banks’ historicals, which is part of the reason why I picked this one up--name recognition! However, I had to force myself to finish it, in a manner of speaking. (I got about halfway through and then started skimming like nobody’s business.) I felt like there was a lot of repetition; every few paragraphs I wanted to say, “You’ve already said that! Three times!” Lot of “vulnerable, but so strong!” going on, too. Lot of super-badass Alpha heroes.
And...yeah. That’s pretty much it. I, for one, was disappointed.
I’d like to apologize for being MIA for so long; all the political stuff got to be a liiiittle too much for me, and then I was simply no longer in the habit of checking Tumblr.
But I haven’t left for good! I’m easing back in!
(Also, I don’t think I thanked everyone who responded with suggestions when my library asked me for recommendations. So: a very belated Thank You to all of you!)
The library has asked me for “hidden gems” book recommendations; and while I have a good list going, at the moment it’s mostly fantasy and children’s literature. I’d like to add a few more romances to the list!
If you would be so kind, would you let me know which books/authors you think are underrated/obscure, that you wish more people knew about? (Heads up, I’m shying away from the authors I consider particularly raunchy, such as Emma Holly or Lorelei James. These recommendations will be going out to a general audience, and we are in a highly conservative area.)
Please, no ebook-only recommendations; these “hidden gems” are focused specifically on our print collection.
Here’s what I’ve already come up with, trying to think of the romance novels that got me into the genre or that I think the average person doesn’t know about:
Warprize, by Elizabeth Vaughan
Lick, by Kylie Scott
Naked in Death, by J.D. Robb
Dark Needs at Night’s Edge, by Kresley Cole
Heart of Fire, by Linda Howard
Beyond the Highland Mist, by Karen Marie Moning
Anything you can give me would be greatly appreciated!
