Posts tagged with romance
Unmade: The Lynburn Legacy, by Sarah Rees Brennan
Sarah Rees Brennan's Unspoken was one of the most promising teen romances I've read in the past decade, with an absolutely phenomenal premise. The sequel, alas, took several steps down in quality, and I'm sad to report that the final book in the trilogy is dumber still...
I hope that pirate one ends up in Times Square.
According to Refinery29, MAC's upcoming Fall 2014 makeup collection was inspired by the cover art featured on vintage romance novels, and will feature "products [ranging] from vivid lipsticks to killer nail polishes to electric-hued liners". I am SOLD, particularly if...
I do wish the cover art was better, but...
Rosemary Clement-Moore is one of our favorite YA writers (as indicated here and here). It's been quite a while since her last book, so...
Mortal Danger, by Ann Aguirre
I have trouble imagining the pitch for Ann Aguirre's new novel Mortal Danger. ”It's like a supernatural Revenge, but in high school, and the heroine is suicidal... but there's a really hot guy in it! And a makeover scene! But also tons of people die.” The end result melds together better than I expected, but there's no denying that some of those elements work better than others...
HOW IS THIS STILL A THING?
While trotting past the book section at Target, my head nearly exploded at the sight of yet another book in Jamie McGuire's Maddox Brothers series. GROSS. I wrote a vitriolic review of the first book in the series a few years ago (sample line: "I can't sign off on a happily-ever-after featuring a guy who is always just one break-up away from full-blown cirrhosis of the liver"), and...
Trapped at the Altar, by Jane Feather
Before I begin, a word of warning: Jane Feather's Trapped at the Altar ends on such an inexplicably abrupt note that I found myself wondering if the e-reader advance copy I was sent was somehow missing several final chapters. But after poking around a bit online, I'm assuming my copy is fine—it seems that's just the way the story ends. However, if I find out later there's secretly another 100 pages out there, I promise to go back and update this with a more fair assessment...
The Lovely and the Lost, by Page Morgan
Page Morgan's The Lovely and the Lost is the second novel in her Dispossessed series. I found her first installment, The Beautiful and the Cursed, a little over-ambitious, but fans of Morgan's elaborate mythology and huge cast will be pleased to hear that her second book is just as jam-packed as the first...
Long overdue
Super pleased to hear this (even if I object to spelling "Yay!" as "Yea!", unless you're actually at a Ren Faire): Wordcandy favorite Lisa Kleypas has agreed to write a historical romance series, and then some contemporary novels, for Avon Books...
Hexed, by Michelle Krys
The publisher's introduction for Michelle Krys's debut novel Hexed describes the story as “Bring it On meets The Craft”, and they're not lying: this book is uncannily like a late-90s teen movie—snarky, satisfying, and (it must be said) frequently totally ridiculous...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Hexed, by Michelle Krys
This week's Book Giveaway title is Michelle Krys's novel Hexed. The publisher describes it as "Bring it On meets The Craft", which (in my eyes, at least) answers the question of what age group YA fiction is actually written for, because those movies are fourteen and eighteen years old, respectively. Clearly "Young Adult" fiction is squarely aimed at 32-year-olds...
Sea of Shadows, by Kelley Armstrong
According to the author's note at the end of her new book Sea of Shadows, Kelley Armstrong has always wanted to write a full-blown epic fantasy, complete with “swords, sorcery, and the ravenous undead.” I'm a big fan of epic fantasy, zombie stories, and Armstrong's writing, so I figured the resulting novel would be a surefire win...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Sea of Shadows, by Kelley Armstrong
This week's Book Giveaway title is Kelley Armstrong's Sea of Shadows, the first installment in her "Age of Legends" series. The title and cover art are a bit of a letdown (read: so generic my eyes glaze over when I look at them), but the story's pretty fun, even if it's not quite as intriguing as Armstrong's recent novel Omens...
Rebel Belle, by Rachel Hawkins
Bestselling YA author Rachel Hawkins has a new iron in the fire. Her latest book Rebel Belle is the first installment in a projected trilogy, and thus far I'm pretty excited about it. It's action-packed, wryly funny, and romantic, and as long as it ends on a less irritating note than her Hex Hall series did, Ms. Hawkins should have an enormous hit on her hands...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Rebel Belle, by Rachel Hawkins
Our current Book Giveaway pick is Rebel Belle, the latest book from YA paranormal romance author Rachel Hawkins. In addition to writing solid action sequences, Ms. Hawkins has a gift for creating dialogue that manages to feel deliciously snappy, rather than annoyingly contrived (ahem, Sarah Rees Brennan), so I'm really looking forward to reading her book...
The Blue Castle, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Originally published in 1926, L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle is one of the most unabashedly sweet books I have ever read—an old-fashioned, utterly straightforward romance. It's the story of 29-year-old Valancy Stirling, a downtrodden spinster who has spent her life trying (and failing) to please her judgmental relatives. When she discovers she has a heart ailment that will almost certainly kill her within a year, Valancy decides to enjoy whatever time she has left...
Meant to Be, by Lauren Morrill
Like most YA novels that aren't straight-up angstfests, Lauren Morrill's Meant to Be has its fair share of cringe-worthy moments. But if you can disengage your sense of secondhand embarrassment, Morrill's novel is an engaging opposites-attract love story, offering readers a fun alternative to the current overabundance of supernatural romances and dystopian horror stories...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Meant to Be, by Lauren Morrill
This week's Book Giveaway is Lauren Morrill's Meant To Be, which I have to admit I chose pretty much because of the gloriously Easter-candy-colored cover. As near as I can tell, it's a secret admirer/Cyrano de Bergerac story. I usually avoid those, due to a crippling fear of secondhand embarrassment caused by fictional romantic hijinks, but I will do my best to be brave...
It could be internet-famous!
April Fools jokes generally leave me cold, but I did enjoy these fake book titles from the Dear Author website. And while I have my doubts about anything written by someone named "Chastity Velvet", and—no joke—I have a bunch of YA books that look exactly like their Shattered Brokeness...
Love Me, by Rachel Shukert
Rachel Shukert's YA novel Starstruck was one of my favorite books of 2013. Smart and compulsively readable, it managed to transform the basic plot of Jacqueline Susann's deadly dull Valley of the Dolls into a deliciously juicy soap opera about three girls struggling to make it big during the Golden Age of Hollywood...
One Good Earl Deserves a Lover and No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, by Sarah MacLean
To once again paraphrase Jane Austen, there are few historical romance novelists that I really like, and fewer still of whom I think well. In fact, the “like and think well” list is pretty much limited to Georgette Heyer and Lisa Kleypas, while the “just like” list includes authors like Suzanne Enoch, Teresa Medeiros, and Julia Quinn—writers who produce enjoyable but anachronistic stories, and mostly use their historical settings as...
The Glass Casket, by McCormick Templeman
McCormick Templeman's novel The Glass Casket swipes most of its most memorable images from various classic fairytales: twin rose bushes, a girl in a red cloak, the titular glass casket. The rest of the story feels equally cobbled together, resulting in an ambitious but flawed mash-up of horror, romance, and magic...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Tell Me Lies and Crazy For You, by Jennifer Crusie
This week's Book Giveaway is a two-pack: Jennifer Crusie's Tell Me Lies and Crazy for You, which we reviewed here a few years ago. I'm trying to make some space on our bookshelves, and we were lucky enough to be sent multiple copies of Ms. Crusie's books, so you can expect one more Crusie-themed giveaway in the next few weeks. I have accepted (grudgingly) that...
A Rogue By Any Other Name, by Sarah MacLean
After hearing absolutely glowing reports of Sarah MacLean's romance novels, I picked up a copy of the first book in her most recent series, A Rogue By Any Other Name. It's been quite some time since I last read a straight-up romance, and my hopes that I had found an entertaining new author to follow were high...
Untold: The Lynburn Legacy, Book Two, by Sarah Rees Brennan
Sarah Rees Brennan's novel Unspoken was one of my favorite YA books of 2012. I objected to the twee cover art, the overly-mannered dialogue, and the underdeveloped antagonist, but I was utterly in love with the protagonists' romantic conflict: an example of teen angst done absolutely right...
Could the movie deliver on the HOLY ALIEN HOTNESS?
The covers for this series crack me up, but obviously someone takes them seriously, because THR says that Sierra Pictures has signed up to produce a film adaptation of Jennifer Armentrout's Obsidian. The book is a YA romance about a 17-year-old girl who discovers that her neighbor is actually a "hot alien" (note: that's from the official publisher's description) with...
Dark Souls, by Paula Morris
Paula Morris's novel Dark Souls isn't the best YA paranormal romance I have ever read, but it boasts likeable characters, an intriguing premise, and literally dozens of ghosts, running the gamut from benign to horrifying. Fans of the genre are in for a creepy, history-infused treat...
G-rated swooning
The website Avidly recently put together a lovely list of G-Rated Moments of Swoon featured in literature. I've never read a few of their picks (including the Trixie Belden series, although their description was enticing enough that I now intend to do so as soon as possible), but I absolutely agree with the others...
Hopefully they shell out for better cover art
Speaking of the erotic-novel publishing frenzy ignited by Fifty Shades of Grey, Publishers Weekly informs me that Penguin's Berkley Books imprint has picked up an erotic trilogy from romance novelist Maya Banks...
Beautiful Disaster, by Jamie McGuire
Now that E. L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has established itself as the new sales standard to beat, the publishing world is scrambling to fill bookshelves with titles that are as similar to the Grey series as possible, no matter how ridiculous they are. (After all, rampant ridiculousness was no barrier to the success of either Fifty Shades of Grey or its source material, Twilight.)...
Romance-writing school
Whoa: Nora Roberts has apparently given McDaniel College a boatload of money to start a center focusing on the study of romance writing. The center will include support for a romance novel collection in the college library, the establishment of a minor in romance fiction, and an online graduate-level romance writing program, featuring PROFESSOR JENNY CRUSIE...